The Blues Brothers

When I reviewed Jesus Christ Superstar a few weeks ago, I listed South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as my favorite musicals.  I apparently forgot about one of my all-time favorite films, The Blues Brothers.  I could try and defend my omission by classifying the film as an action movie (the car chases probably made Burt Reynolds jealous) or as a comedy, but I'll just 'fess up.  I forgot about it.  I'm dumb like that sometimes.

Without a doubt, the best movie idea to ever spring from Saturday Night Live, The Blues Brothers took the surprisingly successful (and shockingly legit) R&B/soul/blues band that got its start on SNL and gave them a story.  Sure, Their first album, Briefcase Full of Blues, had album liner notes detailing some of that backstory.  Sure, it certainly helped that the band hadn't become annoying by starring in some inevitably underwhelming SNL sketches --- these gags were fresh, even if the characters were recognizable.  But what helped the most was the combination of Dan Aykroyd and John Landis.  Landis showed a talent for filming action and music numbers that complemented his already established skill with directing comedies.  Add Landis' surprising skill set with a still-funny Dan Aykroyd (rarely seen after Nothing But Trouble), and you get an odd blend of clever comedy, stupid comedy, reckless destruction and truly awesome musical numbers.

If you don't love this scene, you have no soul (or R&B or blues)

When Joliet Jake Blues (John Belushi) --- with "JAKE" tattooed on his knuckles --- is released on parole, he is met by his brother, Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) --- with "ELWO" tattooed on the knuckles of one hand, and "OD" finishing off the name on his other fist --- and the two return to the orphanage where they grew up.  Times are tough for the orphanage, though, and five thousand dollars is needed to keep the place open or the only parents Jake and Elwood have ever known --- the abrasive Sister Mary "The Penguin" Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman) and the orphanage's janitor, Cal (Cab Calloway) --- will be living in a remote mission and the street, respectively.

What's one more scat-singer on the street to the Board of Education?

Jake and Elwood hastily agree to get the money in time for the approaching deadline, but The Penguin insists that they get the money honestly.  That poses more of a problem.  Cal recommends they attend a church where they hear a sermon from Reverend Cleophus (James Brown).  During the unexpectedly lively sermon, complete with dancers, people doing flips, back-up vocals from Chaka Khan, and shockingly poor enunciation, the boys receive a message.

"...ah herr a diss toob in sown!"

To save the orphanage, they must bring The Blues Brothers Band back together.  This isn't just their idea; this is what God wants them to do.  It's not going to be easy, though.  The band has split up, taking various joe jobs and moving on with their lives.  And if they get the band together, they still need to play an enormous show and it needs to be ridiculously successful.  And even if they are able to do that, there are a number of people out to get the Blues Brothers, simply for doing whatever it is they do.  But they won't fail.  They're on a mission from God, after all.

The acting in The Blues Brothers is pretty hit-and-miss.  John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd have wonderful chemistry and are thoroughly entertaining throughout, even when speaking one-word sentences.

The great thing about this movie is that the wonderful, random and physical comedy these two bring to the table is just icing on the cake.  Aside from small roles from John Candy (note: do not emulate his bar scene and order orange whips.  They are disgusting), Henry Gibson, Frank Oz, Charles Napier, and Carrie Fisher (all of whom were just lovely), the rest of the cast is filled with amateurs.  If you are looking to make a movie that featured great musicians acting, stick to Cab Calloway and Aretha Franklin.  The other musicians --- specifically Matt "Guitar" Murphy, Donald "Duck" Dunn and Steve "The Colonel" Cropper --- are about as wooden as you can get.

As her husband says, "They're all pretty bad."

Luckily, the bad acting from the non-professional cast feeds into the awkward timing and left-field jokes that Landis loves in his films.  In any other movie, I would point to the cameos of Paul Reubens, Steven Spielberg, and that guy who played the limo driver in Die Hard as high points in the casting, but I can honestly quote at least a dozen lines of dialogue from these musicians.  Their acting may not be great, but their delivery and Landis' editing makes them surprisingly memorable.

"I wrote Boom Boom"  "No you didn't!"

The real star of the film was the musical numbers, though.  Even at the height of the band's popularity (they did have a number one album), I doubt anyone would have expected legends like James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker and Cab Calloway to showing up and sing in this film.  And The Blues Brothers Band is shockingly good.  Filled with established sessions musicians as well as the guitarist and bassist from Booker T and the MGs --- who supplied some of the major musical themes for the film --- this was a musical machine.  Belushi and Aykroyd's vocals aren't bad, but they are enthusiastic, which makes all the difference.  When you mix that enthusiasm with the credentials of their band and the great guest performers, you get some truly memorable music scenes.

John Landis directed The Blues Brothers and co-wrote it with Aykroyd.  This isn't a script that could have been pulled off by just any actors --- there are too many weird gags and half-written jokes ("Got my Cheese Whiz?") that required these exact leads --- but the fact that Landis and Aykroyd were able to take advantage of their familiarity with each other (and Belushi, of course) to make so many of these jokes work is remarkable.  Also impressive is how Landis was able to take that SNL staple of humor (ridiculously over-doing something because "Get it?  This is sillier than real life!") and multiply it a thousandfold.  Sure, it's kind of funny that a lot of police would chase Jake and Elwood for, essentially, being awesome; Landis brings in SWAT, tanks, and the National Guard into the mix, turning a slightly silly idea into something ludicrously over-the-top.

Example

John Landis is not a director known for his rapport with the actors in his films, and that is why he usually doesn't get surprising performances; the actors you expect to be funny are funny, and then there's everybody else.  But Landis edited this picture surprisingly well, too.  He mixes iconic shots of the Chicagoland area with iconic shots of the actors.

He sometimes ends scenes abruptly to punch up the humor in a parting line of dialogue.  His camera work is fairly commonplace for most of the film (aside from avoiding Jakes eyes in the opening credits), but he shows an eye for shots that look great.  He's never afraid to make a choice that is stupid or silly, either (the Nazi car chase, for example); it's almost as if his attitude while making this film was "why not?"  And it doesn't hurt that he decided to wreck a shocking amount of property while filming this movie.  After all, if the music and the jokes don't appeal to you, at least you can enjoy the destruction of a mall and some massive car pileups.

Behind the scenes secret: John Landis hates cars

The Blues Brothers shouldn't work as well as it does.  Hell, it shouldn't have been made like this.  No studio would give a Saturday Night Live idea, even one with proven commercial appeal, a budget this large.  Hell, MacGruber had one-third the budget of this film, and The Blues Brothers was made thirty years earlier!  Of course, MacGruber was obviously going to suck, but that's still an impressive budgetary difference.  So many of these scenes work because they are so big and over-the-top (Carrie Fisher's destruction, the car chases, the mall scene, and Maxwell Street musical numbers, etc.), and it is a miracle these filmmakers were allowed to dream this big.  While it would have certainly been different with a smaller budget, The Blues Brothers shows so much love for its music that the scale doesn't matter much.

I think I was born to love this movie.  The Chicago setting, music that fits the city (and you can still hear bums play on the streets), and comedy that toes the line between stupid and clever...it's just so good.  And I have always kind of liked the Wrigley Field bit, too.

For more on John Landis, check out some other opinions:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Every so often, I watch a movie that reminds me of the decade in which I came of age: the 90s.  While not as sleazy as the 70s, and not as absolutely stupid as the 80s, American pop culture in the 90s was still fairly ridiculous.  I don't often watch movies that are defined by their decade, but I made an exception for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

"Ridiculous"how?  Two words: Butterfly Vagina

Before I continue, I have to admit that I am a fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television show.  I'm not much of a TV fan, but I have been sucked into that teen melodrama and found it surprisingly entertaining.  I am not going to compare the two, though; I believe that serial storytelling is vastly different than filmmaking.  I just want to acknowledge ahead of time that I might have a soft spot in my heart for Joss Whedon, who created the TV show and wrote the screenplay to the film.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the story of (not surprisingly) Buffy (Kristy Swanson), your average, run-of-the-mill Valley Girl stereotype, circa-1992.  Basically, she cares about fashion, shopping, boys, and using "like" at least three times in every sentence.  Like, gag me with a cliche.  Buffy's life would be normal, if not for the intervention of Merrick (a slumming --- even by his low standards --- Donald Sutherland).

Sutherland, contemplating seppuku

Merrick finds and trains the Chosen One in each generation (he's old) to battle the vampire master, Lothos (Rutger Hauer).  The Chosen One is always a teenage girl, and she always loses to Lothos; this time, it's Buffy's turn.  On a side note, though, Merrick has a worse losing record than my beloved Chicago Cubs; if this were professional sports, he would have been fired at least a hundred years ago.  Anyway, in a bit of plot convenience, Lothos likes to treat his only viable opposition as sport, so he and his vampire minions set up shop in Buffy's hometown of Los Angeles.  Can Buffy defeat the dastardly vampire leader?  What effect will Merrick have on this Valley Girl?  What the hell is an Oscar winner doing in this movie?  All this, and more, can be answered by watching this movie. 

But who would want to do that?  Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not, by any imaginable definition, a good movie.  You can blame many people for that, but I think the first targets should be the actors.  Kristy Swanson is, quite simply, not much of an actress.  Unfortunately, her character goes through a pretty typical story arc, so her performance seems even more bland and predictable than usual.  Donald Sutherland is pretty decent as a creepy old man, but he does make me wonder exactly what his acting standards are; does he look for choice roles, decent money, or just someone who will offer to buy him Funyuns?  Rutger Hauer had swelled to his current size by this point, so he wasn't as physically intimidating as Blade Runner-era Rutger would have been.  Hauer is only a little subpar in this role, primarily because his character is stupid (he deliberately allows his enemy to get stronger) and his costumes and makeup were occasionally laughably bad. 

Smirkingly bad, at the very least

Surprisingly, the supporting cast is pretty solid.  Luke Perry played Buffy's love interest, and he managed to have some reasonable reactions --- when weird stuff starts happening, he tries to leave town --- as well as some of the better lines in the movie.  David Arquette has a small role, but the banter between him and Perry was one of the better aspects of the film.  Paul Reubens doesn't make for a very fearsome vampire, but his comic timing provides some of the movie's best jokes, particularly with his death scene.  You might also recognize Stephen Root and Hilary Swank in fairly boring character roles, as well as Ben Affleck, Ricki Lake, and Thomas Jane in bit parts.  None of them are particularly interesting to watch here, but it can be fun to spot them before they were famous.

Vampire or extra from Wayne's World?

This is the only feature film directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui and I think I know why.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a story that, probably, shouldn't work.  The premise alone guarantees a fairly cheesy movie experience.  Kuzui doesn't go much further with the idea than that; in fact, I believe that the Wisconsin-ish levels of cheesiness present in the movie are due to Kuzui making lazy choices and settling for stereotypes and easy jokes.

Thankfully, no stakes-for-dildos jokes

I suppose you can blame a lot of that on Joss Whedon's script, too.  This is an odd script, though; while there are a lot of lame jokes and gags, there are also a few genuinely funny and clever moments.  For every Valley Girl-ism, there's a line like, "He ruined my new jacket...!  Kill him a lot."  I hesitate to say that the filmmakers butchered his script, but...this screenplay draft is a lot cooler than what ended up on-screen.

For example, Luke Perry's friend didn't look or sound like an Arquette

That's not to say that the movie is awful...it's just not very good.  There are some clever lines and it managed to blend comedy and horror together --- unfortunately, it was neither scary or funny enough to truly work.  Still, it's kind of cute for what it is: a stupid comedy-horror hybrid.