Empire Magazine Greatest Movies List - #258: The Blues Brothers

“We’re getting the band back together.” Never have scarier words been spoken by men with darker sunglasses. When The Blues Brothers, the iconic duo played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, hit the road for a gig there isn’t going to be much road left. They are on a mission from God, and like most men believing they are doing the lord’s work they end up doing more damage than good. Still, if there were more religious men who were into music by James Brown, drove a police car while the Peter Gunn theme is playing in the background, and wore cool black and white suits, I just might be tempted to believe in a higher power.

I first became familiar with the Blues Brothers when the long belated sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, came out in 1998 while I was living in South America. I caught it on TV and had never seen anything like it. Fun fact, for some reason the Spanish translation was Los Hermanos Cara Dura 2000, which literally means the Tough Face Brothers. Also, I am pretty sure in Chile a phone company was illegally using the Brothers’ likeness for a commercial. I guess the Blues Brothers developed a cult following in South America as well. About ten years later, after my family and I had moved back to Canada, my brother bought an anniversary edition DVD of the first movie, for which I was very grateful. The sequel features great musical performances, but the original Blues Brothers music is raunchier and featured the ball of energy that was John Belushi. You just can’t have the Blues Brothers without brother Jake.

Directed by John Landis, The Blues Brothers (1980) tells the story of Jake (Belushi) and Elwood (Aykroyd) Blues, two brothers who grew up in an orphanage in Chicago. At the beginning of the movie, Jake is released from prison for events that took place the last time the brothers played together with their band. Initially displeased his brother is picking him up in a disused police car Elwood bought at a police auction, Jake forgives him when the car flies over a bridge as tough it had a rocket in the trunk. The car is now the new Bluesmobile.

Their first stop is at their childhood orphanage where the stern Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman) has some bad news. The Sister, (or as the brothers call her, The Penguin) says the orphanage is facing imminent closure unless they can come up with $5,000 in property taxes. The brothers offer to steal the money, only to be severely beaten with a sharp stick. At the behest of their mentor Curtis (Cab Calloway) the brothers head to church to attend the service of the energetic reverend Cleophus James (James Brown). Jake literally sees the light of the lord in the church and comes up with a solution: they will get the band back together and raise the money through a few gigs.

Easier said then done. First off the band members are dispersed throughout the Chicago area and some of them don’t want to hit the road again. Then there is the heap of trouble the brothers cause wherever they go. The police start tracking them down after Jake evades his parole officer (John Candy) and Elwood drives the Bluesmobile through a mall after being pulled over. After stealing the gig of a Country band at a redneck bar they incur the wrath of shotgun toting redneck Tucker McElroy (Jack Napier) and his Good Ol’Boys. Then there is the Illinois Nazis whom the brothers run off a bridge and most dangerous of all, Jake’s former fiancé (Carrie Fisher) armed with a rocket launcher.

Given the explosions, the car chases, and the number of armed men chasing the Blues Brothers you could say this is a violent movie, but the violence is so cartoonish you just have to laugh. During the final car chase Jake and Elwood are not being chased by just a few police car, they are being chased by every police car in Chicago. Boats, horses, tanks, and heavily armed national guardsmen are deployed. A radio operator even says: “Unnecessary use of force in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers has been approved.” Indeed it has.

To Landis’ credit, in the midst of it all this remains one of the greatest musicals of all time. During their mission from God the brothers either play with or hear music from James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and John Lee Hooker. The Blues Brothers Band itself does a few show stopping performances, including “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love,” and “Jailhouse Rock” in the best setting possible.

Nowadays it is impossible to get this band back together because most of the movie’s cast and performers have died, but the soundtrack will live on for a long time. Amen brother.

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #147: Notorious

Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946) has many of the master director’s signature elements: spies, lies, a handsome leading man, a domineering mother, and of course a MacGuffin. As it is set after World War II the villains are logically former Nazis, but the plot is so tense in many scenes that it remains an effective thriller to this day. It also bears a huge influence on John Woo’s Mission Impossible 2 , which retains plot elements and similar dialogue, but of course has more explosions than all of Hitchcock’s films put together. Notorious is so well-made it can be studies in film classes, which is exactly what I did while taking a course on Hollywood Cinema 1930-1960 during the summer of 2009 at the University of British Columbia. As this is Hitchcock we are talking about here, there are subtler things to analyze than explosions in Notorious , no offense to the skills of Mr. John Woo. Famously there is a kissing scene between stars Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman that seemingly las...

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #91: Return of the Jedi

If you want someone to give you death stares, tell a die-hard Star Wars fan the original trilogy is not perfect. I am however going to take a risk and write that if there is one major flaw with Return of the Jedi (1983) is a lack of imagination when it comes to the central plot. After the good guys blow up the Death Star in the first movie, the bad guys are almost done building a brand new one, which of course needs to be destroyed again in more or less the same way. Richard Marquand may be directing this time, but it was still George Lucas writing. Plot hole aside, as a kid you can’t help but have fun as the good guys join forces with a tribe of living teddy bears to get the job done. Like many people in their early 30s, I was introduced to the first Star Wars trilogy by my parents who had recorded the movies, commercials included, when they were showing one night on TV. Upon first viewing, a few things stick out in the mind of a young boy watching Return of the Jedi such as:...

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #85: Blue Velvet

Exactly how do you describe a David Lynch movie? He is one of the few directors whose style is so distinctive that his last name has become an adjective. According to Urban Dictionary, the definition of Lynchian is: “having the same balance between the macabre and the mundane found in the works of filmmaker David Lynch.” To see a prime example of that adjective film lovers need look no further than Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), which does indeed begin in the mundane before slowly sinking in macabre violence. My first introduction to the world of David Lynch was through his ground breaking, but unfortunately interrupted, early 1990s TV series Twin Peaks . This was one of the first television shows to grab viewers with a series-long mystery: who killed Laura Palmer? A mix of soap opera, police procedural, and the supernatural, it is a unique show that showed the darkness hidden in suburbia and remains influential to this day. Featuring Kyle MacLachlan as an FBI investigator with a l...

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