Movie Man Darian Watching All Night Long

A Futile and Stupid Gesture
This film was a enjoyable bio pic on the story of Doug Kenny who revolutionized comedy forever. This film chronicles Doug from his beginnings at Harvard to when he struck gold with the magazine. This film hits and misses both at parts but ultimately scores an enjoyable flick through it all. This film for the positives shows the ups and downs of this comedic genius and they don’t just so it as a happy go lucky story they really show the great moments and the bad moments too which I liked as well as the cast chosen to play the people in the film.

 It has a solid runtime of 1h and 45 minutes but I think it could really of benefited from being longer because it’s covering so much material I wouldn’t mind if it was a 2h and 20 minutes film like Ray was. That’s one of the issues I did have was it’s ability to skip so many years over and not covering it but just scratching the surface. The pace went to fast at places and to slow at others that’s a issue I have to say I did have.

Besides that the film was a very enjoyable film educating me on this comedic genius I was totally unaware of and if you love great comedy watch this or even if you love seeing what goes on behind the scenes you’ll enjoy it. Even if it has its fair share of flaws within it the film still is a joy to be had watching.

Rated R : language throughout, nudity and drug use

This film chronicles the comedic genius behind Animal House and Cadyshack but before all that Doug Kenny was just a student at Harvard until he strikes up an idea for a magazine named National Lampoons

Domhnall Gleeson : Gleeson is striking in this film! This Irish film actor has been giving us solid work in films such as True Grit, American Made and The Revenant just to name a few. Gleeson takes on Henry Beard and from the moment he comes on screen he brings this person to life with his total transformation psychically and emotionally that’s just so compelling to witness unfold in front of you onscreen. He plays this role very restrained and it works greatly through the film. He shows such an array of emotions from anger and very tongue and cheek comedic delivery to really serious small moments and he delivers it fantastically. He isn’t in the film for as much as I thought he is a supporting figure in the film but a strong one at that who you won’t forget when he’s offscreen but want to see more of because of what he’s bringing to the screen. He just was fantastic in this film giving something new to us we haven’t seen to him explore before and easily steal the show. He changed the way he talks the way he looks and the way he walks he totally immersed himself in this role and totally became Henry. He brings the laughs and the serious emotion giving an tremendous supporting performance in this film.

David Wain : David chronicles the highs and lows of this comedic genius which was both good and bad. David approached this film head on giving us the humble beginnings to the highs of the magazine and the movies to the lows as well. He put so much into this film and really wanted to tell it all and dose it work? Absolutely but could it of been better told for a narrative stand point yes. Why I say this is because I love how much he covers in the film but he dose it at such as speed that’s so fast you kind of can’t digest what’s going on. I understand he’s trying to capsulate the madness that went on back in those days but if he slowed down pacing wise and even made the film longer so we could understand each and every detail well it would of resulted in better pacing and stronger structured narrative. His style I loved he brought the comedy that was fantastic really having the perfect tone of laughs and then making time to have the more serious and smaller moments as well without one or the other over shadowing one. This film was very hard wire to walk as actors were playing living comedic legends such as Bill Murray and Chevy Chase and he delivered I’ll give him the credit for it he did a great job at showing us what went behind the scenes and the madness as well. The cast was well done and everyone fir their part perfectly. Overall David did a good job with the style but sometimes the style over weighs the substance but overall is a well handled film by the director at the helm.