Continental Divide
The true benefit of getting Home Box Office is the ability to see movies you have always wanted to see but couldn't.
In college, the old movie store used to give me this ability, and I used it to rent Acadamy Award winners.
Now, getting HBO allows me to see the two star films I never wanted to be seen at the checkout counter renting, like He said, She said.
Or Continental Divide.
No review of the film has ever judged it as spectacular, but I nonetheless wanted to see it anyway. John Belushi stars in the film, but it's not a John Belushi movie. He plays it fairly straight in this romantic comedy with Blair Brown (He was also, by most accounts, clean during its filming).
Make no mistake. Continental Divide is by no means a great movie. It's barely a good one.
What it is though, is a glimpse, a look at what John Belushi was capable of.
I love Animal House and The Blues Brothers. But when watching those films, you only see a few sides of Belushi.
And for a man as talented as he was, it's a shame we didn't see more of the type of characters he played in Continental Divide.
Certain actors are known as comics. But have you ever seen Jim Carrey in The Truman Show? Or Bill Murray in his recent films? Those movies are funny at times, but they also show versitility, and allow us to appreciate the men as actors and performers.
Continental Divide allows the viewer to wonder what Belushi could have done, perhaps what he should have done, had he not died so young.
As for the film, charming, but little else. It's more a study in lost potential, though few knew that at the time.