Blues in the Night

Now that Spooktober is over, we decided to catch up on a few odd whims we've had - like re-watching The Blues Brothers (1980).

I'm just going to assume that everybody knows this movie and skip the summary: Dan Akroyd and John Belushi play the Blues Brothers, two criminals who also had a blues band. They need to get some money fast to save the orphanage they were raised in, so they get the band back together and play a concert. But in the process piss off a country band, some Illinois Nazis, and several groups of police. Oops, there's the summary.

Here are a few things we noticed this time around:

• We had forgotten that John Candy was in this, as Belushi's parole officer.
• Ms. Spenser had forgotten that Carrie Fisher was in this, as Belushi's homicidal ex.
• We remembered that Pee-Wee Herman is in this, but forgot that his role is 1-second long, and he has like one line: "Very good, sir".
• Belushi is a lot less prominent in this than I remembered. It's pretty much Akroyd's movie.

Overall, the movie seemed to have some pacing issues - we felt like there was quite a bit of dead time between the (incredible) set pieces. The set pieces are incredible, with cop cars flying everywhere, and a mall demolished, etc. But what we were really about was the music. There are some great performances by some classic acts. Duck Dunne, Steve Cropper, and Willie Hall are basically the MGs. Matt Guitar Murphy and the SNL horn section all have speaking roles. But also:

• John Lee Hooker and band perform "Boom Boom" on the streets of Chicago.
• Aretha Franklin has an amazing number, and some fierce dialog.
• Cab Calloway does "Minnie the Moocher". You can see he's an older man, but when the curtain goes up and his black suit turns into a white tux, he delivers an amazing performance.

Ms. Spenser was a little annoyed at the racial subtext (musicians: Black. Audience: White. Saviors: White.). But getting these guys gigs was important, and (I hope) gave them a little late career juice. And we got to see Cab one last time.