Blues Brothers 2000 (1998) Review

rating: ****

the story: The band gets back together.  Again!

review: The original Blues Brothers was so iconic, and so closely identified with John Belushi, it was always going to be a tall order to make another one without Belushi, who had been dead for years by the time production began.  Blues Brothers 2000 became, as a result, a poster child of unwanted sequels.  It does not deserve such a reputation.

Filling in for Belushi are John Goodman and Joe Morton, who are nothing like the brash Belushi, but who nonetheless step into the act with Dan Ackroyd in such fashion that you really have to be committed to hating the results to hate.  Morton, a reliable hand who has never gotten his due in general, has an actual plot behind his character, an arc that culminates in a tent revival scene that has one show-stealing (and for me, movie-defining) song, "John the Revelator," leaning heavily into the supernatural elements that allowed the original band to survive all manner of '80s mayhem without a second's thought.  Watching Ackroyd in all this is to reconcile Blue Brothers with Ghostbusters, a logical leap that should also not be so difficult to manage.

But the real charm of Blues Brothers 2000 is that it actually features blues music!  The music here isn't just memorable pop songs from days past, but blues acts getting to sink their teeth into their craft.  You have the likes of B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Dr. John, and even Eric Clapton putting on appearances, plus Erykah Badu immersing herself deep into a character role, and Blues Traveler!  One has the idea that the whole point of the movie is celebrating these and other acts, to give back after the first one, and this is a most worthy cause.  To watch this one is to experience the world the brothers celebrated in the first one.  Is that really so hard to love?  These are both movies that are elaborate excuses to enjoy some good music.  They happen to have different vantage points, even if on the surface they look exactly the same.

I think it's well worth revisiting.

Bee Movie (2007) Review

rating: ****

the story: A bee discovers that humans use honey.

review: The thing about Bee Movie is that it’s an animated movie that’s probably better appreciated by adults than by kids. It’s kind of the whole point.

For one thing, it’s probably going to end up the only time Jerry Seinfeld does an actual attempt at telling a story, rather than what he did for nine seasons of Seinfeld, “a show about nothing,” in which he poked fun at everyday foibles with no real concern whether he acting or sort of just waiting to deliver his stand-up material around a given cast of characters. I mean, I loved it, but no one, including Seinfeld himself, was ever going to argue that Seinfeld made any kind of effort to be an actor.

A lot of Bee Movie is a collection of gag material, too, but it ends up being an actual story, with a point an’ everything, and not just a point but a very good one. Seinfeld’s bee goes to trial to prevent humans from stealing honey. And this leads to bees no longer producing as much honey. And not so much pollinating. And suddenly it gets real.

It’s a morality tale. It’s about failing to see the interconnectedness of things, how in trying to rip one thing apart from another, it ends up being like that loose thread that unravels the whole sweater. This has huge applications for a modern world that no longer understands how much unraveling is really being done, that can’t distinguish between distinctions being made and losing the sweater in the process.

And it’s got Patrick Warburton! I don’t know, I’m always a sucker for the guy, ever since discovering him in Dave’s World. And John Goodman, making full use of his booming voice. Renee Zellweger kind of recedes into the animation (I think even she learned years later that her eyes are a huge part of her appeal when she tried to surgically change them). Also: Chris Rock. He’s Chris Rock. Hilarious minor role.

And Jerry Seinfeld. As a bee. It’s kind of a big deal. I loved the movie when I first saw it, and then eventually just thought of it as that movie where Jerry Seinfeld is a bee. But the whole thing absolutely works, and is worth celebrating.