![\"Book](\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/bsgfx\/thebluesbrothers.jpg\")
Well, this book is probably the one that leads me to end my reading of other movie and television tie-in books for the nonce. It, of course, novelizates the classic film based on a Saturday Night Live<\/em> sketch (which makes it movie and<\/em> television tie in).<\/p>\nAll right, for those of you born in the twenty-first century (Just kidding! What is this, an app-based video because the damn kids can’t even handle a YouTube video that’s measured in tens of minutes? Not hardly!), I will sum up the plot: After a failed robbery to pay the members of his blues band, Jake Blues goes to prison for a couple of years. When he gets out, he discovers that the orphanage where he and his adopted brother Elwood grew up is under the threat of closure for nonpayment of taxes (what?), and a group of Nazis are hoping to buy it at auction. So they decide to get their blues band back together to do a special gig at a ritzy joint where they’re not actually scheduled to perform.<\/p>\n
So that’s it. The story is them gathering the band members who have scattered and putting on the show.<\/p>\n
The movie, as you recall, gentle (old man) reader, was almost a musical with numbers by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and others in their various scenes. However, in each of those iconic scenes, the mention of any music is omitted, and the whole scene is over in a couple of sentences or a paragraph. Other lengthy segments from the film, such as the car chase through the mall, are also handled quickly and dismissively, with memorable lines like “The new Oldsmobiles are in early this year!” completely missing.<\/p>\n
Given that this is much of the draw of the film and that the humor in the film is kind of droll and not really laugh out loud funny to begin with, the book is not a very good read. As I mentioned, it’s probably put me off of movie tie-ins for a bit, especially as I think the running theme is played out (although with its help, I am at 49 books read so far this year).<\/p>\n
I did pick out a couple of things from the book to flag though, tucked below the fold so I do not further tax your patience with my book reports which are more about me reading the books than the books themselves.<\/p>\n
Cab Calloway’s character says that word<\/em>:<\/p>\n “Shit,” Curtis said. “What’s one more old nigger to the Board of Education if they buy this place? And if those others buy it, I’ll be lucky if they don’t put a brand on my ass.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is so weird that society functioned when the That Word was used in popular culture not to demean black people but to demean those who would oppress them. Because, let’s be honest, popular culture never really approved of overt racism, ainna? Not even blackface shows<\/a>, which were more about using stereotypes to poke fun than to oppress. C’mon, man, haven’t you read any 17th century drama when the country bumpkin (the original meaning of the word clown<\/a>) was picked on. And was, erm, in England probably white? Ay, I feel like I might have been on the last bit of the fading wave of actual education before it started to recede into the barren beach of ignorant indoctrination it is these days.<\/p>\n Wherein Brian J. Gets The Reference From Old Blaxploitation Soundtracks<\/strong><\/p>\n Jake continued to push as if he had not heard him. “You just go ahead and push your stuff, Mr. Junior Superfly. Go ahead, Mr. Pusher.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ackshually, the song on the Superfly<\/em> soundtrack is “Pusherman”:<\/p>\n
\nThe Baddest Word Alert<\/strong><\/p>\n