Film Review: Old Boyfriends (dir by Joan Tewkesbury)

Posted on January 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1979’s Old Boyfriends, Talia Shire plays Dianne Cruise.

A sociology professor (or so she claims at one point), Dianne is struggling with an unhappy marriage and trying to recover from a recent breakdown. After deliberately crashing her car, she leaves her husband and goes on a trip across the country. She sets out to track down three ex-boyfriends.

Jeff Turrin (Richard Jordan) was her college boyfriend, the one who asked her to marry him three times. Jeff is now working as a director. When we first see him, he’s shooting a commercial for a political campaign in which Sam the Fisherman (Gerrit Graham) complains that the current governor of Colorado is a “long-hair” who gets in the way of small businessmen like himself. Dianne shows up on the set. Sam hits on her. Interestingly, it takes Jeff a while before he recognizes her. (Jeff comments that Dianne used to have longer hair but still, it seems like Jeff should be able to recognize someone to whom he proposed marriage three times.)

After having an affair with Jeff, who is in the process of getting a divorce, Dianne tracks down Eric Katz (John Belushi), the aspiring musician who humiliated her in middle school by telling everyone that she was “easy.” Eric owns a formal wear store and he still performs with his band. (Belushi sings the Hell out of Jailhouse Rock at one point.) He mostly performs at proms. As he explains it to Dianne, most of his customers are teenagers looking for prom outfits so it only makes sense that he should perform for them as well as dress them.

Dianne’s third old boyfriend is Louis Van Til but, when Dianne arrives at his home, she is told that Louis died in Vietnam. Under the watchful eye of his mother (Bethel Leslie) and his psychiatrist (John Houseman), she starts an obviously doomed relationship with Louis’s sensitive younger brother, Wayne (Keith Carradine).

While Dianne travels around the country, Jeff continues to look for her. He even hires a private detective named Art Kopple (Buck Henry).

Old Boyfriends is a film that I had been meaning to watch for a while. (I first read about it in a biography of John Belushi.) A lot of talent went into making the film. The script is by Paul and Leonard Schrader. Director Joan Tewkesbury wrote the script for Robert Altman’s Nashville and indeed, there is an Altmanesque feel to the loose way that the film’s story unfolds. The cast is full of talented people. This was John Belushi’s first film after Animal House and Talia Shire’s first after Rocky. With all that talent, you would think that the end result would be more interesting than it actually is. The story is intriguing. The cast is impressive. But Old Boyfriends falls flat.

Why doesn’t the film work? A lot of it is due to Tewkesbury’s direction. She struggles with the film’s frequent shifts in tone and she always seems to be keeping a certain distance from the characters. Talia Shire is in nearly every scene but the film seems to be determined to just observe her as opposed to actually allowing the viewer to get into her head. Shire herself never seem to be particularly comfortable with the role and, as a result, none of her visits with her old boyfriends carry much of an emotional impact. (Unfortunately, they don’t carry much of an intellectual impact either.) Jordan, Belushi, and Carradine all give good performances but the film itself doesn’t seem to be sure what it wants to say about any of them.

It’s a disappointing film. It’s not awful but, while watching it, it’s hard not to think about how much better it could have been. One gets the feeling that Robert Altman, with his eye for quirky detail and his skill with improvisation, could have gotten something worthwhile out of the material. As it is, Old Boyfriends is an intriguing idea that doesn’t quite work.

Icarus File #25: 1941 (dir by Steven Spielberg)

Posted on January 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the year 1979, a young Steven Spielberg attempted to conquer comedy in the same way that he previously conquered horror with Jaws and science fiction with Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Working from a script written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, Spielberg made a film about the days immediately following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The name of the film was 1941 and it remains Steven Spielberg’s only attempt to direct a full-out comedy. There’s a reason for that.

The film follows a large group of characters over the course of one day and night in 1941. It’s been six days since Pearl Harbor was attacked and the streets of Los Angeles are full of young men who are preparing to ship out and older man who are paranoid about when the next attack is going to come. However, Major General Joseph Stilwell (Robert Stack) just wants to see Dumbo at the local theater. Meanwhile, his womanizing aide (Tim Matheson, giving the same performance here that he did in National Lampoon’s Animal House) just wants to get Stillwell’s aviation-lusting secretary (Nancy Allen) into an airplane.

Elsewhere, Ward Douglas (Ned Beatty) is happy to allow Sgt. Tree (Dan Aykroyd) and his men (including John Candy) to set up on an anti-aircraft gun in his front yard. Ward’s daughter, Betty (Dianne Kay), is only concerned about entering a dance contest with her friend, Maxine (Wendie Jo Sperber). Cpl. Sitarski (Treat Williams) and dishwasher Wally Stephens (Bobby D iCicco) both hope to be Betty’s partner and their rivalry leads to a massive (and seemingly never-ending) brawl.

While Ward deals with the gun in his front yard, another concerned citizen — Claude Crumm (Murray Hamilton) — keeps watch from atop of Ferris wheel, along with amateur ventriloquist Herbie Kazlminsky (Eddie Deezen).

But that’s not all! Susan Backilinie recreates her role from a previous Spielberg film, skinny dipping while the Jaws theme plays in the background and running straight into a submarine that is commanded by Commander Akiro Mitamura (Toshiro Mifune, trying to maintain his dignity). Mifune decides to attack Hollywood but no one on the submarine is sure where that is. Christopher Lee appears as an arrogant German who is along for the ride. Slim Pickens shows up as a lumberjack who is temporarily captured by the Japanese. John Belushi plays Wild Bill Kelso, who flies his airplane through Los Angeles. Warren Oates yells and laughs. Dick Miller, Elijah Cook Jr. and Lionel Stander show up in small roles.

“Since when is Steven funny?” According to Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, this was the reaction that most of Spielberg’s friends had when he announced that his next film would be a screwball comedy set during World War II. Watching the film, one gets their point. The majority of the film’s humor comes from people looking at the camera and screaming. There’s a lot physical comedy, which would undoubtedly work in small amounts but which grows rather tiring when it’s dragged out to the extent that Spielberg’s drags it out. (A brawl at a USO show seems like it should be funny but Spielberg allows it to go on for too long and the careful choreography takes away any element of spontaneity.) The film attempts to duplicate the style of Animal House (and it’s probably not a coincidence that Matheson, Belushi, and director John Landis all have roles in the film) but Spielberg often seems as if he’s trying too hard. There’s nothing subversive about the humor. It’s more antic than funny.

A huge problem is that there really isn’t much of a story here. Spielberg, who is normally one of Hollywood’s best storytellers, attempts to do a loose, Altman-style ensemble film and the result is that none of the characters feel alive and there’s never any sense of narrative momentum. There are a few performers who manage to make an impression amongst all the explosions and the yelling. John Belushi has the advantage of not having to share the majority of his scenes with anyone else. Warren Oates’s manic energy is more than welcome. Wendie Jo Sperber deserved more screentime. Murray Hamilton and Eddie Deezen frequently made me laugh. There’s a wonderful moment where Robert Stack’s intense general cries while watching Dumbo. But, for the most part, the film never comes together.

That said, 1941 is definitely a Steven Spielberg film. It received three Academy Award nominations, for Cinematography, Sound, and Visual Effects. (All three of those categories, not surprisingly, are more associated with spectacle than with comedy.) The film looks great! Spielberg’s attention to detail is there in the production design and the costumes. Watching 1941, you can see Spielberg’s talent while also seeing why he never directed another comedy.

Previous Icarus Files:

Musical Film Review: National Lampoon’s Lemmings (directed by Michael Keady)

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Welcome to the Woodchuck Music Festival, three days of peace, love, and death.”

Your emcee is a bearded John Belushi and, in between warning the audience about spiked drugs and encouraging the people climbing the sound tower to jump off from the high spot possible, he introduces several musical acts. Christopher Guest appears as Bob Dylan, repeatedly walking to and then retreating from the stage until Belushi produces enough money to convince him to perform a song called Positively Wall Street. Introduced as the ultimate “bummer” by Belushi, Joan Baez (Rhonda Coullet) comes out on stage with a baby and rambles about her imprisoned husband David (whose hunger strike was so successful that he and the inmates of Cell Block 11 have all starved to death) before singing a protest song with a title that I can’t repeat. Joe Cocker (Belushi) sings while shaking on stage. James Taylor (Christopher Guest) attempts to perform but his band (including Belushi and Chevy Chase) are too zoned out on heroin to play their instruments. The owner of Yasser’s Farm (played by Christopher Guest) comes out to praise everyone in the audience who has already died. Finally, a heavy metal group called Megadeath (no, not that Megadeth!) come out on stage and turn up their amplifiers so loud that the entire audience dies at the end of their song.

An Off-Broadway production that premiered in 1973 and ran for over 300 performance, National Lampoon’s Lemmings has achieved legendary status amongst comedy nerds. It’s rare that you read any history of Saturday Night Live, Second City, or This Is Spinal Tap without coming across a reference to Lemmings. Along with satirizing Woodstock and the 60s counterculture in a way that probably few would have the guts to do today, the production features Belushi, Chase, and Guest before any of them became (however briefly) stars. Fortunately, HBO — which started broadcasting a year before the premiere of Lemmings — filmed one of the stage shows.

Viewed today, Lemmings still carries a strong satiric bite. Though Lemmings was clearly a 70s production, much of its humor still feels relevant today. The vapid political posturing, the greed disguised as altruism, the audience blindly following their idols, there was little in Lemmings that one can’t see today just by spending a few minutes on social media. Beyond the humor, though, Lemmings is a chance to see Belushi, Chase, and Guest as youngish men who had their entire lives ahead of them. Chase is surprisingly likable, playing up his goofy physical comedy. Guest disappears into each role that he plays, with his impersonation of Dylan being the clear highlight. That said, Belushi is the clear star of the show, delivering the most absurd of lines with an engaging sincerity. As I watched Lemmings, it was hard not to wonder what type of roles John Belushi would be playing today. Would he still be doing comedy? Would he have faded away? Or, like Bill Murray (or, for that matter, Jim Belushi), would he now be appearing in a mix of comedic and serious roles?

We’ll never know. But we’ll always have his performance as Joe Cocker.

Great Moments In Television History #39: The Wolverines

Posted on October 11, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

50 years ago tonight, the first episode of Saturday Night Live opened with Michael O’Donoghue giving a language lesson to John Belushi.

Previous Moments In Television History:

Neighbors (1981, directed by John G. Avildsen)

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Uptight suburbanite Earl Keese (John Belushi) is paranoid about his new neighbors, Vic (Dan Aykroyd) and Ramona (Cathy Moriarty). Ramona continually tries to seduce Earl (and everyone else) while Vic is loud and obnoxious, always telling off-color jokes and insinuating that Earl is less of a man than he is. Earl thinks that there’s something mentally wrong with Vic but Earl’s wife and daughter (played respectively by Kathryn Walker and Lauren-Marie Taylor) love both Vic and Ramona. Over the course of one very long night and morning, Earl grows more and more suspicious even as he starts to feel truly alive for the first time in several years.

Based on a novel by Thomas Berger, Neighbors is an unfortunate attempt at dark comedy that also turned out to be the final film appearance of John Belushi. It’s appropriate that Belushi’s final film featured him with his comedic partner and best friend, Dan Aykroyd, though I think most of their fans would rather remember them for The Blues Brothers than Neighbors. Originally, Aykroyd was cast as Earl while Belushi was meant to play Vic but the two actors decided to switch roles at the last minute. It takes a while to get used to seeing Belushi as an uptight character who worries about the neighbor’s dog digging up his flower garden but Belushi actually does give a good performance as Earl, revealing that he had more range as an actor that most suspected. Aykroyd and Moriarty also give good performances, though Aykroyd’s performance is not as much a departure as Belushi’s. Earl is an amiable eccentric with several out-there beliefs, which also sounds like a good description of Dan Aykroyd.

Why, despite the talented cast, does Neighbors fail? Director John G. Avildsen was the wrong choice to direct the film. From the first shot of Earl and Vic’s two houses sitting on a hill and looking like left-over sets from The Addams Family, Avildsen directs in a cartoonish manner that is not appropriate for a comedy-of-manners. The book’s humor comes from Earl becoming progressively more and more unstable but, in the movie, Earl seems to be unhinged from the start. Bill Conti’s musical score drives him every point with a thudding obviousness. Conti’s style was perfect for the soaring anthems of Rocky but not for a comedy like Neighbors.

Unfortunately, this would be Belushi’s final film. Neighbors was released in December of 1981. John Belushi died four months later.

Scenes That I Love: John Belushi’s Motivational Speech From Animal House

Posted on January 24, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today would have been the 76th birthday of actor John Belushi.

Today’s scene that I love comes from Belushi’s first film, 1978’s Animal House. In the scene, Belushi (playing Bluto) gives the greatest motivational speech of all time. My father was quite a fan of Mr. Belushi’s. I’d like to think that this speech was the reason why.

Goin’ South (1978, directed by Jack Nicholson)

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Jack Nicholson was not an overnight success.

Nicholson was 17 years old when he first came to Hollywood in 1954. Looking to become an actor, Nicholson toiled as an office worker at the MGM cartoon studio, took acting classes, and went to auditions. It would be four years before he even landed his first role, the lead in the Roger Corman-produced The Cry Baby Killer. When that film failed to become a hit, Nicholson spent the next ten years doing minor roles and occasionally starring in a B-picture. He auditioned for some big parts, like Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde, and Guy Woodhouse in Rosemary’s Baby, but his big break continued to allude him. By 1969, Nicholson was so disillusioned with acting that he was planning to instead pursue a career as a director. However, before Nicholson officially retired from the acting game, he received a call from the set of Easy Rider. Depending on who you ask, Rip Torn, who had previously been cast in the role of alcoholic George Hanson, had either quit or been fired. Bruce Dern, the first choice to replace Torn, was busy filming They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Nicholson agreed to step into the role and the rest is history.

Easy Rider may have made Jack Nicholson one of the world’s biggest film stars but he never lost his ambition to direct. In 1971, he made his directorial debut with Drive, He Said, a film about campus unrest. At the time, the film flopped at both the box office and with critics and quickly sunk into obscurity. (It has subsequently been rediscovered and, in some cases, positively reevaluated.) After the failure of Drive, He Said, it would be another seven years before Nicholson again got a chance to direct.

Nicholson’s second film as a director, Goin’ South, is a comedic western. Nicholson plays Henry Lloyd Moon, an unsuccessful outlaw who used to ride with Quantrill’s Raiders. When Moon is captured in Longhorn, Texas, he is sentenced to be hanged. Fortunately, for Moon, Longhorn has a special ordinance. Any man condemned for any crime other than murder can be saved from the gallows if a local woman agrees to marry him and take responsibility for his good behavior. As a result of this ordinance, Longhorn is populated almost exclusively by single women and reformed outlaws.

While standing on the gallows, the cocky Moon is stunned to discover that none of the women want to marry him. Finally, an old woman emerges from the crowd and announces that she’ll become Moon’s wife. When Moon hops off the gallows and thanks her, the woman drops dead. Fortunately, another, younger woman, Julia Tate (Mary Steenburgen, making her film debut), steps forward.

Once they’re married, the lecherous Moon discovers that Julia is a virgin and that the only reason she married him was so she could force him to work in the secret gold mine that’s hidden underneath her property. The railroad will soon be taking over the land and Julia wants to get all of the gold before she leaves town for Philadelphia. Though Julia, at first, wants nothing to do with Moon, he eventually wears her down through sheer persistence and the two fall in love.

Complicating matters is Deputy Towfield (Christopher Lloyd), who is upset because he feels that Julia was meant to be his wife. Also, the members of Moon’s former gang (including Danny DeVito and Veronica Cartwright) show up at Julia’s house and discover the truth about the mine.

Goin’ South gets off to a good start. The scene on the gallows, where Moon waits for someone to marry him and save his life, is genuinely funny and Nicholson and Steenburgen have a playful chemistry for the first hour of the movie. Nicholson leers even more than usual in this film but the script is written so that the joke is always on Moon. Much of the film’s humor comes from Moon always overestimating both his charm and his cleverness. However, once Moon and Julia finally consummate their marriage, the movie loses whatever narrative momentum it may have had and gets bogged down with the subplots about Towfield and Moon’s gang. There are funny moments throughout but the story gets away from Nicholson and the film is reduced to a series of set pieces, none of which build up to much.

Not surprisingly, Nicholson gets good performances from his cast, which is largely made up by the members of his 1970s entourage. Along with Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd, longtime Nicholson associates like Tracey Walter, Ed Begley Jr., Richard Bradford, Jeff Morris, and Luana Anders all appear in small roles. John Belushi plays the tiny role of Deputy Hector. (Goin’ South was actually the first film in which Belushi was cast, though production didn’t actually begin until after Belushi had finished working on National Lampoon’s Animal House.) Unfortunately, despite all of the good performances, the script doesn’t do much to develop any of the characters. Belushi especially feels underused. (Because Belushi had moved on to Animal House by the time the film went into post-production, Nicholson ended up dubbing several of Belushi’s lines himself.)

Drive, He Said was largely considered to have failed at the box office because Nicholson remained behind the camera so he took the opposite approach with Goin’ South. Nicholson is in nearly every scene and he gives one of his broadest performances. It works for the first half of the film, when Moon is constantly trying to get laid and failing every time. But, during the second half of the movie, Nicholson’s failure to reign in his performance works to the film’s detriment. When the movie needs Nicholson to be romantic, he’s still behaving like a horny cartoon. Whenever he looks at Mary Steenburgen, it seems as if his eyes should be popping out of his head, Tex Avery-style. He’s an entertaining cartoon, but a cartoon nonetheless. As a result, Goin’ South is often funny but it still feels very inconsequential.

Like Drive, He Said, Goin’ South was both a critical and a box office flop and it temporarily turned Nicholson off of directing. It would be another 12 years before he would once again step behind the camera. In 1990, Nicholson directed The Two Jakes, the sequel to one of his best films, Chinatown. That would be Nicholson’s last film as a director. Nicholson acted for another 20 years, following the release of The Two Jakes. To date, he made his final screen appearance in 2010, with a supporting role in James L. Brooks’s How Do You Know. Nicholson has disputed claims that he’s officially retired, saying that he’s instead just being more selective about his roles. Even though it’s been ten years since we last saw him on screen, Jack Nicholson remains an American icon and a living legend.

When It Comes To Halloween, Should You Trust The IMDb?

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Dr. Sam Loomis

Like a lot of people, I enjoy browsing the trivia sections of the IMDb. While it’s true that a lot of the items are stuff like, “This movie features two people who appeared on a television series set in the Star Trek Universe!,” you still occasionally came across an interesting fact or two.

Of course, sometimes, you just come across something that makes so little sense that you can only assume that it was posted as a joke. For instance, I was reading the IMDb’s trivia for the original 1978 Halloween and I came across this:

Peter O’Toole, Mel Brooks, Steven Hill, Walter Matthau, Jerry Van Dyke, Lawrence Tierney, Kirk Douglas, John Belushi, Lloyd Bridges, Abe Vigoda, Kris Kristofferson, Sterling Hayden, David Carradine, Dennis Hopper, Charles Napier, Yul Brynner and Edward Bunker were considered for the role of Dr. Sam Loomis.

Now, some of these names make sense. Despite the fact that Sam Loomis became Donald Pleasence’s signature role, it is still possible to imagine other actors taking the role and perhaps bringing a less neurotic interpretation to the character.

Peter O’Toole as Dr. Loomis? Okay, I can see that.

Kirk Douglas, Sterling Hayden, Charles Napier, Steve Hill, or Lloyd Bridges as Dr. Loomis? Actually, I can imagine all of them grimacing through the role.

Walter Matthau? Well, I guess if you wanted Dr. Loomis to be kind of schlubby….

Abe Vigoda? Uhmmm, okay.

Dennis Hopper? That would be interesting.

Mel Brooks? What? Wait….

John Belushi? Okay, stop it!

Dr. Sam Loomis

My point is that I doubt any of these people were considered for the role of Dr. Loomis. Both director John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill have said that they wanted to cast an English horror actor in the role, as a bit of an homage to the Hammer films of the 60s. Christopher Lee was offered the role but turned it down, saying that he didn’t care for the script or the low salary. (Lee later said this was one of the biggest mistakes of his career.) Peter Cushing’s agent turned down the role, again because of the money. It’s not clear whether Cushing himself ever saw the script.

To be honest, I could easily Peter Cushing in the role and I could see him making a brilliant Dr. Loomis. But, ultimately, Donald Pleasence was the perfect (if not the first) choice for the role. Of course, Pleasence nearly turned down the role as well. Apparently, it was his daughter, Angela, who changed his mind. She was an admirer of John Carpenter’s previous film, Assault on Precint 13. Carpenter has said that he was originally intimidated by Donald Pleasence (the man had played Blofeld, after all) but that Pleasence turned out to be a professional and a gentleman.

Laurie Strode

Of course, Halloween is best known for being the first starring role of Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis was actually not Carpenter’s first choice for the role of Laurie Strode. His first choice was an actress named Annie Lockhart, who was the daughter of June Lockhart. Carpenter changed his mind when he learned that Jamie was the daughter of Janet Leigh. Like any great showman, Carpenter understood the importance of publicity and he knew nothing would bring his horror movie more publicity then casting the daughter of the woman whose onscreen death in Psycho left moviegoers nervous about taking a shower.

There was also another future big name who came close to appearing in Halloween. At the time that she was cast as Lynda, P.J. Soles was dating an up-and-coming actor from Texas named Dennis Quaid. Quaid was offered the role of Lynda’s doomed boyfriend, Bob but he was already committed to another film.

Not considered for a role was Robert Englund, though the future Freddy Krueger still spent some time on set. He was hired by Carpenter to help spread around the leaves that would make it appear as if his film was taking place in the October, even though it was filmed in May.

Robert Englund, making May look like October

Interestingly enough, Englund nearly wasn’t need for that job because Halloween was not originally envisioned as taking place on Halloween or any other specific holiday. When producer Irwin Yablans and financier Moustapha Akkad originally approached Carpenter and Hill to make a movie for them about a psycho stalking three babysitters, they didn’t care when the film was set. It was only after Carpenter and Hill wrote a script called The Babysitter Muders that it occurred to Yablans that setting the film during Halloween would be good from a marketing standpoint. Plus Halloween made for a better title than The Babysitter Murders.

And, of course, the rest is history. Carpenter’s film came to define Halloween and it still remains the standard by which every subsequent slasher movie has been judged. Would that have happened if the film had been known as The Babysitter Murders and had starred John Belushi?

Sadly, we may never know.

A Movie A Day #339: Continental Divide (1981, directed by Michael Apted)

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Ernie Souchak (John Belushi) is a reporter in Chicago. He specializes in stories about municipal corruption and Mafia power plays. Needless to say, living in Chicago, that keeps him busy. Literally everyone in the city knows him. Even the two muggers who try to steal his wallet recognize him and share inside information about which street gang is about to make a big move. From a modern day vantage point, it seems strange to see everyone so excited about meeting a newspaper columnist but this movie was made in 1981, long before an army of bloggers put journalists like Ernie Souchak out of business.

Souchak’s gotten in trouble with the mob so his editor (Allen Garfield) sends him out of Chicago for his own protection. Chain-smoking city boy Ernie Souchak finds himself in the Rocky Mountains, assigned to track down and get a story on Dr. Nell Porter (Blair Brown). Dr. Porter has spent the last few years researching and protecting bald eagles. She doesn’t like reporters but Souchak wins her over. Despite being two very different people, Nell and Souchak fall in love. But can a city boy and a country girl stay together, especially when there are people in Chicago who want Souchak dead?

A strange movie, Continental Divide was meant to be an updated version of the romantic comedies that Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn used to make and Blair Brown was even made up to look like a young Hepburn. It was one of the first films to be produced by Steven Spielberg, who has always been better at picking material as a director than a producer. It was directed by Michael Apted, a great documentarian who has never shown himself to have much affinity for comedy. It was written by Lawrence Kasdan, who specialized in homages to classic film genres and who, after this movie, made it a point to direct the majority of his scripts. And it starred John Belushi, in his only romantic film lead.

Belushi, of course, is the main reason why anyone would want to see this movie. It was his second-to-last movie, coming out between the popular success of The Blues Brothers and the infamous failure of Neighbors. Continental Divide gives Belushi a chance to play a character, instead of just a version of his own wild persona. The legend has always been that Continental Divide showed the actor that Belushi could have become if not for his tragic death. The truth is that Belushi frequently looks uncomfortable and it is often evident that he is having to reign back his natural instincts. Belushi’s best scenes are the ones where Souchak is walking around Chicago and hustling everyone that he meets. In those scenes, he’s confident and in control and it’s easy to get swept up in his life. His scenes with Blair Brown, where he has to be sincere and serious, are far more awkward. Belushi has enough good scenes in Continental Divide to make you regret the performances that we never got but, at the same time, it’s evident that he still had room to grow as an actor.

If Belushi hadn’t died and had instead gone on to make several more movies (and hopefully beat his drug addiction at the same time), Continental Divide would probably be forgotten. Instead, it now exists as a hint of what could have been.

Back to School Part II #9: National Lampoon’s Animal House (dir by John Landis)

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

You know what? I’m going to start this review with the assumption that you’ve already seen the classic 1978 college comedy, National Lampoon’s Animal House. At the very least, I’m going to assume that you’ve heard of it and that you know the general details. Animal House was not only a huge box office success but it’s also one of the most influential films ever made. Almost every comedy released since 1978 owes a debt to the success of Animal House. Just as every subsequent high school film was directly descended from American Graffiti, every college film features at least a little Animal House in its DNA.

So, with that in mind, who is your favorite member of Delta House?

Most people, I think, would automatically say Bluto (played by John Belushi) and certainly, Bluto is the best known and perhaps best-remembered member of the cast. As played by Belushi, Bluto is the film’s rampaging ID and he’s such a force of nature that, whenever I rewatch Animal House, I’m surprised to be reminded of the fact that he’s not really in the film that much. He’s present for the parties, of course. He imitates a zit and starts a food fight. He gives a rousing speech, in which he reminds the members of the Delta House that America didn’t give up after “the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor!” He destroys a folk singer’s guitar and I personally love the scene where he tries to cheer up a despondent pledge by smashing a beer bottle over his head. But really, Bluto is used very sparingly and he’s one of the few members of the ensemble not to get his own subplot. Bluto’s great but he’s not my favorite member of Delta House.

Believe it or not, my favorite member of Delta House is Robert Hoover (James Widdoes). Hoover is the president of Delta House and, when we first meet him, he seems like he’s way too clean-cut to be in charge of the “worst house” on campus. But then, as the film progresses, we discover that Hoover may not be as openly crazy as everyone else but he’s definitely a Delta. Just watch him in the Toga party scene. Just look at him in the picture that shows up during the closing credits. It took me a while to realize that Hoover, the future public defender, was giving the camera the finger. Hoover may look uptight but he’s secretly a wild man!

One of the things that I love about Animal House is that it truly is an ensemble film. There’s not a weak performance to be found in the entire movie. No matter how wild or over-the-top the humor gets, the entire cast commits to their roles and, as a result, they keep this movie grounded. You actually find yourself caring about whether or not they get kicked off campus. You truly believe that the members of Delta House have been friends for years but, even more importantly, you believe the same thing about their rivals at Omega House. For that matter, it may be easy to make fun of Dean Wormer (John Vernon, setting the template for all evil deans to come) but you never doubt that he’s been in charge of Faber College for years and that he’s planning on being in charge for years to come. As played by the deep-voiced and sinister-looking Vernon, Wormer becomes every unreasonable authority figure. When he explains the concept of super secret probation, he does so with a smug pleasure that is practically chilling. When he mentions that the members of Delta House can now be drafted, the smile on his face is terrifying.

You know who else gives a really good performance in Animal House? Donald Sutherland. At the time, Sutherland was the biggest star in the film. He was offered either a percentage of the grosses or a flat fee. Sutherland thought the film would flop, took the flat fee, and missed out on millions as a result. Sutherland plays Prof. Jennings, an English teacher who, in the only scene actually set in a classroom, desperately tries to get his bored students to pay attention to him. There’s something so poignant about the way Jennings begs his students to turn in their papers. “I’m not joking,” he sputters, “this is my job!”

Jennings turns out to be free thinker. He turns Boone (Peter Riefert), Katie (Karen Allen), and Pinto (Tom Hulce) onto marijuana. There’s an anachronistic peace sign hanging in his apartment (Animal House takes place in 1963) but no matter. Far worse is the fact that he temporarily breaks up Boone and Katie! Everyone knows those two belong together!

You know who else doesn’t get enough credit for his performance in Animal House? Stephen Furst. He plays Flounder, a new pledge. Flounder is just so enthusiastic about everything and he doesn’t even seem to be upset when Wormer tells him, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.” I love the enthusiastic way that Furst delivers simple lines like, “What’s my Delta Chi name?” and “Brother Bluto! Brother D-Day! What are you doing here!?” My favorite Flounder moment comes when he accidentally gives a horse a heart attack. Technically, it shouldn’t be funny but it is because Furst, Belushi, and Bruce McGill (playing the role of D-Day) so thoroughly throw themselves into their roles. For that matter, the horse did a pretty good job too.

But that’s not all! How can I praise the ensemble of Animal House without mention Tim Matheson, who plays Otter, the future Beverly Hills gynecologist? Or what about Kevin Bacon, playing Omega pledge Chip Diller? This was Bacon’s first role and who can forget him shouting, “Thank you, sir, may I have another!” while being initiated into Omega House? Or how about James Daughton and Mark Metcalf, as the two leaders of Omega House? They were villains truly worth hissing!

And yes, I know that a lot of the humor in Animal House is not politically correct but who cares? It’s a hilarious movie, one that is full of good actors at their absolute best. Yes, they’re all a bunch of privileged sexists blah blah blah, but I’d still party with the Delta House. They know how to have fun and, even if they did wreck the Homecoming Parade, they had a good reason!

And so is the movie. Every time I see Animal House, I feel good about the world. In 1978, The Deer Hunter was named best picture by the Academy. Well, you know what? With all due respect to that long epic about the tragedy of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, all the Oscars should have gone to Animal House!

In conclusion … SING IT!

Let me t-t-tell you ’bout some friends I know
They’re kinda crazy but you’ll dig the show
They can party ’till the break of dawn
at Delta Chi you can’t go wrong

Otter, he’s the ladies man
Every girl falls into his hands
Boon and Katy playing “Cat and Mouse”

and Mrs. Wormer, she’s the queen of the
ANIMAL HOUSE

ANIMAL HOUSE

That Pinto he’s a real swell guy
Clorette was jailbait but he gave her a try
Chip, Doug, and Greg, they’re second to none
They studied under Attila the Hun

Mr. Jennings has got his wig on tight
Flouder’s left shoe’s always on his right
Babs and Mandy are having a pillow fight
With D-Day, Hoover, Otis Day and the Knights

DO THE BLUTO

Come on baby, dance with me
Maybe if we do the Bluto
We will get an “A” in lobotomy

DO THE BLUTO
DO THE BLUTO

Aw, come on!
Let me tell ya
Dean Wormer tried to shut us down
But he fell and he broke his crown
He didn’t know about the Delta spunk
He came in handy when we were short a skunk

At the

ANIMAL HOUSE