well, the highlight of my weekend was watching 'Blues Brothers 2000', not so much a movie as an excuse for two R&B hungry white boys to make an extended music video with some of the greatest R&B/Soul/Jazz artists ever to record. On that level it was utterly fabulous and worked, worked, worked....Aretha Franklin revisiting 'Respect' with twenty-plus more years of lovin' under her belt, and she saaaaaaaang that song, honey....Wilson Pickett and Eddie Floyd in a fantastic duet, with some nice touches from Jonny Lang....Sam Moore and James Brown doing gospel, backed by the amazing Faith Chorale....and my Lord, the last 20 minutes of this picture had eeeevvvveryone in it, BB King, Koko Taylor, Bo Diddley, Jack DeJohnette, Joshua Redman, Eric Clapton, on and on. What a treat. This soundtrack goes on my wish list. Dan Aykroyd can't sing a note, and I missed Belushi like hell, but John Goodman did a fine job of faking it and I find him endearing anyway.
Along the way there is very little plot, some extremely silly and implausible bits of business, one very fine diatribe from Dan Aykroyd about the pathetic state of current popular music, spectacular car crashes, and a method of parallel parking, involving a 180 degree skid, which I wish to God I could master.
If you're an R&B junkie like I am, rent it for the music.
