Animal House (1978) vs The Blues Brothers (1980)
which is better?
shareBoth funny but TBB is way more replayable. The frat-ish humor in Animal House is not as universal.
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MovieChat Forums > The Blues Brothers (1980) Discussion > Animal House (1978) vs The Blues Brother...
The Blues Brothers, I thought it was an overall much better film, I liked "Animal House" but I don't rate it as highly as many people do, I give "Animal House" an 8/10 and "Blues Brothers" a 10/10
shareI could never finish Animal House. It was a style of comedy not suited for my tastes, but maybe if I return to it at some point with a different perspective I might appreciate it more (but I highly doubt it).
The Blues Brothers? That is one of my all-time favorite films. I love that movie. I actually have to stop myself from thinking about rewatching it otherwise I think I could watch The Blues Brothers once every year and not get tired of it. There's just so much about this film that hits all the right notes, and I'm even a musical guy. But I loved all the dance/music numbers, I loved the car chase scenes (some the best put to film), and I loved the whole story, the thrills and the intensity.
It's such a magnificent action-comedy-road trip movie that we just don't get these days. It mixes Smokey and the Bandit with Grease, Silver Streak, and a touch of the George Burns 1977 classic, Oh God!
I think about this movie all the time because there are so few like it (and I try to forget the sequel exists). But Animal House? It spawned a dime a dozen knockoffs, some better and some worse for viewing. But it's nothing like the Blues Brothers, which is iconic in so many ways.
I love both movies for different reasons. I can’t tell you how many team meetings I’ve had at work where I interject by saying “Point of Parliamentary Procedure.” That being said…if I were locked in a room and I was told that I could only watch one of them for eternity, I would choose The Blues Brothers” every single time.
shareAt the time, nothing was funnier than Animal House, but it hasn't aged well IMO.
Give me BB
Blues Brothers is probably a better movie, but Animal House still gets all the right people upset.
shareI keep my copies of these films together and watch them as a double-bill at least once a year, usually with alcohol involved.
I suspect if I tried to rate them against each other I'd end up with several sentences like - BB has the better ... but AH had a better ... . The net effect would be a draw and the exercise proved utterly pointless.
I could never get into blues brothers...but animal house was right up my alley.
Very funny film, holds up well.
Animal House.
A little background "from the time."
John Landis directed both Animal House and The Blues Brothers. On Animal House, he was a tyro young director with only a couple of low budget comedies to his name. He was given a tight budget. He was given a tight schedule. He was closely watched by Universal management. There was a lot of pressure on him. But he had one new young star of sorts -- John Belushi -- one established star for an anchor cameo(Donald Sutherland from MASH) and such a great script that it treated many of the other characters(Otter, Boone, D-Day, Pinto and Flounder) as star parts too. (They were -- indeed, Animal House is really a buddy movie about Otter and Boone, the others circle around them.)
Animal House was a megahit and so John Landis was given "carte blanche" on The Blues Brothers. He went WAY over budget, he went WAY over schedule. He didn't have to listen so much to Universal this time.
And it think it shows. Whereas Animal House was written from a carefully written and re-written script by some National Lampoon (Ivy League) writers, The Blues Brothers was really a Dan Ackroyd creation(and he wasn't the best of writers) with John Belushi now literally throwing his weight around as a star.
So you get a LOT of car chases, and a LOT of car crashes, and a LOT of John Belushi being funny (sometimes he is, sometimes he isn't; he was in smaller doses in Animal House.)
At least that's what we thought at the time. By the way, the press piled on Spielberg's excesses on 1941 of 1979 and then moved on to pile on Landis' excesses of The Blues Brothers 7 months later in 1980 -- they called it "1942" and reviewed both movies on their cost overruns.
CONT
Animal House was a blockbuster right out of the gate in 1978. The Blues Brothers seems to have needed more years to earn its budget back and to get its reputation up to the same level. The array of African-American musical talent makes a big difference -- its a living history document of people now gone. Belushi IS funny a lot of the time(if not a great actor, really), Ackroyd gets to do his "scientific motormouth" thing, and guys around the sides like John Candy and Charles Napier make it special enough.
But I'll still vote Animal House. Less excess is best.
PS. The same summer we had The Blues Brothers, we had Caddyshack which is another one for the ages, though its writer Doug Kenney -- who also co-wrote Animal House -- was so depressed by it that it may have driven him to suicide. (He died in a Hawaii cliff fall that remains suspicious.) These were the years of "the first wave of SNL movie stars" and Hollywood surely went nuts for them -- Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray -- they all became stars. Some lasted. Some didn't. One died.
and reviewed both movies on their cost overruns.
I hate it when they do that .
It has zero relation to the end product!
If anything a movie with more time and money spent on it should be better!