Friday Fives – movies & music

Best soundtrack

Blues Brothers.  Not sure if this is even an discussion.  Not only is it song for song a masterpiece… but the songs are all well woven into the film and rarely (if ever) forced.

What film was more soundtrack than film?

Singles.  It was a good movie, no question.  The soundtrack, though, defined a generation.  Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Mother Love Bone, Jimi Hendrix, Soundgarden?  Come on!  Note… this soundtrack was just re-issued as an expanded set.  I got it in the mail the day they found Chris Cornell dead.  Heavy.

I would imagine same could be said for Travolta and the Bee Gees and the disco era.  That stuff was mostly before my time, though.

Best contribution to a soundtrack

Purple Rain to the movie Purple Rain.  The movie was fine, and the album as well.  That song, though, is the everything.  It is Prince, it is his story, his passion… his movie.  Don’t have 90 minutes for the movie?  Just listen to Purple Rain over and over, while googling ‘apollonia lake Minnetonka scene’ (NSFW… if you do it right!)

What movie soundtrack is the ‘soundtrack of your life’

Singles, hence my drooling appreciation.  It came at peak times – mid college.  Great age, great friends, too much fun, and music coming out of that era was incredible.  In a 3 year period, we got PEAK: beastie boys, smashing pumpkins, pearl jam, chili peppers, REM, and Nirvana.  Early 90s were fucking incredible, musically.  Even the Grateful Dead was in their most fertile live era EVER.  They have since released 3 box sets of stadium shows from that era.  Bonus?  I was at a LOT of them.  Well… maybe not a lot… 10 or so.. but more than you were!

If you could build a soundtrack to a film that isn’t known for one… what would it be (the movie) and what are those tracks?

I thought immediately of ‘Big Fish’.  I haven’t talked about it enough here.  Yes, I rave about Fish Called Wanda, Spinal Tap, and Princess Bride.   I think Big Fish may be better than all of them, and I fear it is too far under the radar.  Turns out it does have a soundtrack released, and it’s terrific.  You get Danny Elfman and Pearl Jam.  Only surprise is Tim Burton didn’t give his wife a song or 12.  Talk about nepotism… I have to admit I was a little happy when they got separated.  It meant she would not be the lead in every single roll in every single movie… if not multiple characters.

Listen, she is a fine actress and wonderful to look at… but it’s just too much to have her star in every movie.  Shit; even when he did the ape movie he cast her as lead ape!  Get a room, you two!

before we go – I just remembered Eddie and the Cruisers.  Man, what a GREAT movie that was.  If you haven’t seen the movie… or maybe even heard of it… go watch it now.  It’s prolly free on Amazon Prime, or like $3.  I’ll leave you with the trailer

 

I did that whole thing without going on an extended rant about Spinal Tap, and how brilliant it is.  Or how those actors wrote and recorded and performed those songs themselves.  Or that the whole movie was improvised, as well.

Advertisement

Friday Fives – more about the Tap

Your favorite book?

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  You know that already, though.  Let’s mix it up, then, and say ‘Lamb: the gospel of christ according to his best friend Biff’.  I really, really like this new author.  Well… new to me.

Your favorite movie?

Big Fish.  Re-reading over this, before I hit ‘publish’, maybe I should have said ‘Spinal Tap’.  There is a 2 page diatribe down there on how great the film is, how great the actors are, and how incredible it is that they wrote and scored and improvised the film.  But… you know that movie.  You may not know ‘Big Fish’.  It is perfect storytelling.  The cinematography is stunning.  Can you imagine if Tim Burton tried to make something joyful?  Just for once?  Well, with Big Fish, he did.  Don’t worry, it still has his wife.  (Shakes fist in the air).  Don’t just watch the movie, just go buy it.  Get it in blu-ray, too.  You really want the full cinematic experience, if you can.  Don’t have blu ray yet?  Buy it… just for this movie.

Your favorite adaptation of a book to a movie?

 Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.  So good it is freaky!  Depp goes FULL Hunter Thompson in this role.  Not just window dressing, either.  HST was in full cooperation with the film… well… as cooperative as someone like HST could be.  Depp lived with Hunter for months before the filming.  They became fast and close friends.  So much so that when Hunter died, Depp paid for the whole ‘launching his ashes into space from a Gonzo fist cannon that was several stories high’.  Yeah, that isn’t a typo or urban legend.  It happened, and all thanks to Johnny.  They had a kinship all along as they are both from Kentucky.

 Your least favorite adaptation ever of anything to a movie?

Being a book guy, I am always supposed to say ‘the book was better’.  However, I have almost universally enjoyed adaptations of my favorite books into movies.  I like to see the creativity of filmmakers trying to capture such an ephemeral thing.  For example, the last ‘Alice in Wonderland’ movie with Johnny Depp.  Everyone shit on it.  There are good reasons to shit on it – it WAY over featured Johnny Depp, and of course since it was Burton the lead role went to his wife.  He does that EVERY FUCKING MOVIE.  Though my praise for Depp’s acting in ‘Fear & Loathing’ is effusive… he isn’t too good in this movie.  Too hammy, just chewing up scenery being all proud of himself for looking clever.  We can blame Burton for that, though.

But… I loved it (Fear & Loathing, that is).  Here is why – everyone has told that story in various forms of film.  It’s a classic.  The Burton one, though, is a totally different telling.  It takes a story never told… which is what happens if Alice goes back to that world as an adult.  What happens?  Who is there?  Did anything, or anyone, change?  Did it ever really happen?  I think that is cool and creative.  I haven’t seen the second one, but I will.  I waited on purpose.  Since it was reviewed to badly, I knew I could wait and just buy a bluray copy for $10.  I like those (as opposed to just watching it on Amazon) because you get all the featurettes and behind the scenes stuff.

 Your first ever novel/comic book/movie character crush?

• Editors note: Long diatribe warning

The guys in Spinal Tap.  I mean, it is just some British actors playing dumb, right?  Not remotely!  The actors are all American, and improvised the entire movie, AND wrote AND performed those songs.  It went so well that the fake band accidentally became a real band.   They released albums and recorded new music and even toured.  If you look at all these starlets today, you see Spinal Tap was more real than any of them.  Think Rhianna writes her own songs?  Think she can play and instrument?  Think she actually sings in concert?  Spinal Tap wins on every level.

In fact, those guys went on to do more movies together, and the guys wrote an entirely new music act for ‘a Mighty Wind’, which is actually a great folk album.  Got to see them live, and they played both Spinal Tap songs and a Mighty Wind songs.  That movie (another Chris Guest project) was also entirely improvised.

Why do it?  They are crazy rich.  The bass player is 40% of the voices on the Simpsons.  He probably has 100 million in the bank, and he is schlepping around from city to city playing these silly and perfect songs from 30 years ago.

My favorite thing about these guys when they did press for Spinal Tap (not known as a classic when it was released, but a stupid and pointless low budget art film)… they only did it in character.  You never got to interview Chris Guest or Michael McKean or Harry Shearer.  You could only talk to Derek Smalls, Nigel Tufnel, and David St Hubbins.  Now… we know Chris Guest as a genius filmmaker, and Harry Shearer as most of the Simpsons.  Back then, in 1980?  A bunch of improve yahoos.  Michael McKean was only known for playing Lenny in Laverne & Shirley.

Can you imagine how they got that film financed?  “I need 5 million bucks to make a movie with these unproven and unknown actors.”  Who will compose the score?  Who is your screenwriter?  Who is going to actually record the songs they pretend to sing?  You know, like we did with the Monkeys.

Well… about that.  No script.  No musicians.  No songwriters.  No famous actors.  We are just going to throw it to some improve guys. There is no screenplay, they are just going to make up the dialogue as we film.  They will write the songs themselves, and play all the instruments in the recordings.  It’s about a fake British heavy metal band that is washed up.”

Has that ever been done before then?  Roy Scheider is quite famous for improving the line ‘you’re gonna need a bigger boat’ in Jaws.  Everyone looks to that moment to prove his genius.  One sentence.  BFD.  If it were Chris Guest’s crew, they would have made up all the dialogue, built the boat themselves… and fought a real fucking shark.

 I mean, I know it is a masterpiece now… but at the time I bet they got laughed out of Hollywood.  Now, hopefully, you recognize the great McKean from Better Call Saul.  Jesus, is there anything these guys can’t do?  Listen to ‘listen to the flower people’ and tell me that song is not as good or better than anything of that era.  Also, full disclosure… I finally got my band to learn ‘Big Bottom’.  We played it at our last gig.

*bonus news, the guy behind these films, Chris Guest (Spinal Tap, Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, For your Approval, a Mighty Wind…) has a new film out soon.  It’s called ‘Mascots’, and will be on Netflix soon.  Like everything Larry David does, you can assume it will be all improvised, and wonderfully stupid.