Weird: The Al Yankovic Story | 2022 | TV-14 | – 4.6.4

Why is “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” rated TV-14? The TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board rating indicates that “this program contains some material that many parents would find unsuitable for children under 14 years of age.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few kissing scenes, an implied sex scene, sexual references, a head-on collision with a drunk driver without a fatality, several shootings with blood spurting, discussions of a factory death and a man losing his hand in a factory accident, many arguments, discussion of drug cartels, and some strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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Fake biopic depicting Weird Al Yankovic’s (Daniel Radcliffe) story as a struggle against a violent and dismissive father (Toby Huss) leading to fame and riches, gun battles with drug traffickers, struggles with arrogance and eventual redemption, and an ill-fated affair with a sociopathic Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood). Also with Richard Aaron Anderson, Rainn Wilson, Julianne Nicholson, Jack Lancaster, Spencer Treat Clark, Tommy O’Brian and the voice of Diedrich Bader. Directed by Eric Appel. A few lines of dialogue are spoken in Spanish with English subtitles. [Running Time: 1:48]

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story SEX/NUDITY 4

 – A woman tries to seduce a man, they kiss passionately, and they bump into walls and knock fragile items onto the floor breaking them; we then see them both lying in bed smoking cigarettes (sex is implied) and we see the man’s bare shoulders and chest. A woman kisses a man’s cheek, licks his ear and puts her hand in his shirt while he talks to another man; they kiss passionately and moan and he ends up with her gum in his mouth.
► A woman talks about a song she sings titled, “Like a Virgin,” and when a man asks her if she is a virgin, she says, “Technically, but I’ve had a lot of sex.”
► Teens dance at a polka party. Two men on stage wear bra tops with large pointed cups and tights while dancing around a singer and they thrust their hips toward him at one point.
► A man opens his shirt and we see his bare chest and abdomen. A man sits in a large bathtub and we see his bare shoulders with the rest of his body covered by bubbles. A man wears boxers and his shirt is open to reveal his bare chest, abdomen and legs to the upper thighs. A woman wears a crop top that reveals her bare abdomen and lower back.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story VIOLENCE/GORE 6

 – A man throws a CD at another man and it sticks in his head (we see blood and the disc sticking out of the top of his head); the man pulls the disc out of the dead man’s head and we hear squishing. A man shoots at several men and blood spurts when they are struck. A man shoots another man and he is thrown back. A woman shoots at a man and yells at him (he is not struck). A man with a gun threatens another man that kicks him and the gun shoots the ceiling, and the man fights with several other men kicking and punching them; one man swings a knife at him, another hits him with a frying pan and he pushes a man’s head onto a hot sandwich press (the man yells). A man in an audience stands up and shoots a man on stage and we read, “He was assassinated in 1985.” A man hallucinates being in a hellish landscape after unknowingly trying LSD; he sees another man’s forehead with an eye in it, he imagines being tied into a chair on a conveyor belt that moves toward a shredder machine, he breaks out of a giant eggshell and yells as his face melts off his skull (we see blood and tissue).
► A man yells at another man for bringing an accordion into his house, he hits the man with a chair, punches him, and then beats him until his face is bloody; he continues by kicking him while he is on the floor (the man spits blood and we see blood on his face and mouth) and he tells a woman, “I think I have a collapsed lung.” Two men punch each other outside a bar.
► A man drives drunk and tries to light a cigarette as the car swerves into an oncoming truck (we hear the collision and see him in the emergency room later). A man on a stretcher with blood on his head and face is wheeled into an emergency room, shocked with paddles and pronounced dead; he then sits up abruptly and grabs the doctor by the shirt (we see this scene a couple of times).
► People in a bar throw bottles at a stage after a performance and a stage manager tells the next act, “Most of the blood is cleaned off the stage.” A man pushes a button on a machine in a factory and we hear another man screaming as he is pulled on a conveyor belt toward a machine (we don’t see what happens to the man). A man tasers another man on the neck. A woman places a flower on a man’s grave, a hand reaches up through the soil to grab her arm, and she screams. A man smokes a cigarette in an office and when he is told that he cannot smoke, he puts the cigarette out in another man’s hand (the man screams). A man is slammed to the stage by two police officers that tackle him, as he tells an audience that he is going to do something that sounds lewd. Two men put a bag over a woman’s head and take her away; we see her gagged and tied into a chair later. Two men with guns walk through a jungle and shoot at noises; one man is shot and the other man’s neck is snapped.
► Two young men slap each other in the face hard and another throws dishes, breaking them. A man with a gun stands on a table and threatens another man. A man slams an accordion on the floor breaking it as his son watches in terror and pleads with him. A man in a rage slams a telephone against a counter repeatedly at a restaurant and then slams a plate of food out of a server’s hand. Police officers bring a teen boy home and tell the boy’s mother that he was at a polka party. We see a drawing of a boy being locked in stocks.
► A man tells a young man, “You make me want to throw up,” and makes gagging noises. A customer at a bar threatens a bartender if he can’t give them what they are asking for. A woman tells her adult son that his father is “Definitely not proud of you,” and, “He never wanted to have kids.” Three men tell another man that he is a mess and needs to pull himself together to be able to perform. A man goes onstage and the audience boos him as he rebukes them and calls them names; he asks, “Do you like getting pushed around?” A teen boy panics when he goes to a party and realizes that it is a polka party; other teens laugh at him. A teen boy tells other teens on a bus that his mother tucks him in at night to avoid night terrors and they mock him. A young man says that he drove down the wrong side of a road and imagined dying in a fiery crash. A boy is shown being bullied and we hear that he was banished and ex-communicated from his Amish community. A man talks about a fatality at the factory where he works; we see that the man has lost one of his hands and understand that it was in a factory accident with a shredder. A man mocks his son and calls him names when he talks about wanting to be a singer. A boy listens to a radio program and his mother reprimands him saying, “It’s going to rot your brain.” A boy asks his mother, “Does dad hate me?” A man tells another man, “You must die in order to be reborn.”
► A man onstage steps out from behind a podium and we see a spot of urine staining his trouser front. A woman questions her adult son about his bowel movements. A woman wears an eye patch over one eye and has a deep scar on her cheek.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story LANGUAGE 4

 – 1 sexual reference, 3 scatological terms, 1 anatomical term, 2 mild obscenities, name-calling (garbage, songbird, evil, devilish monstrosity, dude, kid, idiot, untalented, gross, abusive jerk, worm food, nightmare, vicious, slaves, morons, you’re a mess, sick freak, pathetic loser, crazy, weird, pathetic hack, ugly, parasite, I’m a train wreck, ungainly, too niche, perverts, baby, selfish, succubus, sad fate, miserable, fat, pleasingly plump, complicated, stupid), exclamations (geez, hogwash, in your face, I told you, get out, good riddance, whoa, stop that, shut-up, how dare you, use your head, blew my mind, ugh, gosh, whoa), 6 religious exclamations (e.g. oh God, what in God’s name, my God, God or the Devil, God only knows). | profanity glossary |

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story SUBSTANCE USE

 – A young man talks about getting high all day, a man tastes some guacamole before being told that it has LSD in it, and we see piles of packaged drugs in a warehouse. A woman drinks a glass of wine at a restaurant, a woman pours whiskey from a bottle into a man’s mouth, and a man drinks from a whiskey bottle in a couple of scenes and appears drunk. A man smokes a cigarette in an office and when he is told that he cannot smoke in the office he puts the cigarette out in another man’s hand (the man screams), and a man attempts to light a cigarette while driving drunk in a car and we hear an accident as the screen goes black.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Weird Al Yankovic, Madonna, parody, the music industry, fame, parental pride or disapproval, the Illuminati, drunk driving, Richard Nixon, artists, visionaries, destiny, Pablo Escobar, drug cartels.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story MESSAGE

 – Be as weird as you want to be and it just might make you famous.