Okay - Just rented "Man on the Moon". What a horrid little creep.

[applegrove]

I get that he was a comedian. I get that his sadism was supposed to be a new form of humour. What a freak. Couldn't finish it.

[Catchawave]

1. Andy Kaufman...brilliant !

You may be too young to remember the real one.

[applegrove]

3. I saw taxi a few times. And admit Latka was a great character. But

that other stuff was way too creepy. Way too sadistic.

[tuvor]

2. I wanted to rent it, but I can't sit through Jim Carey movies.

The Truman Show being an exception.

[applegrove]

6. I couldn't sit through the Truman show. I heard Carey really got lost

in this movie - so I rented it. Andy really was running out of gags by the end. SPOILER I turned it off when the old woman was having a heart attack at Carnegie hall.

P.S. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind was a great movie. Jim Carey was excellent in it.

[tuvor]

8. Thanks for the tip.

:)

[democracyindanger]

4. The documentary "I'm From Hollywood"

is much better. It helps to understand that Kaufman was much more than a comic. He was a lot closer to a performance artist. The key to "getting" Kaufman is that if he had a goal with every bit, it was to keep the audience in a state of "Is he serious, or isn't he?"

[Catchawave]

7. Very true, and since he died too young...

there's still some people who think it's still part of an act. Yes, the doc is much better than the Carey film.

[DS1]

5. I'd feel blessed to be half as funny as him

:shrug:

[shrike]

9. He predicted our culture

IMO.

I mean, think about it. The big-time wrestling thing. The blurring of the lines between reality and fiction.

Look at his work and it's all there. BTW, the above poster has it right: Andy was much more a performance artist than a comedian.

[applegrove]

17. He did predict our culture. You are right. In the same way that Pollack

did with his paintings the repeated the fractals in nature. Those repeating tree limb patters. Used today in Grover Norqhuest fax trees.

Yes.

[Call Me Wesley]

10. No comedian.

Look at him from this point.

RIP, Andy.

[no name no slogan]

11. definitely not

I was one of those people who believed Tony Clifton was a legitimate comedian when I first saw him in the late 70s. I hated him and thought he was a big jerk.

But once you "get" what Andy was trying to do, it makes a bit more sense. :hi:

[Call Me Wesley]

14. Exactly.

And I liked 'Man On The Moon', but it did not give Andy Kaufman the credits he deserved. It was too much about Carey playing Kaufman, and he overplayed every single bit if you compare it to Kaufman's originals.

My deepest respect to Andy Kaufman. Kudos.

:hi:

[Benfea]

12. I still say Ann Coulter is a post-humous Andy Kaufman character

Jeaneane was spot-on with that observation about Coulter.

[China_cat]

13. The movie screwed with the timeline horribly

If you want a better look at the life of Andy Kaufmann, get the book "Lost in the Funhouse : The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman by Bill Zehme"

[derby378]

15. I'd give it another shot...

Andy Kaufman never considered himself a comedian as much as he considered himself a performance artist, using himself as a canvas.

He was a bit complicated.

[ForrestGump]

16. Andy Kaufman was -- and this is an overused term, I realize -- a genius

He was also, possibly, insane-or-something-like-it.

The key is whether, when he appeared to go off the rails (the wrestling, for example), he really lost the plot or did he just act as if he did? I think he, himself, nailed it when he said that there is no Andy Kaufman (and, yes, some people have even speculated that Andy Kaufman is a fictitious character and that his parents and siblings were actors brought in to play the part).

I thought the movie was very well done and that Jim Carrey nailed his characterization. I, too, could once never watch Carrey, but in the last couple of years I've watched the (truly brilliant) The Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Majestic, Bruce Almighty, and Man On The Moon (also saw him in a small part in Clint Eastwood's The Dead Pool, that I saw for the first time just a few weeks ago) and I've changed my mind about the dude...not that I'm in a hurry to see some of his other films or find his over-the-top slapsticky stuff especially funny.

[LoZoccolo]

18. I partially credit his influence on the Oasis threads.

He's had a huge impact on my sense of humor.

[LoZoccolo]

19. Also...

...the A&E Biography on him is actually really good. Man On The Moon tinkers with the order of events in his life somewhat.

[enigmatic]

20. Andy Kaufman was a dada "comedian"

or as someone else here said, a performance artist. He was brilliant, and another I miss terribly..

[hobo_baggins]

21. In my opinion, Andy Kaufman was one of the greatest minds of the century

he just took comedy and performance art to a whole new level, and we're still trying to catch up to him today.