Benjamin's Stash: Video Pick of the Week

      Hello, readers. Kick-Ass 2 opens this Friday in theaters, so this week's recommended pick will be devoted to a Jim Carrey film. I could go with The Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dumb and Dumber, or Mr. Popper's Penguins... Wait a minute. That damn last one always tries to sneak its way in. Get out! I decided, though, to go with the film that I believe showcases Carrey's best performance ever. If you're expecting Ace Ventura: Pet Detective you may wanna hit the back button.

      To this day, there are still people that debate whether that moment was real or staged. Man on the Moon is a comedy-drama biopic about the late entertainer Andy Kaufman. Kaufman (Jim Carrey) is a struggling performer that, due to his eccentric and unorthodox brand of stand-up comedy, fails to attract audiences. Things change when he performs his dead-on, now iconic, Elvis impersonation. Not only does it attract the audiences, it also catches the eye of talent agent George Shapiro (Danny DeVito). Shapiro signs Kaufman as a client and from there his star rises. We then see his rise from a spot as Latka Gravas on TV's Taxi (of which Kaufman actually hated), his recurring spots on Saturday Night Live, the many "staged" antics of his, all the way to his fall as a star and eventual death from a rare type of lung cancer (which many people, once again, thought was another staged antic at first).

      Every now and then we're treated to a performance that's not only great, but you literally see the performer disappear into the role. Val Kilmer did it as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors. Joaquin Phoenix did it as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. Daniel Day-Lewis does it in pretty much any film he's in. Jim Carrey (who considered Kaufman a huge influence on his own stand-up style) is another example. It's certainly a risk casting an box office A-lister in an iconic role. At times the image of the performer takes over the character in the film, and you're essentially left watching a famous star doing an impersonation. Not here. Carrey literally disappears into the role and if a film like The Truman Show couldn't convince you that Carrey can indeed act, this one most definitely will. Along with Carrey, we also get three strong supporting performances from DeVito (who starred with Kaufman in Taxi), Paul Giamatti, and Courtney Love (before she turned crazy) in her second Milos Forman film (the first being 1996's The People vs. Larry Flynt). There are also a number of cameo appearances of those who have personally interacted with Kaufman such as Lorne Michaels, Christopher Lloyd, Marilu Henner, Judd Hirsch, Jeff Conaway, Jerry Lawler and David Letterman. While the story certainly takes a few historical liberties (which to be fair, the film admits), Man on the Moon stays true to the essence of Andy Kaufman. As an entertainer, he was divisive and at times left many audience members scratching their heads. He's infamously known for reading The Great Gatsby to an audience demanding some Latka moments, which at that point he was tired of doing. When moments like that show up onscreen we're left scratching our heads as well. That's the beauty of this film though. Those moments aren't meant for laughs. They're meant to place the viewer right there in with the audience. Both director Milos Forman and screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski also end the movie with a mystery. If you knew the character that was Andy Kaufman, you'd realize the ending is rather fitting.