A Masterpiece!

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Reading the IMDb reviews or the Wikipedia backstory for "Neighbors" is more entertaining than watching the film itself. Not that it's without engaging qualities; it just needs a lot of fixing up.When new neighbors move into the only other house on a swampy cul-de-sac called Bird Street, beaten-down suburbanite Earl Keese (John Belushi) finds himself dealing with more than he bargained for. Are Vic (Dan Aykroyd) and Ramona (Cathy Moriarty) the kick in the pants he needs? Or are they a pair of demented weirdos taking him for a ride?The only thing holding "Neighbors" together is the one thing you figure on not working going in: Belushi's performance. While filming occurred while he was sliding back into his additions, Belushi manages to deliver a note-perfect performance as the befuddled everyman at the center of the storm. In fact, he was clean and sober for much of the shoot, and seems ready to continue what he started in his previous film, "Continental Divide," by playing a fully-realized character rather than a cartoon.There's a soulfulness to Earl Keese that makes you root for him, even when he's trying pathetically to alternately make time with and fend off his neighbor's wife. "Look, you got no interest in me," he tells her. "Why you coming onto me like this?"Why is she? I don't know, and I don't think anyone associated with the film did, either. Not Moriarty, who simply slinks around and makes bedroom eyes at Earl like a sinewy Mae West; not screenwriter Larry Gelbart; and certainly not director John G. Avildsen, who famously ceded control of this troubled production to his two stars, Aykroyd and Belushi.Aykroyd is the film's wild card, whose Vic character plays a number of tricks on Earl over the course of the movie's 24-hour time period. He chisels Earl for $32 to get a takeout meal he cooks himself, teases Earl about his daughter's edible panties, and alternately threatens and encourages Earl regarding Ramona. As solid as Belushi is, Aykroyd is antic and unfocused, relying on his sky-blue contact lenses and slick blond hairdo among other props to supply humor that's missing in the script.The idea of the story is a good one, taken from a Thomas Berger novel of some repute. Earl's problems aren't just with his neighbors. He also has that odd teenage daughter, Elaine (Lauren-Marie Taylor) sipping beer from a straw. His wife, Enid (Kathryn Walker) is a similarly emasculating enigma who has an apparent hand in Vic and Ramona's head games. "You always go limp in a crisis," she sneers. A sense of suburban menace is effectively developed, the one thing other than Belushi's performance that holds up with repeated viewings.But "Neighbors" is not a film with a discernible point. It is all about tone, except whenever it establishes a tone it reshuffles the cards or throws up the deck. One minute Vic is kneeing Earl in the groin, the next Earl is begging him and Ramona not to leave, because they make him feel so alive. You get the feeling they were rewriting the script anew at the end of each shooting day.At least when the camera's on Belushi, there's a chance for something good, whether he's shaving with his wife's leg razor (and screaming in pain when he puts on his aftershave lotion) or trying to turn the tables on Vic during a tense dinner. Made up to look middle-aged, something he never got to be in life, Belushi's maturity in the part is a revelation you take away from this otherwise labored, curiously undercooked mashugana of a film, along with a sense it might have been a worthy swansong had there been someone at the controls who knew what he was doing.

Neighbors The irony of neighbours is that you often kill them with the same tool you borrowed from them.However, the aggravated neighbour in this dark comedy is liable to use his bare-hands.Despondent suburbanite Earl (John Belushi) is jolted from his mundane existence when an unconventional couple (Dan Aykroyd, Cathy Moriarty) moves in next-door.Unnerved by his forwardness and her flirtatiousness, Earl is confused as to why they moved into his quiet community.He soon begins to draw his own conclusions, which ultimately leads to paranoia and self-destruction. A satire on suburban bliss, Neighbors finds both its SNL alumni playing against their type in order to create a truly eccentric comedy.Based on the delusional bestseller by Thomas Berger, this undervalued psychological comedy from the '80s is an excellent commentary on the confines of safety and sanity.Furthermore, you should only interact with your neighbours if they have a pool.Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

Neighbors (1981) ** (out of 4) A simple man and his wife (John Belushi, Kathryn Walker) have their lives turned upside down when new neighbors (Dan Aykroyd, Cathy Moriarty) move in. NEIGHBORS is a downright horrendous, awful movie that is so incredibly bad that it's always held a slight fascination with me. Now I love watching bad movies and there are times that films (like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE) are so bad that they end up being entertaining. That's not really the case with this film because it's not entertaining. The only entertainment comes from you simply being amazed at how poor the film came out as well as countless questions you ask about certain things going on. I don't mind that Belushi and Aykroyd switched roles but I think the film probably would have been better had they not. I know throughout the troubled production that both stars were very upset with John G. Avildsen and accused him of not knowing how to do comedy. Perhaps this is true but I'm confused to where the comedy was at. I mean there's really nothing in the screenplay that is funny. The entire film seems to have nothing going for it and it appears that the only attempts at humor is that Belushi is playing it straight and Aykroyd is going over-the-top. There's no funny dialogue. No funny sequences. There's just nothing but a flat tone that is more dark than anything else. Just take a look at the sequence with the electric dog. What was the point of this? And lets not even get started with the ending. Both Belushi and Aykroyd are pretty bad here but considering what was going on in their lives I guess this is to be expected. Of the two I'd say Aykroyd gets the more memorable part simply because his character is more annoying. Walker really doesn't add too much to the film but Moriarty is at least somewhat good as the bad girl. Another questionable thing going on here is the beyond awful music score that is all over the place. With all that said, I've still got some connection to this movie that makes me watch it every so often. It's not "so bad it's good" but NEIGHBORS really falls into its own separate category.

This movie is a bit sleepy, but there are many good things to keep the last role of John Belushi entertaining. First of all, Kathryn Walker was great as the wife who was completely bored with her life. Her role was very convincing. She seemed to know her husband and be tired of his contained personality. Belushi usually played crazy people, but in this role and Continental Divide Belushi plays relatively down-to-Earth roles. Belushi was a totally conservative, conformist, who couldn't even complain about the high power electrical wires right outside his home. In come his new, strange neighbors who quickly turn his life upside down. Like many films with this theme, the one whose life is turned upside down by his crazy neighbors soon finds out that the real problem is not his neighbor, but his boring life. I remember when this movie came out, but I hadn't seen it until today. The critics really slammed this movie at the time. One thing I think the movie critics missed was how brilliantly this movie satirized suburban doldrums. At the very end of the movie, Belushi's character is watching an advertisement on television about a funeral home. Belushi was only in his early thirties at the time, but was overweight. His character, I believe, was supposed to be about ten years older. The advertisement on television is one of the best scenes (and the person speaking is obviously Dan Akroyd in the commercial). His life is over, and all that is left in his boring existence is preparing for his mortality.