The Blues Brothers

1980 saw the American-boycotted Moscow Summer Olympics, the eruption of Mount St. Helens, the murder of John Lennon, and, on a more positive note, the release of The Blues Brothers. Twenty-five years later, you'd be hard pressed to find a better mall trashing, police car crashing musical-comedy. Commemorating the milestone, Universal has released The Blues Brothers 25th Anniversary Edition.

Elwood Blues picks his brother "Joliet" Jake up from prison in the new Blues-mobile: a 1974 Dodge Monaco (complete with "a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch plant, it's got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks -- it's a model made before catalytic converters so it'll run good on regular gas"). The two visit their old orphanage where they discover that it owes $5000 in back taxes to the state assessor's office.

Raising that kind of money would be easy for the crooked Jake but, when informed that Sister Mary Stigmata (aka "The Penguin") won't take his dirty money, things get more difficult. Jake "sees the light" and resolves to get the band back together. Setting out on their "mission from God," Jake and Elwood round up their old band mates while managing to tick off the state police, a country and western band, and a group of neo-Nazis, all of whom set out to make them pay.

On this double-sided disc, we get the 148 minute director's cut of the film (which was included on the previous DVD release) and the 133 minute theatrical cut (which wasn't). The longer cut includes some whole scenes that are not included in the theatrical cut and some of the musical performances are extended.

We also get several featurettes and retrospectives on the making of this cult classic. "Rounding Up the Band" is an original documentary that outlines the pop culture phenomenon of The Blues Brothers. Filled with trivia and interesting stories from the film's production, this obviously biased doc paints the film as a tremendous historical accomplishment.

There is also a truly pathetic introduction to the film by Dan Aykroyd, an excerpt from a recent Blues Brothers concerts (featuring a badly out-of-tune James Belushi as Jake), a glimpse into the many spin-offs inspired by the film, and a memoriam to the late John Belushi.

While a fun bit of fluff, there is only so much self-aggrandizing that even a fan can take. I like watching the mall get trashed and watching police cars fly into tractor-trailers as much as anyone. I like hearing about the trials and tribulations of raising the $27 million budget, and I like hearing about John Belushi crashing on the couches of strangers, but these documentaries feature weak production values and were clearly put together on a shoestring.

While it's nice to get both cuts, a great film deserves more than this. The packaging is lackluster at best. A simple case with an uninspired cover, no liner notes, and a completely blase layout. Certainly not Universal's best effort on the packaging or bonus material front. As 25th Anniversary Editions go, this one could be added to the pile-up of police cars on Lower Wacker Drive.

The Blues Brothers breathed new life into the blues and introduced a new generation to the music with performances by Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, John Lee Hooker, and Cab Calloway. It's an excellent movie that has been brutalized by commercialization. Sadly, it seems unlikely that the film will reinvent the blues this time around. -- Mark Devitt