And now for some good news.

January 18, 2022 1:22 PM

"Weird Al" Yankovic biopic will star Daniel Radcliffe. “When my last movie UHF came out in 1989, I made a solemn vow to my fans that I would release a major motion picture every 33 years, like clockwork. I’m very happy to say we’re on schedule.”
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide (24 comments total)

to paraphrase someone I saw about this on twitter, you know that Daniel Radcliffe is just looking at the money he has and just going "that looks fun, let me do this" and his agent is going "...okay."

This could be hilarious.
posted by mephron at 1:29 PM on January 18, 2022 [13 favorites]

I'm assuming it's just going to be a full length version of this, which is perfectly ok with me.
posted by bondcliff at 1:33 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Was that Patton Oswalt as Dr. Demento? I... I may have to watch?
posted by The Bellman at 1:35 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Bellman, just to be perfectly clear the video bondcliff linked to was made about 8 years ago as a Funny Or Die short, it's not a trailer for the coming feature.

That said, hell yes do I want Oswalt to return as Doctor Demento.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 1:44 PM on January 18, 2022 [11 favorites]

"I have no doubt whatsoever that this is the role future generations will remember him for."

Thanks - I needed that laugh today.
posted by whatevernot at 1:45 PM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]

Although the Funny or Die clip is an oldie but goodie, Patton would be a great choice to play Barret Eugene "Barry" Hansen, and you just know he would jump at the chance. They have to get the casting right for Demento, they just have to. In my mind, at least, he's timeless and immortal, and although I made the mistake of thinking the same about Bowie, maybe he could appear as himself?

Or maybe just a cameo? Please?
posted by vverse23 at 1:48 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

I'm assuming it's just going to be a full length version of this, which is perfectly ok with me.

I look forward to seeing elements from this origin story directly or indirectly referenced.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:52 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Oh now I'm all sad. But thanks, all, for the heads up!
I miss Dr. Demento.
Or . . . Do I?
Maybe I just miss being a little kid under the covers with a little transistor radio and not much to worry about except whether the battery would hold out.
posted by The Bellman at 1:55 PM on January 18, 2022 [27 favorites]

Right there with you, Bellman. Gods I need this!
posted by Dhertiiboi at 2:08 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Daniel Radcliffe has been doing such fun and interesting stuff. I'm going to take this moment to plug the series Miracle Workers, which is basically him, Steve Buscemi, and a host of other talented actors hamming it up in the most cartoonish and ridiculous ways in story arcs that take place in heaven, medieval times, and the Oregon Trail. It got me through some rough spots during quarantine.

Can't wait for this. He does pretty offbeat projects but the ones I've seen, at least, have been really good
posted by treepour at 2:09 PM on January 18, 2022 [5 favorites]

My first comment to my wife was "I love his career choices" and my second comment was "he and Robert Pattinson should do some weird thing together." My wife pointed out that they don't make the same weird choices, so now we're trying to figure out what weird project would be a good fit for both of them.

+1 vote for Miracle Workers, at least the first season. The second season didn't have quite the same magic for us, and we haven't seen the third yet.
posted by fedward at 2:11 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was always hugely not a fan of the Harry Potter movies (they felt antithetical to what I loved so much about the books), but all the child stars seem to have grown up fantastically well. Daniel Radcliffe in particular has a penchant for picking DELIGHTFULLY fun roles—I think he's very talented, but more than that, he's seemingly up for jumping into projects because he likes them, regardless of whether they fit some overarching career ambition or publicity somethingorother.
posted by rorgy at 2:35 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Also, the first 35 seconds of this video have been stuck in my head ever since it first came out.
posted by rorgy at 2:37 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

When my wife showed me a different link about this today, I pointed out Radcliffe has publicly performed Tom Lehrer (previously) so this isn't that surprising.
Have to wonder if he would aim for a series, reverse chron order:
Yankovic
Mark Russell
Allan Sherman
Stan Freberg
Tom Lehrer
Spike Jones
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 2:56 PM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]

I listened to Radcliffe's more recent appearance on Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, and Conan noted that when he first visited Conan's talk show as a kid, he really wanted to talk about Conan's work on The Simpsons, so his interest in comedy is long-standing.

Radcliffe's hilarious in the gloriously offbeat and wtf Swiss Army Man, and he had ... a moment in season 3 of Miracle Workers that involved assless chaps. He's bonkers and awesome, is what I'm saying.
posted by Pronoiac at 4:35 PM on January 18, 2022 [5 favorites]

Honestly I think a Weird Al biopic can probably get over the two problems most biopics have had: 1) you don't have a plot if you aren't willing to show your main characters struggling, and 2) you need to avoid looking like Walk Hard except serious.
posted by Merus at 11:57 PM on January 18, 2022

he’s one of three musicians to garner top 40 singles in each of the past four decades. The other two? Michael Jackson and Madonna.

I did not know that. That’s cool. Thanks for the post, OP!
posted by Bella Donna at 1:13 AM on January 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Bellman, just to be perfectly clear the video bondcliff linked to was made about 8 years ago as a Funny Or Die short, it's not a trailer for the coming feature.

Except, as the article points out, it maybe kinda is because it’s being produced by Funny or Die and the writer of that trailer is co-writing this with Weird Al.

So not exactly the trailer, but also a good preview we’ll be getting something with this spirit.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 6:16 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

to paraphrase someone I saw about this on twitter, you know that Daniel Radcliffe is just looking at the money he has and just going "that looks fun, let me do this" and his agent is going "...okay."

Given that Radcliffe followed up Harry Potter with full frontal nudity in Equus, then as a song-and-dance man in How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and then as a corpse in Swiss Army Man, I think this has been his approach to his career for a while now.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:16 AM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

Except, as the article points out, it maybe kinda is because it’s being produced by Funny or Die and the writer of that trailer is co-writing this with Weird Al.

It should be the story of the attempt to make the movie that the trailer's for.
posted by bfields at 8:02 AM on January 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

...he’s one of three musicians to garner top 40 singles in each of the past four decades. The other two? Michael Jackson and Madonna.

That makes sense, considering those two made a career out of doing serious versions of Weird Al classics.
posted by TedW at 8:20 AM on January 19, 2022 [13 favorites]

The last play I saw before lockdown in 2020 was Samuel Beckett's Endgame at the Old Vic with Alan Cumming as Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe as Clov (with bonus Jane Horrocks in a trash can).

Before going, I had a conversation with a friend about how Radcliffe's stage performances had never been bad but had always seemed to be lacking something. Then I saw the show and holy shit, it was the best thing I've seen him do. Clov is a sort of servant figure with weird emotional ties to his master (father? uncle??) Hamm, and Radcliffe spent most of the show covered in flea powder and seething with resentment and it was great. He turns out to have a real flair for the grotesque and the monstrous, and something about that group of colleagues seemed to free him enough to bring it out.

Maybe it was weirdness. I mean, Alan Cumming is sublimely weird, and Jane Horrocks is also kind of sui generis, and there was no burden on anyone in that play to be attractive or glamorous (which they're all capable of being! But the consciousness of having to appear attractive often tends to stifle actors.) The director was weird-ass opera director Richard Jones, who went from punk-weird early in his career to (currently) a sort of tense, confined weirdness that occasionally chokes on its own leash. But he did a good job with Endgame.

Anyway, I definitely trust Radcliffe to put the Weird into Weird Al. I hope this movie is at least as weird as UHF, if not weirder.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:38 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Seltzer's Smokehouse Meats is fully on board.
posted by delfin at 6:20 AM on January 20, 2022

This movie is going to look great on my 2,000-inch TV.
posted by nickmark at 1:41 PM on January 25, 2022 [1 favorite]