Seth_Rogue_One
A documentary on the comedian Chris Farley's life with interviews with fellow comedians and friends like David Spade, Christina Applegate, Mike Myers, Tom Arnold and Dan Aykroyd and others.It also has Chris siblings, most notably Kevin Farley in it to provide stories of what Chris was like growing up.Although it entertains and occasionally gets emotional when you see a hardended cynic like David Spade become emotional and having a hard time speaking it does feel like a very sugar-coated version of Chris' life.It doesn't really speak much of Chris' hardships and why he became an addict and any real bad things that he did (which I imagine he did do as we all do) and it pretty much paints him out as a saint clown with self esteem issues.Now I'm not saying that he wasn't a lovely guy, I'm sure he was, but there is a constant sense of "they're holding something back to save the memory of Chris Farley".It's also very simple in it's structure, it has a couple people talk about Chris as a child to Chris getting into acting and Chris on the set etc etc, no fancy cuts or effects, more like a memoir collection than a full on documentary where you get to know the man up close and personal.But still, worth the watch for sure, especially if you're a Chris Farley fan.
Matthew Luke Brady
"I remember one time when all the nuns in my Catholic grade school got around in a semicircle, me and Mom in the middle, and they said, 'Mrs. Farley, the children at school are laughing at Christopher, not with him.' I thought, 'Who cares? As long as they're laughing." - Quote by Chris FarleyI Am Chris Farley was probably my most anticipated documentary of 2015, right next to Amy. I always like these kind of documentary's, where we see an in depth look into the famous person life and get to know them more in person; Those are always the best. Chris Farley was a comedic actor that stared in ten movies and a couple of skits on TV and the greatest SNL players ever, until he's tragic death in 1997. I think it's about time we got a documentary about Farley as he was beloved by many people and today he's still being talked about, so making a documentary is a perfect time to start now. I finally got the chance to watch the documentary last Friday and I thought the documentary was okay, and it kind of sucks saying that as I really wanted to love it so badly.I think what the documentary dose so well is introducing us to the man himself Chris Farley, because the main focus of this documentary is on he's career on TV, movies and basically Farley in person. All of this is shown by old footage of Farley doing he's usual skits and Farley best friends telling us stuff that I didn't know about. All of that was well down and some of them had something interesting and funny to say about Farley. My only problem that I had with the whole documentary is that I felt like I didn't get a lot out of it if you know what I mean. The only things that I was interested in knowing before seeing the documentary is getting to know Farley more in person and he's drug addiction that later killed him. The good thing is that I got to know Farley a bit in person, but I felt like didn't get enough, Because after I finished watching "I Am Chris Farley" I quickly went online to look up Chris Farley and there was some much more details that went into more depth that the documentary didn't do. Yeah they're do bring up he's death and him going to rehab in the documentary but it didn't last very long has it quickly moved on. I just wished they would have gone more in depth on those important issues, and yeah you can say that maybe they didn't want to talk about it since it may be hard for them, But this is a "Documentary" and me as a viewer felt like I just didn't enough about the biggest issues in Farley's life which effected him deeply and made for a horrid sight. Well that's pretty much all my honest thoughts on "I Am Chris Farley". It's worth watching if you're interested or not. It's okay but not as great as I thought it was going to be.
Steve Pulaski
Chris Farley was an actor who threw himself into every role he did, not so much making a convincing character from nothing, but being so brazenly out of control and limitless that, by the end of the film or the respective Saturday Night Live sketch, you practically had to believe he was the real deal. His natural presence for comedy and trying to find the right moments to be completely ribald and pleasantly sentimental signifies him as one of the most talented comedy actors in years, and ever since I was young, I couldn't help but think what kind of path he would've made for himself had he not died so young.I Am Chris Farley, a ninety-four minute documentary that will air on SpikeTV throughout the month of August and see a subsequent release on DVD and Blu-Ray, is a blatant love-letter to the comedian, and it's the kind of love-letter that really exhausts itself to show you everything there is to love about its subject. That's the film's greatest strength and its most notable weakness because, while we get to see every angle of Farley's comic abilities explored, depressingly little time is spent developing the very real drug and alcohol problems he battled throughout his life, which eventually caused his untimely death in 1997.Farley grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, the middle child of three rambunctious brothers, encouraged by a father who loved to see their comic spirits run wild. Kevin Farley, who is a spitting image of his younger brother, recalls Chris constantly battling for the most attention from everyone in his family and often deservedly getting it for being so captivating and uncontrollable. Chris was a person who loved to run in groups, joining football and rugby during his school days, and routinely accepting dares and attempting to impress everyone around him simply because of his desire to be seen. He competed for attention; something that would undoubtedly earn him a spotlight at acclaimed venues such as Chicago's Second City and, eventually, Saturday Night Live, where, even through numerous film deals, he saw his home and the ultimate goal of his career.Directors Brett Hodge and Derik Murray work to juxtapose film and sketch clips over the course of Farley's career with footage of his colleagues such as Adam Sandler, David Spade, Tom Arnold, Bo Derek, and Bob Saget speaking about their late friend and costar. The result is a familiar but effective structure thanks to how well the selected film clips mesh with Farley's personal life. Furthermore, a great deal of time is spent discussing Farley's comic talent and what made him so charismatic. Saget states that Farley had a "not give a s*** pride," which allowed him to be as raucous as he wanted; that meant taking off his shirt, dancing crazily all over a set, screaming and yelling to create a convincing, hyperactive character, and falling on the ground - without putting his arms out or creating a cushion - authentically. Anything he could do to add to the flavor and the zaniness of a sketch, he would and he would constantly make it work.Few conversations on a professional or personal level concerning Chris Farley remain entirely positive, given his later years and his tragic death, which is why it's frustrating to see I Am Chris Farley so nonchalantly gloss over the effects and the circumstances leading up to and resulting in his death. I don't ever recall the word "cocaine," the drug that eventually killed Farley, being said in the film, nor any recollections from the interviewees when they found out about Farley's death. It's no doubt that everyone in this film has a strong love and respect for the late comic (by the end of the film, we almost want to throw our hands in front of ourselves and say, "we believe you"), but there's a disconcerting factor of being so in love with the subject that talking bad about a certain aspect or feature is a no-no here.This makes I Am Chris Farley somewhat of a more sentimental documentary than one willing to explore how insecurities in the comedy world effect a person, especially for Farley, whose image was largely made up of a bumbling fat guy with little coordination and self-esteem. Although all of the footage here is rich and the documentary is nicely structured, there's something unfortunate about one half of the subject being covered with specifics and the other half, arguably just as important, being whitewashed almost entirely in generalities.Nonetheless, I Am Chris Farley is a celebration at heart; a celebration of a life lost too soon and a comic actor that left as big of a footprint on the genre as he was himself. He was a personality film, the entertainment world, and comedy was sincerely lucky to have.Directed by: Brent Hodge and Derik Murray.
