There are movies that you dig and then there are movies that you love so much that you devote hundreds of dollars and an entire weekend of your life to celebrating them with like-minded cultists.
I'm also a fan of the first Blues Brothers album. It turns out that the answer to "How would an enthusiastic amateur sound backed by the greatest musicians in the world?" is "pretty damn good!"
Another thing that make this movie work is that it happens at unique moment in time when all of those musical legends were still at peak of powers, but were being virtually ignored by mainstream culture. Ten years earlier, any one of Franklin, Brown, and Charles would have had (and deserved) outsized paycheck and/or unreasonable demands that would have made movie impossible to make as-is. Hell, Blues Brothers backup band itself is full of legends who were content to slum it in Saturday Night Live band because nobody care about soul music in 1981. So they were able to get Mount Rushmore of musical talent for cheap.
And it work out for talent too! Everyone's legend got burnished by this movie. Aretha was about to be dropped from her label, and her performance here saved her career!
Yes! This movie really does not get enough cultural cred for what it did to (re)popularize these artists and the genre. It's basically the O Brother, Where Art Thou? of its era in that respect. And everything you said is spot-on, and speaks in particular to Aykroyd's extreme levels of hip at this point in time. I mean, these were living legends years past their commercial peak but with so much dynamic performance mileage left in the tank, and had the Blues Brothers records and tour and this soundtrack not done the kind of business they did, so many of them would have continued to languish, much to our national shame. And Aykroyd knew it. He basically wrote a Hollywood blockbuster FOR these people. And a deeply weird and wildly original one at that. His love of vintage automobiles and musical gear and spiritual woo-woo and music, contempt for authority and conformity, and dry-as-toast verbal humor steeped in regional character, all dovetailed to make something special and one-of-a-kind. A huge gamble, too, to make the first movie to come out of everybody's favorite late-night countercultural comedy machine a freaking musical! And it almost didn't pay off, what with its disappointing box office returns. But like so many films without apparent "mainstream" "big opening weekend" appeal, it stood the test of time to become an enduring cult classic. And even a godawful sequel couldn't tarnish that rep.
I dunno. There were some legitimate hits during the Hagar years that made VH work during that era. It's like equating Chicago with Peter Cetera or without (let's face it, the "with" years were their most prolific). On the flip side, the Belushi analogy may be more like seeing Van Halen with a replacement for Eddie, relative or not. The band will never be the same without him.
Nathan, like you, I am an obsessive geek when it comes to this one. It's still in regular rotation in my ever-shifting answer to Top Five Favorite Films of all time, a movie I was desperate to see when it came out, but couldn't get my folks to take me, so I had to make do with reading the novelization of the screenplay by Miami Mitch (who I was convinced for years must have been Aykroyd using a pseudonym, until the internet came along to eventually prove me wrong). In those long-ago days of "see it in theaters or wait two years," my first watch was the terribly butchered ABC Sunday Night at the Movies TV version on my shitty rabbit-eared 13" b&w bedroom TV, the reception going in and out at crucial moments. And still I was instantly smitten, never mind that this 13-year-old suburban Texas boy's least favorite genre (after Boring Family Dramas, anyway) was the movie musical. Though, having read the book, I was a bit disappointed not to see the scene where Jake gets born in prison, or get all that juicy backstory on how they recruited EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE BAND!
I think the only time I've ever actually seen it on the Big Screen was at a notorious Market St. brokedown cinema palace called the Strand in San Francisco. The kind of place that charged 99 cents for a triple feature in 1992 dollars and where winos, crackheads and the homeless paid that to sleep in its horribly uncomfortable seats. That scratched-to-shit 35mm copy came complete with Spanish subtitles, but was in much better condition than the incomplete reels of Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke it was paired with.
I believe it was on a roommate's borrowed Laserdisc copy of the theatrical release that I first learned, in the accompanying Making Of doc, that the legendary Director's Cut even existed, and it would be at least another half-decade before that was released for the first time ever on DVD.
And that is where you and I part ways, my comrade-in-geekdom. Maybe it's because I read that ridiculous, incredibly detailed novelization, but to my eyes, the Director's Cut, with its twelve or so minutes of additional DELIGHTFUL footage, is by far superior to the (don't get me wrong, still terrific) original wide release. Did you want to see EVEN MORE of Joliet Jake's personal belongings as they're returned to him by an incredibly contemptuous Frank Oz? I sure did! Did you want a few more moments with Carrie Fisher's cold-as-ice vengeance-seeking jilted bride? Hells yeah you did (well, I did anyway). Were you burning to know the secret of how the Bluesmobile gained its unearthly powers of nigh-indestructibility and flight and parallel parking (from the super-magnets of Chicago's L-train, turns out)? Fuck to the motherloving yes! Did you want more and longer sequences with ever-growing piles of ruined police vehicles? How could you not?! Did you not realize how badly you needed extended musical sequences, more God-powered backflips, finding out where Elwood worked his miserable factory job and obtained the industrial glue that sealed the fates of Country Bob and the Good Ol' Boys? How about more time with John Candy's jovial Orange Whip-loving parole officer? What about the ever-so-slightly darker final shot, with the prison guards gearing up to quell the musical riot, echoing the mindless "Hut hut huts" of the earlier SWAT teams, backed by a barn-burning rendition of Jailhouse Rock?
And even supposing you didn't want every sweet moment of all that glorious musical comedy magic, delivered with the hyperspecifity that only a young, creatively-on-fire Dan Aykroyd could provide, how could you EVER deny the world, at the very least, the wonderfully extended full musical sequence as the Brothers cruise through gridlock street traffic towards Ray's Music Exchange while John Lee Hooker and Pinetop Perkins bring the entire South Side of Chicago to heights of raucous dancing ecstasy?!
I probably haven't convinced you of a damn thing, but maybe, hopefully, at least one fellow Rabinite will read this and be exposed to the awesomeness that is the lovingly restored The Blues Brothers: Director's Cut.
Now, on the opposite side, if you ever want to discuss the execrable dreck that was stuffed back into Apocalypse Now: Redux and why it ruins everything great about that movie, we can talk!
I have somehow NEVER seen this movie. Your column inspired me to buy the DVD from Amazon (less than $10!). Also picked up Hedwig and the Angry Itch, another curious omission in my knowledge. THANKS!
I'm also a fan of the first Blues Brothers album. It turns out that the answer to "How would an enthusiastic amateur sound backed by the greatest musicians in the world?" is "pretty damn good!"
Another thing that make this movie work is that it happens at unique moment in time when all of those musical legends were still at peak of powers, but were being virtually ignored by mainstream culture. Ten years earlier, any one of Franklin, Brown, and Charles would have had (and deserved) outsized paycheck and/or unreasonable demands that would have made movie impossible to make as-is. Hell, Blues Brothers backup band itself is full of legends who were content to slum it in Saturday Night Live band because nobody care about soul music in 1981. So they were able to get Mount Rushmore of musical talent for cheap.
And it work out for talent too! Everyone's legend got burnished by this movie. Aretha was about to be dropped from her label, and her performance here saved her career!
Yes! This movie really does not get enough cultural cred for what it did to (re)popularize these artists and the genre. It's basically the O Brother, Where Art Thou? of its era in that respect. And everything you said is spot-on, and speaks in particular to Aykroyd's extreme levels of hip at this point in time. I mean, these were living legends years past their commercial peak but with so much dynamic performance mileage left in the tank, and had the Blues Brothers records and tour and this soundtrack not done the kind of business they did, so many of them would have continued to languish, much to our national shame. And Aykroyd knew it. He basically wrote a Hollywood blockbuster FOR these people. And a deeply weird and wildly original one at that. His love of vintage automobiles and musical gear and spiritual woo-woo and music, contempt for authority and conformity, and dry-as-toast verbal humor steeped in regional character, all dovetailed to make something special and one-of-a-kind. A huge gamble, too, to make the first movie to come out of everybody's favorite late-night countercultural comedy machine a freaking musical! And it almost didn't pay off, what with its disappointing box office returns. But like so many films without apparent "mainstream" "big opening weekend" appeal, it stood the test of time to become an enduring cult classic. And even a godawful sequel couldn't tarnish that rep.
Seeing The Blues Brothers with Jim Belushi seems like Van Halen with Sammy Hagar. Sure, it's *fine* but it's not really what you've paid to see.
You are too kind. It's Van Halen with Wolfgang and Gary.
I dunno. There were some legitimate hits during the Hagar years that made VH work during that era. It's like equating Chicago with Peter Cetera or without (let's face it, the "with" years were their most prolific). On the flip side, the Belushi analogy may be more like seeing Van Halen with a replacement for Eddie, relative or not. The band will never be the same without him.
Nathan, like you, I am an obsessive geek when it comes to this one. It's still in regular rotation in my ever-shifting answer to Top Five Favorite Films of all time, a movie I was desperate to see when it came out, but couldn't get my folks to take me, so I had to make do with reading the novelization of the screenplay by Miami Mitch (who I was convinced for years must have been Aykroyd using a pseudonym, until the internet came along to eventually prove me wrong). In those long-ago days of "see it in theaters or wait two years," my first watch was the terribly butchered ABC Sunday Night at the Movies TV version on my shitty rabbit-eared 13" b&w bedroom TV, the reception going in and out at crucial moments. And still I was instantly smitten, never mind that this 13-year-old suburban Texas boy's least favorite genre (after Boring Family Dramas, anyway) was the movie musical. Though, having read the book, I was a bit disappointed not to see the scene where Jake gets born in prison, or get all that juicy backstory on how they recruited EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE BAND!
I think the only time I've ever actually seen it on the Big Screen was at a notorious Market St. brokedown cinema palace called the Strand in San Francisco. The kind of place that charged 99 cents for a triple feature in 1992 dollars and where winos, crackheads and the homeless paid that to sleep in its horribly uncomfortable seats. That scratched-to-shit 35mm copy came complete with Spanish subtitles, but was in much better condition than the incomplete reels of Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke it was paired with.
I believe it was on a roommate's borrowed Laserdisc copy of the theatrical release that I first learned, in the accompanying Making Of doc, that the legendary Director's Cut even existed, and it would be at least another half-decade before that was released for the first time ever on DVD.
And that is where you and I part ways, my comrade-in-geekdom. Maybe it's because I read that ridiculous, incredibly detailed novelization, but to my eyes, the Director's Cut, with its twelve or so minutes of additional DELIGHTFUL footage, is by far superior to the (don't get me wrong, still terrific) original wide release. Did you want to see EVEN MORE of Joliet Jake's personal belongings as they're returned to him by an incredibly contemptuous Frank Oz? I sure did! Did you want a few more moments with Carrie Fisher's cold-as-ice vengeance-seeking jilted bride? Hells yeah you did (well, I did anyway). Were you burning to know the secret of how the Bluesmobile gained its unearthly powers of nigh-indestructibility and flight and parallel parking (from the super-magnets of Chicago's L-train, turns out)? Fuck to the motherloving yes! Did you want more and longer sequences with ever-growing piles of ruined police vehicles? How could you not?! Did you not realize how badly you needed extended musical sequences, more God-powered backflips, finding out where Elwood worked his miserable factory job and obtained the industrial glue that sealed the fates of Country Bob and the Good Ol' Boys? How about more time with John Candy's jovial Orange Whip-loving parole officer? What about the ever-so-slightly darker final shot, with the prison guards gearing up to quell the musical riot, echoing the mindless "Hut hut huts" of the earlier SWAT teams, backed by a barn-burning rendition of Jailhouse Rock?
And even supposing you didn't want every sweet moment of all that glorious musical comedy magic, delivered with the hyperspecifity that only a young, creatively-on-fire Dan Aykroyd could provide, how could you EVER deny the world, at the very least, the wonderfully extended full musical sequence as the Brothers cruise through gridlock street traffic towards Ray's Music Exchange while John Lee Hooker and Pinetop Perkins bring the entire South Side of Chicago to heights of raucous dancing ecstasy?!
I probably haven't convinced you of a damn thing, but maybe, hopefully, at least one fellow Rabinite will read this and be exposed to the awesomeness that is the lovingly restored The Blues Brothers: Director's Cut.
Now, on the opposite side, if you ever want to discuss the execrable dreck that was stuffed back into Apocalypse Now: Redux and why it ruins everything great about that movie, we can talk!
I have somehow NEVER seen this movie. Your column inspired me to buy the DVD from Amazon (less than $10!). Also picked up Hedwig and the Angry Itch, another curious omission in my knowledge. THANKS!
This is one of my all-time favorite movies. I would go to a Blues Brothers festival in a heartbeat.