The Worst Film Ever

Redundant and unnecessary.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (2011) *** (out of 4)Good documentary taking a look at the tour Conan O'Brien went on after being fired from The Tonight Show and part of his agreement with the company was that he didn't appear on television for six months. So, unable to be on the air, O'Brien set out for a forty-four show tour and we see some of the act but most of the documentary shows the star behind-the-scenes. Fans of O'Brien should be entertained by this documentary and especially if you weren't able to catch any of the actual shows. There are sequences of the concerts that are shown here including his eight stages after losing a talk show as well as some musical numbers that are shown in their complete form. I think the most interesting thing about the documentary is getting to see O'Brien off the stage and just going from city to city trying to find the energy to bring it each night and then having other commitments on his days off. It was really interesting seeing how O'Brien had to bring it each night, try to keep that energy going and the entire time you can tell that he's just getting worn down by everything. There aren't any graphic outbursts where he just cracks and goes crazy but it's still interesting to see the toll that the road has on him. It was also fun seeing how the star would adjust to the various demands that were put on him and just seeing how part of his life was working during this period of his life. Those expecting some ambush on NBC are going to be disappointed as that's not here. I think the behind-the-scenes look at the tour were the most fascinating parts and those interested in that type of thing should enjoy the film.

Today's review is for Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, Rodman Flender's chronological documentation of late night talk show host Conan O'Brien. The film explains his controversial, and highly publicized departure from NBC in 2009, and then leads into him hitting the road, and staging a comedy tour called the "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour".Conan O'Brien is a witty, fast paced comic. We're all too familiar with his comical side, but I doubt we've ever seen anything from him in the vein of this movie. What we see of Conan is raw and unfiltered. The comedic side has a certain levity to it, but there's also a balance with dramatic heft, and trying to show us what he's going through. We see a man who loves doing what he does, and how he does it just as much for himself as he does for his audience. Sure, there's a couple moments of pure cringe rather than laughs, but this is a serious recommendation.*** out of ****

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop falls short of calling itself a movie. The man is brilliantly hilarious, but as a documentary film it fails miserably to deliver the intended message that he so eloquently stated to the camera: that no one has any idea what the true side of him is like, and that this documentary aims to develop the true Conan.We follow a moody man who can best be described as "post-Conan." His crazy sense of humor still remains, but a dark sided, profanity wielding, beard wearing man now inhabits the body of a once innocent, clean shaved, late night talk show host. He takes us behind the stage of his tour across the country, invites us to listen to his music, and shows us the deep connection he has with his fans. This can all be understood in the first few minutes of the movie, and what follows is a wash, rinse, and repeat cycle.This excuse for a documentary is made for die hard fans who are willing to put up with a cynical man in the midst of his catharsis in order to get laughs from his degrading wise cracks. I cannot help but empathize with the idea of the comedian who night in and night out purges himself with a smile plastered on his face that no one can see through. It is clear that what we know of Conan is just the tip of the iceberg, and underneath the surface lurks a wounded monster.

A surprising powerful and interesting look into the mind of one of the most intelligent, innovative and personally inspiring minds existing in our current culture. Conan O'Brien is a brilliant man who was treated very unfairly by NBC and this picture does a great job of documenting all of the turmoil and conflicting emotions that came as a result of that debacle, along with his concert tour that came afterwards when he was banned from being on television. Conan is brave enough for letting this relatively dark chapter of his life be put on film forever, and the makers of the film used it as an opportunity to showcase the man behind the hilarious hour of television he gives us four nights a week.The film did a superb job of stripping back the layers and showing every side of this man, from his self-effacing humor to his anger over the pressures of the tour and his unjust treatment by NBC, to his genuine joy for life and performing in front of an audience. This is a man who spent over a decade getting to perform to a crowd and make people laugh several times a week, living his dream only to have it stripped away in one of the most childish and bizarre disasters in late night television history. We get to see what happens when that dream of his came crashing down and he had to build himself back up. There are so many great scenes throughout, ones that had me in stitches like when he laughed at the fact that he would never be caught dead on a network like TBS and ones that had me almost in tears of joy or frustration, like when one of his back-up singers brought in about a dozen people to meet him after an exhausting show he performed that he now had to entertain or when he was forced to schmooze a Hollywood crowd at a party for hours before having to do another insanely exhausting show. They really highlighted the pressure that was put on this guy almost every day and how easily people take for granted someone with a genuinely kind heart who just wants to make people happy.That being said, they didn't make Conan ever seem like this martyr for amusement all the time, they definitely didn't shy away from showing some unlikable characteristics of his. They let him have his moments where he was just being a frustrated jerk, which made the whole thing very human and authentic. I love Conan to death and he will always inspire me and the film would have rang very false if there hadn't been moments where he as kind of a prick. In his situation I feel like it would be pretty impossible not to have a ton of moments where the pressure and frustration become too much and you just want to lash out. But his honest craving for making people happy shines through almost all of the time, even in his darkest moments of depression and confusion over what he was supposed to do at that time.It's a fantastic documentary and it really exceeded my expectations. It made me laugh even more than I was expecting it to, which was a ton, and provided a surprising level of insight into his psyche at that time and who he really is behind everything. His relationships with those around him were heartwarming, especially the comradery between him and his assistant Sona; I thought their sarcastic back-and-forth and constant support of one another was really beautiful. Their relationship alone is enough to merit watching the film. In the end, it's a film that had me laughing frequently and thinking quite often about the levels of who Conan is and, ultimately, the levels of who I am as well. He will always be a huge inspiration to me and this exploration just further solidifies that.