I've written in the past about how sometimes a film will hit me in such a way that I'll watch it over and over again as if I'm somehow addicted to it. Most of the time, I have no idea why. I can explain why I like the movie, but the reason for my desire to re-watch it many times over never ceases to elude me. Perhaps the fact that I can't explain why is what fascinates me. I like the mystery of it.
I first became aware of this phenomenon in 2000 when I couldn't seem to stop watching the movie Grosse Pointe Blank that I had recently purchased. But if I'm honest with myself (and you, the reader), I went through the same thing in 1996 with Blazing Saddles. When I think about it, I think I first experienced it in 1990 with this week's film.
It was one of Dad's favourites. I remember him renting it a year or two earlier. I watched it with him and while I enjoyed it, I wasn't as enamoured with it as I would later become. But that summer, I saved up my money to buy a VHS tape of The Blues Brothers to give to him for Father's Day. We watched it again that afternoon and something clicked for me.
While I could tell he was excited to now own it, I think my sister Heather and I watched it more than he did. We would literally come home from school in the afternoon and pop it in the VCR. We memorized the dialogue and would recite it while watching the film (as long as she got to be the character of Jake). I still remember most of it. I'll be she does too. But it has, over the course of my life, played a prominent part in it, popping up here and there, whether I need it to or not.
In the eleventh grade, my English teacher assigned the class to give a report on the last movie we'd watched. It shouldn't be any surprise that, for me, it was The Blues Brothers. Given the fact that my English teacher always gave me the impression that she felt she was actually teaching Sunday School rather than English, I made up a lot of B.S. about the religious symbolism I picked up in the film. I think I referred to it as "deeply spiritual." 35 years later, I've actually reached a point where I believe my own line of B.S. I do find the film spiritual in a weird way. It could be the strange alchemy of music and comedy, both of which I find healing to the soul. While I doubt either Dan Aykroyd or John Landis had that in mind when they wrote the script, I do consider it one of the most spiritual movies I've ever seen. What really makes me laugh is that in 2010, the Catholic Church actually endorsed the movie as being a "Catholic classic" and deemed it appropriate for all Catholics, in spite of its R rating (for language, which I have issues with, but that's another story). According to Reuters, the film joins a list of other Church-approved cinema classics such as Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, and Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. I figure when the Catholic Church essentially agrees with something that I had been saying for twenty years at that point, something is seriously amiss somewhere.
During my junior year of college, the residence hall in which I lived and worked as an R.A. was putting on a lip sync contest. During our Hall Council meeting the night before, my friend Anthony--possibly an even bigger Blues Brothers fan than I am--looked over at me and said, "Do you want to do 'Rawhide' and 'Stand By Your Man'?" I said, "Sure." We had less than 24 hours to prepare the routine. "Stand By Your Man" was not on the film's soundtrack. Somebody had to dub it from video tape to audio tape for us with Cab Calloway's introduction from later in the movie tacked on at the beginning (this is how we had to do it in the '90s, folks!). Somebody else even managed to procure a whip for me to crack (I refused to ask any questions on that one). I had to basically wear two stage costumes as I was also doing a solo number and had that costume on underneath my suit and tie. Our individual daily schedules didn't even give us a chance to rehearse. But both Anthony and I knew the film so well, we didn't need to. After our--if I may humbly say--rather rousing performance, Anthony paraphrased another classic film and said to me, "Rehearsals? We don't need no stinking rehearsals!" We placed second in the group category.
The film was released in theaters to commemorate its 35th anniversary in 2015. I was so pleased that I got to finally see it on a big screen. I was even more pleased that I got to see it with Dad who introduced me to what, to this day, is still one of my favourite movies. The following year, he was in home hospice. Mom, Heather, and I squeezed into the bedroom with him and we all watched it together. It was the last film the four of us watched together as a family.
(I was kind of hoping that they would release it again this year for its 45th anniversary, this time as part of a Carrie Fisher double feature, alongside The Empire Strikes Back which was released the same year.)
So this week, I submit my very first film addiction. The first movie based on a "Saturday Night Live" routine, it was directed by John Landis and starred John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Carrie Fisher, John Candy, Kathleen Freeman, Steven Williams, Armand Cerami, Charles Napier, Frank Oz, Steve Lawrence, and Henry Gibson, with performances (both acting and musical) by Cab Calloway, James Brown with James Cleveland's Southern California Community Choir and Chaka Khan, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, and the Blues Brothers Band--Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Tom "Bones" Malone, Willie "Too Big" Hall, Murphy Dunne, Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, and "Blue" Lou Marini. Featuring not one, but TWO of the greatest car chases ever filmed (making it, at the time, the most expensive comedy ever made), originally released in 1980, please enjoy The Blues Brothers. I recommend making it a Thanksgiving tradition. Wish I could still dance like that.
Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember, people, that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive, and survive, there are still some things that make us all the same--you... me... them... everybody! Everybody!
Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
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