It is only appropriate that a mega-artist whose career is based on parodies would make a biopic that is, well, a parody. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a new comedy film starring Daniel Radcliffe as one of “the greatest musicians and sex symbols of our time,” theoretically about Weird Al Yankovic, and premieres on the Roku Channel on Friday, November 4. Inspired by the biopics of many music legends, which chronicle lives of struggle, family estrangement, sex, and drugs, the film plays into these tropes (most of which are not true about Yankovic’s career). At the same time, it hits on a few key elements that are true, including his start with the accordion at a young age, discovery by Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson), and the desire of Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) for him to cover one of her songs. The ridiculous and over-the-top film seems just about right for Yankovic’s life story, and he himself produced the film along with Eric Appel, who had made a faux trailer for a film of this nature a few years previously for Funny or Die. The final full-length feature is just the right amount of silly and yet oddly sweet, and carries a very respectable 93% approval rating on Rotton Tomatoes. Read on for how to watch Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.
Where You Can Watch Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story will be available exclusively on the Roku Channel streaming service. Roku Channel is a free, ad-supported streaming channel that offers TV, movies, and news to anyone with a Roku account. All you need to do is sign up with an email address. After free registration, you can watch The Roku Channel on almost any device. A wide selection of on-demand and live content is available at no extra cost.
Free movies and TV shows on The Roku Channel are ad-supported. However, expect about half the ads view experience on traditional cable TV. Given that an hour of TV on most networks comes with roughly 16 minutes of commercials expect around 8 minutes of commercials per hour when watching free content on the Roku Channel.
The Roku Channel is a free service available via apps for iOs, Android, and Roku devices; Amazon Fire and Samsung Smart TV. For more information on this streaming service, check out our review of Roku Channel.
