Failed Oscar Campaigns: "Walk Hard:: The Dewey Cox Story" (2007)

Scene from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

As awards seasons pick up, so do the campaigns to make your film have the best chances at the Best Picture race. However, like a drunken stupor, sometimes these efforts come off as trying too hard and leave behind a trailer of ridiculous flamboyance. Join me on every other Saturday for a highlight of the failed campaigns that make this season as much about prestige as it does about train wrecks. Come for the Harvey Weinstein comments and stay for the history. It's going to be a fun time as I explore cinema's rich history of attempting to matter.

The Movie

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2017)

Directed By: Jake Kasdan

Written By: Judd Apatow, Jake Kasdan

Starring: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, David Krumholtz

Genre: Comedy, Music
Running Time: 96 minutes

Summary: Singer Dewey Cox overcomes adversity to become a musical legend.

The Movie

Tomorrow night is Oscar Sunday, and few films look to be as much of a shoe-in for one or two trophies quite like Bohemian Rhapsody. The Queen biopic has had one of the more notorious track records of the season with many skewering its editing, acting, and general treatment of bisexuality and AIDS. Considering that Queen is set to play the ceremony with Adam Lambert and not the Oscar-nominated actor who played their lead singer, one has to wonder what makes the film so special. On the flip side, the film has gotten unanimous comparisons to another biopic of sorts. It isn't one of the many "masterpieces" of the 21st century like Walk the Line or Ray. No, it's been consistently compared to the satire from director Jake Kasdan called Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

The title alone has two phallic puns, which makes it even more surprising that it made it past the censors. Then again, the marketing for the film featured extensive use of Dewey Cox's last name (in one case selling Cox Sausages where he says "It isn't Cox unless I say it tastes like Cox"). That was the kind of humor it aspired to have, and did so for 96 minutes as it roped in every biopic trope and a journey through popular music of the late 20th century. There's The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and even Jack White in a rare acting role as Elvis Presley. The film was far from subtle about its attacks, even featuring a soundtrack that is a daunting achievement in producing that is both comical and maybe serious. The fact that "Let's Duet," a song where every line has some sexual innuendo, sounds like a real song sung by an artist no longer self-aware proves the masterful craft that went into the execution of the film.

It helped that at the center was a never more committed John C. Reilly managing to sing and play guitar (one step higher than Bohemian Rhapsody). He brought a comic soul to the project and made it one of the most curious box office flops of 2007. With two Golden Globe nominations, it wasn't entirely shut out of the awards race, though it likely never stood a chance in a time where the predominantly old and white male voters weren't keen to awarding films with a sense of humor, attacking everything that they've awarded in the three or four years before that. While the film had mixed reviews at the time, it's been assessed as a classic, some even it calling it an example of why the movie biopic deserves to die. Walk Hard did everything that the serious films did but better. There's no denying that as Bohemian Rhapsody takes to the Oscars stage tomorrow, more than one person will be making jokes about the Kasdan comedy that defied failure and became something greater in the pop culture lexicon.

- The Campaign -

The year 2007 was a monumental one for Judd Apatow. While he had directed films before (notably The 40-Year-Old Virgin), it was the first time that he felt like more of a dominant force in pop culture. Entertainment Weekly would call him the smartest man in comedy, and his approach to comedy would become the norm in the years to follow, leading to box office dominance by the likes of Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, and Jonah Hill - all in roles that relied on improvisation that would be seen as lengthy bonus features on DVD's. He was the hit comedy producer who defined a modern style of comedy, and in 2007 he released a film as a director (Knocked Up) and producer (Superbad), which were considered crucial to reinvigorating the R-Rated comedy. With so much weight behind two successes, his third film (this time as writer) seemed like a sure bet. Walk Hard was a satire of the music industry with a wholly original soundtrack. What wasn't to love about the film?

The marketing in a lot of ways embodied what had become the norm for Apatow's work in 2007. There were two sets of trailers released: the family friendly green band and the raunchier red band. With YouTube in its early stages, the chance to promote dirty trailers online was crucial to the campaign. What was even more impressive was that in a time where trailers could be conventional, relying on footage used solely in the film, Walk Hard was one of the films that embraced cut scenes, or moments that worked more as mythologizing Dewey Cox as a real entity. In one such moment, he is seen selling Cox Sausages: a moment that's not in the film even remotely. The jaded nature of these scenes felt more like archival footage and likely confused general audiences. Where Knocked Up had the universal theme of pregnancy and Superbad was selling itself as a modern Fast Times at Ridgmont High, Walk Hard felt like a gamble in large part because the idea of satirizing musicians was overdone. Hadn't anyone seen This is Spinal Tap and learned their lesson? With exception to maybe CB4 and The Rutles, the answer was a resounding yes.

In the quest for serious awards contention, the film also released one of the greatest For Your Consideration posters. Much like other forms of the marketing lampooning actual artwork by real life bands, the poster was a reference to Bob Dylan pushing up glasses. The only difference was that he maybe didn't use a certain finger:

From there, the marketing lampooned other bands and ideas. There were articles in Rolling Stone Magazine where director Jake Kasdan and Apatow would talk about how they came up with the idea for the songs and what was the right amount of saw noise for the comical halving of Cox's brother. The music had a dual impact overall, as it was read one way as entirely farcical but also played so sincerely by Reilly and crew that it managed to tow the line. There were tracks that parodied Brian Wilson's "Smile" session, Bob Dylan's nonsensical protest music, and even the slightly dated rock n'roll of Jerry Lee Lewis. It was a film shameless and self-aware of its parodies to the point of featuring a Yellow Submarine-style animated segment in the film that's sold both as a drug trip and an emotional breakthrough for Cox. The film was far more dense than it had any right to be.

There was also the reality that because Reilly played his own guitar and sang that he had more advantages to explore himself as a performer. For a limited time, the tour Cox Across America played at small venues with Reilly in character. 

The film felt like its own ecosystem at a certain point. From "archival footage" to a live tour, Dewey Cox existed in the real world for a hot minute. The soundtrack was critically praised for how well it embodied the different genres it was lampooning. There was even a now mythical collection of more music called "A Box of Cox," which nowadays feels like it exists solely as audio samples on MySpace. Those who loved music biopic satire were spoiled throughout the end of 2007, and the film was still waiting to come out amid anticipation for Apatow's third film of the year and the potential home run for his status as comedy juggernaut.

With a budget of $35 million, the film was considered a box office bomb when it opened on December 21. With mixed reviews, it was considered the one failure in Apatow's shining year. It would earn $20 million at the box office, guaranteeing a quick disappearance from theaters, especially during a crowded time of year that included Charlie Wilson's War and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (which both opened on the same day). While the film would gather two Golden Globe nominations, including for Reilly's acting, the film's box office bomb status made it hard to imagine it as a front runner for any category, even the more than plentiful Best Original Song category, which failed to have anything as nuanced as "Let Me Hold You (Little Man)" that reflects on just how benign it is for any performer to sing music targeted at a disadvantaged group without understanding what they truly want.

It wasn't that much of a blow to Apatow's rise as a premiere comedy producer. If anything, the surprise nominations for Juno (featuring Superbad's Michael Cera) proved that he had an eye for up and coming talent. However, the film that clearly took the most effort even among endless improvisation was the film that failed to resonate with anyone. Walk Hard sneaked in a nomination here and there, but it looked doubtful that the Oscars would recognize a role from a former Oscar-nominee that was a pitch perfect satire that never let up its ridiculousness while also tearing apart an entire genre of film making that was reaching peak pretentiousness. It was a film that felt more omnipresent than just about anything else, yet it disappeared the quickest... or did it?

- The Payoff -

It did.

It was a crowded year full of masterpieces like There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. It was hard to argue that in a dark period that laughter was necessary. Still, Reilly's lack of attention made many believe that he was snubbed. What hurt more was that Best Original Song overlooked the entire collection of songs in favor of music from: Once, August Rush, and Enchanted. It's not a terrible group, but not a terribly exciting one either. There was room for something as strange as Walk Hard to sneak in there. Then again, as it has for decades upon decades now, the astigmatism that box office flops are inherently bad movies not worthy of attention is something that lingered over the film well into the end of awards season.

Technically one could argue that it wasn't that much of a flop, earning more of a profit on home video. The DVD's were packed with bonus features and improvisational scenes that only played up the juvenile humor. There was even a segment related to one of the film's more infamous scenes. In a moment depicting an orgy, a man naked below the waist enters frame for comical effect. On the DVD, the same man's lower body is interviewed in just the way you think it wold. The film took commitment to ridiculous heights and in the process created a satire that would come to resonate with classic rock and comedy fans alike. It would take awhile before it became as appreciated by society as Apatow's other work, including the following year's Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Pineapple Express. For years it was considered the black sheep of his career, but now it has taken on a deeper connotation. 

Nowadays Walk Hard is seen as a film that killed the music biopic. It isn't because it was bad, but because it skewered everything so perfectly that to do it seriously would draw comparisons to the better and comic interpretation. Bohemian Rhapsody, more than any other film in the past 11 years, has garnered that comparison early and often thanks to its largely inferior production and mistreatment of Freddie Mercury as a three dimensional human. Many have called it Walk Hard without jokes. Those who can deconstruct the tropes of music biopics down to a science even note how poorly yet familiarly Bohemian Rhapsody uses them. After Walk Hard, many posited that the genre needed a face lift. With very few exceptions, it hasn't really happened, making the satire more prophetic than it had any right to be.

It felt right to end this year's Failed Oscar Campaigns season on Walk Hard in large part because it felt extremely relevant to this season. While last year was more politically charged, it felt like this year's crop of movies was about exploring themes and execution of film in ways that were nothing if not odd. Bohemian Rhapsody is likely to remain one of those strange marks on Academy Award history going forward, but for now it feels right to explore its thematic connections to satire. I have enjoyed this season so much that I had to do these two extra columns, if just because this season has had a lot of great future fodder for this column. I can't wait to see you all next year. Until then, I hope you enjoy the ceremony and I'll see you soon with recap coverage.