Kill James Bond! - S4E43: The Blues Brothers

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Consideration of Unnecessary Violence in the assessment of the Blues Brothers has been approved. ----- HANDS OFF LEBANON Here are some fundraisers to support collective rebuilding and survival efforts on the ground in Lebanon. -Beit El-Baraka started out as a food bank, but has grown to help people afford rent, cover their essentials, and live with dignity.  https://beitelbaraka.org/donate-directly/ or donate in general https://beitelbaraka.org/donate-now/ -LiveLove was a charity for a number of other matters, but since 2024 has been solely comitted to helping people displaced by Israeli attacks. https://livelove.org/donate -Lebanese Food Bank supports displaced and impoverished people https://lebanesefoodbank.org/take-action/donate/ Solar Powered Lebanon is an initiative to restore people's power using solar panels, since larger infrastructure is at constant risk of attack. https://fundahope.com/en/campaigns/solar-powered-lebanon ----- FREE PALESTINE My friend Ahmed still needs to feed his family and afford medicine. Anything you can kick in would be hugely appreciated. https://chuffed.org/project/150817-please-help-ahmed-and-his-family-get-food-drink-and-medicine And these are some more general links you can support collective efforts with! -The Palestinian Communist Youth Union is doing a food and water effort, and is part of the official communist party of Palestine https://www.gofundme.com/f/to-preserve-whats-left-of-humanity-global-solidarity -Water is Life, a water distribution project in North Gaza affiliated with an Indigenous American organization and the Freedom Flotilla https://www.waterislifegaza.org/ -Vegetable Distribution Fund, which secured and delivers fresh veg, affiliated with Freedom Flotilla also https://www.instagram.com/linking/fundraiser?fundraiser_id=1102739514947848 ----- WEB DESIGN ALERT Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ ----- Kill James Bond is hosted by November Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com , as well as on our Bluesky and X.com the everything app account

Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers has been approved. Welcome to another episode of Kill James Bond. I am November Kelly. I am joined as always by my friends Abigail Thorne and Devon. Hello, listeners. Cowabunga! Yes. Good vibes.

How are we doing? I'm doing great. I love this movie. This is an all-time favorite. I assume we all feel that way about the Blues Brothers. No, listeners, I'm afraid that I am... I am the villain of this episode. Again, making a habit of this, apparently.

I'm the villains. I'm taking my big ship and I'm crashing it into November 10. Because this is the Blues Brothers, and I didn't like it, but didn't like it. Here's the thing. Obviously, we're going to spend about an hour and a half just yelling at you, screaming. All the comments are going to be that as well. I think... that what this bespeaks, right, is a kind of, it's an alignment thing, right?

Like, not to get to, like, crystals about this, but sometimes when I'm watching a movie for work and I'm not feeling it, it's like, it's because I didn't do my little kind of, like, pre-movie ritual, you know, I didn't draw all of the blinds, I didn't put some incense on, I didn't think, you know, here, laughing feels good, or whatever the thing is. And so it throws me off. And so maybe what it was is just you weren't just aligned with the Blues Brothers because there's something wrong with you. Maybe, but I mean, I like parts of it. There are individual moments and scenes that I like, but I think it's, I think it's less than some of its parts.

I think it has major problems with editing, with a scene to scene editing. I think the pacing is atrocious. I think it's like, it didn't make me laugh other than like twice. It's just not very funny. Yeah, I'm sorry. It just as a film, it doesn't work. A series of disconnected TikToks and musical numbers that you can watch on your phone, great. But as a two hour, 45 minutes cinematic experience, I'm sorry, I think it fails.

Well, so one of the things is, sorry, Devin, if you had something. I was just going to say, the thing is, is I am as is typical, about halfway between the two of you. Because I was, as you say, aligned. I was energetically in the right place to receive what the Blues Brothers was putting out. But at the same time, this seems like a real, like, joyful celebration of a culture that I don't know a fucking thing about. So, like, there's a bunch of things that are on the screen and you're supposed to understand them completely and, like, read a whole bunch into this. And I just don't. I don't know what's going on.

Some scenes drag a little because I'm like, why are you spending all this time with this person that I don't know about? And it turns out that they're unimaginably famous. And I'm like, okay, that actually makes more sense now. The Blues Brothers is a film that I think you're meant to have seen for the first time at an impressionable age and when you see it, okay, maybe you don't know who everyone is, but then you go and look it up and it decides your musical taste for the rest of your life, right? I think it's also a thing. You're like, that's Rachel. Yeah, exactly. Also, we in this country, we've had Saturday Night Live, the American comedy show for a year.

whereas Americans have been dealing with it for, oh, thousands of years. And so they're used to overgrown Saturday Night Live bits, which this is. And so maybe we don't have the kind of natural immunity to it. Yeah, I always get very confused at those. I have to go and look this up. So there's, I know who Dan Ackroyd is. But there's, so Dan Aykroyd and this other comedian, Jake Belushi, John Belushi, John Belushi.

History's greatest Albanian. Okay. They have these two characters from the show, Saddana, which I've never seen. The characters are called the Blues Brothers. They're in a band. That appears to be the extent of their entire characterization, and indeed the characterizations get even flatter

to listen to this movie. But also they were in a band in real life. They were like, they are sincere musicians and I think the love of music and musicianry comes from a sincere place, which is one of the things I like about the movie. But they were in a real bat. the music is sincere.

It is a great movie about being a, like, touring musician, I think. Also, I think you're right in that there is a sort of arc that happens to a lot of comedians where every so often, right, they go, I want to be in a movie that makes me seem like the coolest motherfucker on earth. And usually they're on a lot of cocaine at that point. often it works in some of their like special interests it would be it would be a bit like if I you know became overnight like 10 times more successful 100 times more successful

and I started doing coke and 50 podcasts 500 podcasts and I started doing a lot of coke Pollicle the size of whales yeah and then a few years later I was like and I want to do a cop show right it's it's like you get to do these kind of vanity project and in the sort of film industry of this this time, which was like 1981, I want to say, like if you were bankable like that, then to an extent they would kind of let you do that. Now, I think this is a very bloated film. I think it is a kind of like ego project

in that way. Yes. Yeah. One of the reasons why I think I like it is that I think it's crazy work to take a wind up like that on, I'm on a lot of coke and I want to do the movie about how cool I and have it work, which for me it mostly does. The thing is, though, it has to work. And the film, I'm all for doing a vanity project, and I'm also doing a vanity project that has your special interest in. But it has to work as a film.

And I'm sorry, this just doesn't... It is a titan of a, what if there was an awesome guy, genre of movies. It's like, cool. What if there was a guy that was just cool? And you're like, okay. They give Anton Schroger a less imposing opening than Jake Blues. in this movie

in this thing. I mean. But again, if you're in this space, that's fantastic. I should probably, hey, if you're American

and you love the fuck out of this movie, this is going to be two. It seems like two out of three. English people misunderstanding, not comprehending, like confused,

scared, and the things that you guys would take for granted. You will be so angry listening to this. I think it's going to be three out of three English people not understanding of being scared,

but at least you two liked it. We didn't get a Chinese guy on for the wandering earth. We're not getting a yank on for this. We can take a look at it. We can figure it as shit out. These guys made music, I hear. Beloved American listener, just know that I am on your side. Please give me $1 million Trump Golden Visa.

So we are in prison, right? We are in Illinois prison. Yeah. Are we actually, or is the opening shot of this movie about two or three minutes of the Chicago skyline looking like mortal. Because that is the opening image of this movie. Okay, yeah, this is also a Chicago movie, for sure. This is definitely a movie that jacks off about Chicago.

Can either of you tell me why those shots are there? No, it's because Chicago. It's because they needed something to, like, fill the opening and to tell you that we're in Chicago. Yeah, this is also a point we should raise up really early on, is that you watched the extended edition, which was extra long. 15 minutes long ago, yeah.

Now, the movie, the version I watched overstayed it's welcome somewhat. The movie you've watched is like downfall length. Taking the piss. The Blues Brothers, you know? I will say, I have consumed the Vanity Fair

oral history of the making of the Blues Brothers. And one of the reasons why it's like this is because Dan Aykroyd wrote the script and Dan Aykroyd had never written a script before. and so what he delivered was 236 pages bound in a phone book cover,

which contained a lot of kind of peroration, you know, a lot of sort of diversions into his own interests. And so John Landis, who directed this, was forced to lock himself in a room with this treatment functionally and pare down like 90% of it, while Dan Aykroyd was calling him going, hey, don't cut this one scene, forcing John Landis to go,

I will not cut this scene, knowing he would shoot it and then cut it. Sometimes you've got a cut scene. Sometimes you should have cut more scenes. They should have cut more scenes. Should have tripped down like half of these scenes by like half. But so this guy is getting out of prison, right? And we're giving him to like, oh, this guy's cool and dangerous edit.

Notably when he's, He gets, he's going to sign the receipt to get his property back to get out of prison. And he's got a tattoo, finger tattoos on one hand that says, Jake riffing on Robert Mitch and love and hate tattoos and night of the hunter. This is where we do a scene that Austin Powers ripped off. Yes, where they're just listing out the things that this guy put in. And it's just like unused condom beat. used condom

yeah it's like two things we know about this guy is that he's broke but he fucks right yeah and he's got this cool black suit and sunglasses and black hat he's picked up by outside the prison

by his identically dressed brother Elwood blues played by Dan Ackeroid who is also driving a cop car and this whole this whole thing is shot with like such a huge buildup and heroic reveals of Jake Blues' face, which is extremely funny because I have no clue

who these fucking characters are at all. To me, this kind of works, right? It's like, shot like the Avengers, and I'm like, I'm like, what is happening? Like, if you, if you kind of like make that claim, right? If you're kind of bold enough to be like, yeah, this is hugely important and canonical.

Then sometimes if I, again, if I'm aligned with it, I will get on board with that. Well, that's what I'm saying. At this stage in the proceedings, all that I have seen, I'm sitting down tabula rasta to watch this fucking movie, All I've seen is this is the coolest guy ever. Yeah.

And I'm like, okay, fine. I believe you, right? I'm here for that. Hit me. And I like this. It's great fun. Elwood has got an ex-cop car with the David Bowie Black Star on the side of it. He does.

He's also got Elwood finger tattoos, which means that they go Elwoh and then O.D. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, you would hate to see him from the Elwoh side. Unless you were John Belushi, in which case, you would hate to see him from the OD side. Yeah. But it's... You can always get joke knuckle tats. It's fine.

It won't impact your quality of life. It won't impact your quality of life. It won't impact your employment at all. You can get your pronouns tattooed on your knuckles. It's fine. It's literally fine. They'll let you be a teacher. Just about. Definitely.

Definitely. But so now having hyped up the Blues brothers, Jake and Elwood, we need have to hype up the car, which is a like, obviously piece of shit, like ex-cop car. and Elwood has sold their regular car for a microphone and he's sold their Cadillac and so they're left with this awful ex-cop car that he got at auction because cop cars get beaten to shit

and then sold for cheap and Jake is not convinced of this and again, if you're along for the ride over this, you're like, yes, I will absolutely die for the integrity of the Bluesmobile. This is important to them. I understand, right? Sure. Yeah.

you're setting up early on, the car might be a piece of shit. Okay. Fine. Perfect. And they talk about a previous blues mobile that they had that was a Cadillac that got stolen or sold or something.

It's gone. Yeah, sold it for the microphone. The specter of the old Bluesmobile hangs over as well. But Dan Ackroyd is like, this one, this one is tough. And to prove that it's tough, he jumps a bridge with it and it lands.

And this is where they make the same joke that they make throughout the entire movie, which is like the Blues brothers are both very flagmatic. crazy things will happen, like explosions or they'll jump a bridge or something, and they'll both just be like, hey, all right, cool. They're unflappable. Cars got a lot of pickup. Yeah.

And if you're in Illinois, bridge is raised. It's a raised bridge kind of state, you know? This is part of the essence of coolness. This is what it means, you know, as to not react to things. This movie does have something to say about masculinity. Sure. And the other thing is, but at the end of a day, they had to jump that car.

Yeah. Like they had to film a car jumping. Because no, they hadn't invented computers yet. It was 1980. Yeah. They like hadn't got rid of it. It's like dot matrix shit. They needed to jump a car to do this and they do that.

There's a bunch of stunts throughout this movie that they just genuinely commit to, Ho-Haw. Yeah. I do like that they filmed the car stunts by like putting it on a car and filming it, which I did like. Yeah. You'll notice that they don't do a slide whistle like James Gond does. Just let the think jump.

And again, it has this kind of self-mythologizing quality where it's, It's like lots of very obviously Dan Aykroyd lines that Dan Aykroyd gives to himself, where he's like, you know, it's got a cop motor, it's got cop shocks. It was built before catalytic converter, so it runs good on regular gasoline. And it's hitting some of the same stuff as Fury Road for me there, where I'm like, yeah, I don't know or care what any of that means, but I'm hyped. It's provocative. Yeah, well, I'm glad one of us was. Like this guy knows his car. Sure.

Yeah. But they go to the Catholic orphanage where they grew up, was run by nuns. because apparently Jake promised he'd go and visit the Mother Superior on the day he got out of prison who Dan Akrod refers to as the penguin, which is quite fun. Yeah, that is funny. So terrifyingly abusive nuns for comic relief is something that you, I guess, couldn't and shouldn't make now.

But I will say that my mum's generation of Catholics who were the ones getting the shit kicked out of them by the nuns loved that shit. Like, absolutely hysterical to them to be like, yeah, the deal with a nun. is that they like kick the shit out of you. And so, so she does, there's terrifying none. The deal is the orphanage is short $5,000 on taxes.

And if they don't get $5,000 to the Cook County Assessor's office in a few days, then they're going to shut down the orphanage. Yeah, yeah, they are. And also the mother superior is explicitly like, you can't steal it. I know that you guys are like small-time crooks and wheeler dealers, but you've got a like, no stolen money. I don't want your stolen money. make it legit if you're going to do it.

Like, oh, shit, okay. You have to make legit money. Yeah. And then we have a long bit where they are, they're saying, Jesus Christ and then getting hit. And then when they get hit, they go, Jesus Christ, and they get hit again. Long, long bit.

None of it's funny. Oh. There's a funny car. There's like, oh, this is the problem I have with Saturday Night Live. There is a funny nugget there. There is a core humor to it that is just so, in lengthened and it just milked, it just kills it to me.

That's the kind of rhythm of it. And like I say, that's what Americans were used to. And that's the kind of rhythm that Americans expected out of their sketch comedy in the 70s and 80s was this, was you take a sort of like kind of funny concept and you get some lines out of it. And then you kind of drag it out a bit. Also, this movie was kind of a nightmare to make as well. Yeah, but Jake falls down the stairs and they film Jake falling down the stairs legitimately. like again it's a practical stunt yeah like they everyone showed up to this

they have put a lot of effort into making this movie that just doesn't quite work for me yeah so they say it less than some of its parts but they also meet their buddy Curtis who was also dressed identical to them Cab Calloway Cab fucking Callaway the guy the guy who like clearly like

raised them and gave them this sense of style and the blues right he's also facing destitution And he's like, you've got to, you've got to redeem yourselves. You've got to get right with God. Go to church. Destitution in an explicitly racialized way, by the way.

Yes, yes, very true. We see that Jake doesn't want to, we see that Jake doesn't want to go to church. He's like, oh, I'm so bullshit. And then it's Elwood who's like, no, come on, we've got to go. We've got to get redemption. They're going to a specific kind of a church. They do, a Baptist church. They go and visit a guy called Reverend Theophus James.

Yeah. It's like a little, it's like, it's like, an AME church or something of that sort. Yeah, and the minister there is, and I really wish I had the drops back because I would pull out the, you just killed James Brown thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's James Brown. You just killed James Brown. It's James Brown. Yeah. That's James Brown. Yeah. So again, if you're looking for the answer

to the question, why does this fucking scene go on for so long? It's because they got James Brown in to do it and then needed to give him a whole scene. Yeah, you can't edit. You can't edit. That will be a major issue. I like this.

This is the scene where I'm like, okay, we're getting started here because they do this big song and dance number. It's really beautifully choreographed. It's really nice. The dancing is great. James Brown, obviously, fantastic performer. And in the course of this sequence, Jake is hit by a ray of light from heaven and realizes, oh shit, he has this like come to Jesus memory.

He's like, we've got to get our old band back together. That's how we're going to raise the money. and so they sing and their dance. Yes. Yeah, the spirit moves, Jake. Concerningly, I guess, maybe suggesting sort of a Calvinist theology, Elwood is not in the elect

because his brother is getting sort of direct visions from God and he is sort of none the wiser. But yeah, we got to, we got to put the band back together, the movie that invented that. Yeah. And at this point, listeners, I'm like, okay, I'm on board.

We're watching a musical. There's going to be a song and dance. It's like, teach us something about the character, but no, the next song isn't for almost an hour and it doesn't really tell us anything about any of the major characters and indeed most of the rest of the songs in this movie tell us nothing about the characters or the story. This is the only one that does.

We need to aura farm. That's like way more important. Which contributes to my thesis that this film is best experience as a series of clips on YouTube with most of it cut out. Again, it's sort of what Saturday Night Live has, you know, was in a way. thing that you're half watching. Yeah. But, yeah.

Yeah. It's a movie best experienced on in while you're doing things. Christmas while you're doing something else, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh, this would hate a Christmas.

Absolutely. Fuck, yes. But as they're driving along, they get pulled over by two state troopers who run Elwood's license and find that he has 116 parking violations and 56 moving ones and a suspended license. And they're like, oh shit.

Chease it. So they cheese it. So they cheese it. They run this license and the computer's blasts up, like, just kill this motherfucker right now. Take this man's life. Take this guy's life. Yeah. And so... Take him off the board.

And so they run. And the second you see this, like, old sort of boat-sized American cop car sliding across two lanes of traffic, I'm like, this is magical. We do get, yeah, the car chase is really fucking sick. They do it for a house. They have this massive fucking car chase through them all. and they absolutely destroy it. Like, Dan Acklead rips through Toys R Us faster than Bain Capital, and he's like

absolutely annihilates the place. Thank you. That's a joke for the Mitt Romney private equity heads out there. What's interesting is that this sort of chase scene has the Sam and Dave song, Hold on, I'm coming under it. But really quietly. Do you want us to pause the project?

Oh, that was the name of the song? Okay. And, yeah, it happens with about that much fanfare these days. But if you compare this to like Baby Driver, right, where you would build the whole scene around that and you would do all of the cuts to it. You could do the beats, yeah. Like instead it's just playing. Yeah, this is, I think, Dan Aykroyd tipping his hand a little bit as like a legit like kind of music artist and and like rhythm and blues enthusiast here being like, here's a really good song that's going to underpin the thing. But I don't really know how to use it, right?

John Landis either. It's sort of like when in the early Bond themes, they would blast the Bond theme while he was unpacking his suitcase, you know? Or it's like, you've got this kind of like really good music. We have no idea where it should go compositionally. So it's just here. Just like we've got a space put it in here, you know? Yeah. You're meant to get that song stuck in your head and go and look it up later is the deal, because you're watching this when you're like young enough that you will bother to do that.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. this is supposed to be the first time you've heard most of the songs in this, for sure. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And they're also just, they're quipping a lot as they drive through this mall. They don't really quipping so much as like making sarcastic jabs because there's no, like,

irony about it. They're just sincerely like this. They're just like commenting about like, oh, there's a JC panties or like, there's a cli's accessories or whatever. It's like, oh, you've got everything in here. Yeah. Behold some American objects. It's quite dry.

I think the thing is that I think a lot of the comedy comes from the cops. here who are like guys who look like your dad in goofy hats sliding the biggest car you've ever seen around a corner into like a sort of market store. That's funny. Also, I hate to say this, but I have a criticism of Al-Qaeda, right, and like ISIS. Okay. Hit me. I know this might be difficult for some of us.

It'll take a minute for you to convince me if they've done anything wrong. Yeah. Yeah. But like, I think the thing with ISIS, is that vehicular ramming attacks, right, have taken all the fun out of car chasers. Yeah, and it's not the only time in this movie that I thought that, actually.

Because now the optics of this car is like barreling through... Because back in the day, right, a massive car or truck or whatever barrels towards you, you get out of the way. That's the movies. That's a good time for everyone. They're hitting the horn over and over. They're going like, I know I'm driving. and through the town square.

Get out of my way. That can be funny as it is like, yes being this film. Whereas now, now you see the car coming towards you and it's like, oh, that's going to hit me and then a guy's going to get out and like chef me up with an Argos fucking Santoku.

It's not good anymore. Yeah, like that's ISIS or that's some like divorced guy who's got royd rage and used to be in the Marines and it's now like traumatized and killing people. Exactly. I mean, and here's the other thing. Like these cars in this movie,

if they hit you, you'd go onto the bonnet and over. and on like modern cars, they're like 10 feet tall. I'm going under those things. If I get hit by an average tank, Dodge Ram, you know, it's happening for me. And like, these aren't really like, these are still big American cars, but like in a way that you're going over the top, like Jackie Chan's stunt double. You're having a good time.

If you get hit by one of these cars, it's like, it's like funny. Yeah, it's not like a tragedy. It's not tragic. It's not tragic. So being hit by a bouncy castle. We should, I think we need to, we need to say this, right? There are a few things that need to change in car design, right? one we should bring back some whimsy, right?

Factually, there should be like piping the whole way down. A bit of differentiation, a little bit of brand positioning, but also it should be fun to get hit by them. And it isn't now. And that's a real share. I mean, I think it should be fun to let the car hit me is also the theme of

Titan. Yeah, that's true. Check out our Patreon right now and you can listen to a Titan episode. A different movie than this one. Where a woman fucks a car. totally a different movie. Of these two cops who have pulled them over, we see that one of them is undergoing

xenegartification. Yes, he is. He is. I wrote that down as well. Trooper Mount has begun his zenogartification. He's like, I'm going to get those Blues Brothers, even if it kills me. The last thing I do. Fantastic.

I love a cop vow of revenge. And then Carrie Fisher pulls up into the movie. It's Carrie Fisher. Oh, shit. Hi, Carrie Fisher. Oh, and as the Blues Brothers are walking into this like, seedy motel, she aims a rocket lord shot at them. Yeah, the rocket launch are having a sniper scope on it, really good.

And then I've been instructed to read this verbatim. I don't get it, but I'm told it will make Zuma's laugh. Rest in peace, my carry, she missed four shots with a bazooka? No clue. Not 100% sure either, but... Enjoy that if that does something for you. Let me know if that's funny. She shoots at them with the rocket launcher, blows up the entire...

facade of the building, and again, because the joker's that they're cool, they do not react to this, they pick themselves up out of the rubble. They get out, they brush it off. Yeah. Good, funny. Funny. And it emerges that Elwood has been living in this shithole motel. It's not very glamorous.

One of the lines of the movie. Because right by the elevated train tracks and Belushi and Jake asks him, how often does the train go by? So often you won't even notice it. I stayed in a hotel like this once. in Fenchurch Street in London, where it's like, oh, the tube shakes the entire building, cool.

Yeah. Hey, sometimes the price of living in society is tube shakes your building. It's humble, but it's home. They're together. And they also have music. We get a shot of Dan Aykroyd putting on a record, and we have like a dedicated shot and set up of the hand, the record, and the record needle.

It's one of the things I like about this music, this movie is that it keeps inserting these shots of like the physical business of making music, whether it's a record or an instrument or like a mouth organ or hands playing a keyboard and I think this movie does sincerely love music and music as a physical product for human beings make together

and I think that does make it an interesting contrast to Baby Driver as well where the music is like all on an iPod, it's all digital and it's just kind of background for you to do the epic shit. This movie does sincerely love music and musicians and that I do like about it. I also had that and what I had as well

was something similar which is that Baby Driver really takes the position that liking music is kind of a niche interest, which gets kind of ridiculous, whereas this movie is all in on the idea that music brings everybody together. Yeah, in particular, like, working class people, like black people, white people, like, it's a nice, it's nice. I like that about it. Yeah, it's something that could be corny. It sometimes is, even, but, like, I still like it. But so they're going to put the band back together, and they've got some leads on.

where all of these just real actual musicians that they're going to use. Yeah. All of these guys are real musicians. That's something that you've got to know. Yeah. Why they spent so long on this? I didn't know that, but it's fun.

Yeah. Yeah. Carrie Fisher does come back in the morning and blows up the entire building. Yeah, they've got some cops coming by. Yeah, cops being led by. Guy, we'd love to see John Candy. Hey!

Fuck yeah. Always happy to see him in a movie. Mercer. Doesn't get enough to do it. but hey, I'm just glad to see him. Yeah, glad he's getting work. He's a good time. But so they go to the next location,

which is the last address of two of their... At this point, we spent conservatively 5,000 years on scenes where they walk into a place and go, is musician here? No, he's not here. And then they leave, and then they go to the next place. And it's like, there's like four or five scenes in a row here that you could have just cut. You just said 15 minutes. And they're not funny at all.

And they're just a waste of my time. I'm charmed by these I mean, it's not a waste of your time because you're getting paid to be here, but Okay, yeah, have fun That's very specific We're talking, it's the waste of the audience, it's time Oh, sure, yeah, well, we don't care about them, Jesus

Yeah, yeah, yeah I think we just Well, I said it should be funny to hit them with cars earlier, I don't know that we're taking that much of a sort of look out of their welfare It should be a little bit funny to hit them with cars Well, yeah, there's a lot of scenes of them like going and meaning

musicians of me like, do you want to get back in the band? There's a bit where they've given their address as the Fentureglyfield. Rigley Field, that's the gunfield. Home of the Cubs. Home of the Bears? Home of the birds. Sure.

Home of somebody. What are you guys? Eventually, they track some of the band members down to a shitty, like, holiday inn where they're playing in a lounge. And nobody, nobody cares the shit about them, right? And so they're like, hey, we're getting the band back together and they're like, well,

maybe, but like some of the other guys are in top cushy jobs now, they're not going to come back. And it's like, well, we'll see. They might. They might. Yeah, direct quote, read out loud by Tom Malone, who is a musician first and an actor second, and you can tell. Yeah, true. We'll never get that fat sound again. not without more horns

and you'll never get Mr. Fabulous evocative line, evocative line to give me. I kind of love that all of the musicians are bad actors but Mr. Fabulous is the Mata D at a fancy restaurant which is now going to be subject of an S&L skit because...

But not... Oh really? A good one. Yeah, because I was going to say my notes in fact directly say none of this is funny. I agree with you. about this one. None of this is funny at all. I'm fighting for my fucking life here. I had a good time with this.

No, I had a fine time. But I also noticed that one of these made of these is Pee-Wee-Herman. And then he doesn't do anything. It's just like, am I just supposed to see him? Like, make these people do something. He wasn't even, like, famous yet, I don't think, really. Yeah.

But, yeah, but they, the guy is, Mr. Fabulous, as I say, Mr. Fabulous, because you're led to believe that he might be a music. but he isn't, he's a waiter at this restaurant and the Blues Brothers go in and begin doing bits. Doing bits. Yeah, and they're like getting them to pour champagne into the wrong kind of glass, you know. They're being on-coop.

They're upsetting the other guests. Yeah, they do the restaurant soon from bicycle thieves to him. Yeah. As exemplified by Jean Volusia turning around and beneath these huge sunglasses just leaning into the next table is sort of horrified bourgeois and going, I want to buy your women, which is great. I have fun with that. Is it?

Is it? I think so. Listen, you can no sell anything. I did not laugh for the first 90 minutes of this movie. Well, I don't know. It sounds like a personal problem. You got to buy some candles or something. I think it's an energy issue.

Yeah. Get some, like, I don't know, like crystals. If you have more crystals, that's the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also I was still mad from like, all the scenes before the holiday in where they just walked into a place instead of they here and then left. And I was like, what are you doing? We're going with this, man.

Like, yeah, yeah. We are 40 minutes into the movie and nothing has, like, happened. I do like that there's a kind of musician's honor that means that this guy can't call the cops on them because, like, Jake is on parole. So police abolition means John Belushi has to offer to, like, buy people's children. And that's just politics. Well, we see what the cops are up to in the next scene, because Nazis, like, uniform swastika Nazis in Illinois are holding a rally, being defended by the cops, and being fiercely protested by people who would now be classified and imprisoned as domestic terrorists. If we had the drops, if we had the drops back, we could get this Nazi saying very clearly. I fixed my mixer

I figured it out We've got them back baby Yay White women So these These guys These Nazis White lady

These Nazis They're blocking the bridge And we see that The cops are also unenthused about this Which is crazy work right But the cops are like I guess they got their like Permit to protest or whatever

Yeah Supreme Court said they could do it So, I guess... Free speech or whatever. I guess we still have that right now. Everybody hates them. Everybody's screaming at them. Even the cops think they're losers. They've got their like AMC.

They're like loser family car parked on the bridge as well. You can hear the yelling in the background of... Like everyone is launching it on these guys. There's like 10 of them maximum as well. Those AMCs being comedy loser cars is also a bit in live and live. die, I want to say. Yeah, and cars too. Yeah, crazy.

Yeah, nobody's fucking knows. The Blues Brothers join Antifa. Graham and, they're in the, they're in, they're like the wooden kid in that movie. Again, this, this reads very different now because the Blues Brothers just drive a car at a crowd of Nazis, admittedly. But it reads very, very different now. But people are actually, particular ramming attacks have really kind of changed the game on this, because in this case, it's not intended to be like, like, you should do the sort of like vehicular ramming attacks on Nazis. This is, we're going to make them fall out of the way into the river where they'll get wet, which is funny.

And then they're going to, oh, I'm going to get those Blues Brothers. And you can see the movie kind of winding up for the big action climax, which is going to be all the enemies they've made will join and be chasing them at the end, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is, it is kind of crazy that, admittedly, this is 1981. right? Like nothing good was happening but like it is crazy that the people who run like the federal government and the tech industry just believe the

things that these like comedy Nazis believe just openly. No no sort of consequences to that. These 10 motherfuckers on the joke small bridge they won. They actually run the They're in the cabinet now yeah. There you go one of them is a trillioner now.

We all fucked up so bad that these guys who are like an object of fun have like nuclear weapons so that's cool the blocking on the shot of all the Nazis in the river though is genuinely incredible like there's so many in the river

and none of their faces are obscured by each other it's I don't know it's a masterpiece weirdly yeah but this one we go to a diner and that diner is run by Aretha fucking Franklin Hello Yes hello

Hello Aretha Franklin That's why we spend so long here Yeah we do yeah We get some question mark comedy in which the Blues Brothers order weird things on the menu. Yeah, Elwood orders toasted white bread with nothing on it

and... Jake orders four fried chickens and a cook. Four whole fried chickens. Yeah, it's... Listen, comedy is when there's two guys and one of them's big and one of them's small. I don't want to tell it. Yeah, no, that's a pretty basic, yeah.

I mean, that's... That's waiting for Godo. That's, you know, tell it to Samuel Beckett. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But then the... chef recognizes their order. He's like, that must be the Blues Brothers.

That's the fucking Blues Brothers. The chef, guitar Matt Murphy. Yeah. Yeah. And we see that he has, he has one of their saxophonists as well as his sort of kitchen boy motor. Yeah, they've got a Devon in that for some reason. It's also really funny for your nickname to be the instrument that you play. It would be like calling you like microphone November Kelly. I mean, we could start, I guess. Like, I'm always amenable to a nickname so long as it's flattering.

November Mike Kelly, no, it just sounds like... Mike Kelly, Mike Thorne, and Mike Devon. It's not going to. Already picked a nato-finetic alphabet Lester. I'm not doing another one. They're probably neighbors as well. November Mike is just... Mike November's quite funny, though.

November's Oscar Mike. But so, yeah, we get a huge Aretha Franklin song. We do? Which, the number of which is, um... don't leave me and go and play music with the Blues Brothers. Yeah, and which he ignores. And which he gets to question mark comedy effect. Yeah.

I think the thing is, I, listen, it's, I'm not going to say you're both racist, right? But, look, I know that this is a fundamentally black art form that I know nothing about. But it is an art form I know nothing about. I feel bad just doing this. It's important to me how much this movie loves black people and black people. Like music. No, I love all of this. I just don't get it.

Like, I don't physically have the musical reference it's making. My problem is that it's been an hour since the last musical number. So suddenly I'm like, oh, okay, we're back in musical land. And also, the obvious conclusion to this scene narratively is the Blues Brothers should say to both of them, oh, Matt Guitar Movie, we want you and your boy motorcycle sophonist. And also, random waitress who happens to be Aretha Franklin, why don't you come with us too? Like that would be, and then it's like, music is for everyone, and you're bringing everyone together. Like, that's the obvious story beat here.

But instead they're just like, no, okay, we'll leave you behind. And then she's like, she's in one more shot of the movie later on. It's just like, what are you doing? What's the fucking story here? But they had a Rita Franklin for one scene, I think, is the reason why. Then don't write it like that. It's like, I wouldn't do this with her if you only had her. Yeah.

I keep being like, this movie is written badly. And you guys keep being like, there's a reason the movie's written badly. I'm like, I don't doubt it, but it's still written badly. We then cut to average trans woman year 2026 because Carrie Fisher is busy reading the old manuals for how to use a flamethrower with her lit cigarette and her hand. She's so fucking hot. Cool.

Yeah, no, that's great. Do love that. I love see Carrie Fisher. Sure. they go to a music shop to pick up the instruments for their and the music shops I don't know it's Ray Charles Ray Charles

now I do know who this motherfucker is I would get out of head of this I know this guy I it's Ray Charles we were speaking in our group chat about this movie and I was yelling about how good it was and a friend of the show co-worker of the me, Matty Lubchanski also joined me in screaming at both of you

about how good this movie is. So I have sworn, pledged, to scream at you both on Matty's behalf. The joke where Ray Charles was like a young kid creeps into the music store tries to steal a guitar, and Ray Charles, brackets, blind in case you were living Andrew Rock,

like shoots perfectly next to the guitar and Deadpans breaks my heart to see a kid that young go bad. That's funny. No, that was really funny. That was one of the jokes. But they're like, oh, Rachel's, can you give us a demonstration of this piano? He's really dissecting the frog here.

He like, he sings the song. I'm going to grin on my face the whole time I watched this movie and it's just like, yeah, he plays the white keys and the black keys of the piano. It's true. If you describe anything literally enough, it can stop being funny, sure. Yeah, well, so he gives this, he does this big musical number, but my point is, it doesn't advance the story, it tells us nothing about the character, this character never comes back. And also, we had like, between musical number number one and musical number two, we had an hour. Between musical number number two and three, we have like five minutes.

So I'm like, the pacing is fucking shocking. What you should have done is about 15 to 20 minutes after the James Brown scene. You take this Ray Charles scene out of this point in the movie, you bring it forward so that they get. the instruments before they get the rest of the band. Like, this is a cool sequence, but it's completely pointless and you should have cut it. Who plays the instruments? Yeah.

It just played the instruments. It's fine, but all it tells us is we can get Ray Charles and isn't Ray Charles a good musician. And I agree with both of those points blanket. Yeah, that's all I needed to hear. I also, as far as it progressing anything, right, it does get the entire neighborhood dancing,

which is putting another sort of tent pole down in the Everybody Loves Music and Dancing Fire this scene into space as the permanent record of humanity is my note here Yeah, but don't include the rest of the movie with it But unfortunately, I had to watch it along with the rest of the movie Well, they take the band And Jake is going to get them a gig

They've got the instruments, but they need a gig Yeah One of the cars has like the fucking Murphy, whatever, band written on it and they've like rosted out with Spraypain and written the Blues Brothers band on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Pretty good.

Yeah. Carrie Fisher's still haunting them. Yeah, she tries to kill them with a flamethrower while they're in a phone booth next to a thing full of propane. Once again, they no sell it. And they get a gig, right? This does also feature Dan Aykroyd saying the phrase, who you're going to call fully four years before

Ghostbusters came out, which is kind of funny, Yeah, that was funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just coincidences. Say that again. Yeah. Wait a second. I've got an idea for a good movie.

Seeing him getting the idea, yeah. But so the deal here is that Jake has booked them in extremists. A book, has booked them a gig in America B. He hasn't even booked it. They just drive past and he goes, yeah, yeah, we'll do it that. Bob's country bunker. Yeah. Which, again, it's interesting the sort of politics of this movie, right, where it is

quietly in the background of things trying to articulate a, like, racially inclusive and strangely Catholic progressivism, where you've got, like, pictures of JFK and the Pope and MLK and Malcolm X up on everybody's wall. And then oppositional to that, you have Bob's country bunker, right? So it's like, the chuds in this time were very real to them and oppositional to them. And this is where we get one of the other jokes of all time, which is they go, what kind of music do you play in here?

And the one of the bars says, oh, we got both kinds, we got country and Western. That was the one, that was the joke that you posted about in the group chat, wasn't at that. That was the first joke. No, no, it wasn't actually.

No, no, we still haven't gotten to the thing that I counted as the first joke. I was going to say, I thought that that was it. I was like, I'd say that's close. That's funny. That's funny.

Yeah, that's all right. Yeah. I'll give a third joke. Country and Western. Country and Western, funny. This is like trying to get like a sort of a comedy movie dissected by Russian war bloggers. It's like, yeah, you can get the thing described, I guess, but it's not.

And what did you mean by that? Was that funny to you? Yeah. What about it was funny? Jesus Christ. Yeah, I've had colonoscopies with more comic sensibility. I just wasn't amused. I just wasn't amused. I'm really, sorry, just didn't make you.

There's only two moments that made me laugh in the whole movie. We haven't got to one of them yet. I'm gonna go on strike for like the next movie that you pick and just describe things that happen and just be like, yeah, which I guess you could say was entertaining. I guess it was a visual art form, I don't know. What, an image followed the other, but I know what they were taught. I saw probably like seconds of this footage and, you know, certainly I've experienced it now. Yeah. Maybe I was in a bad mood

after this, maybe it's tired or something, but no, I just, I didn't laugh. This is what I'm saying. This is why you need the crystals. You said you'd rather, you'd rather consume this movie as Tick-Tocks. Like, that's the most brutal thing I've ever heard. I would just watch the musical numbers on TikTok

or on YouTube or something, and then I could cut out like 90 minutes of it, the rest of it now. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, yeah. I'm going to get in between the green book clips, you know. But so the deal is, that this place, it's kind of like the bar from green room. This is funny. This is funny.

They try to play like Blues Brothers shit and everyone in the bar is like, sorry, we're sort of a cowboy bar. Do you want to try that? And they're throwing bottles at the chicken wire coating the stage. Yeah. They're trying to do like the coolest shit in the world and the guys like, that ain't no Hank Williams song. And so in desperation, under this reign of beer bottles, they go, hey, you guys remember the theme from Municipal Roundup. Yeah.

We just play Raw-Hide over and over again. The theme from Municipal Roundup, from No Guards, No Man's, yeah. I love the joke of, that them liking it, because they're loving it, means them throwing fewer bottles, not no bottles. I wrote that down. Bottle's now aimed to days only.

Real-time audience feedback. I think they're liking this. The bottle meter is decreasing it. They do sometimes. it's hard to be a woman, and we see that, like, Chuds, like, there's a Chud rapper, like, weeping into his beer, there's a couple kissing, and it's like, oh, okay, these, these might be, like, stupid racists, but music moves them as well, they just have their own forms of it.

Yeah. Music is so important. Music is fucking important. So they get off stage, and they have to make $5,000 to save the orphanage. They made $200 and drank $300 worth of beer. Yeah, and Elwood is like, oh, we sort of, they kind of forgot to make us pay for the first beer, so I thought that they were free. And the guy goes, ha ha, ha, ha, no. I'd like one hundred dollars from you, please.

This is your real sort of like touring musician feels here. At which point, the Winnebago with the real band who were supposed to play, the good old boys, show us. They're drinking whiskey and rye, I hear. But they turn up and they're like, oh, where the real band? And the Blues brothers are like, Charles Napier. Shit, cheese it.

So they're making more enemies. So you can be like, oh, okay, the final chase sequence will also include a Winnebago full of like picks with guns. I get it. Right. Yeah. They chase after them and they crash into the same cops

from before who are still like, oh, we're going to get those Blues brothers. Americans in the 70s loved a comedy car crash. Right away that like, we need the money. And Jake is like, okay, I'll go. tell the boys that I'll get the boys to kick something in. He goes straight out and goes, hey, they're asking for money, you better get the fuck out of here right now.

And then tries to play them off against each other as a union guy. He can confuse them for a second, but then, as you say, yeah, it collapses. Yeah, there's a whole balushy bit. I have to run away. Yeah. I wrote, the good old boys have joined the hunt, and then two and a half seconds later I wrote, The good old boys have been waylaid. They have left the hunt.

The hunts. Yeah. immediately crash into a cop car and fall over. So they go to see... They didn't really flip that Winnebago on its side too, which is fun. Yeah, again, it's all practical. They had to do all of these things, like that everyone showed up. For a long time, this movie held the record for number of cars destroyed in production

until it was mugged by, amongst others, every Fast and Furious movie. Yeah, you've got to believe it. Which way worse. but so they go and see the promoter that owes them a favor, Mory Slime and he agrees under the threat of blackmail to book them this huge venue but they have to fill it

right? Yeah, they're all wearing towels. This is the first moment in the movie that I laughed. Okay, this is funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was the joke. We see the Blues Brothers talking to Maurice and they're like wearing towels and nothing else except their sunglasses and their hats. They're in a sauna together, yeah. When they get the agreement, they go, all right, let's go, boys, and we cut to the wide, and the entire band is in the sauna, and they're also wearing sunglasses and hats.

That's funny. I was like, okay, there we go. 19 minutes in, I've laughed for the first time. Okay, so grading on a curve, you would say that this was funny, and I'll take that as a victory. This is a good bit. This is a really good bit. The second joke comes three minutes length, though, because we see that all their friends, including Curtis, like, recruit people to help publicize.

the gig, they get like the kids from the orphanage to go and hand out posters. We cut back to the music shop, Ray Charles hangs a poster for the Blues Brothers gig, the poster's upside down. That's joke number two. I was like, ha ha ha! Okay, here we go. Putting this on the poster for the Blues Brothers is funny, Abigail Thorne. It's like putting the two stars in the middle of the...

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So they did this montage. And then in the course of driving around with a massive sort of like megaphone mounted on the top of the thing, the Bluesmobile. They run out of gas, and I am a woman with the planning type of OCD, so I get nervous in real life about them being late to the show, because there's something wrong with me. I do want to highlight one of the ways in which they advertise is that it's written on like a truck stop bathroom, and we see that some of the good old boys go in a piss. And it's like, in the graffiti is a picture of the two Blues Brothers and it says Blues Brothers tonight, which is, that's funny. That is good.

Good, good. The Palace Hotel Ballroom. Yeah, we get a little cameo from Twiggy, who shows up in a Jaguar E-type and Elwood. Yeah, if you know who Twiggy is, I bet that's great. I didn't, I had to look up who British Jaguar lady in the movie was, and so that's why I didn't get as big. But she turns up... Elwood hits on her in a really clumsy way and it's like, hey, you want to meet me at a motel. Yeah, that's really funny.

Yeah, tonight at midnight. It's like there's a motel, you can meet me at midnight, yeah. Mm-hmm. But so they're getting later and later, and they're filling time at the auditorium, which is now full. There is another real sort of like touring musician or podcast live show moment here where the band is like, what can they be doing? And it smash cuts to them in a fucking drainage tunnel for some reason. This is what it's like, man. Yeah, yeah.

It just is. It's just like. Sometimes the live show starts an hour and a half late and it's because one of us is in a fucking drainage tunnel. You know, don't worry about it. Because the cops are onto them. The cops are onto them. And so at this point, because they're late, they have. to send Curtis on to open the show.

And at this point, what should be happening is the character of Curtis should be singing a song that brings his arc in the movie as the B character to an end. We should see how he's changed or how he's grown, or him reflecting on having been the mentor to these younger guys or whatever. But instead we get Cab Calloway, very talented singer, doing Minnie the Moutcher. And I'm just like, why this song in particular- Literal coolest shit ever. like, a guy who does the thing.

How is this advancing the story? How is it telling me anything about the character? It's not a... It needs to. Why does it need to? You have to rigid a conception of these things. Because it's a movie. Because it is a film that tells us a story

instead of just a series of music videos. Why is this a film and not just a filmed concert? Why do you need to be told a story? I'm going to make you... Because it's a fucking movie! My next... My next pick for bonus episode... This isn't the tears-swit-air's concert video.

Like, I want, you know, tell me a fucking story, assholes. Don't waste my fucking time. My next bonus pick is the, like, 750-hour installation film about global logistics, right? Not fucking doing the 700-hour movie about global logistics. We aren't doing it. Well, why not? It compresses down into the same number of TikToks. Well, my next pick is Abel Cancer's Napoleon, all right?

Like, let's sit here and do some fucking movies. Hell fucking yeah. Hell yeah. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah, yeah. What is the? Oh.

They put it in the movies. They put it in the movie because it rules. And it does rule. It communicates that Cab Callow is a powerful wizard who is able to sustain the illusion in front of an entire auditorium that he has changed into an all-white tuxedo and the Blues Brothers Band. have formed into sort of like a big band with like podiums. This is something that is very funny because they are just talking to each other and the curtains open and immediately they're all in costume

like it cut straight to it. Yeah, powerful wizards. I don't know what else to tell you. Music is important. That's what I've got. The cops who are surrounding the auditorium are kind of getting into it as well. Like, so even the cops love music.

John Candy's taken a seat. Yeah. John Candy's like, wait, we haven't heard these boys sing. Let them do the game first. what the Blues Brothers can do. And when they do turn up, they sing, everybody needs somebody, which, okay, that's a, that's a good choice of that song, because it ties into your theme,

which is everyone is united by music, everyone's brought down. You see, it's so frustrating because there are, like, little points where the movie can do it, but overall it fails. Again, quite like James Bond in that way. I'm just going to note that Dan Aykroyd, incredible dancer. Yeah, really good. Nice to see. Also, real great, yeah.

Also, as far as the making of goes, so John Belushi, I have to emphasize how much cocaine he was on. This is, this is him sort of like at the peak of the thing that's about to become a very precipitous decline. It was the movie where he, like, admitted he had a coke addiction, for one thing. But partially because he was like so worshipped in Chicago, it's why it's a Chicago movie. There's a bit in the oral history about him getting cop cars like taxis. right because the cults would recognize him and just be like, yeah, sure, get in the back. But before filming this scene, and we can say maybe that this was a sort of pharmaceutically influenced decision, he saw a kid go past him on a skateboard and went, hey kid, let me ride that

skateboard, rode the skateboard, fell off the skateboard, fucked up his knee super, super bad. And so they had to get the best knee surgeon in Los Angeles and maybe in America. maybe in the world, to like, in a real sort of like, the kid stays in the picture era of Hollywood filmmaking, be like, no, John Belushi is going to do this scene and he's going to do backflips, and you do whatever you have to do medically, but he has to do them. And I don't know what they did to that guy, because he does the backflips. He does. He does. He does.

He does. He does. In this. Yeah. Absolutely insane that, like, at the sort of top of comedy in the sort of film industry and TV in the U.S., it's just like, yeah, you have to do like sort of figure skating level

tolls on the body. Like you are kind of like the fattest possible Olympic athlete. Like I don't... Yeah. Well, you have to train for six months for the stunt team, yeah. Yeah.

Noteworthy only in as much as I've had one of these. John Candy and the whole boys order several orange whips. I made an orange whip once by way of binging with Babish. It was fine, pretty good. Orange whip.

Cool. Then they get pulled out back and a guy who is... Clarion Records and president goes, hey, I'm the president of Claren Records. Would you like 10,000 pounds? He says it in dollars. And the secret way out past the cops.

Yeah, exactly. So they take the secret way out past the cops, leaving half the money for the band and run directly into Carrie Fisher who does not hesitate to let it bark, right? No, she does not. I love to see Carrie Fisher. I was like, oh, she had Carrie Fisher. And we finally figure out what the fuck her deal is.

She was left at the altar by Jake. And she's also mobbed up. She's like the mob wife you could have had. But he left her. So she's going to kill me. Three things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And false.

Yeah, she is absolutely femme cell. She's like, I stayed celibate for you. And so, yeah, I think, listen. Is it funny? Tell me how it's funny. Just explain to me, just from first principle. how it's funny. Okay, it's kind of funny to have fumbled Carrie Fisher,

but it's really funny to immediately get so pathetic with it. Yeah, it is. She wants to take you back, like, begging on your knees. Because he immediately, instead of like trying to persuade, he just drops to both knees and goes, I'm sorry, I fucked up, I had a headache, like the sun was in my eyes, you know, like I had a car I needed to take back that day.

I fucked up, please forgive me. That's funny. Me with any of my exes, also the one time we see the like cool break it's the one time we see his eyes you take the sunglasses off and that's what actually moves her to be like oh he yells locusts at one point

and she falls back in love with him and he picks her up and like immediately drops her and just runs away again drops her in the mud and they just run past her it's all about the chase it's all about the chase for Julia Jake yes yeah that's what the blues are all about

yeah speaking of the chase At this point, we get the big chase sequence where everyone from the movie is chasing them. I love a good stage sequence. Yeah. This is a good chase sequence. They don't have computers yet,

so they had to film all the cars. Hey, love that. This is the blueprint for Infinity Cops. As far as Blossing goes, right, I think incidentally putting one of the best chase scenes ever filmed in the back of your musical is a baffling,

baffling decision. Yeah, very odd. But again, good to watch this scene clipped out of context on YouTube. Yeah, because... It's an impressive technical feat, you know? Infinity... Yeah, it is true.

Technically, the cars do move, and that's wild. No, they have infinity cough cars. They do really good stunts. They jump the fucking Zetigarves and John Candy. Into the back of a truck, the enemy of the cops. Yeah, the good old boys, they've glued down.

their accelerator pedal or their brake or something, so it doesn't stop and they, like, crashed through a gear into the water, and it's all done practically. It's good. And this is also where we get to rename a bit of the scum system, because we used to call it unprovoked violence, but now because of the police dispatch is saying the very sort of, like, matter of facts, tough.

Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers has been approved. Fantastic. It's unnecessary violence now. Unnecessary. Absolutely. Absolutely. The Nazis are here. The fucking good old boys are here. The cops are here.

We get a blinker, blink and you'll miss it thing where they cut to the motel and Twiggy's waiting outside it, frustrated because Dan Hacker never turned up, which is kind of funny. Really good. Chicago is the greatest city in the world because where else would make their cops look like assholes this fulsomely, like with the cooperation of the Chicago Police Department. There's a bit where like 40 cop cars just all crash into each other. It's not clear why. Also, all the cops are wearing on their sleeves the flag of Chicago, which is blue and white stripes and four stars, which if you just look at it quickly,

kind of looks like they're wearing the flag of mega Israel. Yeah, sure, I guess. Yeah, yeah. I tend to do this as like, this is attempted xenagastification, right? Not in the sort of later sense, right, where the cops become a liquid, right? And here it's like the cops refuse to become a liquid.

They become, like, they're still awkward solids crashing into each other, right? And that's funny. We get the Nazis chasing them. You get another visual gag of the white power bumper stickers on the AMC Gremlin. Thank you. The Blues Brothers, the Blues Mobile can defy gravity.

Yes, can. We don't really, like, need to get into that necessarily. Monty Python this moment. Almost every shot, by the way, is like, Chicago is a city in the United States of America and you can go to it and it's got buildings in it. Like, it's all like fucking visit Chicago, like Chicago Skyline.

Yeah. The L train. I like that they treat the Nazis with such contempt in that, like, they swerve out of the way the Nazis are doing an impossible flip and the gravity-defying movies. And then the Nazis drive off this like impossibly high, unfinished freeway and like fall into.

to a hole in the ground and die. It reminds me of the moment in the People's Joker where Lord Michael slips on a banana peel falls out of his clothes and just dies because it's like, we don't give a shit about these characters so we don't really need to care about how they leave the movie, but they fuck them, they die. And I'm like, all right, cool.

Yeah, yeah, that's fun. Stuff that's in dialogue with SNL. Yeah. I love that it's a jump cut to a, you know, completely anachronistic and unexplained, like dropping the Nazi car from a crane that is too high to, like, work. It's just, yeah.

It's quite, it's quite, it's quite, I really did love the chase scene. Like, this is all fantastic. All of the 10,000 Chicago cop cars all crashed if I was stood on top of them with a double guns. Great. Do not like that as the Nazis are falling to their death, there is a gay joke.

One of them turns to you over and goes, I've always loved you. Just cut that. I did love. I did love. Is the problem. I did love. because I believe in love, but I think that it was put into this movie as a gay joke.

Yeah, no, 100%. I think it was too. Yeah. Yeah, but so they sort of drive through downtown Chicago. There's a bit, like, this one shot with like a camera on the bumper that I think stands up to like anything. Like, bullet or so right. They really put the cameras on the cars and like really drove them fast and that's cool. Fantastic.

And so they finally arrive at the like, like city offices. And the Blues Mobile, the Blues Mobile has legit pathos. I'm sorry, it just does. Like, I've used this as an analogy so many times. The Blues Mobile gets them to their destination and then every part

of it falls off. I really funny. It's a fun, but not the end of the chase sequence, too. It just falls apart like a Lego car. The whole thing, like the car falls in half. Like, it just, however they did it, fantastic. And it cuts the two, there are two statues

either side of the building. But it's just like, two big muscular guys, like, thinking, and it cuts to pictures of their faces for a second. Just really good. Really funny. So now, on foot, the cops become liquid. And this... The army are here?

Yeah. Millions of fucking cops trying to get us with this point. The SWAT team show up in, like, a sort of 80s SWAT team level of militarization. They're going, like, hut, hurt, hurt, hut, like a football team. Perfect. Which we should make them do this. If you're going to have to have SWAT teams, you have to make them do this, I think. I think any suitably large group of men should have to say hut, hut, hut, hut the whole time.

Just like, I don't know, 10 or more. Absolutely. I'd say 12 is the number, and you have to start saying hut. Any circumstance. They race up to the thing, barricading every door behind them as the cops forced their way through it. And they get to the office where Stephen Spielberg, looking alarmingly like one of the guys from we are scientists, in a cameo, takes... Wow, that's perfect. Yeah.

Takes the thing, files the taxes, and then we get a perfect, what opinion will have you like this, react? Yeah, the John Wigshot, yeah. There's like 10,000 cops, soldier, guns, guns, was a riot police in the same room. Guns pointed. That's funny. This is fantastic. It's like, oh, it's like, I'm so close. I'm with Abby, right?

Like, there's, it's, there are some jokes here, and it just needed some compressing in the middle to get us to this end sequence that is perfect. Faster. Yeah, they just, they drag their feet lot in the second act. I think you just, you need to make room for, like, joy in your hearts. And so, they all go to jail. But they got to jail with the band. I have plenty of room for joy in my hearts. It's just that this film, it supplied me joy,

but in a kind of, like, huge bowl of dog shit. And I'm like, I shouldn't have to go through the movie to pick out the bits that are fun. I mean... Just cut the bits that aren't fun. Yeah. Just get rid of a shit, but I didn't like. Give me a fucking...

It's the pacing. It's the pacing that is off. It's the scene-to-scene editing that is off. Have you considered, though, that it's worth it for the bits that are good? I could fix this movie in an afternoon with Premiere Pro. Just... Okay.

But so they're in prison. But they go to prison. They think Joe House Rock in the prison. Yeah. They do think of the one prison guard, like, getting into it is important to me. It is, it is. It is. Music brings everyone together.

Yeah. And as we do the credits, we get little solos from each of the musicians so that you know who each of the musicians are, so that you can go and look them up and change your taste of music forever. So that you can go like that guy played a lot of good. You can look at Mac Catarr. That's why they call them guitar. Yeah. We call them heroes.

And that's the Blues Brothers. That's the Blues Brothers, baby. What does I have to say about masculinity? That it's fun to hang out with your boys. Uh-huh. That it's nice to play music. Uh-huh. That you can make the hat work a dangerous thing to tell any young man?

You can, yeah. If you have the capacity to do so, start a band right now. Just have fun playing music when you're fucking. playing music with your fucking friends. It is genuinely the funnest thing in the entire universe. There you go. Start something creative with your friends, which I think that we,

I think we support Vance dance. Definitely. You can always drive your car into anywhere. Don't encourage them, Jeremy, you know? Like, abso fucking luther. Uh-huh. Encouraging, yeah. It's not only allowed,

but actually good to like black people and black music. That's something that says about masculinity. see. I do want to say, part of the reason why this movie, this movie was like a huge success, even though it went catastrophically over budget, was impossible to make. But when it came out, the distributors were like, this is, we are going to be extremely racist about the distribution of this. Like, cinema owners refused to show it in white neighborhoods.

Come on. In 1980? Yeah, on the basis that they thought that the only people who would go and see it would be black and explicitly said they didn't want them to come to cinemas in white neighborhoods. No good. That's disgusting. The thing is as well. Yeah.

This movie came out on the heels of like, you know, disco demolition and that whole backlash, right? Like all of the musicians in this movie, like even Aretha Franklin or Ray Charles were like, their careers were kind of foundering a bit. And so it was like a huge shot in the arm for soul music, uh, for, for rhythm. them in blues for jazz even, and like, so it was hugely impactful in that sense. And I think that's an unalloyed positive of letting Dan Aykroyd make a movie about his special interest. Yeah, that's nice.

I also like that someone in makeup was named Shotgun Britain. And it's a cool name. That is a cool name. But we don't have to be subjective about this because we have a newly rechristened science-based system. Yeah, baby. still called the scum system. It's down to smam.

Cultural insensitivity. Necessary. Necessary. Violence and misogyny on scale of zero to seven. How smarmy is the Blues Brothers. I'm willing for this to be high. It's obviously maximally smarmy. The point of it is to be so.

It's not a failing of the movie. It's just a fact. This is a very smarmy film. It's very pleased to itself. It is a sincere movie, though. And that's one of things I like that is sincere about its love of music. music as a physical medium that people make together. So I'm going to give it a lot, but I'm going to take some back to I could see seven, six.

I could be kind, I could say six. I could, I think it would be slightly, I think it's seven and I say that positively. Yes. Right. Yeah, I'm not going to get punitive. And you could even, you could even see taking some points off for the sincerity, but seven, I think starts the conversation.

Yeah, I'm not here to argue. It's like a low-ass movie. I'm here to argue it's a good movie. Something which I do not feel I've succeeded at. Cultural insensitivity. Cultural insensitivity, I mean, it's pretty clearly an America, a movie that has like a really sort of like set idea. It has a real contempt for Nazis and Chuds.

Yep. And cops, which I appreciate. Like, it says in the ending that being a cop or a prison guard is something that requires you to deny something fundamental about your humanity, which is hearing some cool music and going, yo, that shit whips. So I think that's got to be really low, right? Going to give it one for the gay joke, but other than that.

Yeah, that's reasonable. Yeah, that's absolutely reasonable. Yeah, absolutely. One? One I'm happy with. Unnecessary violence. I mean, it's really low. It's all kind of comedic, isn't it?

Yeah. It's all just, it's all kind of slapstick, good fun. It's so low that, like, we have, like, forms of, unnecessary violence that have developed in real life since it came out that make it implausible now. Like, in that sense, it's from a slightly more innocent time, which is crazy, because you're playing with some stuff that could be quite dark. You've got Chuds chasing them down the road, shooting at them, right, in the middle of the night, in the backwards. That's potentially pretty scary, but they don't engage with it on that level, and so it's got to be like a one,

I guess, right? Like... Yeah, I could give it a one, yeah. And then... Misogyny. Misogyny. So women are not really people in this. Certainly women aren't musicians apart from Aretha Franklin, who plays no further part in proceedings after one thing.

That's pretty bad. I wanted the nun to have a song. I wanted the nun to have song. Yeah, for sure. I mean, if only you could imagine such a thing as a singing nun, ridiculous. What does that even sound like? What does that even sound like? What is that even?

Some kind of sister act? No, no. So it's almost just like a mission. It's like two or three, you know? Yeah, I mean, part of the joke of with Carrie Fisher is Jake treating her like shit. And the joke there is that Jake is a bad person, but it doesn't impinge on his coolness.

So it's kind of trying to have it both ways. Yeah, and the message is like, music brings everyone together. that music is entirely performed by men, apart from Aretha Franklin. It's like, uh-huh. Yeah. I think that comes in like a two or a three, yeah. Three?

Oh, here, three, yeah. Okay. That gives it a total score of 12, which is pretty respectable. It's as bad as Fast and Furious One, which I feel is... Oh, that wounds me to hear. That's a real shame to it.

I feel it's like, 12 is a good score on this show. It really is. It is. It is. It's low. It's nearly single-focus. pretty good. I mean, yeah, yeah, it's worse than blue collar,

but it's better than almost all of the fast and furious movies. That's right. I mean, all I can really say is that I enjoyed watching this. I think the listener will as well, see which of us they are bodying in the comments, basically. Yeah, is my response to this. Listeners, I would say, watch the musical numbers of the car chase on YouTube, skip the rest. Save yourself two hours and 45 minutes.

I watch the car. I genuinely do watch for car chase. It's really fun. Yeah, what's the car chase? It's great. What's the car chase? It's real. Check out the Blues Brothers, but try to be 15 years old when you do it.

Yeah. Even energetically or literally, just try to be in a position where this is going to, like, hit you at a reasonable age. Show your, like, kid, the Blues Brothers. Exactly. And, yeah, I guess rewatch the Blues Brothers, because a lot of people I know absolutely love this movie, and I think it's on that basis, right? It's kind of a nostalgic thing.

So, yeah, if you're on the fence about this, but you're on the fence about this, but you saw this like, I don't know, 20, 30 years ago or whatever, go and re-watch it now, because it's still funny. This has been Kill James Bond, but we also have a Patreon feed where you can listen to us talk about movies that we pick. And whose turn is it next? Last bonus episode was, of course, Titan.

The next bonus episode is mine. And I think truck season, I think we've done, We've done the Wages of Fear, we've done Ice Cold and Dead Name. Why not sit down and do William Friedkin Sorcerer? Ooh. Why not take another adaptation of The Wages of Fear? Amazing. Ooh, okay.

Never seen it, but I'll be very interested to sort of compare and contrast. And hopefully, so were you in the audience. A movie that should have banged, but Star Wars ate its entire breakfast in the box. But a bastard. What's our next Mainline episode going to be? That's a great question. I... Hmm.

There is a Blues Brothers sequel, but I guess we're not doing that. I sort of want to see if we can get my colleagues from Well, There's Your Problem on, to talk about the taking of Pelham, one, two, three. That would be splendid. That would be splendid. That's on the list. Yeah. Cool.

Amazing. Well, we'll see if we can't arrange that. And if not, there'll be something else, but we will do that eventually. That's been high on my list for a long, long time as a heist movie. So keep your ears peeled for that. And we'll see you next time. Bye, everyone. Bye.

Thank you for listening to yet another episode of Kill James Bond. You made it through. It wasn't that bad. Hey, if you're really angry at us, don't scroll into the comments and tell us. I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to hear about it. I'm not interested. I didn't watch any of a Saturday Night Live stuff.

How am I supposed to know anything about the Blues Broad? The car fall apart. Okay. Okay. Our next episode in two weeks' time is the taking of Pelham, one, two, three. If that is simply too long for you to wait, then you can head on over to our Patreon. Patreon.com slash kill James Bond, all one word,

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