Latest news with #AndyKaufmanIsMe
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Andy Kaufman Is Me' Review: Solid but Unrevelatory Doc Uses Puppetry to Tackle the Iconic Comic
I've sat through enough duplicative documentaries over the years to know that there's very little harm, but also very little illumination, in viewing multiple projects about Fyre Festival or that ill-fated submarine or Woodstock '99. Just because I watched Alex Braverman's Thank You Very Much, which launched at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, doesn't mean that it's bad to rehash most of the same biographical plot points and pivotal TV appearances of the enigmatic Andy Kaufman in Clay Tweel's new documentary, Andy Kaufman Is Me, premiering at Tribeca. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Surviving Ohio State' Review: HBO's Sexual Abuse Doc Is Thorough and Persuasive, but Lacks a New Smoking Gun 'A Tree Fell in the Woods' Review: Josh Gad and Alexandra Daddario in an Uneven, Occasionally Insightful Relationship Dramedy Jim Sheridan's 'Re-creation' Puts One of Ireland's Most Troubling Murder Cases Back on Trial It happens that the two Andy Kaufman documentaries are nicely complementary texts, featuring basically no overlapping talking heads and landing on mostly different life events as pivotal to Kaufman's development, even if they exert a lot of effort in coming to the same self-evident conclusion: Because so much of Andy Kaufman's life was performance art, and because Andy Kaufman died in 1984, we may never know the real Andy Kaufman — but darned if we aren't going to attempt extremely rudimentary psychiatric analysis in our failed attempt to unravel the mystery. Andy Kaufman Is Me, which at least has a distinctive visual approach that Kaufman probably would have appreciated, is narrowly the better of the two fine documentaries. That said, I think we've hit a brick wall in this thesis on the highly influential, thoroughly unknowable icon. We can maybe wait a decade or two for our next Andy Kaufman documentary, at least until somebody has a fresher idea. Boasting the credit 'Produced in Consultation with The Estate of Andy Kaufman,' Andy Kaufman Is Me absolutely feels like the more 'authorized' documentary. Tweel — and producers including Dwayne Johnson, for whatever reason — is able to build his version of Kaufman's story around extensive interviews with siblings Michael and Carol; Kaufman's own audio journals; and a wide assortment of recorded conversations between biographer Bill Zehme and Kaufman's father Stanley as well as other key figures. The immediacy of these relations and connections contributes warmth and poignancy, but not necessarily deep insight into the man that Kaufman actually became. The Braverman documentary, with its interviews with Kaufman's longtime creative collaborator Bob Zmuda and longtime girlfriend Lynne Margulies, had much better representation from the individuals closest to Kaufman at the peak of his fame and infamy — hence my feeling that these two documentaries nestle nicely into each other, even if there's an inherent staleness to watching people attempt to solve the same riddle over and over again. It's as if Sherlock Holmes had failed to solve the crime in A Study in Scarlet and had spent the rest of his life explaining that he hadn't exactly been wrong, that it was just a really difficult case. Andy Kaufman Is Me doesn't offer much that counts as surprising, but how could it? This documentary has a better perspective, for example, on Kaufman's time at community college and how it shaped his goals, but once his career accelerates, even casual fans know the key beats. He exploded as perhaps the original alt-comedy star, with his off-putting sets that were, as several people observe, more theater than standup. He became a huge sensation thanks to Saturday Night Live and regular late-night appearances that left the various hosts as perplexed as they were amused. With Taxi, he became an even bigger deal, but not really the star he wanted to be, because he was ill-suited for scripted sitcom containment. He alienated friends and fans alike with his alter ego Tony Clifton and with his notorious incursions into the world of wrestling. Then he got cancer and either died or faked his own death, if your participation in the Andy Kaufman Memorial Complex hinges on that conspiratorial interpretation. Tweel's point of entry is Kaufman's semi-autobiographical novel The Huey Williams Story, seeds of which feature heavily in the 84 hours of personal tapes the director was able to acquire. The book was published as a work-in-progress by his brother in 1999, but Tweel treats it as a snapshot into Kaufman's brain, one that can only be captured through puppetry by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. The use of dead-eyed versions of Kaufman and Clifton is suitably eerie and alienating, suggesting that the best way to learn the truth about Andy Kaufman might be to view him through another artificial and fictional remove. The puppetry is whimsical and creepy, connecting well with the ABC special in which Kaufman met Howdy Doody, a pure and beautiful moment that both recent documentaries correctly assess as a mid-career Rosetta Stone. It's a worthwhile aesthetic swing for Tweel to take, but I'm not sure the attempt to give Andy Kaufman Is Me a four-act structure that semi-mirrors the hero's journey in the book adds much, and it never becomes as confrontationally surreal as Kaufman's writing clearly aspired to be. It isn't like Tweel is fully committed to the puppetry and structure anyway. At some point, the documentary just pauses its forward momentum to let people like David Letterman (another executive producer here), Eric Andre and Tim Heidecker explain why Andy Kaufman was influential, which is both completely accurate and completely self-evident in this context. I will never object to spending 100 minutes remembering Kaufman's defining sketches and marveling at the ambitions that his death left unfulfilled. It's time, though, for documentarians to take a break from offering interpretations of Kaufman's life that claim to be unprecedented — at least until one truly is. 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Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘State of Firsts' Review: Trans Congresswoman Sarah McBride Steps Into the Spotlight for a Doc That's More Than Your Average Political Puff Piece
'Representation' takes two forms in Chase Joynt's new documentary, State of Firsts. The 93-minute film, premiering at Tribeca, follows Sarah McBride's quest to be elected to Congress, representing the state of Delaware; as she's aspiring to be in the House of Representatives, she's also on the verge of making history as the first openly trans member of Congress. McBride is proud of both kinds of representation, but she's pragmatic. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Andy Kaufman Is Me' Review: Solid but Unrevelatory Doc Uses Puppetry to Tackle the Iconic Comic 'Boy George & Culture Club' Review: An Affectionate Look at the '80s Band and Its Flamboyant Frontman That Entertains but Treads Too Carefully 'Sovereign' Review: Nick Offerman's Fierce Turn as an Anti-Government Extremist Boosts a Timely Drama McBride is a joyful trailblazer and a calculating politician, and Joynt's willingness to feature both sides of her personality is what finally makes State of Firsts more than just a hagiographic puff piece. It would have been easy for Joynt and editor Chris McNabb to trim away the 'politician' side of McBride's personality and let her be the uncomplicated icon that many of her supporters will probably want to see represented — that word again — here. Instead, they show an increasingly public figure at a crossroads for her and for the country, and suggest why McBride may have the mettle to chart a career that embraces her various 'firsts' while positioning herself for substantive further chapters. State of Firsts traces McBride's life from mid-2024 to early 2025, as she goes from an already precedent-shattering tenure as a Delaware state rep to a Congressional candidate — only to become one of the most visible figures of the country when Donald Trump and the Republican Party latch onto virulent transphobia as a wedge issue. Joynt begins the documentary with Delaware's own Joe Biden as president, but he has just completed the disastrous debate that became a catalyst for his exit from the presidential race. We follow McBride as she does the grunt work of retail politics, from knocking on doors to opening campaign offices to a debate that her opponent opts not to attend. She pushes back against intimations that she's running as a trans candidate and not a Delaware candidate, promising that her assortment of pet issues — healthcare, paid family leave, economic insecurity — will be relevant to the state where she was born and raised. Still, she knows that the 'first' guaranteed to come up in interviews isn't related to Delaware's state nickname. I don't know how to precisely describe McBride's attitude toward the inevitable trans-themed questions that she faces in every interview, toward the pressure to address issues of identity even in standard speeches, toward the fact that the 2024 Democratic Convention didn't have a trans speaker on the main stage's lineup. It isn't 'reluctance' and it isn't 'exhaustion.' It isn't 'wariness,' but it may be 'awareness' — awareness that no matter how much she says 'I'm running on behalf of the people of Delaware,' there will always be an AND or BUT that gets brought into the discussion. Circumstances, as casual observers of current events know, get even more heightened. After the election, South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace — who responded to her own experience breaking gender barriers at an entrenched institution (the Citadel) by becoming a cartoonish bully rather than developing an iota of empathy — uses McBride's bathroom use as a way to gain her own share of the spotlight. McBride's responses become a referendum even within her own community. It's an open question as to whether Joynt's very presence is a further source of McBride's self-conscious awareness. Despite McBride repeated emphasis that she's a Delaware candidate and not a trans candidate, the director's interest often seems just as trans-focused as that of the media. A rare exception to that angle comes when a constituent wants to engage McBride on issues related to the Israel/Gaza conflict — and even then, it's obvious that while McBride knows her ideological position, this isn't really the issue she wants to talk about either. Long stretches of the documentary feature McBride, Joynt and usually McBride's perpetually anxious campaign manager driving in cars. In those scenes, McBride's answers to the director's questions are thoughtful, passionate and, if you've seen other interviews with her, delivered with consistent preparedness or prepared consistency. Often State of Firsts is a film about a woman doing interviews while she waits to do more interviews. When McBride isn't answering the director's questions and when Joynt is able to fade into the background, the documentary, which asserts little visual style other than fly-on-the-wall presence, is able to witness moments that showcase the unguarded McBride. Family gatherings and backstage meetings show McBride's vulnerability, dorky sense of humor and general passion for the political process. Much more than when she's making statements or espousing messages, it's these glimpses that allow State of Firsts to pack an emotional punch when she fields a congratulatory call from President Biden, hugs a trans constituent, or briefly takes in the joy that her parents and siblings feel as they walk down the hall on her first day at the Capitol. Whether we're seeing McBride the person or McBride the politician, McBride the Delaware rep or McBride the trans pioneer, State of Firsts portrays a young person realizing she can't avoid being all of these things at once — and facing, perhaps for the first time, the idea that she can't be a perfect representative of everything at all times. That's more interesting than if State of Firsts were just a love letter. 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