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Author Topic: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon  (Read 75438 times)

oldkid

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #470 on: April 17, 2011, 01:11:26 PM »
The Blues Brothers



Jake and Elwood.  A couple of simple men, with simple desires.  They love good music, good friends, fast cars and to stay away from their exes.  But there is a crisis: the severe nun who raised them is about to lose her orphanage.  So they embark upon their mission from God: they are going to get their rockin’ blues band back together and do one more big benefit show to keep the orphanage going.  In the midst of this, they find that they must have a number of car chases, including one through a mall, insult some rednecks and run from a mysterious woman who wants to kill them.  Just another adventure for God.



Technical 3/5—The acting is basic, sometimes it is basically bad.  But that is all to remind us that most of these supporting characters aren’t actors, they are musicians. The cinematography is also pretty basic—nothing fancy or pretty.  It’s your basic entertainment from the 80s.

Interest—4/5—What a fun film.  The music is great, having some of the classics rock and soul songs from some great artists.  And it is such a blast.  The car chase through the mall is still classic, and the Brothers’ choices are amazingly stupid.  For a skit brought to screen, it is really entertaining.

Tension—3/5—In a sense, it doesn’t really matter what happens.  The important thing is that the movie goes from song to violence to song to violence.  What happens to the characters aren’t so important.  The only tension is really found when the Brothers’ are VERY late for the show.  But Cab Calloway saves the day—how fantastic!



Emotional—3/5—If LOL is an emotion, then I was there.

Characters—3/5—Frankly, I like the fact that Belushi and Ackroyd played the Brothers deadpan.  It offered a wonderful contrast to their stage presence and the insanity around them.  It just added to the humor, even if it means no character development for them.  Carrie Fisher, however, is perfect as the Ex.  She steals every scene she’s in and is way better than all of Scott Pilgrim’s Exes combined.

Theme—2/5—Abusive nuns shouldn’t ever ask the kids she’s raised to help her.  In anything more than painting walls.



Ethics—2/5—Ethically, the film is interesting.  We are asked to withhold judgment on the various criminal activities of Jake and Ellwood because they are doing it to help out an orphanage and they are socially clueless as to what would be appropriate.  In other words, since their moral imagination is low and their motivation is good, then we should wink at the damage they have done to relationships, buildings, families, as well as the countless laws they have broken.  Besides, their band rocks.

Two things disturb me about this moral reasoning.  First, that good motivation always produces moral actions.  Clearly, in the Blues Brothers, this is not the case.  And it is not the case in real life.  The fact is, moral action not only needs positive motivation (“I want to help this person”), but it also requires wisdom to understand the best options.   Which J and E clearly lacked.



Second, and what really bugs me, is J and E represent a certain kind of religious reasoning that damages the world.  We can laugh at their idiocy, but others see their kind of religious experience without thought to be a fair assessment of proper religious action.  They can be seen as a mockery of religion (which I don’t think the Blues Brothers is) or they can be used as a defense for a kind of religious action.  Really, I’ve seen it.  I know a number of Jake and Ellwoods.  I know of people who pray for protection before they break into a store to steal thousands of dollars of goods, and believe that God has heard their prayers.  This is horrible.  Again, it’s not the fault of the movie.  Perhaps the film is just laughing at this kind of reasoning.  Unfortunately, knowing that the reasoning is actually out there, takes away some of the absurdity for me.

If God was truly in The Blues Brothers, He was behind the closing of the abusive orphanage in the first place.

Personal—2/5—Nothing personal, it’s just an entertaining film.



The Blues Brothers is along the lines of The Emperor’s New Groove or the original Pirates of the Caribbean film.  It is simply entertainment, nothing more.  And it isn’t as great entertainment as those other films, so it won’t make my top 100.  But it is worth rewatching about every decade.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

FroHam X

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #471 on: April 17, 2011, 04:31:13 PM »
Blues Brothers is tons of fun AND it has a Spielberg cameo.
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MartinTeller

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #472 on: April 17, 2011, 04:31:58 PM »
Ethics—2/5—Ethically, the film is interesting.  We are asked to withhold judgment on the various criminal activities of Jake and Ellwood because they are doing it to help out an orphanage and they are socially clueless as to what would be appropriate.  In other words, since their moral imagination is low and their motivation is good, then we should wink at the damage they have done to relationships, buildings, families, as well as the countless laws they have broken.  Besides, their band rocks.

Two things disturb me about this moral reasoning.  First, that good motivation always produces moral actions.  Clearly, in the Blues Brothers, this is not the case.  And it is not the case in real life.  The fact is, moral action not only needs positive motivation (“I want to help this person”), but it also requires wisdom to understand the best options.   Which J and E clearly lacked.

Second, and what really bugs me, is J and E represent a certain kind of religious reasoning that damages the world.  We can laugh at their idiocy, but others see their kind of religious experience without thought to be a fair assessment of proper religious action.  They can be seen as a mockery of religion (which I don’t think the Blues Brothers is) or they can be used as a defense for a kind of religious action.  Really, I’ve seen it.  I know a number of Jake and Ellwoods.  I know of people who pray for protection before they break into a store to steal thousands of dollars of goods, and believe that God has heard their prayers.  This is horrible.  Again, it’s not the fault of the movie.  Perhaps the film is just laughing at this kind of reasoning.  Unfortunately, knowing that the reasoning is actually out there, takes away some of the absurdity for me.

If God was truly in The Blues Brothers, He was behind the closing of the abusive orphanage in the first place.

Don't you think that the fact that they get punished (prison) at the end mitigates all of this a little bit?

oldkid

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #473 on: April 17, 2011, 04:41:46 PM »
Prison is what happens when you run askance of the law.  However, that doesn't make one immoral.  There's a lot of films in which the moral one runs askance of the law and would go to prison (if they could get caught), but they are still technically the "good guys".  The Blues Brothers, if they were a little smarter, would fall in this category.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

sdedalus

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #474 on: April 17, 2011, 05:01:29 PM »
The morality of the Blues Brothers is the morality of anarchy.  They seek to destroy square society and remake it own their own, cooler terms.  In the end, they are punished, and they succeed.
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oldkid

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #475 on: April 18, 2011, 05:53:09 PM »
The morality of the Blues Brothers is the morality of anarchy.  They seek to destroy square society and remake it own their own, cooler terms.  In the end, they are punished, and they succeed.

Excellent summary.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

oldkid

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #476 on: April 18, 2011, 06:06:42 PM »
Mother


Some children just never grow up, they always need their mother’s care.  Some are born disabled in some way, and so they always have to be overseen.  The worst are those who have limited mental capacity, for whatever reason, because they can look and sometimes act like an adult, and so people assume they can made adult decisions, but they really aren’t fully ready to function in an adult world.  And this is why, for some mothers, their work is never done.

Technical—5/5—Every aspect of this film is well done.  Perhaps it isn’t as gorgeous as some or as well edited as others, but it is perfectly suited for the story the film is telling.

Interest—5/5—There was never a dull moment in this film.  It is a constant surprise, from the dancing scenes to the shifts in characters, to the logical but shocking decisions of the main characters.  And the main character is a wonder to behold, sometimes mesmerizing. 



Tension—5/5—The surprising actions keep the tension high, because we don’t know what is coming next. 

Emotional—4/5—The situation the mother finds herself in are surprisingly emotional.  I sympathize with her even when I think she’s making a terrible mistake. 

Characters—5/5—Every character was spot on.  Even the characters that suddenly shift, they do so for discernable reasons.   

Theme—3/5—I’d perhaps have to watch the film again to capture a clear theme.  Of course, there is the theme of a mother’s love, but that’s a given rather than a theme.  Perhaps it is the flexibility of truth in light of responsible love.   I’m not sure.



Ethics—5/5—Clearly, unethical decisions were made.  But they were made for reasons that seem ethical to the people involved.  Evil was done for the sake of good.  Here, the duality between motivation and action is clearly seen, where it was fuzzy in The Blues Brothers.   It offers the question, where is the line that parental love goes too far?  When does a good thing turn evil?  And just how much truth should we ignore for the good of those we love?  This might be good to show a group of parents raising addicts to ask questions about the necessity of boundary-making.

Personal—5/5  There is this man who used to be my neighbor who is just like the son in this film.  He had gotten into a motorcycle accident, which caused him to lose part of his brain.  I could see him making decisions like this son.  And every parent can see themselves—a little bit—in the mother.  We all make mistakes in judgment for our children at times, and we all beat ourselves up for our inadequacies in raising them.   It would be great if we could also dance away our sorrows.

This film was marvelous for me.  It makes the cut.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Melvil

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #477 on: April 18, 2011, 06:16:54 PM »
Woohoo! Great take on it, steve. I've seen it twice now and love it even more.

smirnoff

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #478 on: April 18, 2011, 06:35:36 PM »
Mother

Personal—5/5  ...every parent can see themselves—a little bit—in the mother.  We all make mistakes in judgment for our children at times, and we all beat ourselves up for our inadequacies in raising them.   It would be great if we could also dance away our sorrows.

This sounds like a knock on the ending but you give it 5/5 so I assume you embraced it. As much as I liked the movie I can't say as the ending really spoke to me (outside of her giving herself the accupuncture in that particular spot). :-\

1SO

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Re: Oldkid's Ultimately Cool (And Long) Top 100 Marathon
« Reply #479 on: April 18, 2011, 11:03:36 PM »
It is a very interesting film and I'm not surprised to see it make a Top 100. Give this premise to the Top 100 Hollywood screenwriters and none of them would have delivered a take so subdued, which is very much to the benefit of the film. Keeps you focused on character.
[That's a lot of praise from a guy who normally finds Bong to be incredibly uneven.]