I've lately spent a fair amount of time watching The Biography Channel, a fine network that probably isn't on your cable system. But just in case it is — or in case you have a satellite dish — I'd like to recommend a fascinating documentary that is rerunning on Wednesday and Thursday. (Click here to visit the channel's website if you want more specific info.) The show I enjoyed so is called Lost In Las Vegas and it really isn't a biography. It's a documentary that follows the dubious career of a couple of Blues Brothers impersonators as they try to find steady work in the "Legends in Concert" show at the Imperial Palace in Vegas.
I found it fascinating, not just for its view of that end of the business but also because, when the filmmakers decided to get a camera crew and follow these guys, they obviously did not anticipate the odd, unsatisfying ways in which the story would unfold. The ersatz Jake and Elwood do not succeed but they don't completely fail…and what it results in is not a neat-'n'-tidy Hollywood ending but one that is brutally typical of how most show biz dreams end.