Jump to content
🔒 The Earwolf Forums are closed Read more... ×

EvRobert

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    598

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    8

Posts posted by EvRobert

  1. Posted

    8 hours ago, PollyDarton said:

    I hear the stage version of St. Louis is terrible. I have never seen it. 

    I meant to look up and see if there was a stage version of the show. It seems tailor made for it, pretty static set, classic songs, recognizable title, lots of roles for women. I can't imagine it being very good though as there really is no conflict. At least with Little Women we have the backdrop of a family struggling during the Civil War and some death.

    • Like 1

  2. Posted

    Okay I didn't care for this movie at all. The music was good, directed with a deft hand, it was beautiful to look at but it was just so...empty. Maybe it's because I've just started production on a stage version of Little Women (which I have similar problems to as this movie) but there really is no story here, no teeth, no...nothing. Tootie was cool though. 

    • Like 3

  11. Posted

    Watching the movie now and at the Battle of the Bands. Is that really Eric Clapton nerdified?

     

    Also, maybe I missed performances. Which songs were the Gator Boys and Jonny Lang's? (I did like John the Revelator in the tent revival. Seems like an odd song to open the movie with.)

     

    Jonny Lang's number (performed with Wilson Picket, Eddie Floyd and the Blues Brothers Band) is 634-5789 (Soulsville USA) aka the phone sex number.

     

    Which brings up an interesting thought. Lang was legit 16 years old when this was filmed, 17 when it came out. What kind of phone sex line hires a 16 year old kid to work there? Even as a janitor, wouldn't there be laws against that? Why does Wilson Picket and Eddie Floyd hire him? What risk the law for this kid? Is this a horrifying glimpse into Scribbles future?

     

    The Louisiana Gator Boys number is How Blue Can You Get and then the return along with the Blues Brothers Band (and eventually the rest of the cast) for New Orleans.

    • Like 5

  12. Posted

    So - with the quote above blaming the studios aside - it is confusing to me how absent John Belushi/Jake is in this film (Not literally I know he's actually dead ya jerks, I mean in spirit). Why? Why pretend like this isn't a devastating thing... why pretend like he can just be replaced? They don't even show his photo! Elwood pulls out a worn photo of Cab Calloway from his breast pocket, but not Jake, his beloved brother and musical partner? Also when Skynet runs a computer check on Elwood we see his sunglass clad mugshot... and then when he runs a check on Jake we conveniently do not see the screen... and that's just about where his mentions end.

     

    Did they think it would be more respectful this way? Because I find it cold and strange. John Belushi is the Elvis of SNL. He is their crown jewel and their biggest legend. I have been an enormous fan of SNL as far back as I can remember and I am quick to absorb any media about it... like books and documentaries (TOTAL ASIDE: James Franco's "Saturday Night" documentary is REALLY interesting.) Anyhoo... in any kind of SNL retrospective Belushi is treated like a mythical creature... so pure and beloved, the comedian who could and should have been a rockstar... his only downfall being hardcore substance abuse. And the people who made this movie KNEW him, as well as anyone could and they didn't try to really honor him in almost anyway. We don't even get to hear Frank Oz's explanation of Jake's death and consolation of Elwood... we don't even get to see Elwood grieve.

     

    I'm not saying they need to go full Paul Walker or anything. Even something as little as stock footage of him performing at the end ala Selena/Man on the Moon/Walk the line? It had been 17 years since his actual death and it just seems an appropriate and respectful amount of time had passed for them to make a "statement" on the death of Belushi.

     

    Also - please tell me if I'm missing allusions to him in the movie that I didn't catch.

    I believe that when he's putting the band back together, just about everyone says "I'm sorry about Jake" and Elwood just kind of nods

    • Like 3

  15. Posted

    Sorry everyone, I know this movie has PROBLEMS and I will never voluntarily watch it again, but I cannot dislike a film that has Erykah Badu blow up Russian monsters AND white supremacists with voodoo magic.

     

    I have listened to the soundtrack several times.

     

    I honestly felt Paul and Jason were a little hard on the music. I like quite a bit of the music apart from the mess that is the movie

    • Like 5

  17. Posted

    Jason Correction #2--Paul Schaffer was NOT in the first Blues Brother's movie, although he was part of the original Blues Brothers Band on SNL. That's why when he asks "may I step in" is a "thing" it's the only time the original band was captured on "film" as opposed to "video"

     

    RE: the underwater car/sub thing, don't they open the door and water comes out of the floorboard? So I think the audience member who asked about it filling with water might be onto something

    • Like 2

  21. Posted

    I'd agree that Blues Brothers just does not work without John Belushi. The whole concept from SNL was originally just putting Belushi in front of a band and letting him blow everyone away with what a pure goddamn entertainer he was. Blues Brothers was his baby ... Aykroyd just danced crazy and played harmonica in the background.

     

    Goodman might have been a decent replacement if they had let him ... his performance in the stripster club was great, but he never really gets another moment like that. Instead of letting Goodman be Belushi, they tried to make Elwood into Jake, they tried to turn Scribbles into Elwood, and they just added Goodman probably for the same reason they had 104 cars in the pile-up ... just to add one more.

     

    I don't know what they were doing with poor Joe Morton.

     

    here's my theory, Dan SHOULD have been in the Cab Calloway role, the old mentor who showed up once in awhile, Joe Morton and John Goodman should have been in the Elwood and Jake roles and put Blues Traveler as the backing band (their song in this is one of my favorite songs, period). You could have followed similar beats without it feeling so cheap.

     

    I can't explain Scribbles.

    • Like 3

  22. Posted · Edited by EvRobert

    I've got a genuine question since we covered Blues Brothers on Musical Mondays: why is this movie garbage and the original a classic?

     

    I think the original is pretty good and 2000 is kind of bad. But not such a stark difference to make 2000 one of the 25 worst sequels of all time. What's this one missing? What's the original have that the sequel doesn't.

     

    Here's my thoughts as someone who loves the original and has tried with BB2K (I will admit that I think the MUSIC in BB2K is almost as good).

     

    A) John Belushi. Belushi was such a charismatic presence that he lights up the screen

    B ) Tighter Script. As the pod points out, the plot to the OGBB, while being a series of vignettes, it followed an easy to summerize plot. Elwood picks up Jake, they go to the orphanage, get their "mission from God" to save said orphanage, put the band back together, put on a show. Everything is building up to that show. The final show feels like a show. Yes there are only two numbers, but you get the impression it would go on longer if John Candy hadn't showed up. The climax makes sense (the car chase) to pay the bill and ending up in jail. In BB2K, it is just vignettes. The plot makes no sense, why does Elwood want to go to Erkahau Badu's BotB? When the state police (and seriously at this point it would be the FBI and not Nia Pepples--or why wasn't Joe Morton and Nia Peeples just FBI agents) show up, they run but there's no climax to the run. Why do Mighty Mack and Joe stay (they would be held as accessories to the crime--ESP. Joe Morton) but Elwood and Scribbles run?

    C) Inherent Logic. The OGBB, while having crazy stuff happen, has an explanation (it's a former police cruiser with a souped up engine--there's also a cut bit where the powerlines Elwood parks under have given it some abilities but that's cut so neither here nor there). The car that they use in BB2K makes no sense and has no inherent logic. It goes underwater, it has a bedroom, it just does things for no reason.

    D) Why the band reforms makes sense. In the OGBB, these guys, for the most part, are living the lives of working musicians. Two work in a soul food restaurant (for Aretha Franklin-Matt Murphy's on-screen wife), some are working as lounge musicians at a holiday inn, only the trumpet player seems to have a good job (as the maître d') and reluctant to join them. In BB2K, everyone but Elwood has seemingly good jobs. Willie owns his own strip club, the Murphy's own a Mercedes-Benz dealership, the keyboard player seems to have a good job at the sex phone line as a supervisor, two are radio DJs. Their second vehicle is a Benz! it seems like for everyone, this is dad rock, it's a lark. So why would they risk getting mixed up with Elwood Blues, who according to the first movie has sent them to jail at least two previous times. Jack was the charismatic force in the first one that drove them, without Jake and Elwood these guys have seemingly got their lives together and have no reason to go back on the road.

    E) MAGIC! I mean crazy stuff happens in OGBB, but nothing that is flat out magic. The closest is Jake's revelation at James Brown's church (similar to Joe Morton's but without the full Blues Brother's transformation) but that could be interpreted as a demonstration of Jake's internal revelation. in BB2K you have Joe Morton's transformation, you have Erkah Badu turning them into ZOMBIES and turning Darrell Hammond's white supremacists into mice.

     

    That's just off the top of my head

    • Like 5

  24. Posted

    Yeah, I watched the ‘96 version just before watching this. And I can tell you, the contrast between the two didn’t do Piya any favors.

     

    And I agree with you about it not being daring, aside from the Looney Toons sound effects, it was like a Cliff’s Notes version of the play.

    Honestly, She's The Man is probably a better free adaptation of Twelfth Night than this was and I feel bad about saying that. This was a fine adaptation a stunning stage show, just kind of there

    • Like 2

  25. Posted

    oh thank god!

     

    I tried watching this but than the dance I was DJing last Saturday paid me to go into overtime, I'm going on vacation next week to North Carolina and just bring myself to finish this and when I did I was just left kind of...not cold but just didn't feel that they did enough with the material, either to make it more daring, more subversive or anything.

     

    Also the 96 version of 12th Night (that's the version with Helena Bonham and Ben Kingsley right?) is brilliant.

    • Like 2
×