September 27th 2013. Pick Of The Day.

Choice offerings this day include Howard Hawks's first western, Elio Petri's defining work of the cinema of paranoia, and the perfect screen iteration of Hal Foster's immortal comic strip knight. Ongoing series include MoMA's Auteurist History of Film, Anthology Film Archives' Middle Ages on Film and John Zorn Selects, and the Rubin Museum's Cabaret Cinema. The whole shebang as follows;

IFC Center

RED RIVER (1948) Dir; Howard Hawks

Film Forum

ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE (1947) Dir; Jacques Becker

MoMA

THE JOB (1961) Dir; Ermanno Olmi

Anthology Film Archives

PRINCE VALIANT (1955) Dir; Henry Hathaway

INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION (1970) Dir; Elio Petri

THE KNIGHT (1980) Dir; Lech Majewski

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN (1943) Dir; Roy William Neill

Lamdmark Jersey Loews

THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980) Dir; John Landis

Rubin Museum

PANIC IN THE STREETS (1950) Dir; Elia Kazan

Landmark Jersey Loews

BRAZIL (1985) Dir; Terry Gilliam

Nitehawk Cinema

REVENGE OF THE CHEERLEADERS (1976) Dir; Richard Lerner

Today's Pick? John Landis's ironic yet immensely reverent updating of the classic Hollywood musical, 1980's THE BLUES BROTHERS at the Landmark Jersey Loews, featuring John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd in the iconic roles that define them still to this day, Ackroyd because he was never better and Belushi, sadly, because he had scant opportunity to try.

When Johnny Met Danny is one of the great bromance tales not just in the history of SNL, but comedy, period. Ackroyd was a mercurial talent who explored careers in comedy as well as music, frequenting the blues club Le Hibou in Ottowa and watching some of his forgotten heroes ply their craft in front of increasingly niche audiences. John Belushi was a high school football hero who'd followed his comedy muse to the audition stage of Chicago's august Second City troupe, making the cut on first try. When Lorne Michaels put out the casting call for a new late night comedy series he was given free reign to develop and produce, Ackroyd and Belushi were among the hundreds of performers tested, and among the seven hired. The resulting series is of course an ongoing American TV institution, but the degree of danger the original cast and creative team was allowed to flirt with remains unprecedented. Ackroyd and Belushi became fast friends under this leeway, but while they both thrived it was clear that Ackroyd responded to the intellectual subversions permitted, while Belushi indulged in the permissive bacchanalia encouraged. This difference in personality not only bonded the two men, it made for ealrly concerns over Belushi's longevity.

In their offscreen time Ackroyd delighted in turning punk fan Belushi on to the blues, the two flipping vinyl endlessly amidst their non-stop discussion of the music. Quickly an idea emerged from all this smoking and drinking and finger-snapping; the two would perform an early exercise in meta entertainment. Posing without explanation or punchline as "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues, they'd perform their fave blues standards as a musical guest on SNL with Booker T.'s MG's as backing band (through their contact with SNL musical director Paul Shaffer). The positive reaction resulted in a live album, Briefcase Full of Blues, which shocked everyone in both the music and comedy communities by becoming, for a time, the best selling blues album ever. Somewhere around the same time Belushi became a bona fide movie star with Landis's ANIMAL HOUSE, so the confluence of events made a cinematic take on Jake and Elwood inevitable. Which it was. What surely wasn't inevitable was the magnificence the resulting film acheived.

I was lucky enough to attend a screening of THE BLUES BROTHERS at the Jersey Loews three years ago, and I wondered what the experience would be like watching with an audience, having only indoctrinated myself with the doings of the Brothers Blues through VHS and DVD lo these many years. I can honestly say I've had few greater experiences in a movie theater than that night. The print was pristine and the sound beefed to accomodate the fantastic musical perfs. What really made the film was the crowd though, and I know that's commonly the case, but THE BLUES BROTHERS especially drew out not merely the Cinegeek but the fanatical concert-goer in the crowd, which was considerable in number. Upon title card introduction of Belushi and Ackroyd the audience whooped like the main act had taken the stage. Upon completion of each musical number the audience cheered as if expecting a bow. Somebody even spray-painted his car to look like the Bluesmobile and attached a monstrous PA horn to its roof and parked it outside the renovated movie palace. It was that level of love. And as I watched it on the big screen, the Jersey Loews' REALLY big screen, for the first time, I realized this movie wasn't just a personal cult fave or even an anarchic gem of its era now accepted, it's simply this; one of the greatest fucking movies ever made. And I implore you, bring it! It boats faithful elements of The Odyssey, of MGM's legendary Freed unit at its peak, of Sergio Leone and his testosterone-fuled magic realism. It is the singular screen statement of stars Belushi and Ackroyd, two men who lived by their outsized charisma, who ironically dialed said charisma to zero in their portrayal of the ultimate blues superheroes. It captured, with a perfection of context that still awes, the work and persona of Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, and the patron saint of Harlem himself Cab Calloway. It is surely its director's finest work, although I've heard him dismiss it as a collection of great music but not a great film, because, y'know, he's dying to extoll the merits of THE STUPIDS, I guess. It is perfect cinema and perfect unadulterated joy. That's a lot of entertainment. For two dollars.

For more info on this and other classic screenings click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Back tomorrow (I promise) with more of what ya love, til then you know the drill; safe, sound, keep a eye out for your nieghbor too!

-Joe Walsh

joew@nitratestock.net