The Blues Brothers (Widescreen 25th Anniversary Edition)
I can't wait. I love Dan Aykroyd, it's a completely recent appreciation for him I'll admit, but really what's not to love.
After having watched the movie:
(Possible spoilers below)
I knew even before watching the movie, a little about how The Blues Brothers started because I read about it when I did a little research on Dan Aykroyd. The background check was sparked because of my recent appreciation I've gained for the man.
For those who don't really know, the movie was written by Aykroyd and Director, John Landis. The kind of amazing part about it though is that the script was originally 300 pages. Let's take a minute and put this into its proper perspective. As a rule of thumb, a single page from a script has a running time of one minute. Therefor a 90 page script will typically having a running time of about 90 minutes. I've never worked on a script more than 120 pages, yet. When you consider the number of car chase sequences and stunts that were required for this movie I couldn't imagine what the 300 page script would have translated into on film.
I don't know how many pages the script was eventually cut down to, but there was never a time when I thought the movie was too long. Elwood and Jake are two of my favorite characters and I loved how dedicated they were to completing their mission from God, and how unphased they remained after escaping the police, wrecking a shopping mall, leading a high speed chase, and skipping out on a $100 bar tab.
After watching the movie though, it's one that if given the opportunity I would have loved to have worked on. I've kind of imagined that Dan Aykroyd is just this fabulous and down to Earth kind of person, and even though I think Jim Belushi would have driven me crazy during production I would want to be friends with him outside of working on the movie. I know that might seem a little strange that I could see myself getting along with him outside of work, but after working 10 hours and finding out that one of the main actors can't be found I'd be a little irritated. In fact, during production John Beliushi, who was drunk at the time, wondered off in pursuit of a glass of milk, a sandwhich, and a couch to crash on. Belusi found all three things at a strangers house and it only took the crew a couple of hours to find him. Which isn't really surprising, because we all know of John's party boy personality and of course this is all rooted in my own "what if" scenario.
Final thoughts: Even though my attention span is roughly the time it takes to boil 2 quarts of water, I would have loved to have been able to read the original script Aykroyd wrote. Of course I completely understand why the movie was cut back so much, but I would love to know more about which scenes had been cut or even which lines had been flubbed or added last minute. Does anyone know if a DVD has been released with a commentary track?
OFFICIAL COUNT 86 DOWN 279 TO GO
Next up: X Men
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