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Daniel Radcliffe plays "Weird Al" Yankovic. Photo from Roku Channel
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Walk Hard is a biographical parody of the musician, but its creators had to invent a fictional character Dewey Cox to do it. Stranger: The Al Jankovic Story is a parody of the real life Jankovic biography. Strange, which airs Friday on the Roku channel, teases a resume format that looks a bit like Walk Hard . Jankovi brought him back for the rest of his life and very early scenes greatly embellished Jankovi's predicament.
Young Alfie (Richard Aaron Anderson), Jankovic's parents Marie (Julian Nicholson) and Nick (Toby Haas) refuse to allow their son to practice the accordion. Al's secret accordion practice was treated like a demonic beast.
Actors understand. Sounds like a real drama, adding to the absurdity of accordion-playing teenager Al (David Bloom).
As Al (Daniel Radcliffe) grows up, he is in tune with the real Yankovic's singing. He left home to grow with his music.
A common metaphor in biographies of musicians is the presentation of scenes in which the artist finds inspiration for his famous song. Putting Yankovic's parody lyrics into those scenes is a whole new level of parody, but they're really only doing it for one song.
The opening scene is a parody of some of Yankovic's true stories, but a bizarre movie eventually turns into a fantasy. Al Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) and his parents still don't agree with his success, because that's what parents do in biopsies about musicians.
In the end, Gharib started saying that some of Yankovic's parodies were actually real. The movie goes to great lengths to show that this is a lie.
Jankovi? is as self-destructive as Johnny Cash or Freddie Mercury in autobiographies. Then a full-fledged action movie becomes meaningless.
It seems oddly like a funny skit or a long skit, but the joke lasts 108 minutes, including a new Yankovic song during the credits.
Director Eric Appel expanded his short film Funny or Die , with some fantasy-inspired encounters between Jankovi? and celebrities.
Stranger covers the biggest beats at the start of Jankovi? 's career. Then switch from "Surgeon Like" to "Amish Paradise" with a brief nod to "Fat".
No later songs appeared, not even Yankovic's original song that makes up half of each album. However, after finishing 1995's "Amish Paradise," he said the movie would end in 1985, adding to the absurdity.
Jankovi? 's simple biography of "Weird Al" may be more interesting than very short cradle-to-grave biographies. Taking it seriously, it will never be Yankovic's style, however, parodies the action film and music industry, as well as the biographical format.
It's a fitting tribute to the life and career of freak "Stranger Th" Jankovi? In the end, he and his fans hoped "Weird Al" would become a biopic, leaving the true story halfway through.
Fred Topple, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a Los Angeles-based UPI entertainment writer. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, critic for Rotten Tomatoes since 2001 and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012. Read more about his work in the entertainment field.
