Connianatu How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

cricketbat Entertaining, but not as funny as I thought it was going to be. Also, it felt disjointed, like a bunch of comedy skits strung together without any real storyline holding them together.

oOoBarracuda I had only barely seen Animal House before deciding in the opening hours of 2018 to keep the party going with the 1978 film by John Landis. At a sleepover in high school, my friend's father put in Animal House and encouraged us to watch but having just finished Scrooged hours before (not a fan) I elected to play The Sims with the few others disinterested in the comedy. It's not a decision I regret, The Sims is amazing, and I can say with little certainty that had I watched Animal House that evening I would not have enjoyed it. Over a decade later, however, I can happily report that Animal House was an excellent way to ring in a new year and log my first film of 2018. The film that watches like a perpetual party kept the fun alive in a brilliant way. Boasting an outstanding cast including Tom Hulce, Karen Allen, Donald Sutherland, Kevin Bacon in his film debut, and of course, John Belushi as troublemaking college students in 1962, Animal House captures the familiar time in one's life, college, in a hilariously captivating way. Every college has to have that one corner of Greek life that has such incredibly low standards that anyone is accepted into their milieu, for Faber College, such distinction belongs to Delta Tau Chi. The members of Delta neglect their classes, they pull pranks on fellow students and faculty alike, and their number one priority is to ensure that there is always a party going on. Delta is the embarrassment of the college, Dean Wormer, and their fellow Faber College fraternity, Omega Theta Pi. The Omegas are comprised of the brightest, most attractive, and wealthiest students on campus, and will stop at nothing along with Dean Wormer to bring an end to the Delta Tau Chi fraternity. When the two forces join together, they finally come up with a plan to have every member of Delta expelled. Refusing to go down without a fight, Delta focuses their energy on sabotaging the lives of the members of their rival fraternity, and Dean Wormer, himself. Along the way, Larry Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent Dorfman (Stephen Furst) learn to accept themselves, and others, after being brought into the Delta fraternity. Granted, Delta accepts anyone, including those rejected by all other fraternities, nevertheless, finding acceptance after their worlds have been so expanded by college proves a meaningful experience. Navigating college, and coming into one's own is a relatable occurrence, and one aptly tackled by John Landis's 1978 classic.I went through a spell last year when I was completely obsessed with Amadeus (1984), I watched it eight times in just as many nights. Before seeing him in Amadeus, I hadn't seen Tom Hulce in anything, so it was fun to see him play a completely different character in Animal House. Another fun casting realization was seeing another film starring Karen Allen and Peter Riegert together. In the middle of 2016, I discovered the film White Irish Drinkers (2011) and completely fell in love with it. The film stars Karen Allen and Peter Riegert, so seeing them as co-stars, love interests no less, in a film more than 30 years prior was a complete joy. The best casting revelation, which was a complete surprise, was realizing that Donald Sutherland had a role in Animal House. Sutherland's part is brief, but there is a scene in which he is seen without his briefs, and if that isn't enough to entice someone to watch, I don't know what it would take. Maybe that would just work for me, actually, or other similar Sutherland obsessives. The late John Belushi stars as John Blutarsky, the standout intro that inspired me to watch Animal House, as it fits in with this month's themes of spectacular film introductions. We meet him in a drunken state as he introduces the two rushes and the audience to the Delta house during a party. Belushi has a number of memorable scenes, most of which are the exact scenes audiences recall when reminiscing about Animal House. In an interesting directorial decision by Landis, Belushi's character is kept out of a number of pivotal scenes to the film, a decision Belushi reportedly was, at least on occasion against. Belushi made the most of his minimal screen presence, shining like he always did in comedic roles and breaking the fourth wall in such a way that would make Jim Halpert swoon. Belushi's entrance set the stage for the rest of the film and the party that would follow until the end credits rolled.

bmj-05340 Be sure you have some beer around when you watch this (bourbon will do). The scHool I went to did not have fraternities (wisely), but Animal House nonetheless brought me right back. It ain't Noel Coward, but it is very, very funny. Interesting to see that even as late as 1978 it has very fine ROTC parody (hi, Lowe).

Movie_Muse_Reviews No film presents so daunting a challenge to review nearly 40 years after its release as "Animal House." That's because no matter how well one feels it holds up after all this time, there's no divorcing the National Lampoon debut from its place of distinction in history as the movie that gave birth to the modern comedy.The passing of these many decades can make it easy to forget that "Animal House" was not a contemporary comedy when it was released — it takes place in 1962 but was release in 1978. So the objective of first-time writers Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller was to capture the nostalgia of a more idealistic era, specifically the period in time when they were in college. That's why the film's soundtrack plays a big role in its iconic status. It's also what contributes to its timelessness — the humor doesn't get lost in topical jokes and references."Animal House," the original college comedy, paints a portrait of Greek life from the perspective of two freshmen at Faber College, Larry Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent Dorfman (Stephen Furst), who at the beginning of the film rush the prestigious yet white, WASP-y and wealthy Omega house with their fancy formalities. Spurned, they turn to the dilapidated Delta house, where Kent is a legacy (his dad was a Delta). Despite being peed on and windows breaking every five seconds, they feel right at home, eventually becoming "Pinto" and "Flounder." From there, the movie is mostly a collection of hijinks and sexual screwball comedy built around a basic story: Faber's Dean Vernon Wormer (John Vernon) is embarrassed of the Deltas and conspires with the Omegas to get them kicked off campus.From the film's opening credits sequence showing parts of the campus to marching band music, director John Landis quickly establishes the oxymoron of universities that take pride in all this academia, tradition and pomp and circumstance but in actuality foster a wild and crazy party lifestyle. It's not an indictment of higher education, but a reality check that the Delta lifestyle is what people actually remember about their college experiences and where college adds real meaning to one's life.Because "Animal House" is all about humorous twists on the gamut of college experiences, it plays a lot like a sketch comedy show strung into a film. There's no logical order to the scenes outside of the ones that tie into the thin story of Delta being on "double-secret probation." So it's easy to pick your favorite scenes or for certain moments to become memorable in spite of what happens in the rest of the movie. That's an important characteristic of "Animal House," one that its dozens of imitators over the years (and to this day) have mostly ignored. The movie was never bogged down by a plot or any kind of narrative arc. In fact, it has one of the most non-traditional endings of any comedy ever made. Yet generations of people have laughed with this film and taken a liking to its characters anyway.Anyone who has been in a fraternity relates to being freshmen like Pinto and Flouder or remembers well-mannered troublemakers like Boon (Peter Riegert) and Otter (Tim Matheson) — and the not-so-well-mannered troublemakers like the infamous Bluto (John Belushi), whom too many real-life college students have aspired to emulate. Even if you were an "independent" in college, you surely had a close-knit group of friends with similar dynamics who tried to pull off the same kind of shenanigans.The slapstick comedy including the golf balls, everything related to Niedermeyer's (Mark Metcalf) horse and the cafeteria food fight don't hold up as well over time, but earn a few smirks when you remember the extent of their influence. A lot of what was college situational humor back then is more typically associated with cliché high school humor now, such as stealing test answers, homecoming parades and food fights. There is, however, a subtle absurdity in the execution of these jokes, such as the length of time Landis spends filming Belushi piling plates onto his lunch tray (while snacking). There's a timeless genius to that even if it's not laugh-out-loud funny.The sexual humor, on the other hand, is a bit distasteful now, even though at the time its R-rated proclivities opened huge doors for raunch in movies. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the female characters. The scene with Bluto spying on the sorority girls having a topless pillow fight and Mandy Pepperidge (Mary Louise Weller) as she undresses is an obvious example of male gaze and promoting the straight male fantasy, but more problematic are how all the female characters in the film exist solely to gratify the male characters, or they turn out to be liars and cheaters. Pinto's angel-devil conscience moment might seem like the basis for an argument in defense of the film's portrayal of how men treat women, but that male behavior toward women continues to be problematic, especially on college campuses, these depictions are still troublesome. There's a truth to the notion that college guys are preoccupied with getting laid and it's understandable that Landis and the writers would want to play that up for comedic effect, but it's unfortunate the message they send in doing so.Nonetheless, from the toga party and "Shout" dance number to Bluto chugging a bottle of Jack Daniels, "Animal House" is a giant among comedies. Every modern comedy, even if it has nothing to do with college life, owes it a debt of gratitude. It's hard to see why it was such a trendsetter from 40 years into the future, but it's because how often its fingerprints have shown up in movies and television since that it becomes especially difficult to appreciate how novel it was in 1978. Even in its shortcomings, it has the aura of an unmistakable classic.