I was going to start a thread on John Belushi, but decided against it in the end because I'm not sure there is much to talk about.
Is he as much of a performing Genius as he is made out to be or is he just an over-hyped, overconfident, over-exuberant stage-hog?
Not sure what to make of him to be honest...
Edit: I'm currently partaking in a third viewing of Animal House and is it just me or does this show seem like a complete and utter mess? - A string of short gags spun into a series of ongoing slapstick (Poorly choreographed to boot), Jewmour and just outright carnage.
I'm sure this is funny to some people and maybe it's a sign of the times, but I find it boring, inarticulate and banal.
I was keeping count when I was younger, and by 1987 or so, I had watched "Animal House" 63 times. It informed my behavior and I subsequently drank and played my way out of my scholarship after 1 1/2 years at university. When I went back for one semester, I even managed a "Mr. Blutarski - [grade-point average] zero-point-zero. Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
This movie was very, very much of its time, even though it was set some 18-odd years earlier. Belushi had emerged with the beginning of "Saturday Night Live" in 1975 or so, along with Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray and others. They took American comedy to extremes of absurdity that we hadn't seen before. I don't know how well this kind of comedy holds up anymore because it is just a part of my DNA and my history, as natural to me as breathing really. It may be that it doesn't hold up for you because of something to do with it not aging well.
It could also be a sort of culture clash. British comedy had its Monty Python, so in a lot of ways you lot were spoiled because it was so great. I wouldn't necessarily say that Python was better, because to me they are just different and I wouldn't begin to know how to judge them against each other - I love them both. But "Animal House" is part and parcel of a period which includes "Caddyshack," "Fletch," "The Blues Brothers," "Stripes" and many other comedies that I feel are utterly timeless.
As for Belushi himself, he was sort of a genius at playing the juvenile sloppy wastrel, the "fat, drunk and stupid" rebel who just doesn't give a fuck about anything, including being cool. In "Animal House," he is part of that group of students who gets one over on a fascist administration and its lackeys, but the film doesn't make a shrill case for its politics like a lot of others did in that period and the one just before (and the one later which includes the likes of John Stewart and Tina Fey). It reminds me a little of the antiheroes of Elmore Leonard: idiots who somehow prevail through dumb luck and moments of cleverness.
Ultimately, I think what has happened with "Animal House" is in some ways what happened to "Pulp Fiction" - it spawned countless imitators and it is sometimes difficult to remember how revolutionary and original some of the jokes were because we have had so many pale copies since. (With "Pulp Fiction" it wasn't the jokes that were imitated, obviously, but the ultra-stylized dialogue, neo-gangster setting, etc.) But I can tell you, when it first came out, all of those jokes were a breath of fresh air: when Belushi smashed that guitar in the stairwell to shut up the hippie, it was howlingly funny, whereas now it doesn't seem so unusual or groundbreaking. In addition, that scene was taking a shot at hippies. Later, when he blasted the jello out of his mouth pretending to be a zit, it wasn't just a moment of sloppy physical comedy, but also a shot at the preppy, entitled upper-class. I can see how this brand of sloppy, juvenile comedy isn't for everybody now, but it was revolutionary at the time.
