The Comic Critic Reviews "The Blues Brothers"

The Blues Brothers is in my Top One Hundred favorite movies of all time. While it never won an Oscar, it remains a cinematic treasure to moviegoers everywhere. The magical team chemistry of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi is at its brightest. They would later team up to do Neighbors, which didn’t capture the same magic. It could be that in The Blues Brothers, Dan Aykroyd and John Landis joined forces to write the script, or that John Landis was definitely on top of his directorial game. But I’d like to think it was an even larger group effort. The music of The Blues Brothers and the exceptional performances of the musicians explode across the screen. The entire film feels like a celebration of sound and life. The villains of the movie are those that go against sound and life. And we know from the get-go that they don’t stand a chance to hamper the boys who “are on a Mission from God.”

The Comic Critic Reviews "Popeye"

My initial exposure to the character Popeye was through the 1960s’ King Syndicate animations. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I saw the original Max Fleischer Popeye animations from the 1930s. Filled with innuendo and constant background muttering by the characters, they were nothing like the sanitized King Syndicate animations. They had a gritty, worn-show feel to them that definitely let you know on which side of the tracks the characters grew up. It was in the midst of my watching the Fleischer animations that Popeye the movie was released. I was doubly excited because Robin Williams was going to play the title role. The television series “Mork and Mindy,” where Williams played a confused but good-natured alien trying to understand the human condition, was an extremely popular show. Popeye was released while the show was still dominating the Nielsen Ratings, so it didn’t take much convincing to arrange a trip to the theater. It wasn’t a blockbuster and it didn’t win any prizes, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Much of the look and feel of the film paid homage to those original Fleischer animations. I thought all of the actors did a great job portraying the characters from the comic. I was particularly pleased to see Ray Walston as Poopdeck Pappy. Regardless of its poorly constructed ending, I feel Popeye remains an underrated movie. This might be due to the bias-created euphoric feeling that pop culture held for me back in the 1980s. Maybe you will catch some of that feeling when you give Popeye a viewing.

The Comic Critic reviews Bugsy Malone

Bugsy Malone is a charming movie that thoroughly entertains. While not huge at the box office, it has legs. Bugsy Malone continues to pop up in various movie lists from the Top 100 Musicals to the Top 100 Mobster movies. The music, one of the movie’s strengths, is also one of its greatest weaknesses. They should have let the kids do the singing rather than dubbing in adult singers. In a gorgeously unique period film that’s cast with only children, pedal cars, and a huge amount of custard, its adult dubbing felt odd. The music itself is very strong, being covered over the years by great performers and continues to pop up in odd places—like the game Grand Theft Auto. This isn’t too surprising. Bugsy Malone was nominated for a few Oscars and the one it walked away with was for Best Original Score. Various movies and television shows have paid homage to Bugsy Malone through references to scenes and characters. It’s an endearing film that captures a cult audience every generation.

The Comic Critic Reviews The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music was a tremendous blockbuster. For a short time, The Sound of Music displaced Gone with the Wind as the number one blockbuster of all time.* What made The Sound of Music not only the most widely seen musical ever, but also reach the pinnacle of success? It could be argued that the music is infectiously catchy, or that the movie could be seen as the perfect family film. But neither of those reasons is enough to explain its success. I know the true secret of The Sound of Music: it’s nice. It’s not merely nice, it’s nice squared. It’s nice on a supremely sublime level. There’s no crass potty humor trying to instigate a laugh. The move plays the characters straight. They’re honest, joyful and pink. Their flaws are only that they feel deeply and are trying to find their way to express that feeling. Even the Nazis are dealt with in a nice way. The Sound of Music is a success because it shows us how we want the world to be—courteous, polite, nice, and filled with music from the joy of it all.

*Domestic Gross - adjusted for inflation.

The Comic Critic Reviews A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

I hope the musical makes a comeback. I grew up at the tail end of movie musicals’ popularity and was lucky enough to see them cycle through on television. It was disheartening when the airwaves were taken over by newer films, and then (gag) reality television. The small resurgence of musicals in the late seventies and again in the nineties wasn’t enough to return them to their former lofty heights. It’s my hope that with the increasing popularity of Bollywood (lots of spontaneous singing and dancing there), the success of Chicago and the Producers, along with Glee, musicals will be again produced on a regular basis. Naturally, this would mean remakes of those that showed success in the past. I’d be a little sad to see the original A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum remade, but very happy to see a larger audience discover what I’ve always considered to be some magically entertaining material.