Customer Reviews

Old Boyfriends [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great movie starring Talia Shire(Rocky,The GodFather) as a suicidal psychiatrist who crashes her car against a concrete wall,survives and then seeks revenge against her former boyfriends.It's an intersting must see including John Belushi in a role as one of her boyfriends that should hopefully be be on DVD someday!!!

While I was watching the weird twists and turns in this movie, I thought this is a movie about female empowerment made for women from before there were chick flicks or feminist-themed movies. Like many movies from the 70s, the lead character is trying to "find herself". Talia Shire is a good actress and an interesting performer in that you can never really tell what's going on inside her head. Here, she is at turns sexy, attractive, plain-jane, weak, strong, vulnerable, ruthless. It's a good role. Not an overblown,chew-up-the-scenery kind of performance, but sublime and ambiguous. She's got a lot of inner deliberation going on; even when things are good and it seems like she should be happy, she's brooding. I wonder how much of that was from the the director (also a woman) and how much is just the inscrutable Ms. Shire. The boyfriends are good. Must admit, the great John Belushi was the reason I got the movie, & although his character is very slimy and unlikeable, I very much dug his musical chops in the role. He sings a variety of tunes in different styles and succeeds at all of them. Of the three old boyfriends, he was the most predatory to her in their past. Keith Carradine (don't want to give away any plot points) is the most prey-like. I wanted Talia Shire's character to come through but was kind of surprised how she constantly lied to everybody about her past and herself. It kind of had the opposite effect toward making her sympathetic. I guess this aspect was intended to be like a wish-fulfillment of leaving your past and your life behind. The formula of a movie fulfilling a woman's fantasties that is commonly manufactured today had not yet been perfected at the time this movie was made (or perhaps was transitioning from Doris Day movies from the 60s), so this movie is compelling from that angle. It's creative in its direction. I liked it more than I thought I would, am giving it four stars, as it wasn't 'A CLASSIC' movie, but a very good one.

I am on a mission to see every John Belushi film. He was a comic genius and is a screen legend. Tune into Biography for the 30th Anniversary special of Animal House to tide youself over until this great film becomes available on DVD. I read on [...] that this is scheduled for a December 2025 release. Maybe that is when they are planning to release a John Belushi box set, but who knows what format we will be using in 17 years?