Father’s Day is coming everyone, and it's always the time to find the right movie your father loved watching, sit down and watch it together and experience why the love the film and what makes this funny to watch. And this ladies and gentleman, without a doubt one of the most outstanding and hilarious comedies I've ever seen in my whole life and granted this was my first experience watching the film, but I've taken notes through the years of watching the cult TV show, Blue Mountain State. Animal House has always been that one movie my dad has always loved though he would never allow us kids to watch (for very good reasons) the same as my mother but through the years, I just never had the right time to watch this amazing comedy until now. Furthermore, after watching Animal House, I can now say that this was a better John Landis movie than the “Blues Brothers”.
When they arrive at college, socially inept freshman Larry (Thomas Hulce) and Kent (Stephan Furst) attempt to pledge the snooty Omega Theta Pi House but are summarily rejected. Lowering their standards, they try at the notoriously rowdy Delta Tau Chi House, and get in. The trouble is that the college dean (John Vernon) has it in for the Deltas. And will do whatever it takes to expel the Deltas, once and for all.
To give a unique history on how Animal House got made you got to start on the trademark that is National Lampoon. National Lampoon was one of the most popular humor magazines on college campuses in the mid-1970's. The periodical specialized in satirizing politics and popular culture. One of the main founders of National Lampoon, Doug Kenny at the time was getting tired of the deadlines as well as stories and publications and told fellow colleagues as well as producer Matty Simmons, that he was preparing to quit and Matty, being a true friend, knew how great of talent Kenny had told him that we're going to make a movie. For which assembled two fellow Lampoon writers Chris Miller and talented comedic writer, the Late great Harold Ramis. And together they both drafted the scripted together and all three men have attended a Frat house in their own Colleges and each of them shared their experience in fraternity houses and typed it out, and to all of those up and coming comedy writers if you’re looking for inspirations I would highly recommend using that technique because it will help you develop characters as you progress. The funniest fact about the writing process of Animal House as well as inspirational, was fellow producer Ivan Reitman bought each of the writers paperback screenplays of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as a story structure and for obvious reasons both Kenny, Ramis and Miller never written a screenplay before nor went to film school so, kids if you love movies but don't have the money to go to California and study film school, one of the few or two lessons you need to follow if you want to make a movie on your own movie, is watching a ton of the greatest movies of all time moreover any movie skip the bad ones or weird movies unless it's necessary. Read a tone of screenplays so you can get a clear idea on how to write your movie, but more importantly always know how the camera works even if it means playing around with your own video camera from an old piece of junk to a new and advanced camera because you never know what you can afford, and most importantly have fun with it. Now the facts and history of Animal House let's get on with what makes Animal House fantastic, whenever you find that one perfect comedy that gives you a great breath of fresh air and the need to watch it over and over again, Animal House is most certainly that fantastic comedy that never gets old and you'd have a great time watching these characters go crazy through the course of the film. Basically, like a fine wine no matter how old the movie is or how long it's been since this movie got made the comedic humor just refreshes itself repeatedly just like Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Stripes and hell, even the Naked Gun movies. Though what makes all of these comedic films great is that their sense of humor just has that feel and essence that you can relate too, as well as smile or laugh at the first time seeing it but also gives you that shock of how funny that joke was especially in one of my favorite scenes is when Pinto is about to bone the mayors daughter played by Sarah Holcomb (who was Danny's love interest in Caddyshack, aka Irish girl) tells him it's her first time because she's thirteen and you can see Pinto's reaction of "OH S**T" and then when she introduces him to her parents and adds "the one who molested me a week ago, we need to get married", upon which open my mouth as well as laughter because to me was shocking but also funny at the same time and it's like you cannot get away with that joke now, especially when Karen Allen tells her boyfriend that she's in love with retard it's just great. But it has that style of comedy that you tend to forget because you're disillusioned by all the bad comedies that are coming out now and something like Animal House comes around it's just fantastic, but more importantly I was born in 86 and a millennial like I am, these comedies after the Gen Z were always the crown jewel of comedy moreover it still feels great watching these raunchy comedies that was a pioneer of some of these other college comedies that never really hold up, not like Animal House. Both my father and mother have always showed great movies to us growing up from a comedy to a musical or science fiction/fantasy and Christian themed movies or television and through the course of finding that one movie to recommend on either Mother's Day or Father's day, I have to ask my mom on what was her favorite movie growing up, which is no crime it's always nice to ask my own mother on what her favorite movie is because there times where I don't remember or curious on her favorite movie is because she has a taste that is on the Christian themed movie and at times finding the classic movies she loved. Though when it comes to my Dad, I can really pick a movie out of his collection or my collection and he would have a tremendous time with the movie, whether it's Beerfest, the Super Troopers films, Major League or a beloved baseball film like Field of Dreams or even all John Wayne's filmography, and even a Quentin Tarantino film, though that's another story for another time but I'm not lying when I'm telling you that he does love some Quentin Tarantino movies. Though whenever it comes to finding a movie out of my mom's collection or my dad's collection it a great treat, for many reasons you never know what hidden treasure you’re going to find, but more importantly showing your Dad your collection of favorite movies (as a return the favor moment) as thank you for introducing me to his collection of favorite movies, he grew up watching. Animal House is without a doubt a fantastic College movie as well as the perfect raunchy comedy that still stands the test of time and seeing the talents of Doug Kenny and John Belushi at the peak of their comedic talent's is always a sad thing to see because both men died at the age of just 33, furthermore it's always that notion of long can guys like those two me can still make great comedic work, though in all fairness both Animal House and Caddyshack proves that these two men are immortal. And the good news is the film is streaming on Amazon Prime so, if you’re looking for that one movie to watch with your dad or haven't seen it, then I would highly recommend asking your dad in wanting to watch Animal House, this Father's Day weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment