A Binge too Far #50 - Singing and Dancing with The Blues Brothers duo (1980 – 1998)

John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers (1980)

The Blues Brothers (1980)

The Blues Brothers (1980)

 

Recently-released from prison Jake Blues (John Belushi) is reunited with his brother Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) and in order to find enough dough to save the catholic orphanage in which they grew up, they re-assemble their old blues band, resulting in adventures with the law and the Nazis.

 

Written by John Landis (who also directed) and Dan Aykroyd (developed from the same-titled sketch that originally appeared on NBC’s Saturday Night Live) this fun musical comedy is full of wild (but safe, within the limits of its R rating) humour and spectacular musical numbers by a variety of Blues legends, including James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and John Lee Hooker.

 

Made on an excessive $27.5 million budget, it was distributed by Universal Pictures and went on to gross a stunning $115.2 million at the box-office, and following positive reviews from critics and enthusiastic word-of-mouth from audiences it also became a VHS phenomenon too, essentially one of the most iconic films of the 1980s.

 

Featuring car crashes and shootouts, as well as a fascinating cast (Frank Oz, Carrie Fisher, John Candy, Paul Reubens, Charles Napier, Twiggy, Steven Spielberg, and Steve Lawrence), and a R&B soundtrack for the ages, this is classic Hollywood at its best.

 

Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)

Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)

 

Recently-released from prison where he was serving for 18 years for the felonies depicted mostly in the finale of the first film, Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd, who also penned the screenplay with the film’s director John Landis) and with his brother now dead, he must re-assemble his old band for a new “Mission from God” that will result in new adventures with the law and even communists.

 

Produced by Dan Aykroyd, John Landis, and Leslie Belzerg on a massive $30 million budget that went to a spectacle that is featuring car crashes, shootouts, a large cast of extras, and some terrible CGI, this is essentially a rehash of the original and it was indented as a comeback project for its director. It delivers the most fun you could possibly have at the movies in the late 1990s with entertaining singing and dancing that is giving you the feel and magic of R&B, but you shouldn’t be expecting the greatness of the first film. It grossed a disastrous $32.1 million.

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Movie Review: Atari: Game Over (2014)

When I was a kid, video games made their mark in a huge way. I always loved going to arcades and dumping quarter after quarter into anything from Pac-Man to Gauntlet to Tron to Spy Hunter. Arcade games were found in bowling alleys, convenience stores, laundromats and, of course, stand alone arcades. To have the opportunity to bring these things home was a godsend to a kid like me. The first company to build a system for these games was Atari, and there was a 2600 in thousands of lucky homes. For some reason, Atari died off and was usurped by Nintendo, Sega and other systems. Most of the blame, until now, has been thrown onto one infamous game based on a favorite movie alien.

A legend has floated around for years that after the dismal failure of Atari's E.T. game, they buried millions of copies in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Director Zak Penn decided to investigate this claim, along with the entire story of the rise and fall of Atari. The company started simply enough with Pong. If you don't remember Pong, it was a very simple paddle game that resembled tennis. More games were created with the same simple 8-bit technology, and new designers joined the fold. Howard Scott Warshaw was one of them. He was the creator of the popular Yar's Revenge, which hosted the very first Easter egg in gaming history.

Movie Review: Super 8 (2011)

I knew very little about this movie going in. The most common thing I heard was that it was a love letter to Steven Spielberg movies. That would be a fine thing to say if Spielberg wrote himself love letters. He produced the J.J. Abrams directed film. To me, it was a throwback to the movies of the early 1980s that were aimed at my generation. Despite what my bio says, I was born in 1976, so I grew up watching things like E.T., The Goonies and Explorers. The heroes were kids my age, and they lived adventurous lives. This was a common theme at that time, and it can probably be blamed for the popularity of the Coreys. What can I say? You get some good, and you get some bad. Super 8 is a return to the best part of that era.

Buy Super 8 [Blu-ray] or DVD