Thoughts on The Super

    I had heard of this 1991 movie The Super years ago, when I was telling a friend about Hal Ashby's 1970 film The Landlord, where Beau Bridges plays a rich guy who becomes the landlord of a Park Slope, Brooklyn building, in a low-income Black and brown neighborhood, and plans to gentrify the building by evicting the tenants and turning it into a luxury place. He undergoes a change of heart through the movie, getting to know the tenants and caring about people. My friend said, "That sounds like a Joe Pesci movie called The Super."

    I just watched The Super on Tubi, directed by Rod Daniel (Teen Wolf, Beethoven's 2nd) and written by Sam Simon and Nora Ephron, and really liked it. It bombed when it came out, and it's hard to find now, since the video included, made by Hats Off Entertainment three years ago, said it's only on VHS. It's a similar plot, in that Joe Pesci plays the son of a slumlord (Vincent Gardenia) who profits off of buildings in low-income neighborhoods, where he never gets anything fixed and collects the rent, and gives a building to Pesci, who takes after his greedy jerk of a dad. Pesci is taken to court for all the housing violations in the building, and made to live in the building for four months to get the building up to code and face the problems himself, like poor plumbing, a lack of heat, a rat infestation, etc.

    He starts out the movie a slimeball jerk, being continually pressed by a housing authority lawyer (Madolyn Smith Osborne), who he sexually harasses throughout the movie, and thankfully she never shows interest in him and always puts him in his place). But as he gets his comeuppance, he starts caring about the tenants, and learns how to stand up to his father, who is full of racist dogwhistles like calling the tenants "animals."

    

    The tenants are played by character actors like Ruben Blades (more known as a famous salsa musician), Paul Benjamin, Beatrice Winde, and Eileen Galindo.

    I did like hearing the early 90s dance music, like "You Can't Touch This" and "Gonna Make You Sweat" during scenes when the tenants party whenever they have electricity and heat, and how the scenes were clearly shot in Brooklyn, even if the exterior of the building is in the East Village. Joe Pesci's character becomes more likable as the movie goes on, and it has a similar resolution to The Landlord. So I enjoyed this, more of an average early 90s comedy.