1980 Directed by Robert Altman
Popeye is a super-strong, spinach-scarfing sailor man who's searching for his father. During a storm that wrecks his ship, Popeye washes ashore and winds up rooming at the Oyl household, where he meets Olive. Before he can win her heart, he must first contend with Olive's fiancé, Bluto.
One of the weirdest things I've ever seen. It's barely a movie. It's like Robert Altman made 3 Women and kept looking at Shelley Duvall and saying to himself "God, DAMN that woman looks like Olive Oyl" and then he couldn't get it out of his head and it gave him bad dreams and he was begging his brain, "PLEASE, stop, I don't want to make a Popeye movie!" but his brain just kept showing Shelley Duvall going "Ohhhhhh!" in a high pitched voice and finally Robert Altmans therapist told him to just make the damn thing and he did it to make the nightmares go away... It's fuckin' weird, man.
What a mess......
I loved it?
Like, the set designs and costumes are pretty damn impressive for their time, there's some genuinely funny moments, and some of the songs are pretty charming, but then some of the effects and acting aren't that good, the tone ranges from laid back to devilishly cartoony like it's source materiel, and the plot goes from one area to the next until it just kinda stops......
You know that scene in "20th Century Women" where
Dorothea and William listen to Blackflag and wonder what the hell they're supposed to be listening to?
That was me throughout this entire movie.
(Recommended? I guess?)
((I should watch this high to see what the results would be))
(((This was also my first Robert Altman movie. I'd say I'm off to a good start)))
I can’t decide if the Altman / Disney collaboration to bring Popeye to the screen was entirely misconceived or maybe somewhat wonderful. When I first saw it when it came out, I was leaning towards the latter, but now on a re-watch, I’m perilously leaning towards the former.
I haven’t seen all the classic Altman’s, but of those I have I know that he’s a master of world and character building, and very few are as skillful with an ensemble cast. While I really wanted to love this film on a re-watch, I’m afraid that there are simply too many issues with it to continue to hold my cold cold heart.
The concept is brilliant .. I’m not a comic…
It's probably not too surprising that I always root for the underdog. I always want to find the positive in art that is widely disliked because I think there is merit in the simple act of making art, regardless of its perceived quality.
That being said, there is quite a bit in Robert Altman's heavily panned Popeye that is undeniably great. First and foremost is the set design of the village of Sweethaven and its various ships. Everything is rusted and ramshackle, and it serves as an almost expressionistic background to much of the slapstick shenanigans, jutting out at weird angles and falling apart in the process.
The other huge plus for the film is the casting of Robin Williams…
I remember how all of my friends were so excited about the movie Popeye. It was based on a cartoon that was on television all the time and was going to star Robin Williams or better known to us as Mork from the very popular tv show Mork and Mindy. Then the movie opened and word of mouth was horrible. Popeye was the 15th biggest hit of 1980...but it was quickly forgotten. I eventually saw the movie on HBO but was not impressed.
So my second viewing of the movie was 30 years after the first viewing. Now that I am older and wiser....would I like the movie more? The answer is....yes a little better but not by much. The…
Yeah, I know this one has major issues (the third act is a total mess) but, goddamnit, I still really like it. Shelly Duvall's "He Needs Me" is especially touching given her recent troubles (A big fuck you to Dr. Phil). This is definitely worth a look.
I've noticed a reoccurring sentiment that comes up in people's reviews of this movie: "I know it's a mess, but I love it."
Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall are both ideally cast: I don't think there are two other actors on Earth who most physically resemble these respective cartoon characters. But the screenplay is all over the place. I watched a lot of POPEYE shorts as a kid, and it boggled my mind that of all the tons of stories they could have chosen for a feature film, this was the one they went with: a musical with "weird" songs about a village with a tax collector, a clairvoyant baby, a random boxing match in the middle of the film,…
Robin Williams mumbling through a nightmarish, seaside town left me puzzled and viscerally disturbed. Overall un-cinematic, unattractive, and just plain gross. If this had to be resurrected today, I'd approach Edgar Wright but I think Popeye is a shipwrecked IP.
Despite perfect casting and luscious production design on location in Malta, Paramount’s musical comedy adaptation of E.C. Segar’s beloved comic strip sailor is a bust. That’s right — a musical with songs by Harry Nilsson. The only things director Robert Altman (NASHVILLE) did right were cast the picture and spend money. Production designer Wolf Kroeger (FIRST BLOOD) built a spectacular Sweethaven at Anchor Bay, Malta (it’s still there and a \ tourist attraction), but it could just as well have been constructed in a gravel pit in Simi Valley for all we see of its surroundings.
Let’s give the actors credit for inhabiting their roles as well as any movie based on a comic strip or comic book ever has.…
I know I shouldn't recommend Popeye, but somehow I yam (ugh, did I just make that pun, forgive me). Maybe it would be a different perspective had I seen it when I was little- frankly I'm not sure why I missed it, as I liked the cartoons and liked Robin Williams- but now as an adult Popeye is one crazy kind of movie. It's a work that is all its own, even as it looks way too derivative of bad kids musicals and second rate slapstick. But there's 'something' to Popeye, I can't quite put my finger on it, and it's due more than likely to Robert Altman.
Some have said the film's a masterpiece (I wouldn't go that far),…
What one might take away from this Altman surrealist almost-Lynchian approach on the beloved Popeye cartoon is how particularly derivative from the works of great men such as Kafka, Nietzsche and, obviously Sigmund Freud it is. Not to mention its deep roots on the itallian surrealist cinema form with a nice touch of the nouvelle vague era by the meticolous craft Altman shows at composing the mise-en-scene, and, of course, how it precisely mirrors the indelicacies of the commodity lost by people that are facing, quite suddently, the challenges of parenting, much like the previously mentioned David Lynch depicted, not so subtly nor flawlessly as Popeye does, on his lesser masterpiece Eraserhead.
Visiting the Sweet Haven set in Malta has been on my bucket list since I was a wee lad, when bucket lists were known as "lists of stuff you want to do before your inevitable death". Seen at least a dozen times, but that includes partial screenings where my audience revolted. Some people really, really really hate POPEYE and I pity every one of those fools. I keep unearthing new sight gags and bizarre details tucked away in its jam-packed frames; The bearded hermit who looks like Alan Moore forever lurking in the background; The Hasidic Jewish vegetable merchant who appoints himself Popeye's boxing coach and tries to motivate with nonsensical, ceaseless criticism in spite of no one acknowledging him;…
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