Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox StoryEasy jokes? Absolutely  December 19,
2007 2:12:16 PM
WALK HARD: John C. Reilly charms.
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“Life made him tough. Love made him strong. Music made him hard.” His name? Dewey Cox. Easy jokes? Absolutely. But under the direction of Jake Kasdan (The TV Set) and the guiding hand of his producer and co-writer, Judd Apatow (Knocked Up and Superbad), this send-up of Walk the Line, Ray, and damn near every musical bio-pic ever made swings for the fences and makes it at least to third. Granted, we’re talking softball, but when John C. Reilly is your pitcher, you’re halfway to the pennant. Reilly’s Cox is an addled charmer who never met a drug he didn’t become addicted to –– prodded on by long-time bandmate Sam, gamely played by Tim Meadows (“Don’t do it!”) –– and then kick, or a hole he didn’t fuck. (Was that a penis on screen?) He also has no sense of smell, though that didn’t get in the way of his musical gifts. After all, he learned how to play “by ear.” Stupid? Sure, but laced with a strange sense of logic, like the gag that follows the end credits . . . 98 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle/Chestnut Hill + suburbs
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- Inside the prize-filled trophy home of a seemingly obsessive-compulsive contest enterer
- A do-gooder who recorded abusive Boston police officers was himself arrested under a controversial ‘wiretapping’ law
- That intoxicating smell, the siren-call sizzle — looks like pop culture has gone hog wild
- Never mind its tough-girl alt-porn feminism: SuicideGirls has already moved on to a new generation
- We already know about politicians’ capacity for coarse behavior. But how low can the press go?
- Body modification as art at the Peabody Essex Museum
- That intoxicating smell, the siren-call sizzle — looks like pop culture has gone hog wild
- Is there one political story the press shouldn’t report?
- Dutoit and Elder at the BSO, Collage’s Berio, Boston Conservatory’s Turn of the Screw, and Kurt Weill at the Gardner and the MFA
- Body modification as art at the Peabody Essex Museum
- The right of a performance artist represents the rights of all Americans. Plus, an opportunity with Cuba.
- We already know about politicians’ capacity for coarse behavior. But how low can the press go?
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A shambling charmer
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Interview: Michel Gondry goes lo-fi
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Hollywood teleports to MIT
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An 88-minute flop
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Lazy, lazy, lazy
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Two directers and still unoriginal
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An uncomfortable horror/comedy hybrid
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An unoriginal technician's piece
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The perfect fusion of sound and vision
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Genre futility
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- Unintentional laughs
- A step ahead of the rest
- Too many weird gimmicks
- Religious groups and the environment
- A rich kid on the road to comeuppance
- A shambling charmer
- Revisit one of the great films about the artistic process
- Seraphim in France
- Poignant enough
- An 88-minute flop
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