"The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"

by Matt Singer



Well if you're reading this, they haven't gotten me in the straight jacket yet.  As far 
as I'm concerned, it's a win-win situation for all of us.  I get to remain out of the 
hospital for at least another two weeks, and you get to read 3 more of my reviews to 
assist in your video store runs.  I feel pretty strongly about all three of the flicks 
this week, so it should make for interesting reading.  Put on your goggles, the spit's 
going to fly.



Let's get down and dirty, shall we?



THE GOOD

The Blues Brothers (1980)

Starring John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd

Directed by John Landis

Rated R, 133 minutes 



Movies are at their best when they say something personal about their subject.  
When a filmmaker enjoys making a movie, it shows.  Love your movie, and audiences are 
bound to as well.  And there is not movie I know that better expresses a love for its 
subject than The Blues Brothers.  This is by no means a perfect movie, but it is nearly 
impossible not to be won over by the film's numerous charms.



The Blues Brothers is based on the imaginary band of the same name, created by stars 
John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd.  On SNL, they performed musical numbers that had less to 
do with musical perfection than raw emotional performance.  If you can find a copy, go 
back and watch those early performance.  Sure they were on incredible amounts of drugs, 
but dammit, they had fun.  Belushi and Aykroyd took those adrenaline-drenched musical 
numbers and spun them out into a two hour tour-de-force of comedy, music, Nazis, and 
car chases.



"Joliet" Jake Blues (Belushi) is released from prison, whereupon he and his brother 
Elwood (Aykroyd) visit the Catholic home where they grew up, which they discover to be 
in dire financial trouble.  They need to scrounge up $5,000 in one week or the IRS will 
foreclose on the property.  So the Blues Brothers do the only thing they know how to do; 
reunite the old band and perform in order to raise enough money to save the orphanage.  



In a documentary following the film on my copy of TBB, John Landis mentions how it upsets 
him that people don't recognize the movie as a musical.  I'd be inclined to agree with him; 
The Blues Brothers is loaded with fantastic musical numbers by blues and soul greats.  
There's Aretha Franklin's "Think," Ray Charles' "Shake a Tail Feather" and James Brown's 
"The Old Landmark," all complete with gorgeously choreographed dancing.  This is the kind 
of music that everyone likes, but not enough people listen to.  The numbers are filmed 
with boundless enthusiasm; you really believe this music could pull people out of their 
chairs and get them dancing in the streets.  I know if I didn't fear social reprisal, I 
sure would.



And then of course, there are the car chases.  The ridiculous, impossible, neverending, 
hysterical, mind-boggling, exciting car chases.  Sure, cars can't do that stuff.  Sure, 
thousands coped what they saw and caused uncountable traffic violations.  But you get to 
see the Nazi's car crushed like a tin can.  Years of therapy averted, all thanks to one 
little movie.



I've tried my best to sell this movie to you, but something feels lacking.  If only I 
could sing my review to you, maybe then I could get the point across.  Because, if we 
lived in The Blues Brothers you'd be helpless to deny my hep jives and you'd have to get 
up and dance, then the entire city of Chicago would join you.  Then we'd pop a wheelie in 
our Dodge and backflip over a break in a highway.  See, life would just be better if we 
lived in The Blues Brothers world.  At least, it would have been before...





THE BAD

Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)

Starring Dan Aykroyd, John Goodman

Directed by John Landis

Rated PG-13, 123 minutes



Oh my glorious utopia shattered.  The Blues Brothers is a film of pure, unadulterated 
joy.  No one ever harbored ill will toward it; that is, until Blues Brothers 2000 came 
along.  Now everyone I tell "Go watch The Blues Brothers!" to comes back with "Didn't 
they make a sequel to that recently?"  Usually I just lie and say they heard wrong.  But, 
alas, they did indeed.  And shame on them.



Now, I am not one of those people who feel that this film is wrong even in theory simply 
because John Belushi passed away.  Before I saw the film, I had hope; after all, same 
writers, directors, same band, same style of music.  There was still plenty of good 
elements that should have added up to at least a passable film.  SHOULD HAVE.



Blues Brothers 2000 is the antithesis of the first film; devoid of almost any fun or 
soul.  There is little joy in it, few funny jokes, and even the elaborate chase scenes 
(save one) lack any excitement.  The only credit I can give is to the musical numbers, 
which are still well directed and performed.  Unfortunately, you have to sit through the 
rest of the movie to get to them.  My thanks to my fast forward button for being a good 
friend in my time of need.



There is little else I want to say about this movie.  Mentioning the plot will only bring 
up stuff that has landed me in jail before, and the whole "three strikes' policy puts me 
in a tough position.  And I cannot get over the fact that the film is called "2000" even 
though it came out two years before the turn of the century.  And the whole little kid 
Blues Brother; the less said the better.  In the end, the film feels like little more 
than an attempt to milk the legacy of a beloved movie for a few more dollars.  Do 
yourself a favor; pick up the first flick and pretend you've never heard of the second.



IF YOU ENJOYED THE BLUES BROTHERS (AND DISLIKED BLUES BROTHERS 2000) CHECK OUT: 
Ghostbusters (1984) Another Dan Aykroyd-penned-and-starring classic; and the film I've 
seen more than any other (Probably almost 50 times).





THE UGLY

Cube (1997)

Starring Nicole de Boer, Nicky Guadagni

Directed by Vincenzo Natali

Rated R, 90 minutes.



This is less a movie review than a story and a moral.  You can learn much from another's 
suffering, so do your best to listen well.  Taking notes probably wouldn't hurt either.



I am one of the people responsible for showing all the movies at Syracuse University.  
Once in a while we like to experiment with our film selection.  So one weekend, instead 
of our usual midnight movie, we decided to just round up a whole bunch of tapes, lug 'em 
to the theater and let the audience decide what they watched.



Well, I am here to tell you, never let others decide what movie you watch.  Or, at the 
very least, never see Cube unless you are ready to laugh.  But I digress, back to the 
story.



The gentleman who brought Cube (His name will go unmentioned, for I wish to spare him the 
shame of actually owning a copy of this abomination), recommended it to the group as "A 
really violent, weird X-Files style movie."  Quite the sell isn't it?  Well, there was 
nothing else that sparked our interest, so we settled on Cube, and regretted it for the 
next 90 minutes.



The essentially acceptable premise (in theory, not execution) is that several individuals 
have been placed inside this large cube, and now they have to try to escape while solving 
puzzles and death traps.  I admit, the plot is serviceable, and this could have been a 
movie worth watching.  But somewhere along the line something went horribly wrong.  And 
I'd say the problems started day one when the scriptwriter decided the way to go with his 
little sci-fi epic was to create the most hackneyed dialogue he could come up with and 
then give it to actors whose emotions range from uninterest to overacting faster than 
you can say "Who the hell made up this crap???"



To wit: after first discovering the deadly nature of the Cube, the intrepid adventurers 
develop a plan to tell whether or not a room is safe.  And what is that plan, you might 
ask?  Well they throw their boots in the room.  If the boot is ok, they figure they'll 
turn out just fine too (What a shock; the plan fails in about three seconds).  Frankly, 
I was happy they decided to go with the boot just so you get to hear laughably bad lines 
like "Boot it!" and "The boot will protect us!"  Yes, dear readers, look to the boot, 
for it knows all, and someday it will be our currency.  And did I mention they suck on 
shirt buttons?  Well, they do.  Try it some time; it's actually rather nutritious.



There's plenty else to mock in Cube, but I'll leave the rest to you.  If I had to describe 
the movie in two words: Easy target.  Now go out there and show this bad movie what you're 
made of.



IF YOU ENJOYED CUBE, CHECK OUT: Friday (1995), a very funny movie starring Ice Cube.  
Hey, if they can get away with "Boot it!" I can get away with lame Cube/Ice Cube 
connections!




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