Blues Brothers 2000
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| Blues Brothers 2000 | |
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 Blues Brothers 2000 poster |
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| Directed by | John Landis |
| Produced by | Dan Aykroyd Leslie Belzberg John Landis |
| Written by | Dan Aykroyd John Landis |
| Starring | Dan Aykroyd John Goodman Joe Morton J. Evan Bonifant Nia Peeples |
| Music by | Peter Bernstein Paul Shaffer |
| Cinematography | David Herrington |
| Editing by | Dale Beldin |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | February 6, 1998 |
| Running time | 123 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Blues Brothers 2000 is a 1998 musical/comedy film and sequel to the highly successful 1980 film The Blues Brothers. Directed by John Landis, the film featured Dan Aykroyd and John Goodman, with cameos by many musicians.
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[edit] Plot
Blues Brothers 2000 picks up 18 years after The Blues Brothers, with Elwood being released from prison, this time a rather high-tech private prison rather than the old Illinois state prison depicted in the first film. He learns that Jake (John Belushi) has died, along with their surrogate father figure Curtis (Cab Calloway), and that the orphanage the two had saved in the first film is no more; however he is told of a half brother (of sorts). He is the illegitimate son of Curtis, named Cab (Joe Morton). Cab is a chief in the police force and refuses to reunite with or support Elwood, a habitual criminal. Elwood takes a job as an announcer in a nightclub (A strip club owned by a previous member of the Blues Brothers band), where he discovers that the bartender (played by John Goodman) has singing talent, while getting on the bad side of the Russian mafia who have been demanding payoffs from the nightclub.
After the Russian mafia burns down the club, Elwood resolves to put the band back together once again with John Goodman's character as his new partner and a 10-year old orphan named Buster also tagging along. The band travels to several locations shown in the first film with a depiction of how they have changed in the intervening years (Bob's Country Bunker for example is now Bob's Country Kitchen, a family restaurant). As well as upsetting the mafia, Elwood also falls foul of a "white power group" and the police force, headed by a zealous Cab.
Finally, the band heads south to Louisiana with the intention of entering a battle of the bands held at the home of a voodoo practitioner named Queen Moussette, played by Erykah Badu. At the battle of the bands they compete against B.B. King's band, which by ironic or writer plot only started the band after Elwood bought a police car from him in the beginning of the film.
[edit] Cameo appearances
The following musicians made cameo appearances in the film:
Many others also appeared, some of whom featured as members of the fictional band The Louisiana Gator Boys.
[edit] Trivia
- The Blues Brothers 2000 made a record in the Guinness Book Of Records, for the biggest car pile up. Approximately 100 cars were used in the scene after Elwood says to the band "Don't look back." Inevitably, they look back and see the massive pile-up.
- The film was originally intended to include Brother Zee Blues (James Belushi) Due to an already existing television deal, Belushi was unable to appear in the film and the script was altered to include Cab Blues (Joe Morton).
- The Blues Brothers are a basis for the "Runaway Five" band featured in the video game Earthbound (Titled Mother 2 in Japan).
- Dedicated to: John Belushi (1949-1982), John Candy (1950-1994) and Cab Calloway (1907-1994), in loving memory.
- Joe Morton's character, Cabel (or "Cab"), is named in homage to Cab Calloway.
- The featured car in the film was a Ford LTD Crown Victoria, replacing the Dodge Monaco from the first film, as the new Bluesmobile.
- Queen Moussette's character is obviously based largely on voodoo priestess Marie Laveau.
- Belushi and the band's original keyboardist Paul Shaffer had become estranged by the time filming began on the first movie due to Shaffer's commitment to Gilda Radner's one-woman show, which was on Broadway at the same time. Shaffer was replaced in the band by Murphy Dunne. However, Shaffer appears in Blues Brothers 2000 as Marco, Queen Moussette's aide.
- During the Funky Nassau number, Marco asks to cut in on keyboards, which Murph allows. This marks the first on-screen time that the Blues Brothers Band plays with their original keyboardist.
[edit] Memorable quotes
Elwood Blues: Uh, is there anything in particular you would like to hear this evening, your highness?
Queen Moussette: Yes. Do something Caribbean.
Elwood Blues: Uh, ma'am, we're the Blues Brothers. We do blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, funk, soul, we can handle rock, pop, country, heavy metal, fusion, hip hop, rap, Motown, operetta, show tunes, in fact, we've even been called upon, on occasion, to do a polka. However, Caribbean is a type of music, I regret to say, which has not been, is simply not, nor will ever be a part of this band's repertoire.
Elwood Blues: You may go if you wish. But remember this: walk away now and you walk away from your crafts, your skills, your vocations; leaving the next generation with nothing but recycled, digitally-sampled techno-grooves, quasi-synth rhythms, pseudo-songs of violence-laden gangsta-rap, acid pop, and simpering, saccharine, soulless slush. Depart now and you forever separate yourselves from the vital American legacies of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Jimmy Reed, Memphis Slim, Blind Boy Fuller, Louis Jordon, Little Walter, Big Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson I and II, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Elvis Presley, Lieber and Stoller, and Robert K. Weiss.
Donald "Duck" Dunn: Who is Robert K. Weiss?
Elwood Blues: Turn your backs now and you snuff out the fragile candles of Blues, R&B and Soul, and when those flames flicker and expire, the light of the world is extinguished because the music which has moved mankind through seven decades leading to the millennium will whither and die on the vine of abandonment and neglect.
