Popeye (1980) ****
I will never understand the disdain and disrespect aimed at Robert Altman ’s Popeye (1980). I know it underperformed at the box office and critics weren't too kind to it but I absolutely adore this film. I watched it many times when I was young (not quite an infink, as the titular character would say, but pretty young) and I continue to get nothing but pleasure from this movie, which is almost as old as I am. Casting is tremendously important to a film like this and the filmmakers nailed every choice (down to the small roles that only those familiar with E.C. Segar ’s strip would recognize). Robin Williams isn’t exactly the comic strip Popeye and he's not quite the Fleischer cartoons Popeye but he’s Popeye nonetheless. And he’s sublime. His muttering, his movement, the faces he makes—all memorable and endlessly amusing. Shelley Duvall was born to play Olive Oyl. She embodies everything about the character—her mannerisms, her physicality, her voice, her facial expressions...