They're On A Mission From God!

I first saw The Blues Brother in my teen years after I'd heard the hype about what a classic comedy it was. Shown late at night I couldn't watch it in one sitting as I'd have to get up early for school the next morning, so I sat there with my father for the first hour. I was confused. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be watching. Why did it take so very long to get going? Why were the jokes so spaced out? How could John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd survive two explosive attacks from from Carrie Fisher? And what was with all that old music that kept interrupting the story? I went to bend frustrated and confused.

The following evening, I rewound the video and watched the secong half. But this time I got it. I now understood that this was also a musical...not just a comedy. I now got that Rhythm and Blues is one of the most joyful music genres ever invented. I now understood that this was a surreal comic book movies where cars can fly, heroes can survive a collapsing building just by dusting themselves off, that excess, done right (like a record number of police cars crashing) can be hilarious and spectacular and that some jokes are more gut-bustingly funny if you have a slow, straight faced, really long build up.

It soon became my favorite comedy ever, with only director John Landis' Animal House to compete with.

I saw it a few years later at an outdoor screening with hundreds of other people, which just highlighted to me the cult appeal of the movie. Lines of dialogue were shouted en-mass at the screen (There's nothing funnier than hundreds of people shouting Charles Napier's classic line, "Don't you say a fucking word", en-mass along with the movie). Every time a song was performed, everybody ran down to the front, dancing underneath the silver screen. As unique a movie experience as I'm ever likely to have.

It still plays perfectly today. The jokes, beautifully timed, slightly surreal, with a dead-pan delivery still make me throw my head back and laugh (the Carrie Fisher gag, set up all the way through the movie, is paid off in one of the best timed pieces of physical comedy ever), the combined songs are still the best various artist soundtracks conceived, and the bonkers chase plot with the cops, the Good Ol' Boys country band and the Illinois Nazis all in pursuit is original beyond the
comprehension of most mortal directors.

Classic, pure and simple.