Grantland so far

This just may be the dumbest fucking thing that's ever been posted on this site.

John Belushi was an absolute comic genius. Inventive, brilliant, completely on the edge.

Chris Farley was a fat, untalented, one-dimensional piece of shit.

 

Meh. As ever, the truth lies somewhere between.

 

I think Belushi may be the best example of "eye of the beholder" in comedy I can think of. I never once found him funny in anything I've seen. Not even remotely.

Others swear by him.

 

Apparently so, from the reaction to my comparison.

 

I really like Chris Farley, but his resume is pretty damn limited, too. Neither Farley nor John Belushi compares to Sandy Koufax. But Mark Prior is a bit of an insult. They're more along the lines of Dizzy Dean: entertaining and occasionally dominant but crippled by a ridiculously short prime.

 

I'm fine with a Dizzy Dean comparison for both. I was mentioning Prior more as a sort of stellar prospect who had some success but got cut short abruptly by injury.

The venom for Farley is interesting to read. I consider him equivalent to Belushi, in that both guys were obsessed with their weight and thought it held them back from being considered serious actors. It might be an urban legend, but allegedly, both died while they considered starring in a serious biopic about Fatty Arbuckle.

 

There was Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours. There was also Eddie Murphy in Another 48 Hours.

There was Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop. There was also Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop II.

And I'm sorry, but Coming to America was not a great movie.

Great performers sometimes end up in bad movies, but they can still give entertaining performances. Eddie Murphy hasn't made an outstanding movie since the Bush Administration. The FIRST Bush Administration.

He has been in some really awful movies. The whole thing with the Klumps where he plays every character? What kind of nonsense is that?

I think Eddie Murphy might be more like Kevin Maas, a guy who hit a ot of homers for a couple of years but then faded quickly.

 

Somewhere in that piece it mentions that comedians have an initial shelf life of seven films or seven years, which I think is a very good point. Belushi never reached his seven films, and The Blues Brothers is the bar I measure other comedians by. Murphy could have never pulled a movie like that off.

 

Whenever Bill Simmons writes "we," I presume he means everyone who was 12 years old at the same time he was.

 

Pray for P. S. Hoffman.

 

You may walk over, Gold, but you're limpin' back!