― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:58 (nineteen years ago) link
The second one's a pile of shit, obv.
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 20:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― BanjoMania (Brilhante), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 21:11 (nineteen years ago) link
I reserve my ire for their appearances in bar jukeboxes and classic rock radio. That shit is wrong.
― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 22:16 (nineteen years ago) link
however, can we blame the blues brothers for the musical career of bruce willis?
― stevie (stevie), Thursday, 22 April 2004 07:11 (nineteen years ago) link
I liked it better than Jaws too.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 22 April 2004 07:37 (nineteen years ago) link
This was eclipsed only by a swing type band at a wedding last summer: "Here's another great Robbie Williams track, called Mack the Knife" etc
― bham, Thursday, 22 April 2004 09:24 (nineteen years ago) link
I hear that, apart from the fact that The Prince Of Tides is probably beyond salvation: "Lowenstein! Lowenstein!". It goes for many other films, though.
― Jay Kid (Jay K), Thursday, 22 April 2004 10:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 22 April 2004 18:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― sexyDancer, Thursday, 22 April 2004 18:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 22 April 2004 18:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 22 April 2004 20:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― robin (robin), Friday, 23 April 2004 01:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 23 April 2004 02:27 (nineteen years ago) link
never cared for it much beyond that tho.m.
― msp, Friday, 23 April 2004 03:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Friday, 1 April 2005 13:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Friday, 1 April 2005 14:48 (eighteen years ago) link
And Aretha and Calloway come across great even if Landis couldn't direct the numbers for shit.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 1 April 2005 17:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Friday, 1 April 2005 20:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― cobra commander (cobra commander), Friday, 1 April 2005 21:08 (eighteen years ago) link
"Orange Julius? Orange Julius? Three Orange Juliuses."
― Pleasant Plains, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:07 (sixteen years ago) link
Let's not forget that this is the director who also brought us Kentucky Fried Movie, American Werewolf in London, and Thriller before turning to absolute shit.
I highly value this movie (not the sequel, not the soundtrack)... as an important part of my childhood with as many quotable lines as any great comedy.
― Nate Carson, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:55 (sixteen years ago) link
it's funny cuz they're white
― pc user, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:56 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.myfonts.com/images/family/gonzalez/orange-whip.gif
― sexyDancer, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:03 (sixteen years ago) link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Whip
― sexyDancer, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:04 (sixteen years ago) link
corrected.
― Pleasant Plains, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:10 (sixteen years ago) link
kinda cool it's actually a casual product placement
― sexyDancer, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:17 (sixteen years ago) link
fuck the haters. funny, can do without the way-off Stax imitations, but like so many others this was my first exposure to blues & soul music and it's why I saw B.B. King when I was 12 and why I still own 3 Albert Collins albums and two boxes of Stax records.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:33 (sixteen years ago) link
You get me my cheez wiz, boy?
― B.L.A.M., Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:30 (sixteen years ago) link
for umpteenth time, edd s hurt otm
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 21 December 2007 03:13 (sixteen years ago) link
it's great that e. hurt "already knew about that stuff" but i kind of like the idea of, yknow, the rest of us getting to find out about that stuff, too.
― J.D., Friday, 21 December 2007 03:36 (sixteen years ago) link
J.D. OTM. (Closest I've ever come to dissing eddhurt!)
Also, give Aykroyd credit for legitimately learning how to play a decent blues-harp for the sake of the character. I admire that dedication.
― Myonga Vön Bontee, Friday, 21 December 2007 04:21 (sixteen years ago) link
I watch the movie more for the Brothers than the Blues.
― Pleasant Plains, Friday, 21 December 2007 04:45 (sixteen years ago) link
but i kind of like the idea of, yknow, the rest of us getting to find out about that stuff, too. I dunno, maybe you kids could have listened to Oldies Radio and taken out old school rock critic books out of the library, like us old-timers had to do.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 21 December 2007 04:54 (sixteen years ago) link
bought the record when it came out, i was 12 i think, loved it for a few months then never listened to it again. really just the first example of an ok snl skit taking on a life of its own. the movie holds up much better than the record.
― gershy, Friday, 21 December 2007 04:56 (sixteen years ago) link
I wonder why they never made the "Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger" skit into a movie?
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 21 December 2007 04:58 (sixteen years ago) link
"No Coke. Pepsi!"
― Nate Carson, Friday, 21 December 2007 05:32 (sixteen years ago) link
Product placement problems, you think?
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 21 December 2007 05:35 (sixteen years ago) link
I need some clarifcation from an older person:
What was the appeal of this project?The movie obviously is a cult object and a funny comedy, so I don't need that explained to me. I'm talking about Blues Brothers ca. 1978-1979, which became such a marketable thing that it WARRANTED a movie.
The SNL "sketches" weren't really funny ever, but still got a RECORD ALBUM that was POSITIVELY reviewed in Rolling Stone and so-so review by Xgau and other places. Why did people like this shit? Was it like how people who don't like metal buy the Deathklok album?
― gshumway1 (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, 14 November 2009 21:51 (fourteen years ago) link
But I assume the Deathklok album has jokes on it? I didn't listen to that because I like actual metal bands and funny TV shows
― gshumway1 (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, 14 November 2009 21:52 (fourteen years ago) link
good question. the whole weird... '80s... white guy blues... "thing" is just... so bizarre to me
― Alf, Lord Melmacsyn (s1ocki), Saturday, 14 November 2009 22:00 (fourteen years ago) link
it was all the mega popularity of SNL, the music was just incidental. the blues bros albums are comedy records, and like you say not very funny ones. this is probably where the original show and certainly belushi "jumped the shark" and got self-indulgent. people ate this shit up,though, at least for awhile. i worked in a record store in 1978-79 and there was a mini comedy boom then, steve martin sold lots of records too which was also mystifying. he's been good in movies since but his comedy was meh. the blues bros were like the cheech and chong of the late 70s, only they were coked to the gills. the blues bros movie actually being OK was a surprise.
― chief rocker frankie crocker (m coleman), Saturday, 14 November 2009 22:27 (fourteen years ago) link
comedy albums -- you listen once or twice and file em away forever. i remember ragging on people who bought the blues bros album. went all "high fidelity" on these fraternity and sorority types. telling em to buy aretha and howlin wolf instead.
― chief rocker frankie crocker (m coleman), Saturday, 14 November 2009 22:32 (fourteen years ago) link
i was only 12 or 13 when the blues brothers came around, and i had no idea then what Stax records was or implied (i.e. some of the best r'n'b ever recorded, mostly in the sixties. uniting blacks and whites, somewhat, theoretically). i think they(Belushi and Aykroyd) deserve kudos for having good musical taste, and for bringing Booker T/mg's back into public conciousness. the movie is silly, not to be harsh, but it's not very funny.
― Edgard Varese is god (of music anyways) (outdoor_miner), Saturday, 14 November 2009 22:35 (fourteen years ago) link
it was all the mega popularity of SNL, the music was just incidental.
I was 13 back then and this is very OTM.
― sleeve, Saturday, 14 November 2009 22:36 (fourteen years ago) link
3 comedy records i ever owned
blues bros. - got it when it came out, i was 12. really liked it but was confused at first because there was no "comedy" as such, except maybe for "rubber biscuit"
a steve martin album, can't remember the name but one side is him playing bluegrass tunes on banjo
bob & doug mackenzie - the one with the geddy lee song
buying all those records was tied to be really into snl/sctv.m coleman otm
― velko, Saturday, 14 November 2009 22:40 (fourteen years ago) link
― chief rocker frankie crocker (m coleman), Saturday, November 14, 2009 5:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
you're insane re: steve martin
― Alf, Lord Melmacsyn (s1ocki), Saturday, 14 November 2009 23:29 (fourteen years ago) link
John Landis on the movie and Aretha:
https://deadline.com/2018/08/john-landis-aretha-franklin-the-blues-brothers-reminisces-john-belushi-dan-aykroyd-1202447056/
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 20 August 2018 17:45 (five years ago) link
This bit is really revealing:
LANDIS: What’s important to remember about that movie is, it was John and Danny’s intention to exploit their own celebrity of the moment, and focus a spotlight on these great American artists because rhythm and blues was in eclipse. To give you an idea, MCA Records, Universal Records, refused the soundtrack album.DEADLINE: Why?LANDIS: They said, who’s going to buy this music? And then, one of the great accomplishments of The Blues Brothers came when we recorded live John Lee Hooker on Maxwell Street, which is gone now. We had Pinetop Perkins, all these legendary people, recording John’s song “Boom Boom.” And when we ended up making a deal with Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun himself wouldn’t put John Lee Hooker on the album. He said, he’s too old, and too black. It was very gratifying when the album went platinum.
DEADLINE: Why?
LANDIS: They said, who’s going to buy this music? And then, one of the great accomplishments of The Blues Brothers came when we recorded live John Lee Hooker on Maxwell Street, which is gone now. We had Pinetop Perkins, all these legendary people, recording John’s song “Boom Boom.” And when we ended up making a deal with Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun himself wouldn’t put John Lee Hooker on the album. He said, he’s too old, and too black. It was very gratifying when the album went platinum.
― grawlix (unperson), Monday, 20 August 2018 18:03 (five years ago) link
That interview was a good read. Thanks!
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Monday, 20 August 2018 18:06 (five years ago) link
morbs can you remember *who* said that abt belushi's eyebrows? i assumed i'd remembered it from pauline kael's review but no
― mark s, Monday, 27 August 2018 16:31 (five years ago) link
i thought it might've been Kael; it's def a US contemporary critic
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 16:33 (five years ago) link
Belushi's attempt at an ingratiating accent when they show up at Bob's Country Bunker always gets me.
― omar little, Monday, 27 August 2018 16:46 (five years ago) link
David Denby slammed the film in New York magazine for being overblown in general and giving short shrift to the cameo stars:
https://books.google.com/books?id=5uUCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52#v=onepage&q&f=false
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 16:55 (five years ago) link
maybe the eyebrows line was from Janet Maslin in the NY Times
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 17:03 (five years ago) link
I thought it was Roger Ebert, but I didn't see it in his review (which is online).
― grawlix (unperson), Monday, 27 August 2018 17:12 (five years ago) link
lol this is now going to drive me nuts >:(
― mark s, Monday, 27 August 2018 17:24 (five years ago) link
ha this is playing at the Castro next week and my daughter expressed interest after seeing the Aretha clip, maybe we'll go
― Οὖτις, Monday, 27 August 2018 17:43 (five years ago) link
xp It wasn't Janet Maslin. She panned the film btw, only complimenting Aretha Franklin's performance (and said even that scene was badly edited).
― Josefa, Monday, 27 August 2018 18:18 (five years ago) link
when i was growing up i never knew it could possibly have been panned, since it's generally really entertaining and funny and the music is good (albeit the loosest definition of the blues.) I guess I get it now, but I don't agree. sure the car pileup comedy isn't really funny, except in the absurd sense. but the BBs underplaying everything while it goes to hell around them still works.
i like how it's pretty respectful overall, even if the respect is often awkward. and it's still refreshing to see a movie where there's zero "scary" bits involving the inner city scenes (cf. Adventures in Babysitting, Animal House, any number of other films too numerous to mention.)
the most (comedy) tense bits involve a nun, a country bar (that's a different kind of problematic, i agree), the cops, and a fancy Near North restaurant.
― omar little, Monday, 27 August 2018 19:10 (five years ago) link
the nun is of course Kathleen Freeman, of Jerry Lewis' rep company and Singin' in the Rain ("rrrround tones").
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 19:18 (five years ago) link
oh WOW I had never made that connection!!
― Οὖτις, Monday, 27 August 2018 19:22 (five years ago) link
and I watch Singin in the Rain once a year :(
She also in the Americanized Broadway musical of The Full Monty with terminal cancer, and stayed with it until 5 days before her death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Freeman
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 19:28 (five years ago) link
She panned the film btw, only complimenting Aretha Franklin's performance (and said even that scene was badly edited).
supposedly the performance part of the Aretha scene came out the way it did was that she had problems nailing both the lip-syncing and the choreography (something she'd never had to do to such a degree before or after), so they had to kind of edit around her at times when they just didn't have usable footage for certain parts.
― Ubering With The King (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 27 August 2018 20:00 (five years ago) link
and also, Landis cut off the sax player's head. (foreshadowing of Vic Morrow)
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 20:07 (five years ago) link
*rimshot*
― Οὖτις, Monday, 27 August 2018 20:16 (five years ago) link
It's interesting to read what the early-80s NYC media had to say, but please...the Blues Brothers (and Landis etc in general) is a classic example of a chasm between critics and ticket-buyers.
― everything, Monday, 27 August 2018 23:20 (five years ago) link
isn't John lee Hooker onscreen for about 45 seconds?
this was enough to make quite an impression on young me
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 01:16 (five years ago) link
And he's not on the album?
― Mark G, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 10:56 (five years ago) link
Nope. With the exception of "The Old Landmark" (James Brown with the Rev. James Cleveland Choir), everything on the soundtrack album is recorded by the Blues Brothers band, either with Belushi & Aykroyd ("She Caught the Katy," "Gimme Some Lovin'") or with whichever guests (Aretha, Ray, Cab Calloway).
None of the other songs in the film -- Sam & Dave, Fats Domino, John Lee Hooker, Louis Jordan -- are on the soundtrack record.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 28 August 2018 13:59 (five years ago) link
Posted upthread:
I pulled a bunch of my parent's vinyl from storage last week, and among the titles was Briefcase... Spun it earlier this evening, and enjoyed it a bit. Aside from a couple obvious numbers, they dug fairly deep for songs, made sure you knew who did most of 'em to begin with, give the band room to move, and emphasize the humor in Blues/Soul that gets too often forgotten by revivalists (although they do go overboard--some serious cocaine thought went into doing "Groove Me" in comedy Jamaican).
― Ubering With The King (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 31 August 2018 04:42 (five years ago) link
watched this movie with the kids last night and maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at how much they loved it. In a weird way, it's a perfect kids' movie, as long as you don't mind the swearing - the set-up is bare-bones simple, there's no extended dialogue or plot mechanics to decipher, tons of WB-cartoon style physical comedy, a great musical number every 5 minutes or so.
― Οὖτις, Monday, 8 October 2018 16:34 (five years ago) link
No thank you, ma'am. We may be suckin' back a few beers later on. We'll be here all night. You see, we're the band!
― omar little, Monday, 8 October 2018 16:46 (five years ago) link
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0008/3453/5487/products/8488566437676557808_GRATEFUL_DEAD_NEW_YEARS_2048x.jpg?v=1537901528
― earlnash, Monday, 8 October 2018 17:49 (five years ago) link
I haven't seen this since I watched it many times as a kid, and my only memories are the country bar scene, Aretha singing "Think," and the car chase/crash, which was my favorite part of the whole thing.
― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, 8 October 2018 22:57 (five years ago) link