Soundtrack September: Movie Musicals & More!

Soundtrack September continues! First off, Julie from Misfortune Cookie Blog wrote a great piece picking her favorite soundtracks from different genres. Here's an excerpt:

"I was invited to participate in "Soundtrack September" over at Film Babble Blog, and it got my wheels a-turning. The task was just to discuss some favorite soundtracks - easy enough. But I didn't want my choices to be too obvious. Like, of course I could mention The Graduate or Singin' in the Rain, but that's not really breaking any new ground, now is it? So I thought I'd use this space to highlight some of my more obscure or unappreciated faves. What was supposed to be a couple of blurbs spiraled quickly out of control! I have broken my picks into three categories, with three selections each: preexisting songs, scores, and musicals.

PREEXISTING MUSIC

I started to see a theme emerging in the picks for this category - all of them were preexisting songs that had new versions recorded for a film. It's not that I don't love mix-tape soundtracks (looking at you, Garden State), but it's always interesting to see beloved songs re-appropriated for a new context.

1. DE-LOVELY (2004) The move itself is kind of lame. Skip it. You're allowed to. But the soundtrack is, in a word, ravishing. The film is a biopic of Cole Porter, which attempts to right the wrongs of earlier biopics such as Night and Day by painting a more thorough portrait of Porter that includes his homosexuality. Along the way, his famous songs get new life breathed into them by artists such as Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello, Robbie Williams, and Alanis Morrissette. Now, I know this seems odd. Like isn't Morrissette really angsty and a peculiar choice to be singing such happy songs? Not so. Her version of "Let's Do It" is super perky and I actually choreographed a super perky dance to it in high school. They also don't try to modernize the songs at all - they record them in a way that's true to the originals, but with a fresh feel. It's the ultimate primer on 30s/40s music. Download. Now."

Read the rest of Julie's picks from pre-existing music, scores, and musicals here.

Kirby Holt from the marvelous Movie Dearest site referred me to a post from a bit back about a favorite soundtrack of his - the movie musical of John Waters' cult classic HAIRSPRAY (2007):

"Movie Music: You Can't Stop The Beat" (July 16, 2007)

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9: The Film Babble Blog Review

9 (Dir. Shane Acker, 2009)

I have the feeling that future historians are going to think that we, or at least the film makers of our time, had a ginormous global death wish - what with all the post apocalyptic movie premises out there. And we haven't even gone down THE ROAD yet either! So with another "world after war" weary setting comes the animated 9 - releasing conveniently enough tomorrow on 9/09/09 (mind you, this year also offers DISTRICT 9 and NINE). In the film though 9 isn't a date, it's the number given to a "stitch punk" - the ninth sentient rag doll made by a scientist (voiced by Alan Oppenheimer) as the world was on the brink of destruction.

After 9 (Elijah Wood) comes to in the home of the scientist he finds the other rag dolls (1-8) hiding in the rubble from evil creature-like machines that are hunting them through the darkness. This is not a movie that necessarily needs name actors to provide voices but they're there - joining Wood as his fellow stitch punks is Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau, and seemingly the sole source of humor and warmth in the entire project - John C. Reilly (Reilly has what may be the one single funny line). 9 rallies the rag dolls to stand up and fight the tyrannical mechanical monsters, believing that he's discovered the means and the meaning behind it all to defeat them.

Resembling a TERMINATOR movie as imagined by Tim Burton (who executive produced), 9 is too dark and scary for kids (hence its PG-13 rating) and it's strained structure may be too dragging for adults. It's too thin a narrative to even fill its short running time (79 minutes); it's as if its only ambition was to be aestetically absorbing. Still, there are a few top notch action sequences and I adored one intensely striking scene in which the stitch punks find a phonograph and put the needle down on "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" for a brief relaxed interlude while the machines slowly approach on the horizon. 9 is an admirable effort on many levels, mostly in the high caliber of the animation, but ultimately comes off as cold and dystopian as the world our rag doll rebels are struggling to rise above.

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Soundtrack September Selection #2: SUPERFLY And Some Runner-ups

The 2nd pick for Soundtrack September comes from Lars Trodson from Roundtable Pictures - an independent production company that takes the time to feature film essays on their website between their work on feature films of their own. Lars picked a few runners-up in addition to his #1 pick too. Take it away, Lars!:

"I think my favorite overall soundtrack is for SUPER FLY (1972), written by Curtis Mayfield.

On multiple tracks, Mayfield not only writes great movie music, he also examines the characters in the film. His lyrics are not afraid to condemn some of the movie's themes: Mayfield is no fan of the way the drug pusher known as Super Fly makes his living. In 'Freddie's Dead' he movingly depicts the senselessness of a death by drugs. The soundtrack is a true American classic and the music elevates SUPERFLY out of its routine action origins into something truly moving.

I think my favorite movie theme song is "Theme From SHAFT" (1971) by Isaac Hayes because it not only fits the criteria of having been written exclusively for the film, but it amplifies the title character. The music is exciting. It captures the essence of the experience of the film - energetic, sensual, tense, funny. The music's got cinematic and emotional qualities. You can't find a better theme song.

Third runner-up for me is Ry Cooder's Evocative music for Walter Hill's SOUTHERN COMFORT (1981). Hard to find a more haunting theme song than the eerie, foreboding track he created for that film. Right on the money."

Thanks Lars and good luck on your film projects!

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New DVD Reviews: TAKE OUT & RANDY AND THE MOB

Here's a couple of movies new to DVD that you may not have heard of. They are both indies and both deal with folks in way over their heads in debt. And they are both worth a look:

TAKE OUT (Dirs. Sean Baker & Shih-Ching Tsou, 2004)

We first meet the protagonist of this piece, Charles Jang as an illegal Chinese immigrant, in his grimy shit-hole of a New York apartment as he's being roughed up for money owed for smuggling him into the country. The loan shark goons tell him he has until the end of the day to pay them or the debt will double. Jang works as a bicycle delivery-man for a Chinese restaurant in the middle of melting pot Manhattan. Bit by bit he borrows from family and friends but still comes up short. His only option is to make up the difference in tips so he takes all the day's deliveries at one point yelling "I can't afford any mistakes today!" at his confused co-workers.

Jang's exasperation is palpable as he deals with a dreary rainy day, his bike getting a flat tire, and scores of lousy tippers. "I could've mail-ordered Chinese food faster than this" one smarmy customer complains. Our weary yet determined trooper speaks very little English but he obviously feels the tone of hostility and racial tension seemingly hidden behind every door he comes to. Shot on digital video with a miniscule budget, TAKE OUT is gritty and engaging with a devastating last third (don't worry, no Spoilers). Whether you call the over-riding style of this fine film cinema vérité or neo-realism, there is not a single in-authentic moment present.

RANDY AND THE MOB (Dir. Ray McKinnon, 2009) Alongside his varied career as a side-line character actor on TV (Designing Women, Matlock, Deadwood) and in movies (DRIVING MISS DAISY, APOLLO 13, O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU), Ray McKinnon has slowly but surely been carving a career as director. He won a Best Live Action Short Film Oscar for his debut THE ACCOUNTANT, got critical acclaim for his first full-length effort the crime-drama CHRYSTAL, and now is offering up this Southern fried comedy. Described as a "good ol' boy", Mckinnon's Randy Pearson owns several businesses in a small Georgia town and owes money on all of them because he borrowed from the Mob.

Set in one of those little towns in which everybody knows each other (see such similar indies such as HAPPY, TEXAS and LARS AND THE REAL GIRL), this movie sports a strong supporting cast. McKinnon's real-life wife (Lisa Blount) plays his clinically depressed spouse, Paul Ben-Victor has an odd surly warmth as a loan shark, Burt Reynolds has a one scene cameo as a business competitor of McKinnon's, and most notably Walto Goggins portrays a very odd enforcer who wins over just about everybody with his cooking, clogging, and soft spoken, yet statically worded, advice. I couldn't possibly leave out that McKinnon plays another role, that of his gay identical twin brother. That's right.

It doesn't contain big laughs or any surprises really, but RANDY AND THE MOB has plenty of charm under its down-home yet cliché riddled surface. It's a well made movie with a likable spirit; one with the right amount of heart for its characters. McKinnon is more than just a competent director/actor - his ability to pull of the gay brother part without any of a cheap cringing undertone is worth commending (especially with Goggins' line: "He's as gay as a 1940's musical"). For a low-key comedy of modest proportions, this is certainly a success. It only had a few showings at film festivals and was passed over for a theatrical release, but now on DVD, with much hope it will find the audience it richly deserves.

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Soundtrack September Selection #1: THE WICKER MAN (1973)

This being Soundtrack September, all month I'm going to showcase soundtrack selections from bloggers, readers, and random people on the street (well, not really). The month's first soundtrack pick comes from Matt Pennachi, a fellow film buff whom I spoke to last month about a film series he co-created - Cinema Overdrive at the Colony Theater in North Raleigh. Take it away, Matt!:

"OK, this is such a hard thing to choose, and I know if I really thought about it I would probably change my mind multiple times a day. But here is a soundtrack that I personally love, and own the remastered version on both CD and Vinyl:

THE WICKER MAN (1973)

A soundtrack that is as eccentric as the film itself, but also evokes imagery as powerful and striking as the film shot by Anthony Schaffer.

When I first saw the film years ago, I thought the songs featured in it were traditional folk songs. They fit this film that well. Later I was surprised that they were written (and some performed) by Paul Giovanni, a composer who died in 1990 of AIDS. The music is comical, eerie and erotic, and all appropriately placed throughout the film. Plus, we get to hear Christopher Lee sing! ("The Tinker of Rye"). Songs like "Gently Johnny", "Willow's Song" and the comical "The Landlord's Daughter" are all just so spot on it is uncanny.

I really wish I could put into words how good I think this soundtrack is. For years the master tapes were thought to be completely lost, as the film was basically buried by a UK distributor who HATED it, and when there was a regime change at the distribution company went out of his way to make sure the film bombed. But Christopher Lee maintains to this very day that it is the single best film he has ever appeared in, and he loved the script so much he did it for no money."

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Judging Mike Judge's EXTRACT

EXTRACT (Dir. Mike Judge, 2009)

The filmography of Mike Judge is very small (just 4 films over 13 years) and very odd. Best known as the creator and voice of Beavis And Butt-head and King Of The Hill, his movies have a obvious bent towards working stiffs and the threat of stupidity taking over the world (see OFFICE SPACE and IDIOCRACY). EXTRACT is cut from the same cloth as Judge's cult classic OFFICE SPACE but it's a jagged uneven piece of that cloth. As the protagonist Jason Bateman is not just a cog in the system, he owns his own company - an extract manufacturing plant. A freak accident on the factory assembly line that leaves one of his employees (Clifton Collins Jr.) with only one testicle, leaves him with a huge lawsuit that could potentially ruin his company. Meanwhile on the home front Bateman isn't getting any action from his wife (a blank slate Kristen Wiig from SNL) so he drowns his sorrows at a nearby hotel sports bar whining to his best friend - bartender Ben Affleck.

Affleck, bearded and be-wigged and seemingly having a better time than anyone else in the movie, spouts out awful advice, and recommends pills as solutions. Bateman is attracted to a new intern (Mila Kunis) and confides to Affleck that he wouldn't care if his wife cheated on him as long as he could get it on with Kunis. Affleck refers Bateman, heavily drugged, to a small time gigolo (Dusty Milligan) whom he hires to go to his house in the guise of a pool cleaner in order to seduce his wife.

Okay! This is where I give up on the plot summary as recounting it is almost as bad as it was watching it. What started out promisingly becomes a test of endurance. Instead of waiting for laughs I found myself anticipating the flimsy unpleasant premise to get even more flimsier and unpleasant. When Gene Simmons of Kiss showed up as a sleazy lawyer (one of the film's most inspired notions actually) I expected him to make good on his threat to slam Bateman's balls in the conference room door. Why not? It's not like the film had any loftier aspirations.

There are a number of genuine laughs in EXTRACT, just not enough to add up to a great cutting comedy. Kunis's character as a hottie grifter (no Spoilers there - that's revealed in the opening scene) offers no surprises and no character is likable enough to care about - I've liked Bateman in just about everything I've seen him in (especially Arrested Development) but here he's a pretty bland and not particularly sympathetic everyman. I cringed more than I laughed during this movie I'm sad to report. Judge's previous works were indeed odd with a twisted yet likable affinity for those struggling to climb to another rung on the ladder of success. EXTRACT is just odd and twisted - which would be fine if it was just funnier.

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10 Movie Soundtracks That Think Outside Of The Box Office

Welcome to Soundtrack September! All month long, with the help of some special guest bloggers and readers, I’m going to be celebrating the world of original motion picture soundtrack recordings. There will still be the usual array of reviews of current movies and other whatnot but they will be surrounded by soundtrack centered posts.

I'm kicking off Soundtrack September with this list of soundtracks that weren't content to just be simple collections of score selections or pop song tracks. They featured dialogue excerpts as tracks - sometimes full chucks of audio from the composite track of the film instead of the standard isolated music track. Often these albums contain material that's not in the movie they represent - different versions of songs, cut lines from post production, and new voice-overs. In their reshaping of the movie material they became works of art in their own right. Here are my 10 favorites from the many soundtracks out there that think outside the box office:

1. THE MONKEES: HEAD (Colgems Records 1968/Rhino 1994) The Monkees only theatrical release was a critical and commercial flop on original release but it's picked up a well deserved cult following over the years in no small thanks to its psychedelic soundtrack. It's a merry mishmash in which 7 songs (including "The Porpoise Song", "As We Go Along", and "Can You Dig It") emerge out of the chaos of sound effects, repeated out-of-context lines (as if there's a context in the film) and assorted trippy effects reportedly under the influence of Frank Zappa (who has a cameo in the movie and the album). The original album did not feature Mike Nesmith's "Circle Sky" performed live in the film - it substituted an inferior studio take of the song. Happily, a 90's Rhino re-release restored the ferocious live version as well as a nice handful of bonus tracks (including a cool radio spot).

The icing on the cake? The Original Album Coordinator who did the bulk of the vigorous editing on this project: Jack Nicholson (co-screenwriter and producer of HEAD seen above with the Monkees).

2. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: THE MOVIE ON RECORD (Columbia Records, 1981)

In the late '70s and early '80s a lot of "story of" albums were produced of the STAR WARS films, Disney features, Muppet movies, etc. that feature audio excerpts with a '40s style narrator guiding listeners through. For the first Indiana Jones adventure a soundtrack was released separate from the one of the score by composer John Williams. Billed "The Movie On Record", it was an album of "Actual Dialogue, Music, and Sound Effects" but most importantly - no narration. 4 time Academy Award winner Sound Designer Ben Burtt (creator of the voice of WALL-E among other iconic work) admitted in an interview that much of this album was made from little of the original soundtrack; he recorded new effects and recreated the dialogue with the film's cast as voice actors much like old radio shows. The album won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word LP in 1982.

3. THE ALBUM OF THE SOUNDTRACK OF THE TRAILER OF THE FILM OF MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (Arista, 1975) This is only a soundtrack in the loosest sense - approximately 40% of it is movie material; the other 60% has the Pythons bogusly broadcasting from a fictional theater (The Classic Silbury Hill) for the "premiere" of the film. John Cleese plays a reporter who talks over the opening scene with patrons telling him to shut up, the production is halted while the projectionist fights a grizzly bear for the next reel, an announcer (Graham Chapman) repeatedly tells us that this is the "Executive Version" of the record, and so on. The records of the Monty Python films that followed - LIFE OF BRIAN and THE MEANING OF LIFE had a bit of this embellishing but not with the whole team and to the extreme of this supremely silly yet essential soundtrack.

4. APOCALYPSE NOW (Warner Brothers, 1979) This soundtrack is pretty much the full composite track of the motion picture spread over 2 records. It's a trippy absorbing listen that's worth seeking out. The soundtrack for the REDUX version (2001) removes the dialogue bits and presents composer Carmine Coppola's score, along with The Doors "The End" and Flash Cadillac's "Suzy Q", but I prefer the original recording. It reminds me of the days before home video when a soundtrack was all one had to invoke the mood of one's favorite movie. Removed from the imagery, Martin Sheen's voice over narration works just as well on record as it does in the film, the jungle sounds surround the listener, and Marlon Brando's haunting "the horror...the horror" evocation echo in the psyche. Or maybe that's the Thai sticks talking...

5. NATURAL BORN KILLERS: A SOUNDTRACK FOR AN OLIVER STONE FILM (Interscope Records 1994)

"I suggested to Oliver (Stone) to try to turn the soundtrack into a collage-of-sound, kind of the way the movie used music: make edits, add dialogue, and make it something interesting, rather than a bunch of previously released music."

- Nine Inch Nails founder Trent Reznor in an interview with MTV.

As producer/compiler Reznor provides another absorbing listen and one that introduced many to Leonard Cohen via 2 stellar songs off of his 1992 album "The Future". My only complaint is Reznor mixing a bit of Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis dialogue on top of Bob Dylan's cover of the '50s standard "You Belong To Me". Such a thing just should not be done.

6. THE ADVENTURES OF BOB & DOUG McKENZIE IN STRANGE BREW (Polygram Records, 1983) The album cover denotes "Excerpts From The Original Sountrack" so much like the MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL album this functions as a comedy record in its own right. The success of Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas's "Great White North" record paved the way for the SCTV characters of Canadian descent to enter the world of movies, so it's kind of funny to have Moranis stress more than once that this that this is not their second album - it's the soundtrack album. Funny because they never made another album and with all the additional material here they might as well consider it their second album. As a comedy record it's a good one - some bits from the movie work better disembodied from the visuals and the track "Shakespeare Horked Our Script" amusingly calls attention to the fact they stole the basic narrative from "Hamlet". It's never been released officially on CD but like much on this list it can be found on the internets.

7. PULP FICTION (MCA Records, 1994)

From RESERVOIR DOGS to DEATH PROOF, Tarantino's soundtracks have featured dialogue tracks (INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is the first that doesn't) but PULP FICTION is by far the most popular - it seems everyone I knew had this in their CD collection in the '90s. It's a hip movie mix; tracks by Urge Overkill, Dusty Springfield, and Kool & The Gang rub shoulders with John Travolta's "Royale with cheese" bit, Bruce Willis's immortal "Zed's dead, baby", and Samuel L. Jackson's "Ezekiel 25:17". 15 years after the movie, these tracks are still effective - program them into an iPod shuffle and see for yourself.

8. GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM (A & M Records, 1988) Sure, the comedy of Robin Williams is far from hip these days but back in the day (the late '80s) his routines were quoted ad nauseum. The rapid fire lines from his starring turn in Barry Levinson's Vietnam-set dramedy were no exception. The dominance of James Brown's "I Feel Good (I Got You)" in family feel-good comedies (or at least their trailers) can be traced to this film but don't hold that against it. Era songs by Louis Armstrong, The Marvelettes, and the Beach Boys make up the playlist of Williams as Armed Forces Radio Services DJ Adrian Cronauer. Incidentally the weekly NPR program "Sound Opinions" uses the sound bite of Williams' "This is not a test, this is rock 'n roll!" in their opening to this day.

9. UHF: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK AND OTHER STUFF (Warner Brothers, 1989) Nobody would expect a soundtrack from a Weird Al Yankovic movie (his only movie) to play by soundtrack rules and this hodgepodge sure doesn't. It makes this list because of tracks directly from the film like the commercial parody "Spatula City" and the phony trailer for "Gandhi II" which make great compilation fillers or fodder for college DJs. However the non movie related tracks like a spoof of R.E.M.'s "Stand" called "Spam" and "Generic Blues" are just throw-away Weird Al but they still don't disqualify it.

10. BONNIE AND CLYDE (Collector's Choice, 2009) Though it's not the first soundtrack album to feature dialogue - that would be THE GREAT ESCAPE - BONNIE AND CLYDE provides the template for the composite movie mix that Reznor and Tarantino would run with. The dialogue tracks offer cushioning and punctuation for the musical score - as spare as they are. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway's exchanges are enhanced by the then very innovative presentation on vinyl. It's a hard to come by record nowadays but again, one worth seeking out.

Okay! There are many more soundtracks that feature dialogue in an inventive mix (PATTON, ANIMAL HOUSE, BLADE RUNNER, etc.) so if you have a favorite - please send it on. Also if you have soundtrack favorites of any kind (classical scores, pop songs, musicals, etc.) please email me (filmbabbleblog@gmail.com) your favorites (instead of leaving them as comments on this post please) and I may include them this month during Soundtrack September! Hope to hear from you.

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