"Belushi" new Showtime Documentary

Looks good.

‘Belushi’ Finds the Sensitive Man Inside the Wild Persona

 

The show premieres on Sunday, November 22 on Showtime in America:

 

Was on last night. Watched it.

 

And?

 

Would you care to share your impressions? You started the thread, after all, now you can't be bothered to expound on the topic?

 

I liked it. They use animation, old home movies and audio interviews to tell his story. It's well made and puts his legacy into perspective.

 

Be nice. It's not that I "can't be bothered", I just thought I'd wait until a few other's chimed in that they had watched before sharing my thoughts.

I liked it very much. Most of it I already knew, but it was good to hear his ex-wife Judy's thoughts/remembrances, as well as his various colleagues/friends from over the years. All in all, I thought they handled it with a lot of class.

Now I'll wait for your impressions.

 

Any interviews with John Belushi on the doc?
I don’t remember him giving TV interviews back in the day
I can think of one on the radio a NY station

 

Yes there are. Interviews with the Today Show and GMA promoting the movies he was in at the time as well as a few others.

 

They use animation and audio recordings to give you the illusion of seeing Belushi as well as others being interviewed. It's very 2020 and allowed them to make a documentary during a pandemic. It's probably the most I've ever heard him speak outside of his performances.

 

I don't know if it is in the documentary, but the entire cast of Saturday Night (with Lorne Michaels) were guests on Tom Snyder's show shortly before SNL debuted in 1975.

 

A snippet of it was.

 

How many great films does Belushi have?
Animal House
Blues Brothers
And honestly, I think Continental Divide is a good film (Not funny, but a good chick flick)

Neighbors is awful
1941 is terrible (He's in a small scene and he isn't funny in it)
Goin' South he's hardly in it
Never seen old boyfriends and heard it was terrible

 

Just an extended version of an E true Hollywood story. Cheap easy money

 

I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. All of my friends and I were gutted and devastated . Saw the Blues Brothers live and was a big SNL fan. Will give this a viewing and celebrate the musician and performer who brought so much pleasure and fun to us twenty something kids.

 

Nothing revelatory but entertaining and ultimately tragic. I liked the use of animation. Some of the voices were hard to hear and distinguish. A few times, Danny sounded like he was talking into a speaker phone from across the room. Belushi was such a presence in the 70's and as kids, we adored him. I first discovered him listening to the Nat Lamp radio hour. I wish someone would do a doc about that alone. SNL was just a watered down version of that same sensibility. People say that's when comedy was 'dangerous'. I don't know about that but the shyte was funny. RIP.

 

Have to agree on that. Neighbors could have been much better, if only Dan and John didn't decide to switch roles at such a late stage. Belushi was so incredibly boring in it and while he was a great entertainer he wasn't a great actor per se.

I can however recommend the book Belushi by his widow. It chronicles Belushi's life in the form of recollections by friends and family and it doesn't pull any punches which was surprising considering the subject.

 

The doc is......Okay. Lots of nebulous statements and observations, not a lot of meat to them.

And I'm an unashamed fan of Continental Divide, if only for how drop-dead gorgeous Blair Brown was.

 

It feels a little that way but not because the doc isn't well made. To me, it reveals Belushi as not just a tragic character but as someone less than great. In it, Lorne Michaels says he was never that impressed with him from the beginning. How is his cheap ridicule (as I see it) of Joe Cocker in any way funny, or even clever? Not to me. I think that Joe Cocker's reputation will outlast Belushi's.

 

For what it’s worth, I think some of Belushi’s best work was for National Lampoon’s radio program, which doesn’t have the cultural traction of his film and television work. He played a great straight man a few times for sketches on the Lampoon show.

 

Just in case you weren't already aware there were at least 2 National Lampoon docs released in the past couple years:

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead (film) - Wikipedia
A Futile and Stupid Gesture: A Futile and Stupid Gesture (film) - Wikipedia

I know I liked one over the other but at this point I've forgotten which was better. Only tangentially related to John Belushi (sorry to threadcrap OP) but figured it's worth a mention anyway. Unfortunately don't have access to Showtime right now so was not aware of the new Belushi doc; thank you OP for bringing it to people's attention!

 

Just an FYI. A Futile and Stupid Gesture isn't a documentary.

 

yeah it's based on that book about Doug Kenney and didn't look terribly interesting. Drunk Stoned is pretty good but mostly focuses on Matty and the history of the magazine. The book is actually a lot better.

 

On a side note: I grew up near Wheaton, IL and eventually lived there for a few years. I did enjoy seeing some of the old pictures and home movies shot in town.

I'd occasionally ask people if they knew John or if any of his family was still around. It was suggested to me that his sister at one time owned a palm reading place near by and still might be there. This was ten or more years ago.

 

The fact that he played those characters on SNL so well was a peak at his potential. I am guessing he would have graduated to deeper characters, and more drama. He was just scratching that proverbial surface.