The most interesting musician who ever lived actually didn’t.
June 6, 2019 9:00 PM   Subscribe

"We made this absurd comedy that has full frontal male nudity and all these drug jokes, that people are still moved by—that to me is a perfect movie." Dewey Cox Ain’t Dead: An Oral History of ‘Walk Hard’ posted by hippybear (17 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
THE WRONG KID DIED!

You don’t want no part of this shit, Dewey! is one of my top comedy scenes. I’m watching a show today on Netflix called “I think you should leave” that’s super giving me Walk Hard vibes in the best way.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:59 PM on June 6, 2019 [6 favorites]


Patrick (H) Willems' The Broken Formula of Music Biopics (The Walk Hard bit starts at around 16 minutes, but the whole video is on topic)
posted by surlyben at 11:18 PM on June 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


"I been cut in half real bad!" Remains one of my favorite lines
posted by UltraMorgnus at 11:46 PM on June 6, 2019 [6 favorites]


One of my favorite things about this movie (and its impromptu tour mentioned in the oral history) is how it ironically launched the totally-straight John Reilly & Friends band, which is awesome.
posted by rhizome at 12:52 AM on June 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


I am a big fan of John C. Reilly and have long been anxious for him to get a leading role and break out from playing second fiddle to Will Ferrell. So I was looking forward to this when it came out, which showcases his range but is not the serious movie the man deserves. He's got an Oscar in him if he ever gets attached to the right project.
posted by St. Oops at 2:01 AM on June 7, 2019 [6 favorites]


What do you think, Paul McCartney of the Beatles?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:19 AM on June 7, 2019


My dad said he didn't realize this movie was a parody which made it retroactively many times funnier to me.
posted by bleep at 5:20 AM on June 7, 2019 [14 favorites]


My dad said he didn't realize this movie was a parody

Perhaps this isn't the place for this story, but I went to school with a Russian guy who totally prided himself on his knowledge of American heavy metal music. Then one day he launched into a diatribe about how Spinal Tap was a talentless, derivative band that he didn't like while the rest of us all stood around looking at each other.
posted by jabah at 5:41 AM on June 7, 2019 [18 favorites]


he launched into a diatribe about how Spinal Tap was a talentless, derivative band that he didn't like

Wonder what his take was on the Rutles.... probably indifferent
posted by e1c at 6:14 AM on June 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


I've watched the director's cut of Walk Hard SO MANY TIMES, but this is one movie where I wish a super-director's cut existed that was like 9 hours long. There could not be a version of this movie that was too long for me.
posted by joelhunt at 6:25 AM on June 7, 2019 [5 favorites]


Wonder what his take was on the Rutles.... probably indifferent

well, their trousers were very tight
posted by thelonius at 6:56 AM on June 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


launched the totally-straight John Reilly & Friends band, which is awesome

One of my happiest moments was when I found out that it was John C Reilly who was singing My Son John on the Rogues Gallery album of Sea Shanties. I had been listening to it for years and never made the connection. He has a lovely voice.
posted by Damienmce at 8:46 AM on June 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


[humblebrag]

I got to see the premiere of Walk Hard in San Francisco, which was followed by a Dewey Cox concert down the street.

[/humblebrag]

I love this movie, so, so much. So many quotable lines.

"This was a particularly bad case of someone being cut in half."
"I'm Dewey Cox's 12-year-old-girlfriend!"
"You know who's got hands? THE DEVIL. And he uses them for HOLDING."
"You don't want no part of this shit"
"And you never once paid for drugs! NOT ONCE!"
"You slept with me, too, and I've had confused feelings about that for ten years now!"

The 'second chance' bit, when Dewey starts playing the song he wrote and the band (WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD IT BEFORE) just naturally falls in behind him, is magically funny.
posted by hanov3r at 11:28 AM on June 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


I liked it, although the scene where the guy's junk shows up in the corner of the scene was so shocking and unexpected that I half-expected it to show up at random throughout the rest of the movie, like those ads for other TV shows that a lot of cable networks keep throwing up on the screen during the show that you want to watch. I'd also forgotten how good Reilly's voice is until I listened to the Roy Orbison parody.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:53 AM on June 7, 2019


Rolling Stone recently claimed that it basically shut down the musician's bio-pic genre for a decade, and grouses that modern films like Bohemian Rhapsody are still taking prey to the tropes that Walk Hard parodied.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:53 AM on June 8, 2019 [2 favorites]


I'm hot and cold at the same time!

This is one of my favorite movies of the 2000s and is rapidly displacing princess bride as most universally quotable. Thanks for this, Hippy!
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 9:50 AM on June 11, 2019


Wonder what his take was on the Rutles.... probably indifferent

And I wonder what his take on Anvil was!
posted by wyndham at 8:49 PM on June 11, 2019


« Older Economic Possibilities   |   18hr 25min layover in Moscow Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments