Imagine being in the same room as Michael O'Donoghue.In recent years, I've been down to watch more movies featuring a group of talented actors playing real people, even if most of them have up to five lines of dialogue. I find it appealing, particularly how they bring all these people together and have them play off each other. Recently, 'Nouvelle Vague' did this well with the French New Wave (duh), 'Saturday Night' with SNL (also duh), and 'A Futile and Stupid Gesture' with National Lampoon.
What I find most interesting about ADASG is that they don't really give a shit about accuracy. In 'Saturday Night" & "Nouvelle Vague", they make those portrayals believable, but here they throw their hands in the air, breaking the fourth wall while they're at it. While most movies that break the fourth wall as blatantly as most of them miss (hard), it works here, considering how National Lampoon broke the standards of comedy and its presentation. I don't love National Lampoon, but I definitely appreciate it, particularly as a stand for publishing whatever you wanted while commenting on the U.S culture; I still don't care much for 'Animal House', though :P.
Will Forte delivers a solid performance here, as does the rest of the cast, even if their parts are short, but Domhall Gleeson delivered my favorite performance in this movie. The writing was solid, with some good gags and well-thought-out scenarios. The editing here helped with the pacing while delivering some hilarious comedic timing. I was surprised by how well directed this was, too. I do feel that parts of it could feel too sentimental, which kind of defeated the purpose of National Lampoon, despite how they kept a bunch of other quirks of the magazine. It is a by-the-books biopic, but it works fairly well as a love letter to an undoubtedly influential piece of pop culture.
