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"Neighbors" starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd is one of the strangest movies you will ever see. Ostensibly, the movie concerns mild mannered suburbanite Earl Keese, (Belushi) who lives a quiet, boring suburban. Life with his wife and daughter. Into his quiet life comes his new neighbors, Vic and Ramona (Aykroyd, and Cathy Moriarty) who proceed to upend Earl's life by being obnoxious, overbearing, zany, etc. The film concerns itself with Earl trying to make sense of these new neighbors, at first fighting them, but ultimately being taken into their carefree world.

The problems with this film are myriad. First, it's just not funny. A death sentence for a comedy! Second, the setting and sets are just strange. Two houses on a dead end street with no others around. Third, the script just meanders with points of no interest or engagement.

Aykroyd, as usual is great at playing a jerk, and does here with aplomb, problem is he has so little funny material to work with. It's a film that never goes anywhere, and has nothing to say. But the ultimate disaster of this film has to be the absolutely awful music. Littered with"zany" cues of the twilight zone theme, and overuse of the creepy theremin, to bash you over the head with its "weird" atmosphere. This was a total bore and would be the last movie Belushi would make before his death in March of 1982.

Roy Marsden is the head of the British Special Investigation Service "Sandbaggers" a team of intelligence officers who deal with special assignments. As a huge fan of the mini series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Smiley's People, The Sandbaggers ranks right there with both of those amazing series. In fact, I would call The Sandbaggers as the spiritual co pilot to them. Absolutely serpentine, complex, amazing plots, that leave no doubt as to the dirty world of international espionage. Even for an older series, it amazingly does not sugar coat anything, even going so far as to make it clear that MLK was in a compromising position the night before his assassination (read between the lines) if you didn't know. Murder, skulduggery, lying, cheating, there is no level to which the head of the Sandbaggers will not go to to see that the mission is completed. A towering achievement that was unfortunately cut short with the death of its creator. What could have been!

Can someone please give some of the Kool Aid everyone seems to be drinking? First off, I have never seen the musical. I love the "The Wizard of Oz", and I quite like "Return to Oz" but I don't get the point of the musical and movie. We know exactly who the Wicked Witch was. It was Miss Gulch that lived next to Dorothy, and wanted to take her dog away! Thats the beautiful thing about the Wizard of Oz. All the characters are introduced in the first 10 minutes! They all make sense in the context of the film, and it's up to the viewer to decide whether the trip to Oz was real or just a figment of Dorothy's imagination. Pefect!

This film however, wants to imagine the wicked witch (Now named Elphaba?) as some misunderstood outsider, born of an affair between her mother and an unseen man) Who happens to be born green! And Glinda the good witch as a pleasant, but somewhat obtuse, barbie doll wannabe. I couldn't care less! Sometimes, less is more! I didn't need to know the backstory to the wicked witch. Sometimes people are just bad, thats it! Trying to rewrite the Wizard of Oz as some feminist statement takes the charm out of the whole thing, injecting real life where it has no place. And while I'm on the subject, it seems to me as if the filmmakers wanted to cram as much PC nonsense in as possible. Lots of stereotypically gay characters everywhere blah blah blah.

The pacing? Glacial. NOTHING happens until the last 30 minutes, then guess whAT? IT'S ONLY THE END OF PART 1!! You're telling me you couldn't tell this story in 2 1/2 hours?! What the hell are you doing for that long? I'll tell you, filming long, drawn out song and dance numbers that do nothing but show you that yes, the leads can sing. Great! Can we get to the point?!

The subplot, such as it is, concerns the fact that animals who are intelligent beings in Oz, are being rounded up and put in cages, no longer able to speak. And? Well this upsets Alfalfa, sorry, Elphaba who must seek a meeting with the all powerful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) Blah, blah, blah, this leads to a crescendo musical number which, when finished reminds us that this slog will continue for yet another movie! Trust me, one was more than enough!