A treat for fiercely loyal Team Coco devotees, and an entertaining enough if inessential documentary for the uninitiated, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (2011, Rodman Flender) coasts agreeably on the warped lunacy of its subject and on some electrifying concert footage.
That footage comes from gangly, ginger-haired talk-show host O'Brien's "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television" tour, which he undertook after his ugly departure from NBC's hallowed "The Tonight Show" included a contract clause that dictated he stay off the boob tube for a number of months. As Conan (it feels wrong to use the professional-standard surname in this case, no?) embarks on this live-show adventure, his anger at the fracas that erupted between him and NBC's favored candidate for the "Tonight Show" hosting gig, Jay Leno (who proved in this late-night war that he's a passive-aggressive bully in addition to being horribly unfunny and dull as dishwater) never leaves him. Perhaps director Flender's greatest achievement here is how he captures Conan's rage with unblinking intimacy. The depths of sadness and insecurity that lie behind the smiling facade of a clown has always proven thematically fertile--it's why emotionally raw performances from comic stars, such as Bill Murray's in Lost in Translation and Adam Sandler's in Punch-Drunk Love, strike such a nerve--so the scenes depicting Conan's behind-the-scenes sadism (at one point, he only-somewhat-teasingly threatens to fire his ever-suffering personal assistant for ordering a heavily buttered fish lunch that goes against his tour diet) add welcome complexity to the portrait of Conan as a documentary "character." The former Late Night host is shown as so comedically inventive and tirelessly committed as to be worth rooting for, but there are times where it's hard to argue with his onscreen admission that he's as much of a dick as he is a genius.
Where Flender falls short is in emphasizing flimsy meet-the-fans material while showing no more than a mild interest in concert-movie immersion. The bits we see of the "Legally Prohibited" tour occasionally feel oddly truncated (Eddie Vedder's cover of the Who's "Baba O'Riley" deserves more than mere seconds of screentime), while the sheer multitude of sequences featuring Conan signing autographs and posing for photos with fans tilts the movie toward indulgence. Flender's repetitive rhythms seem better suited for making-of featurettes than for feature documentaries.
Still, anyone who's already in the tank for this wacky, red-headed Simpsons veteran (and, in the interest of full disclosure, my cherished possessions include a Tonight Show cap I was given for free as part of the audience for the taping of his first night replacing Leno, which is proof that I'm among the Team Coco faithful) will have a good, laugh-filled time. Guest appearances from the likes of Jon Hamm, Jim Carrey, Jack White, Stephen Colbert, and a briefly glimpsed Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson!!) add to the light, festive atmosphere. Basically, if you enjoy Conan on TBS every night, you'll enjoy him here too, issues with the film's craft be damned. Grade: B-
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Introduction
Welcome to all friends, family members, fans, colleagues, cinephiles, and confused amateur web browsers who have stumbled upon this movie-review-blog experiment. (Sure, calling it an "experiment" is a tad lofty, but I figured the phrase "movie-review-apalooza" would come off as even less humble.)
My name is Brett Buckalew, and I've worked as a freelance film journalist in Los Angeles for nearly a decade now. My movie reviews and features have been published at Metromix (http://www.metromix.com/), Film Stew (http://www.filmstew.com/), hollywood.com (http://www.hollywood.com/), and in Premiere Magazine. For two of my four years as an undergradauate at USC, I wrote the film column "Rambllings of a Movie Nerd" for the school's paper, the Daily Trojan.
I'm creating this blog, "Loves of a Blonde," as essentially part of a multi-pronged effort to beef up the ol' resume. I believe that while searching for more film-writing gigs, it will be healthy for me to do work worthy of being published with no immediate hope of a paycheck. This way, I can regularly exercise my writing muscles and visibly remain within my chosen career field. Best-case scenario: an editor or two peruses these pages and enlists my services. Worst-case scenario: I come off like a quixotic, desperate fool. I don't know about you, but I like them odds!
The blog will mostly follow a standard daily-viewing-journal format, containing reviews of the film(s) I watch each day. The reviews will vary in size based on factors like time constraints and level of personal passion, but the hope is that they will be genuinely professional-level and worth reading. There will be a more casual tone and more uses of first person in these reviews than in most published reviews, because, well, this is a blog; it comes with the territory. Reviews will include each film's year of release, director, and an indication if I'm writing the review based on a repeat viewing of the film in question, but no additional gratuitous details. Occasionally, I will break the format to write a more ambitious essay on a certain topic that tickles my fancy. Reader feedback is greatly encouraged. If you think there's a particular film that demands a rewatch/review, or have an essay topic in mind, please let me know.
Onward!
My name is Brett Buckalew, and I've worked as a freelance film journalist in Los Angeles for nearly a decade now. My movie reviews and features have been published at Metromix (http://www.metromix.com/), Film Stew (http://www.filmstew.com/), hollywood.com (http://www.hollywood.com/), and in Premiere Magazine. For two of my four years as an undergradauate at USC, I wrote the film column "Rambllings of a Movie Nerd" for the school's paper, the Daily Trojan.
I'm creating this blog, "Loves of a Blonde," as essentially part of a multi-pronged effort to beef up the ol' resume. I believe that while searching for more film-writing gigs, it will be healthy for me to do work worthy of being published with no immediate hope of a paycheck. This way, I can regularly exercise my writing muscles and visibly remain within my chosen career field. Best-case scenario: an editor or two peruses these pages and enlists my services. Worst-case scenario: I come off like a quixotic, desperate fool. I don't know about you, but I like them odds!
The blog will mostly follow a standard daily-viewing-journal format, containing reviews of the film(s) I watch each day. The reviews will vary in size based on factors like time constraints and level of personal passion, but the hope is that they will be genuinely professional-level and worth reading. There will be a more casual tone and more uses of first person in these reviews than in most published reviews, because, well, this is a blog; it comes with the territory. Reviews will include each film's year of release, director, and an indication if I'm writing the review based on a repeat viewing of the film in question, but no additional gratuitous details. Occasionally, I will break the format to write a more ambitious essay on a certain topic that tickles my fancy. Reader feedback is greatly encouraged. If you think there's a particular film that demands a rewatch/review, or have an essay topic in mind, please let me know.
Onward!
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