Before the Seth Rogen and Zac Efron film “Neighbors” and it’s sequel, there was a little known 1981 film which was also titled “Neighbors”. It’s hard to imagine why the film isn’t more well known especially considering the history behind the film.
Comedic legends John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd star in this film about, well, neighbors one year following their successful turn in the comedy classic “The Blues Brothers”. “Neighbors” was the last film performance of comedic legend John Belushi. The film had a troubled production. Belushi and Aykroyd switched roles during pre-production, the pair clashed with director John G. Avildsen and tried to get him removed from the project, and Belushi’s drug use proved to be a problem during production.
One thing I was extremely curious about was how John G. Avildsen would handle a comedy. For the most part, I am a fan of Avildsen’s work. While there were comedic moments in his work like “Rocky” and “The Karate Kid”, they were primarily dramas. I almost feel like Belushi and Aykroyd might have been right on wanting to remove him from the project. While I feel like the movie had elements that worked and were funny, I feel like tone was a major problem with the film and has kept it from being remembered as a classic. The film felt very rushed with most of the events taking place within a day’s time span. I also feel like it either doesn’t go over the top enough to be silly or doesn’t make it realistic enough to relate to. All that being said, there were a lot of parts I chuckled or laughed at which is the important part of a comedy.
Aside from the comedy, I felt the incidental music took away from the film some. The music cues felt straight out of “Looney Toons” and I personally thought it felt distracting. Bill Conti, Academy Award winning composer of “The Right Stuff”, typically delivers strong scores but I did not care for his work on this project. On the positive side, I really liked how the houses in the film felt real and lived in. I appreciate attention to detail in films like that.
My late parents had this film on a CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) years ago. This particular cover on the retro VHS blu-ray cover was the same cover on the CED so it brought back some fond memories. I really appreciate the effort Mill Creek Entertainment put into this release. I am also thankful to Mill Creek Entertainment for providing me a review copy. They are one of my favorite home video distributors out there now and they are a very kind business.
As far as the home video release, I adore the retro video cover. As Heath at the YouTube channel Cereal at Midnight stated, I prefer the retro covers to movies that were actually old enough to have a VHS release over newer movies like the remake of “It” which came out last year.
Grade: C+
No comments:
Post a Comment