I generally feel the same way. The car crash onward could have gone a different direction and I’d have liked it a lot more. They could have done that and still kept the way it ends pretty easily. I still enjoyed it, but I loved the first half of the movie so much more than the second half.
I think this is actually the reason that the basic concept works so well and is a pretty spot on thing to do for Weird Al. And actually, the last third of the movie going so over the top pretty cleanly matches up with some of his original songs that ratchet up the absurdity as they go along, so I get why they did it.
I agree that his voice isn’t great, but I disagree about his instrumental talent. He tells stories about being in college, where he would ask crowds to yell out pop songs and he would faithfully play them on the accordion. He used to play the entire Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album at parties. I feel like it takes some notable musical talent to just play songs on command like that.
Yes, I think he is amazingly talented at breaking down his style parodies. I mean, he called Ray Manzarek to find out what keyboard he used on the Doors albums, and Manzarek said he still had it…and then demanded that he get to play on Al’s tribute track, “Craigslist”! You can find lots of “style parody” playlists on Spotify and really appreciate just how well he pulled out the style of each artist.
I actually didn’t even expect Michael Jackson to get a mention in the movie; I thought they would just claim that “Eat It” was an entirely original song, and that would be the joke. (Al has recently said that he doesn’t feel comfortable playing “Eat It” or “Fat” in his live performances anymore, since he doesn’t want to give any more money to the Jackson estate.)
Ah, of course, that makes perfect sense because of the bolded bit. I don’t doubt Al is a great guy, but I do doubt he’s sending famous pop stars some of his earnings out of sheer kindness. :)
According to this article, parodies are indeed covered by Fair Use, and Al does not have to get permission from the original artist or pay any royalties. But for his parodies, all of the royalties from the songs are split 50/50: Half goes to the original artist for the music, and half goes to Al for the lyrics.
This applies to his polka medleys as well: If he does polka versions of 16 songs, then the royalties are split 17 ways: 1/17th for each artist, and 1/17th to Al for “Ear Booker Polka” which ends every one of his polka medleys.
I will say that Al asks for permission from everyone he parodies (with one notable exception), and won’t record a parody unless he gets it. He had “Chicken Pot Pie” ready to publish, but Paul McCartney is a strict vegetarian and did not want to be associated with that song, so Al shelved it.
Here is another article that lists all the artists who turned Al down, although I think one of them is incorrect: I don’t believe his parody of “Numb” was refused by U2, but by the Dr. Seuss estate since it used “Green Eggs and Ham” as the lyrics.
I had that thing spoiled because I saw the new Weird Al song on the soundtrack and listed to it before I watched the movie. Turns out it’s the end-credits song it talks about the thing…
