postmodernblues's Reviews (465)

I really, honestly cannot tell if this is good or not. The writing is good, and the basis upon which it is built (women in business, the implicit horrors of the postmodern Silicon Valley workplace, the particularly awful personalities of executives) is solid, but it never really seems to go anywhere interesting.

Also, the story straddles the line between sci-fi and not for awhile before giving in. I think on some level I would have liked for it to keep the motif of doppelgangers (i.e. make it so the young Shelley really is her younger self) in order to better explore the changes Shelley has undergone. As it stands, it seems like she set one fire and suddenly shifted drastically into "normal person" territory.

A beautiful, fitting end to a perfect comic series.

Finally gives us the Ray Stantz possession arc we deserve.

I'm so sad it's over. 

I literally could not tell the two lead characters apart. I had to keep going back to check which one was which.

We've got a Nothing But Trouble reference, folks! And Oldbusters!!!

"Never one to betray his emotions, he looked like he was holding up fine. But inside he was in agony. 'What's blue and sings alone?' went a joke he started telling people. 'Dan Aykroyd.' He'd lost the friend he had been able to call any time of day or night, the man he regarded as his platonic soul mate. 'When I saw him come into a room, I got the jump you get when you see a beautiful girl,' Aykroyd said after Belushi's funeral. 'Being with him was electric, really electric.'" 

- Nick de Semlyen, Wild and Crazy Guys: How the Comedy Mavericks of the 80's Changed Hollywood Forever, page 117-188



My thoughts, organized into a simple and accessible list:

1. I'm obsessed with the cover. John Belushi grabbing onto Dan Aykroyd's leg in fear whilst the others engage in a brutal fistfight? Absolutely no notes. It's perfect.
2. This book is a great starting point if you know nothing or next to nothing about the topic, but it didn't have a lot of new information for me (I am a pretty devoted fan of most of these guys). Many of the quotes can be found in interviews and clips on Youtube.
3. The real shining star of this book is the writing. de Semlyen is descriptive, thoughtful, and funny, and he switches between stars with effortless ease. The quotes never seemed clipped nor clunky, and the whole thing read like a well-told story.
4. I was very happy with how much of this book has to do with Dan Aykroyd and his trajectory as a writer-performer, because I think he is generally underrated among this group, and his is truly a remarkably creative mind. However, I found the framing of Aykroyd early on in the book hilarious. de Semlyen and the sources he uses are utterly befuddled by him; they compare him to a "robot" and describe his odd behavior and obsessive preoccupations with things like automobiles and blues music. Like, yeah, dude. It's the autism.
5. I definitely think more of a focus could have been drawn toward the influential women of the era like Gilda Radner, Lily Tomlin, and Madeline Kahn. They had just as much of an impact on this redefinition and revolution of comedy as their male contemporaries did. 
6. I would have liked a longer epilogue analyzing specific ways that these guys changed comedy. I mean, obviously their experimentation, the changing zeitgeist, the willingness of studios to gamble on crazy shit like The Blues Brothers, that all makes sense, but I'd love to have a few chapters examining how the movies these guys made directly influenced the style and the movies that came later.

"The temples were already here- pyramids, sphinxes, lions, Roman ruins, statues of liberty, all sainted icons, and the famous searchlight on the Luxor some beacon to an indifferent god?" - Chris Abani, The Secret History of Las Vegas, page 165.

So sweet; I nearly cried. Reminds me of all the middle grade graphic novels I used to adore.