p e n g u i n d e v i l

I’m not much of a comedy fan, or a musical fan. But there are some films of either genre that do catch my attention. And some that blend them. One of my old favorites of both is The Blues Brothers. Though I’m not normally a fan of Chicago Blues (what I call ‘electric blues’) or R&B (at least music like “mustang sally”, which I hope to never hear again) I have long been such a fan of The Blues Brothers that I actually own three of their LP’s.

But back to the movie. In a lot of ways, this movie hasn’t really aged well past the 80’s… It’s corny, contrived and gimmicky… But it’s also just plain great! Dan Akroyd and John Belushi are marvelous in it, their characters are great and the guest musicians are a-list and the story is mighty fun. An action comedy interspersed with musical numbers, the highlights of which are Aretha Franklin (as the diner owner who doesn’t want her man to go back to being a musician) and James Brown (as the priest who shows Jake “The Light”), but this is also the movie where I was introduced to John Lee Hooker (another blues favorite) and Ray Charles is great too. Those musical scenes alone are worth the price of buying/renting/admission. And coupled with the great nun scenes, Cab Calloway, John Candy, The Brothers great fashion sense and the brilliant scenes at the western bar, it is really great. Especially since the band is made up of actual (and well-known) blues musicians, including Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn and Matt Murphy.

For those who don’t know, Joliet Jake Blues (Belushi) is paroled only to find out that his brother Elwood (Akroyd) has sold the Bluesmobile and is actually picking him up outside prison in a retired police car! When Elwood forces Jake to visit the head nun at the orphanage where they grew up, they find out that the orphanage needs $5000 or it will be shut down. Now on a “mission from god”, they set off to put their band back together and play a big show that will raise the needed money. While they have a hard time getting the band back together and promoting a big show with one days notice, it is made all the more difficult (and craizer) by the fact that through-out the movie they are being pursed by: a country band, the nazi’s, the police and Jake’s heavily-armed and violent jilted ex-fiance (Carrie Fisher). So yes, chase scenes are on the way, including what may be the most excessive chase scene in movieland.

Regardless, it is a classic and a must see. The movie is non-stop, a lot of fun and Akroyd and Belushi are at the top of their game, with characters that fit them perfectly.

In other semi-related news. Today I had my orientation to be a volunteer at the Hollywood Theater. For those who don’t know this place, it is a beautiful 80 year old baroque movie theater that is owned by the non-profit Film Action Oregon and they play a great variety of local, independent, and foreign films there in addition to hosting many community events and also, ahem, both the Zompire Film Festival and the “festival of all festivals”, the world famous H P Lovecraft Film Festival. I am quite excited about this! It will be a nice experience to expand my environment, to help out a great organization and to get out to see more movies.

And finally, as anyone who reads this blog with any regularity will notice, in between movies I occasionally go off on my “anti tangents”. As I am starting to find it distracting, I am going to try to keep the original movie focus of this blog and move my rants to a different blog. Well, not move them… Currently I plan on leaving what’s here, here. But from now on, when I want to complain about something (non-movie related) that I get a hair in my nose about, it’ll end up somewhere else.