I Am Chris Farley

I Am Chris Farley is a feature length documentary on the comedian and movie star. Here’s a trailer:

The film is out in theaters on July 31 and will be available as a digital download in August. (via buzzfeed)

Update: I caught I Am Chris Farley the other day on Spike TV and it was great. Worth seeking out. (FYI, it’s on Amazon Instant.) Ian Crouch has a review of the movie for the New Yorker.

A new documentary, “I Am Chris Farley,” which d’ebuts Monday night on Spike TV, frames the sketch as an unqualified triumph, the moment when Farley became a national star. But in the book “The Chris Farley Show,” a rich and illuminating oral history compiled, in 2008, by Tanner Colby and Farley’s older brother, Tom, it is the source of controversy among those who were there. Jim Downey, who wrote the sketch, insisted that Farley’s dancing ability elevated it, so that the audience was celebrating his audacious performance rather than merely mocking his appearance. People were laughing with Farley, not at him-that distinction being one of the essential tensions of Farley’s career. Bob Odenkirk, though, who was a writer on the show, recalled the entire thing as “weak bullshit,” and said that Farley “never should have done it.” Chris Rock, a cast member at the time, viewed it as a dangerous turning point for Farley. “That was a weird moment in Chris’s life,” he said. “As funny as that sketch was, and as many accolades as he got for it, it’s one of the things that killed him. It really is. Something happened right then.”

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