Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

aka Conan O'Brien needs your attention. An unflattering, unfocused, unfunny doc about a vain road show.

I'm not really interested in late night talk shows, but I expected this to be a funny documentary. I didn't really laugh. Instead I was made uncomfortable by awkward fan interactions. Pretty disappointing, since I had heard some good things about it. Great, or even good documentaries can force the audience to become fascinated with the most mundane nonsense. There's none of that here in this film. A fascination with O'Brien is a prerequisite, here. This film is for die-hard fans only.

This can only really be recommended for die-hard Coco fans and those who have no idea what his tour was like. All attempts to be anything more than a tour document (i.e. the few interviews with Conan) never come to a head, not even an unsatisfactory one - they're just cut strings. A few light laughs and a look at backstage Conan is all this has to offer. That doesn't make it bad, it just doesn't make it noteworthy either.

An intimate look at celebrity through a man who seems to rely on human attention and affection in order to survive. His devotion to performance is exhausting. At times he's compelled to reach out to fans even when he's been run ragged. The scenes after performances are the most telling: we see Conan frustrated by endless photo & autographs requests, yet he never loses his cool in front of fans. He can be a jerk to his staff, but only in the moments where he is free to drop the performance act.

While I do feel for Conan having to put up with all of the stupid fanboy BS nonstop all day when he's on the tour, he brings a lot of it on himself. When he's actually backstage or writing with him team (or interacting with his assistant), he's kind of an unfunny jerk. It's cool that he was willing to do something like this and open himself up, but the documentary just isn't *that* interesting, and it made me like Conan O'Brien just a little bit less.

Conan O'Brian seems like a bit of a dick at times, like my worst Industry bosses ('I'm not validating anything you say unless you talk into my fucking bananaphone!'). But, he has to deal with crazy fans, Margaret Cho, and his own ridiculously high expectations of his showmanship. The candid, quieter moments really sell this movie and make it a fascinating look into modern celebrity culture.

It kinda made me remember how mediocre most of Conan's stuff is. It's a decent documentary though and has its moments.

Favorite late night host.

Conan O'Brien is amazing. There's not much to say about this docu other than it's hilarious from start to end. The amount of energy and enthusiasm Conan shows even after going for days and days is amazing and shows how much he loves performing and making people laugh. If you enjoy Conan at all this is the thing to watch.

Would be fine if you didn't follow his saga at all from his firing on. To his fans this is a weird space that fan service is just showing us what we already knew.

I like Conan a lot, so it was an interesting look at him and his comedy tour. There were some funny parts, some more candid moments. All in all, a very good documentary for fans of Conan. I can't see people who don't like him being that interested in this, to be honest, because it's not like he's this larger than life superstar. He's famous, no doubt, but he's no Justin Bieber -swoon-.

Conan brings it all on himself, but the documentary does a good job of diving deep on how his mind works. Even when he has nothing left to give, he keeps going... and going. And he wouldn't have it any other way.

Conan O'Brien should probably stop while he's ahead

One of Dont Look Back's myriad progeny made by a filmmaker without a fifth of Pennebaker's talent. It's funny that Conan is endlessly entertaining in just about any other context, but the cinema verite realism here doesn't mesh with his surreal, dadaist humor. Conan needs to be boxed in by some of kind of structure for his comedy to feel subversive in the way that it must. It's one thing to have him acting like a maniac while giving a speech at Google or UCSD, quite another here.

If you're on Team Coco, then this is a revealing look backstage. It's not really a concert film, so if you want to enjoy his road show you might be disappointed.

This is simply a great doc. It really does function as an honest look at the sorts of pressures people can put on themselves. More than any film I've seen about performing arts this captures the exhausted elation of long tours.

A very honest look at Conan. Interesting stuff.

Good documentary, tells me a lot about the recent scandal. But it is still a documentary.

Coco is a dick.

This is how I like my documentaries about entertainers. It gives a surprisingly candid impression of how exhausting and exhilirating it must be to be Conan (not the barbarian). He's driven, probably too much, and that makes him kind of a dick at times. I can't believe I geeked out at seeing John Hamm and Nick Offerman drop by. What am I, a 14-year old girl? (Mental note; check to see if I'm not a 14-year old girl. It would explain too much.)

This is a simple document of a man's need to do his work. Conan entertains. That's who he is, for better or worse. For me, the film is most fascinating in this light, following Conan through this strange, cyclical milieu, alternating between adoring fans, invasive fans, and no fans. Conan admirably lets his guard down, sometimes crossing the line as all jokesters are wont to do, but always driving that goofy sense of humor through any situation.

I miss the point in stand up comedy, but the real life part deserves a chance.

Really great doc, and an insightful glimpse of a complicated dancing monkey of a man.

Very self-absorbed and not much about the feud with NBC or Leno. Guess it depends on how much you like Conan...

Conan O'Brien is very aware of his needy & people pleasing nature. That's what this film is about. It's not about the Tonight Show debacle. It's about an entertainer who is desperate to create any outlet for himself to perform. It's a road trip movie that invites O'Brien's fans to hang out with him on a cross-country journey. There are some things fans might be disappointed by (some say that Conan can tease people a little too harshly), but he's also the genuinely sharp & silly person seen on TV

O'Brien is kind of an asshole?

And I actually like Conan...

Not much to see in terms of production, but the content is pretty fascinating. It could almost be seen as a companion piece to I'm Still Here; together they show that regardless of whether the public adulates or despises a public figure, they're still the same object to shoot with their stupid camera phones. It's incredible how out of touch some of these people are with the reality of the human being in front of them, and even more so how accommodating O'Brien is to them. What a guy.

"Comes off as a vanity project aimed at giving O'Brien another platform to express his frustration and fury over the NBC fracas." - Nick Schager

Interesting documentary about the guy who gets screwed out of his job... like him a lot more then Leno...

While I've always felt that Conan's prepared material is mediocre, this documentary shows how completely hilarious the guy is away from the stuff you usually see on his show. Conan was also very caring about his fans, and even after being completely exhausted midway through the tour, he still put forth the energy and commitment for those that stood with him through the battle with the extra unfunny Jay and NBC. ..."Did you know I opened for Damien Marley and NAS?"

More along the lines of a fan film than a documentary.

Yeah, it's good because it doesn't pretty Conan up. I think the best scene may be the one with Jack McBrayer, an incredibly uncomfortable moment. I do have to wonder why they put so much emphasis on the musical side of the tour.

i know his on the road show was very difficult but this missed the idea of what a documentary is about, it only portrayed conan as a whiny douche and he's far from that. I wanted him to go off the chain about what NBC did to him really get it all out, but i guess he fueled that energy and did something great for himself to keep him in the spotlight.

Meh.

O'Brien without a producers collar. Cannot stop. There wasn't a raw feeling of exposure though. Conan is too aware of a camera, that or the editing was constrained by agenda, angle or sympathy.

The doc featured a very candid Conan and was effective in portraying him as an overworked perfectionist during his tour, with many scenes of him trying to unwind after his performances (with varying degrees of success). But as a documentary, it could've been better -- the actual show footage was relatively sparse with the majority being from his musical acts; and the movie would have benefited from presenting more voices from his team, at the very least that of Andy Richter.

As a big Conan O'Brien fan I enjoyed this. It's genuinely funny while being full of behind the scenes and very candid moments. It's worth a watch from anyone who has any interest in O'Brien as an entertainer. However, I'd suggest you watch it as soon as possible as the longer people wait to see it the less impact it will have. It will still be funny, but the emotions of the Late Night cock-up will definitely dissipate after a few years and the movie will suffer for it.