I recently had a craving to watch The Blues Brothers again for the 3rd or 4th time. I didn't have the DVD in my collection, so instead of renting or streaming it, I decided to buy the blu ray to add it to my collection. Then enjoyed it again. It was great to see all the legendary music performances by Aretha, Ray, James Brown, and Cab Calloway again. With another repeat viewing I picked up on some subtle jokes and humor I missed the previous times. It's really a crazy movie and even ridiculous and absurd at times but it is still really funny to me to see the Brothers' building blown up, and then in the next shot, see them climb out of the rubble unscratched and unhurt and walk off to their next stop. The chase in the mall is also hilarious to me. It was cool to see all Chicago locations again, and I forgot that Steven Spielberg appears at the end. It is one of those movies I'll enjoy again sometime soon.
For the first time ever, I watched a movie that has long been on my "to-see" list - the Clint Eastwood comedy Every Which Way But Loose. I liked it. It kind of reminded me of the Blues Brothers because throughout the whole movie, Clint and his friends are chased by people that either want to kill him or get revenge for something.
It's another crazy road movie but instead of blues, there's a country vibe to it, and even features a few cameos by country singers Charlie Rich and Mel Tillis. Eastwood manages to get into a lot of dive bar fights, enters street fights for quick cash, and even tries to get his pet orangutan laid at the Santa Fe zoo. Ruth Gordon has a small part as the mother, and she's pretty funny in it, too. She keeps failing her driver's license test, but eventually passes at the end, sort of predicable.
Pretty much the entire movie is ridiculous but really amusing.
Throughout the whole movie, Clint pursues a woman (Sondra Locke), but then at the end when he does meet up with her she blows him off. I liked that ending; it's so unconventional. In the climatic fight at the end Eastwood nearly beats the best street fighter in the nation, but he decides to go down and lose because...well, its left to the audience to decide why. I think it's because he didn't want the fame and reputation.
Eastwood's best friend (or was it his brother - I don't remember) in the film is played by Geoffrey Lewis, who is really good in this part, very believable and funny. Never saw any movie with him before, so I checked out what else he did on IMDB, where I also learned that his daughter is Juliette Lewis. I never knew that.
Read another blog post about this movie from Diary of a Movie Maniac here
Incidentally, the other day I was in a Hallmark store and saw a new Juliette Lewis/"Audrey Griswold" Christmas Ornament for the 2022 season; it's part of a new set of "Christmas Vacation" ornaments -- the others in the set are Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo (who is also in Every Which Way But Loose), and Johnny Galecki ("Rusty Griswold"). Geoffrey Lewis died a few years ago but I'm sure he would have been proud to have an ornament feauring his daughter's likeness, maybe.
No comments:
Post a Comment