The Home of the Creative Mind

Welcome to PooBahSpiel, the online voice and home of the creative mind of Mark Monlux, Illustrator Extraordinaire. Prepare yourself for an endless regaling of art directly from the hand of this stellar artist. And brace yourself against his mighty wind of pontification. Updates are kinda weekly and show daily sketches, current projects, and other really nifty stuff.

Monday, February 17, 2014

The Comic Critic Reviews Animal House







Animal House is the frat-house movie. Its success launched a wave of imitations and variations. But when it comes to portraying the juvenile behavior of young men lurching their way through college as they encounter freedom outside the nest, no other film does as good a job. What makes Animal House great is an underlying theme that the heroes of the film were losers and misfits before they got to college; once there, they were still losers and misfits to such an extent they were expelled. During all of this they do one thing: party. One of my favorite moments of Animal House is at the end of the movie when viewers read what happens to our heroes in the years to come. Each of them found a life filled with revelry, and you know that they did it just like they had in college. That was the main theme of Animal House, to live life as a party its moral. Of the frat movies that followed, the weaker ones latched onto gross-out scenes or crass antics. The better ones managed to touch a theme similar to Animal House. The wonderful fount of revelry portrayed in Animal House gives the movie its legs and sets it above the rest. It’s just as funny, crass, and entertaining now as the day it was released.