Man on the Moon/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Audience-Alienating Premise: The film was a surprise box office flop, possibly because the advertising campaign was too honest -- Andy Kaufman was and still is a notoriously divisive figure. If you don't want an audience alienating premise, don't make a movie about an audience alienating performer!
  • Award Snub: Jim Carrey won a second straight Golden Globe Best Actor award (albeit in a different genre) and still didn't receive an Oscar nomination, the same treatment he got for The Truman Show.
  • Comedy Ghetto: Given that the biopic is one of the most reliable Oscar Bait formats, the fact that this movie wasn't nominated for any Oscars may be at least partly due to this -- both the lead actor and main character are comics, after all.
    • After Jim Carrey failed to score an Oscar nom despite two Golden Globe wins, Carrey himself seems to fall squarely into it in the eyes of the Academy no matter how well he does.
  • Fridge Brilliance: At one point Shapiro comments that Andy is doing all these jokes for his own amusement. This gives the movie a new meaning in that the audience finally gets to appreciate Andy's act from the best perspective.
  • Tear Jerker: The film's third act, roughly starting with Andy being told to leave his Transcendental Meditation temple because -- despite being a staunch, serious believer -- he's seen by higher-ups as making the religion look bad with his public antics (and yes, this scene has a direct basis in Real Life).