Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop review
Though it’s been a few years since I’ve watched him consistently, I was during my middle & high school years a nightly viewer of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. My viewing trailed off as Andy left and I went to college (at first without even a TV) but always felt like Conan was my talk show host. When I moved to New York I went to a taping of Late Night and made it briefly on camera during one of the audience skits. But it wasn’t until Conan took the seat of The Tonight Show only to lose it several months later that I began to watch again. After having not watched in in so many years it was a striking contrast seeing him attempt to soften some of his edges to settle into his new 11:30 spot and then a few months later see him performing looser than ever, like he had nothing to lose.
For all the jabs at NBC and The Chin, he left viewers with a few brief words about not becoming cynical and disappeared. But before he would reemerge with his new show on TBS, he set out on the road with his “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour” (which I caught at Radio City Music Hall). During his final days on The Tonight Show and subsequent interviews, that’s when we got our first glimpses at the “real” Conan. Not quite as amiable as his onscreen persona had suggested, Conan was a bit darker than had previously been hinted at, and his fans loved him for it. This doc, both hilarious and unflinching gives us perhaps our most complete portrait of the comedian as it follows Conan and his writers and closest staff putting together the show and surviving through the grueling pace of being on the road. There are certainly funny onstage bits (which I remembered from the show) but the real treasure here are the backstage moments with Conan.
Always hilarious, he could also be acidic to those around him. The film, directed by Rodman Flender a friend from Conan’s Harvard days, doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable moments or the ones that don’t paint the former host in the most flattering light. A former Simpsons writer, O’Brien was handpicked by Lorne Michaels to be the host of Late Night after David Letterman, even though Conan was not a standup and besides a few bit parts on SNL (where he was also a writer) had no on camera experience. But he grew to love it and now the acceptance of an audience is what drives him, even when that includes doing small shows for fans on his days “off” from the scheduled gigs. Because of the loose structure of the film it can feel a little long but it’s never less than completely entertaining. This doc is a great look behind the curtain at a comedian that we’ve all known for decades but hardly known until now.
