Belushi and Akroyd's Best

Wow, this is the funniest movie I've ever seen. Every time you watch you catch something new. Great musical themes, great insanity. This movie has so many funny lines you have to watch it again and again. "...and if I didn't have to do this sh** for a living, I wouldn't sell you my snot."

Begs for a full-featured DVD. Please.

Another Champion of Hollywood Studio Avant-Garde

A great atmosphere movie for any Friday night, "Neighbors" is still as funny and bizarre now as it was when released. This is a wonderful companion to films such as Scorsese's "After Hours" or Dante's "The `Burbs." An often over-looked film, "Neighbors" is a brilliant symbiosis of the comedy and thriller genre.

Earl Keese is an unimaginative Walter Mitty stuck in boring suburbia. After Captain Vic and Empress Ramona move next door, Earl begins on a 24-hour journey to save his soul -- to be released from the stagnant swamp of dead-end living -- and 9-5 working. Both Belushi and Aykroyd expand their comedy by switching their normally stereotyped roles. Oscar-Nominated (Raging Bull) Cathy Moriarty also turns in a great performance as the temptress Ramona.

The swamp scene behind Earl's house is a powerful and mythic metaphor of Earl being "sucked down" by outside forces. It's also where he becomes baptized into a "new world" where he will reign. The Gelbart script (heavily rewritten by Belushi and Aykroyd during the Writer's Guild Strike) follows many of the Joseph Campbell tests and trials of the mythic hero. In addition to story, the film also boasts some fast, screwball comedy dialogue. Here's one of the witty exchanges in the post-modern Robert Riskin vein:

Vic: We're waiting, or do I have to pound it out of you?

Earl Keese: Don't ever speak to me like that in my own house!

Vic: Why would I?

Earl Keese: You just did.

Vic: I didn't mean anything -- it's just something a guy says.

Earl Keese: I never say it.

Vic: I don't blame you.

Experience "Neighbors" with some spaghetti from Caesar's Garlic Wars, a small spaghetti and wine dealership at Valley Field Mall on Route 3, next to the Cinema-Cineplex and the Singer Sewing Center.

Oh, and for breakfast the next morning, tell your loved one: "I hope you like blueberry pancakes and little baby sausages --'cause that's what yer getting'!"

Neighbors

This is a really funny dark comedy. The last movie John Belushi made, and maybe his best. Based on the book by Thomas Berger.