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Walk Hard:
Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan have made the best parody film since Mel Brooks' Spaceballs. The films they have decided to parody are rock'n'roll biopics in general, and Rayand “Walk the Line in particular. Kasden and Apatow must have spent months meticulously analyzing those two films, because the spoofs are spot on and specific. Not being kids anymore, they remember. The jokes pertaining to the 1960s and '70s are the same, and some of references may be slightly over the head of someone who's parents were kids when The Mike Douglas Show was a major afternoon attraction. The attention to detail works best when it comes to the music. It's good, very good, the kind of thing that might make one want to get the soundtrack album good. Sure the lyrics are stupid, but then they're not stupider than many lyrics of the songs of the time. That's the key. A lot of rock'n'roll comedies have their protagonists sing downright lousy songs, but not here, which makes it even better.
Now as to the acting, John C. Reilly has been one of the great
underappreciated supporting actors of recent years, and he should
have gotten the Oscar® he was nominated for. I say underappreciated
rather than unappreciated because he gets quite a bit of work, but
he's never actually been allowed to carry a film by himself before.
It's not that he doesn't have a fine supporting cast, he most
assuredly does. Raymond J. Barry is woodenly silly as our hero's
father, Darlene (Jenna Fischer and Kristen Wiig are delightful as
Dewey's first two wives, and Matt Besser, Chris Parnell and Tim
Meadows have a grand time as his long suffering backup band. This is
not to leave out some really delicious cameos, such as Jack Black as
Paul McCartney and Harold Ramis as a Chassidic record exec, but it's
Reilly that is the be all and end all of the film, and he's better
than most of the actors in most people's top ten lists. Go to Index Archives of past reviews
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