Dan Aykroyd

John Belushi

James Brown

Cab Calloway

Ray Charles

Aretha Franklin

Steve Cropper

Donald 'Duck' Dunn

Murphy Dunne

Willie Hall

Tom Malone

Lou Marini

Matt Murphy

Alan Rubin

Carrie Fisher

Henry Gibson

John Candy

Kathleen Freeman

John Lee Hooker

Tom Erhart

Gerald Walling

Walter Levine

Alonzo Atkins

Chaka Khan

Armand Cerami

Steven Williams

Kristi Oleson

Gary McLarty

Joe Cuttone

Layne Britton

Toni Fleming

Sheilah Wells

Rosie Shuster

Judith Belushi-Pisano

Lou Perryman

Paul Reubens

Ben Piazza

Gwen Banta

Lari Taylor

Cindy Fisher

Elizabeth Hoy

Tony M. Conde

Eugene J. Anthony

Dean Hill

Jack Orend

Gene Schuldt

Gary Houston

Charles Mountain

Frank Oz

John Landis

Elmore James

Stephen Bishop

Charles Napier

Steven Spielberg

Curt Clendenin

Twiggy

Steve Lawrence

De'voreaux White

Jeff Morris

Mr. T

James Avery

Raven De La Croix

Leoda Richards

Norman Matlock

S.D. Nemeth

Carolyn Franklin

Jack Callahan

John J. Lloyd

Deborah Nadoolman Landis

Leslie McCarthy-Frankenheimer

Robert K. Weiss

Michael Chinich

Earl Sampson

John LeBlanc

Fran Roy

George Folsey Jr.

Katherine Wooten

Mako Koiwai

Elmer Bernstein

Steve Yaconelli

Stephen M. Katz

Hal Gausman

Janet Brady

Kenny Endoso

Johnny Hock

Tommy J. Huff

Bernie Brillstein

Terry Leonard

Jeannie Epper

Kitty O'Neil

Jophery C. Brown

Stevie Myers

Gary Epper

Freddie Hice

Karen McLarty

Tom Cox

Gilbert B. Combs

Chuck Hayward

Dick Ziker

Richard Epper

The Blues Brothers Collection

Music

Comedy

Action

Crime

The Blues Brothers

Universal Pictures

United States of America

English

prison

chicago, illinois

dancing

concert

country music

nazi

jazz

music instrument

blues

shopping mall

road trip

church

buddy

parole

music

car chase

awestruck

euphoric

ridiculous

Cat Ellington

'We're on a mission from God.'
— "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues

(Laughs) ...

What a magnificent work of motion picture art The Blues Brothers is! This fun-filled musical is truly a must-see. The screenplay was co-written by Saturday Night Live alum Dan Aykroyd, whom, by the way also stars in the effort as Elwood Blues, one half of the Chicago-based R&B/Blues band, The Blues Brothers. Native Chicagoan and Aykroyd's fellow SNL grad, John Belushi (The late, great), also stars in this zany opus as "Joliet" Jake, Elwood's biological other half. And with an all-star supporting cast that includes the likes of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Cab (Minnie the Moocher) Calloway, John Lee Hooker, and Carrie Fisher, among quite a few others, The Blues Brothers is one tremendous cinematic force - in both the Musical film and Action film genres, respectively.

John Landis, who co-wrote the screenplay with Aykroyd, also directs the high-leveled ensemble.

In this feel-good tale, the plot revolves around the threatened foreclosure of a Catholic orphanage in which the two brothers were raised. The city has placed an unlawful detainer on the orphanage, and if members of its clergy fail to raise $5,000, the amount needed to stay the pending foreclosure, then it's eviction time for all of those needy children who still call the institution home. But before "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues see that happen, they'll tear a whole lotta Chicago up!

With that, the crazy and over-the-top hilarious action begins ... And "laughing out loud" will truly be an understatement.

Set in the Windy City, The Blues Brothers is jam-packed with action, adventure, great music, comedy, and deep, heartstrings-tugging emotion. It does its part in helping to define what a genuinely great and entertaining movie should be. And it is a CLASSIC in every sense of the adjective.

My big brother (God love him) introduced me to this film, by way of a movie date, over three decades ago. And to this day, I continue to harbor for both him and it, a love beyond passion. Five stars!

OK, the title here is probably disingenuous. I live in Chicago, a city that doesn't allow you residence unless it can confirm that you love "The Blues Brothers" and "The Untouchables." So this review is coming with a fair amount of cultural bias out the door. So I'm just going to drop the honest part right now and tell you flatly that this is bias. It's likely the most bias review that you'll probably ever read.

Franklin singing in a famous Maxwell street diner (now defunct) but still, that's pretty Chicago right there.

And, of course, if you've ever lived by the L you get the joke about the trains running past you every couple of minutes at a deafening pitch.

And there's the fact that I grew up in McHenry County when it was still a rural country podunk county and they still gave us the nod.

It's all Chicago, and it's all Chicago with a line up of Blues cameo's that the world has never seen before and sadly will never see again, especially as the genre has faded to near obscurity with the generations after X.

There's something splendid about it. It's a comedy that has never stopped reminding me of home. I can even sit down with my wife and watch this movie in our Chicago apartment and feel a nostalgia for the Chicago that used to be, for the Maxwell Street that used to be, and I can watch it when I'm out far from home and it acts as kind of a comfort piece.

And, what I've found out in my life is that the love for it is international, or at least The Blues Brothers transcended borders and has a faithful following in Germany as well.

It's a movie about The Blues and about Chicago, and don't listen to the nay sayers, even our home town boy Buddy Guy will tell you that the Blues aren't an exclusively Black thing, it's not an exclusively an American thing, they are an exclusively music thing. There is a reason, after all, why people say that they "appreciate" the Blues. And I don't think anyone is in a position to argue with Buddy Guy about this.

So take this however you want. It's a funny musical with better music than musicals tend to have... or it's a beloved tradition that comes with your zip code. Either way it's something that only the most jaded and cynical among us won't enjoy and love.

Filipe Manuel Neto

**Remarkable.**

John Landis was inspired when he decided to direct a film like this one. In addition to bringing us the excellent music that integrates the soundtrack, it brings us high doses of very good humor and a captivating, intelligent and well-written story, based on the desire of two brothers to reunite their former R&B band, dissolved after them getting into trouble with the police, and using music to raise the money needed to maintain the Catholic orphanage where they grew up. It's a plot that seems subscribed, but considering that it's a comic and quite unpretentious film, it seems within a very acceptable level.

The cast is simply outstanding and is full of famous names. Each one of them does the best they can, and the result of it all, combined, is truly positive. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd manage the two main characters with panache and enormous talent, in a way that it's really hard not to dedicate all your attention to them when they appear on the scene. I really liked the absolutely serious way they say the jokes. We can't guess what will come out of their mouths. Carrie Fisher also appears here, in a smaller but quality work. And we need to highlight the enormous contributions of a wide range of immortal names in music, such as Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin and James Brown. Until near the end of the film, I really thought that the actors were very similar to them, but no.

On a technical level, it's a film that looks more understated than it actually is. There's a lot of money invested there, and we can see that in the special effects and the staggering amount of cars and things that are destroyed throughout the film, as the Blues Brothers leave their trail of chaos in their wake. I got to the point of thinking that the Portuguese police would be happy if they had half the cars destroyed in the film! I also got the impression that shooting outdoors, especially in an urban environment, needed to interrupt normal traffic on the streets, which is expensive. Well, I've already mentioned the soundtrack, but it's worth stressing this point again: the film has excellent music and songs, and Jazz, Blues, R&B and Soul lovers will probably love this.

The Blues Brothers( 1980)

They'll never get caught. They're on a mission from God.

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A review by Cat Ellington

Written by Cat Ellington on Fri Feb 17 2017

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