George Awards: Special Little Hats for their Special Little Heads

Warning

This post contains bad, foul, filthy and unacceptable language - the words that “will curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and maybe, even bring us, God help us, peace without honor.”

This is not a post for children.  Kids, take a hike. 

This is also not a post for those adults who are offended by this type of language.  Do yourself a favor, and go read some of my cute stuff before moral outrage can kick in.

End of Warning.

With the lasts of the lists finished, it’s almost time to draw the curtain down on the first George Awards.

Brining up John Belushi in the champion spot last week raised the notion of an important film I’ve ignored entirely.  Therefore I need to give a special notification for whatever the hell the equivalent of a Lifetime Achievement Award for a single film would be. 

1980’s The Blues Brothers would never be made today.  It could have been a fun family musical with a naughty streak, except for the fact that it was Rated R solely for language. 

But what language it is!

Profanities delivered by genius musicians, such as “shit”s by Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway added an air of poetry and power to the words. 

We also cannot forget nearly every line that came out of Mr. Fabulous –

Alan

“The soup is fucking ten dollars” –

“This place is a fucking barn”

Rubin.

My sister recently called to let me know it was being shown on a channel that would edit it. We both recorded it to let our young children enjoy “safely” the music and comedy of the Blues Brothers.

You know what?

Along with the profanity, much of the timing, emotional content and the very soul of the dialogue were missing with the censored language. 

Remember this wonderful moment of excellent Profanitese by an extra as a one of the few Police Men NOT trying to kill the boys?

Police Man: “The fuckin’ Nazi Party”

Elwood:  “Illinois Nazis.”

Jake:  “I hate Illinois Nazis.”

Character actor Charles Napier, playing Tucker McElroy, Good Ole Boys lead singer and driver of the Winnebago gave Bob (Jeff Morris) a command the only way he could to truly detail the intensity and seriousness of his feelings.

“Don’t you say a fucking word.”

This Special George Recognition would not be complete without a nod to “Joliet Jake” himself:

“I offered to help you.

You refused to take our money,

then I said,

‘I guess you’re really up shit creek.’”

The 1998 incorrectly named sequel Blues Brothers 2000 toned down the language.  Therefore it maintained a PG-13 rating, even though it had more severe and less cartoony violence, and several scenes of women dancing in thong lingerie.   Yes, the rating system is pretty fucking stupid. 

Luckily Willie “Too Big” Hall maintained some of his original speech patterns to remind all the viewers that, much like a photograph, a “shit” can also be worth a thousand words.

For his efforts in raising the power and poetry of profanity in The Blues Brothers, not to mention multiple other George Award winning films, we proudly salute Director John Landis.

Another film that is grotesquely missing from these Award lists is 1989’s Roadhouse.  Unlike many other films, this one was not forgotten.  It is simply full of such unadulterated awesomeness that it deserves a complete post of its own in the future. 

Multiple cast members would have placed highly on several George Award lists.

Much of Carrie Ann’s (Kathleen Wilhoite) barroom banter was quite noteworthy, as was Brad Wesley’s (Ben Gazzara) overblown arrogance.

For the incredibly nice guy and cultured dancer Patrick Swayze was off camera, he racked up a impressive barrage of verbal filth.  The capstone, well before the action climax of the film, was the quite epic post infamous throat rip, across river yell of:

“WESLEY!

WESLEY!

WESLEY!

FUCK YOU!”

The most important reason Roadhouse needs mentioning is every time Sam Elliot (Wade Garret) opened his mouth, it became a multiple George Award worthy scene. 

In fact, before finishing up let’s present a Special Achievement George Award to the man who gave us the phrase:

“This place has a sign hangin' over the urinal that says,

‘Don't eat the big white mint.’"

Think about how many lists he could have topped by himself if his wisdom was allowed to compete with lesser mortals.

He supplied moments of practical life coaching:

“A man puts a gun in yer face,

you got two choices-

stand there 'n die

or kill the motherfucker!”

His romantic advice was unparalleled:

“That gal's got entirely too many brains to have an ass like that.”

But really, it was in response to inspiring a well-deserved profanity summed the man up perfectly.  It occurred shortly after he kicked the collective asses of four guys who were roughing up the normally nigh unbeatable Dalton.  He used none of his protégé’s fancy martial arts, only straight forward, cowboy style brawling.

When hearing the carnage described, Cody (Jeff Healey) reverently stated, “Gentlemen, Wade Garret,” causing a neophyte bouncer to respond, “Holy Shit!” 

Elliot capped the scene perfectly with:

“Exactly right.”

There’s no way to follow that, so enjoy your George Mr. Elliot.

Come back next week when the closing ceremonies will finally draw this festival of foul foolishness to a finish.