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John Candy month: Nothing But Trouble

A retrospective by Azzam Abdur-Rahman

When Brooks asked me if I had any movie in mind for John Candy month I honestly only had one in mind, Only The Lonely. This film I related too so much but due to my life I just didn't feel comfortable discussing it. It became a weird albatross I was carrying, I hadn't written anything for the blog in a while and I wanted to contribute something but what I honestly couldn't tell you. I worried I would end up on a Lance Bangs-ish review that became less and less a review of the movie and more a musing on the struggles of losing a talented actor/comedian too soon to their own vices. I worried I like many other months wouldn't have a damn thing to say. Then last night after seeing the latest Mission Impossible I returned home to a sea of dog vomit and disappointment. It was literal dog vomit. 2 hours well into 3am I cleaned as my dog and I lay in misery at our lot in life. After commuting a task that was truncated by more vomit and crying I sat on my couch unable to sleep and there it was. The horrifying nightmare post for Nothing but Trouble staring back at me. To go on another quick tangent, as we look at the strikes with the rise of streaming and the nature of late stage capitalism an oddity I see people rarely discussing is films of the 1980's getting pushed by FAST services, you things like Tubi, Freeve and so on. The joints with commercials. And it had been months of them pushing this movie that gave me the same energy as like Nicholas Roeg's The Witches by the post alone. So on this night at my lowest. I decided fuck it. I am gonna see what Nothing but Trouble has to offer and readers let me tell you...this movie was bizarre as hell. I had seen it described as a horror comedy. It is horrific but not in a this movie is bad sense but in a it's ahead of it's time. If you are a fan of films like The Greasy Strangler and An Evening with Beverly Lufflin this is about to be your joint. That weird anti-comedy that seems to hate you, that is what this film traffics in. The kind of cinema that YouTube and Adult Swim built in the cultural zeitgeist but with a touch of Second City Alumni Class. It's not as disgusting as those films but director Dan Aykroyd he stands firm in his use of gross out humor throughout the film. Honestly the film is so weird you see why Aykroyd never directed again. Candy plays like this role like a friend doing a favor in a movie he doesn't understand. I wish I could say more but this movie though in his filmography like some others feels like he is a pawn. Candy was often at his best with John Hughes. Maybe it was Hughes knowing what made him work was the sweetest behind his eyes made his quick wit more effective but Aykroyd tries to use him in a way that feels awkward. Candy doesn't track well as a villain or a cruel character and you call the character needs to be mean. It doesn't really work from my watch. Even Oliver Stone knew that in JFK. So gazing upon this bizarre film I wonder is John Candy consequential in the minds in mind of cinephiles because of his work with John Hughes. The films that come to mind that he was great in are just the ones he is effective in as a cad. I begin as this film in its train wreck by design like quality bares over me from the 4K LED screen. Is John Candy's career held up by a select group of films? That really wasn't my question to answer. So if you finished this, it became a Lance Bangs style review/ retrospective. I think films like this often do because they are oddities in a film career. While I may question his impact and use, we cannot deny that this type of movie is in so many actors filmographies. The favor movie that you wonder "why" like Ryan Gosling's directorial debut. A foolish endeavor in which the studio had too much faith and the actors trusted their friend without question. I'll end on this question, should movies be forgotten? We do a forgotten film Fridays here and after watching this, should this film have never been seen again? It's Nothing but Trouble's front page recommendation on the Samsung TV network be seen as the end of nigh time sign of late stage capitalism or is this review the beginning of a cult like following? Could it become highly discussed on TikTok by a younger generation who would understand and accept its comedy? Can Nothing but Trouble matter to the world at large or will it always be a post dog vomit clean up film?



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