Movie One Hundred Twelve
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop is an interesting documentary that covers the comedian/talk show host’s tour after being fired from the Tonight Show.
For the course of approximately seven months, Conan O’Brien took over as the host of the famed Tonight Show on NBC. Jay Leno, the previous host, was pushed into an earlier time slot on a failed premise. As ratings tanked, Conan was asked to push the Tonight Show further into the night. After refusing to do so, he was fired and Jay Leno was given his old job back. After losing his job and receiving a handsome payout and a few months of free time, Conan O’Brien took himself on tour with a musical comedy act. This documentary covers that tour in its entirety and bookends with his Tonight Show gig ending and his show on TBS starting.
While known as a funny guy, Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop is often times not funny, showing a bit of the darker side of the man. To be fair, he works non-stop for months and pushes himself well past the limits of what could be considered “sane”. It’s an intimate look into Conan himself, as well as his staff, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was meant for Conan fans only, all others need not apply.
As a teenager, I would watch Conan during his Late Night spot and I am a huge Simpsons fan as well. I consider myself to be a fan of Conan and his work but this documentary just didn’t jibe with me. I enjoyed watching it and I laughed a few times but I was left disappointed. A lot of it is Conan complaining about something or other, which, while interesting documentary work, wasn’t very entertaining to me.
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop is still something I would recommend to anyone that has watched Conan, followed the Tonight Show debacle, or someone just looking for a documentary to watch. For those of you unfamiliar with Conan, it would be a tough sell. It’s not as funny as I hoped, but the content may not be intended to be riotous, despite the taglines on the cover art.
I give it 3 Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien’s out of 5.
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Haven’t seen it, but you have peaked my interest.
I haven’t seen this either, let alone heard of it. But I am really interested now. Thanks for letting me know about it!
And, I think it’s awesome that you are trying to watch 300 movies in 2012. You’re almost at the halfway point (time-wise and movie-wise) – keep up the good work!
Thanks for the kind words!
i have never watched him and know very little about him. i know his commercials are funny, and i’ve heard that he’s very funny. but i just have not watched him at all. it might be the hair or the suits that are a little too snug.
It was a pretty good documentary, mainly for the fact that O’Brien is such a great and wild personality. However, the guy definitely has a lot of dark things about him that aren’t always the most likable and I like how they included that in here too. Good review Andy.
Yeah, I’m glad it wasn’t all sunny and happy and smiles from Conan and the rest of the crew, that certainly added a touch of realism.
I’m not a huge fan of Conan O’Brien’s, so it’s likely I won’t watch this one. Great review.
I’m a big fan of the lanky comedian! My fanhood increased after seeing this! 🙂
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