SOUNDTRACK
#1
Roll out the red carpet;
big Hollywoodland premiere issue!
Respectfully dedicated
to Pumpernick Eggburger, editor of the Elgin Cinema newsletter
circa 1974,Chelsea, NY, NY.
FEATURING
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The Sound of Music (1965), Coal
Miner's Daughter (1980), Backbeat (1994), 54 (1998), That's
The Way I Like It (1998), Rock and Roll (1995), Sweet Home
Alabama (2002) and Basketball (1997), submitted by Marvel Girl, Black Tight Killers
(1966, Japan), Goldfinger (1964), 42nd Street (1933), The
Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel ) (1930, Germany), Hedwig and the Angry
Inch (2001), Minnie the Moocher (a Fleischer Talkartoon) (1932),
Steamboat Bill Jr. (1927) with live accompaniment by the
Bing Quartet @ Kimo Theatre 1/10/03, Cabaret (1968),
Almost Famous (2000), High Fidelity (2000), Chicago
(2003), Ken Burns' Jazz (2002), 24 Hour Party People (2003) submitted
by The Madcow
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The Sound of Music (1965)
Probably the first and greatest opening crane-shot no matter what you
think of the music (Rodgers & Hammerstein don’t rock but for your information,
they don’t suck either): soaring over the Alps to zoom in on Julie Andrews
singing at the top of her lungs alone on a mountaintop is priceless.
The story is pure Hollywood schlock about climbing every mountain, overcoming
adversity and thumbing your nose at Nazis (if they were as incompetent and
bumbling as the movies and deathcamp-comedy Hogan’s Heroes portrayed them,
the Nazis would never have made it past the Polish border in the first place).
Besides the storyline being shabby, it simply wasn’t true. The Von Trapp
Family didn’t really have to risk freezing to death crossing the Alps to
flee the Germans but simply bought train tickets to Switzerland. And while
Julie Andrews is no one’s idea of a babe, the real hausfrau Maria Von Trapp
makes Andrews look like Jayne Mansfield. Still, The Sound Of Music is far
from Hollywood’s worst thanks to director Robert Wise even if its plain hokey.
Or maybe its just that I first saw this when I was seven years old and owned
the soundtrack LP.
Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)
The most disappointing thing about this biopic is that the vocals Sissy
Spacek provides sound more like Loretta Lynn than Loretta Lynn does. Though
loathe to admit it, I spin the Coals Miner’s Daughter soundtrack more than
I listen to the originals. Otherwise it’s your typical rags-to-riches, moonshine-to-tranquilizers
success story but the opening sequences in the Kentucky Hill Country are
splendid.
Note: for a thinly-veiled reference to Lynn’s drug-assisted collapse on
stage touched on only lightly here, check out Robert Altman’s 1975 country
music epic <b>Nashville</b>, overlong but still one of his best.
Backbeat (1994)
Most viewers write off this biopic of the pre-phenom Beatles but its really
the love story between best buds/ art students John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe,
and the ensuing triangle of Lennon/ Sutcliffe and photographer/ Hamburg bohemian
Astrid Kirchherr.
The rise of the band learning their chops eating cheap speed by the handful
and playing for hours on end between German strippers is nearly incidental
to the love story.
“Beatles” is scarcely uttered in the movie while the music is all rock
n’ roll covers of the day (besides being cheaper than paying royalties to
Michael Jackson who owns most of the Lennon/ McCartney publishing rights,
this is historically accurate: the Fabs scarcely wrote songs back then).
Like all actors, the cast does a shite job of lip-synching and “playing”
their guitars but the soundtrack musicians are all alt.rock stars: Greg Dulli
(Afghan Wigs), Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum), Dave Grohl (Nirvana/Foo Fighters),
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Mike Mills (REM) and Don Fleming (ummm..?).
The Backbeat Band’s most rockin’ song isn’t even on the full soundtrack
but a rare 7” B-side: Dizzy Miss Lizzy in the only version I’ve ever heard
that approaches Little Richard’s frenzy and even then its barely close.
54
(1998)
Saturday Night Fever sucked. This is the movie that actually makes the
disco era look like something fun, something that you might even be sad you
missed. Erroneous of course. But its a glamorously coked-out depiction of
the heyday of Studio 54 that somehow likens the preeminent disco club’s denizens
to outcast punks that finally have a place to hang out with others like them:
rich, snotty beautiful-people but outcasts all the same.
Mike Meyers at last gets to act like a dick not because its one of his
lame-ass “comedy” characters but because that’s the persona of club owner
Steve Rubell. And maybe I’m a sick man but Neve Campbell looks pretty darn
cute here.
The CD is among the last of the movie soundtracks where the music was
featured in the actual film and not just some marketing ploy behind the
closing credits. Besides a Donna Summer best-of, this is the only disco
disc I own and listen to with some regularity.
That’s the
Way I Like It (1998)
When was the last time you saw a movie from Singapore? In English. And
with a disco beat. Although most comedies are actually not, this one is amusing.
A Singaporean slacker circa ’77 risks peer- group derision to win a hotshot
girl by learning dance moves and wearing polyester. Of course there’s a
cuter girl who really loves him; she stands idly by while he ditches her
for the slick chick until he comes to his senses. Bruce Lee, transsexuals
and motor bikes all figure heavily into the plot. If 54 got me to actually
listen to disco music on its own merits, this is the movie that made me consider
(however briefly) learning how to dance like that. Good thing for us all
I never did.
Rock and Roll (1995)
A joint PBS/ BBC eight-hour documentary history of rock up to and including
hip hop, this is the best overview around. More than a who-was-who on the
charts, its intelligent commentary by both the narrator and the people who
were there: musicians, producers, engineers, sideman and songwriters offering
insights to what happened where and when but especially why. Of particular
interest is how it all fits together as a continuing history when the hit
charts included all pop(ular) music genres from acid rock to soul, punk to
funk, garage to go-go.
If you don’t know who people as diverse as Ahmet Ertegun, Ben E. King,
Lieber & Stoller, Veronica Bennett, Bootsy Collins and Holland/Dozier/Holland
are and how they matter to the music you listen to now, you’re ignorant and
need this education.
Or if you don’t give a fuck about any of that (you fool), the intro shot
of a red Strat hurled into the air and bursting into flames to the tune of
Purple Haze is pretty bitchin’.
Sweet Home
Alabama (2002)
submitted by Marvel Girl
I had nothing to do and I found $1.50 in quarters floating around in my
purse. To make a long story short, the music in this movie is crap.
Black Tight Killers
(1966, Japan)
Legendary in certain rock n’ roll circles, this combo karate/spy flick
was made at the height of James Bond mania. Named for the black tights they
wear, the Killers are a group of Go-Go ninja girls who (when they’re not
swingin’ to the latest mod hits) are ruthless assassins using 7” records,
bubblegum and exploding golf balls as weapons --why golf balls were considered
cool in 60s Japan, I can’t say but the girls also bashed bad guys with golf
clubs.
Somehow a stewardess, the Yakuza, lost WWII gold, and American gangsters
get into the mix. Wearing mini-skirts and black wigs in that sixties flip,
the Killers become good guys after all. Although tongue-in-cheek throughout,
the funniest scene was where one of the girls is shot but since she somehow
managed to lose her shirt, she holds her fingertips over her nipples rather
than the wound as she delivers her dying soliloquy. This was pretty hot stuff
in 1966.
Black Tight Killers actually contains little music to speak of (mostly
surf & 007-style guitar riffage) but just enough to make it worthwhile
for all you garage-rockers--as if the promise of killer go-go girls didn’t
already reel you in.
Goldfinger
(1964)
Although newer Bond movies have “stars” sing the title track (Carly Simon?
Madonna?! ), in 1964 few people knew who vocalist Shirley Bassey was. But
her brassy delivery of the jazzy theme song over moving images projected
on the body of a gold-painted girl in a bikini is one of those defining moments
of 60s pop culture. I was six and of course clueless when I first saw that
image on the soundtrack LP, but even then, I knew something was up.
And, no, all you film-history freaks: Shirley Eaton (the gold-painted
Bond girl within the film) was not the gal in the opening credits but Margaret
Nolan, the actress who Bond slaps on the ass before the first two minutes
of the flick are up.
Basketball (1997)
submitted by Marvel Girl
Reel Big Fish had a huge chunk of space in this movie's soundtrack.
C'mon, you Southpark guys are cooler than that.
42nd Street (1933)
First-class Busby Berkeley choreography and Al Dubin/ Harry Warren songwriting.
This is the classic, first-of-its-kind, behind-the-proscenium, a-star-is-born
tale complete with tap-dancing, thirty year-old ingenues and female chorus-line-as-kaleidoscope
(gams, gams, gams!)
Who could possibly forget the lyrics to Shuffle Off To Buffalo (‘’Off
we’re gonna shuffle/ Shuffle off to Buffalo’’), the title song (“Naughty
haughty bawdy gaudy sporty Forty-Second Street”) or luminous stars like
Guy Kibbee, Bebe Daniels and Ruby Keeler? Well, everyone born after World
War II that’s who, except for tweaks like me who discovered this picture
on television at 2AM one summer night when I was about twelve. I’ve loved
it ever since.
The Blue Angel (Der
Blaue Engel) (1930, Germany)
Bob Fosse’s masterpiece Cabaret took most of its cues from this
Josef Von Sternberg directed classic of German post- World War I, pre-World
War II decadence. Star Marlene Dietrich can’t really sing (although she continued
to do so through the early 60s) but she’s perfect here as cabaret-girl fatale
Lola-Lola. Modern audiences may want to disavow the woman-is-the-downfall-of-man
theme long enough to recognize a moody masterpiece.
Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fuss Auf Liebe Eingestellet might
sound snappier in its English translation Falling In Love Again but
it remains the perfect theme for the once well-respected now broken Professor
Immanuel Rath who ditches everything for a saucy showgirl.
I don’t think this happens anymore in real life.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
What’s more threatening to this country’s uptight status quo than a cocksucking
botched-op trans-sex glampunk rocknroller?
This production is a bit heavy-handed but it was adapted from the stage
after all. The music varies from (poor) uninspired classic rock/Broadway
hybrids to (better) authentic flitty glam rock to (best) the show stopperAngry
Inch:
Six inches forward / and five inches back/ I got an angry
inch
The film is worth it on the strength of this number alone but the rest
of it ain’t too shabby either.
Minnie the Moocher(a Fleischer Talkartoon)
(1932)
Fuck Walt Disney.
For a brief period in the 30s, the Fleischer Brothers (Max, Dave &
Lou) produced the finest animated cartoons ever made: wildly surreal with
jokes and situations that flew over the heads of the kids in the audience
(don’t forget that at that time, cartoons were shown in movie theaters to
general --not juvenile--audiences). Rife in these six minute masterpieces
was sex, drugs and the contemporary equivalent of rock n’ roll--hot swing
jazz!
The Flesichers’ most popular character was Popeye the Sailor Man (licensed
from Elzie Segar’s comic strip Thimble Theater) but their most famous creation
was the saucy and curvaceous Betty Boop. Bad guys always put the make on
her but were defeated by Betty’s devoted friends and suitors, a clown and
a talking dog (there’s something vaguely unsettling about that threesome but
let it pass).
Some of very best Boops featured live action footage of jazz bands that
morphed into cartoon characters singing sordid tales:
Louis Armstrong sang .you gave my wife coca-cola /so you could play
on her vagola in 1933’s I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You.
Cab Calloway told of his ‘baby’ who died of syphilis in Snow White, also
‘33. In my favorite, Minnie the Moocher, he said hey boy/pass over that
bottle of booze and revealed that Minnie was “cokey” (a cocaine addict).
Add to this the general weirdness of these cartoons, the Fleischers’ native
vaudevillian Yiddish humor & bleak outlook (their studio was in Manhattan;
Disney’s in sunny California), and you have some wonderfully twisted cartoons
that beat the hell out of contemporary “edgy” garbage like Ren & Stimpy
or Spongebob Squarepants.
By 1935, due to pressure from the de facto censorship board-- the Hays
Office- - as well as an ill-advised clean-up to compete with rising power
Walt Disney Studios (unsuccessfully I might add), Betty’s hemline went down,
her neckline went up and gone were the geeks, low lifes and homosexuals that
once populated these cartoons. Gone were the creeps who tried to “take her
Boop-oop-a-doop away”.
Yup, its true: they don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Steamboat
Bill Jr. (1927)
with live accompaniment by the Bing Quartet
1/10/03 @ Kimo Theater 1/10/03
This silent Buster Keaton movie has nothing to do with music other than
the relationship all silents had with music; that is, there was always some
kind of live musical accompaniment whether solo piano or organ, on up to
full orchestra depending on the theater’s location and the affluence of its
patrons.
The Kimo certainly deserves props for hosting events like this over the
years, screening films that deserve better treatment than an eighteen inch
video screen. The musicians however didn’t have any idea as to what accompaniment
is all about. Heavy-handed overkill doesn’t compliment the Quartet or the
picture.
It seems many of these music “specialists” (they are popping up all over
the country) take their cues from cartoons or, worse, surviving prints of
silent movies that were occasionally re-issued from the 1930s through the
1950s. In the mistaken belief that it would satisfy aurally-sophisticated
audiences, screwball sound effects were added: crowd sounds, traffic noises
and dipshit musical “scores” (banjos, sand blocks, cymbals, glockenspiels,
etc).
All that this accomplished was to give contemporary audiences the opinion
that old movies were made by and for morons.
The average movie-goer of today may have a difficult time watching pre-sound
flicks because of the slower pace and mostly aren’t used to picking up subtleties
that make up the language of the silent film.
Consequently, anyone scoring a silent today thinks that every punch or
fall needs a kettle drum, snare & cymbal simultaneously and so on. I’ve
got news for you, Bing Quartet: we aren’t that stupid, especially with a
gorgeously composed film like Steamboat Bill Jr and the amazing physical
mastery of Keaton himself.
An acrobat since age three (!), Keaton did gravity- and death- defying
stunts that were as extreme as the human body could endure in the name of
comedy and yet was sublimely graceful.
I felt mildly insulted by the Bing Quartet’s ham-handedness but worse,
they insulted the genius of Buster Keaton’s incredible work. A rinky-tink
out-of-tune piano would’ve been more effective.
Cabaret
(1968)
This is the best thing daughter-of-Judy-Garland Liza Minnelli ever did
largely because of B’way genius choreographer turned Hollywood Musical genius
director Bob Fosse. You might think this is schmaltz (well, a lot of it is)
but for any of you bondage-pants- wearin’ goth/ punkers out there, there’s
a lot about fetish style you could learn from this Oscar-winner. Snappy songs
and dance numbers fit comfortably with a classy anti-Nazi message, maybe more
moving than obvious-target tales like the hit-you-over-the-head Schindler’s
List.
(Spielberg’s a hack. Always has been).
Almost Famous (2000)
Baby boomers love this movie and I’m no exception even though I know its
schlock. Plainly, the music sucks and the story is a crowd-pleaser. Still,
what teenage music geek (boys anyway) wouldn’t love to be taken on a rocknroll
tour, hang with the band, be deflowered by groupies and get paid to write
about it?
The best performance here is a minor one: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s fine
portrayal of meatball music critic Lester Bangs. Much of Bangs’ writing
still holds up; too bad he had mostly shite bands to write about (he died
in 1982).
To his credit, he mainly wrote for second-banana rags like Creem. Bangs
championed the Stooges and the New York Dolls as the saviors of rocknroll
when everyone else saw them as its downfall. What the fuck did they know.
High Fidelity
(2000)
A sappy love story to be sure but lots of indie-rock in-jokes for all
us collector fanboys. The movie also contains Jack Black’s finest cinematic
moment covering Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get it On. Why the fuck he bothers with
that Tenacious D crap is a mystery to me.
The rest of Black’s performance is pretty damn good too, especially looking
back now that he’s degenerated into a one-trick buffoon.
If you’re indie rock, check this out and smirk knowingly at the obscure
references that fly over the head of the rest of the audience. If you’re
punk, let it pass.
Chicago (2003)
I’m a sucker for a good musical especially one based on the stage work
of Bob Fosse who directed the film versions of Cabaret (1972) and
All That Jazz (1979): stylish and flashy dance numbers,
killer choreography and besides, who else could make Liza Minelli look hot?
Well, Fosse’s been dead since 1987 and whoever directed this long-awaited
film version of the Fosse-staged Broadway hit Chicago got the flash down
but lost out on style most of the time. Oh, the costumes and color are great
spectacle but that comes from the picture’s stage predecessor; that’s easy.
The makers of this passable film forgot that when you have glitzy dance routines
the audience may like to see what ‘s actually going on rather than being zapped
by rapid-fire MTV/ADD editing that barely allows you to catch anything but
only registers as ‘flash’ in your brain.
Its not like they needed to cover up bad dancing; the full cast was pretty
good, even some of the stars. Catherine Zeta-Jones can hoof it decently and
Reneee Zellwiger was OK. The less said about Richard Gere in any situation
the better.
No, I’m afraid that film-makers nowadays are just too scared to trust
that their audiences are sophisticated enough to enjoy a decent musical.
This genre has been pronounced dead for years but once a decade or so, some
movie turns up to show Hollywood that the spirit of good Broadway style is
alive and (ahem) kickin’ And I don’t mean that Moulin Rouge travesty
(2002). Mention that piece of crap in my presence and I’ll kick your teeth
out with my tap-shoes; first time I’ve walked out of a movie twenty minutes
in.
In Chicago, Queen Latifah fortunately wasn’t allowed to dance but her
blues-y number was a treat, sung spot on with sass in all the right places.
Watching, I had no idea who she was and had to search the closing credits
to find out. Needless to say I was quite surprised by someone who started
out with bad rap.
A last observation: how come every period flick never lets their cast
look as if they’re actually from that period? The female leads were close
enough I guess but Gere looked just like what he was: a guy from 2003 in
a 1920s suit. The gals in the chorus particularly suffered from this syndrome.
They’re your typical skinny-ass MTV ho, nothing like the type of gal (size,
shape, make-up, etc) that would’ve been on the stage eighty years ago. Yeah,
yeah, I know the answer: your average entertainment consumer thinks skin
& bones nutrient-deprived x-ray girls are hot. You people are sick.
Ken Burns’ Jazz (2002)
Documentarist Ken Burns has become a genre all to himself so there’s never
any surprise in his presentation. To be honest, such might get in the way
of the facts anyway.
Jazz purists will tell you this eight-hour PBS history is the populist
version, skipping many of the real but lesser-known innovators. And they’d
be right. But in all, it’s a damn fine piece of work and a class introduction
to the broad scope of jazz and its roots and branches. A terrific surprise
is the depth of knowledge and understanding that commentator Winton Marsalis
has of the genre. I‘ve never thought twice (nor even once) about his music
but the insights he offers are marvelous, even valuable.
And let me berate you rockers once again for not knowing enough of this
story. Jazz and rockn’roll share the same roots and were both extraordinarily
subversive in their own times. Its hard to see the thread sometimes but
Joey Ramone could never have done what he did without musicians like King
Oliver, Meade Lux Lewis or Chick Webb.
24 Hour Party
People (2003)
submitted by The Madcow
It is really hard for me to pass up seeing a movie about one of the most
influential people behind a lot of "modern" music, Tony Wilson. On the surface
the name is insignificant to most.
However he is behind several of the major post-punk movements with his
founding of Factory Records. In short, his involvement in music history being
the man behind Joy Division, New Order and the birth of the Rave scene, the
latter for which he should have been shot. But for me, the importance
lies in the promotion and distribution of Joy Division.
I felt a little strange stepping into the Madstone Theater, a small sense
of betrayal to the Guild. Not that i actually go out and see movies very
often (i average about 4-5 a year), but when i do it is usually at the Guild
or the Taos Talking Pictures Fest, the rest of the time if i want to see a
movie i wait until it comes out on video, and pile up some more late fees.
24 hour Party People ends up being a flashy, narcissistic, bragging session
for Tony Wilson, writer of this Docudrama/Black Comedy. It is valuable for
its look into the history of the Manchester scene and Joy Division, one of
my all-time favorite bands.
Ian Curtis' death is treated rather lightly and the subsequent New Order
formation & rise in popularity is skimmed over in a few quick scenes.
More attention is paid to the antics of drug induced jelly- brains of the
Happy Mondays than anything else for the duration of the movie.
Tony Wilson tries to shed light in his "post modern" way, but falls a
few dollars shy. Essential for fans of the genres and bands that were
birthed in Manchester but for the rest of you, don't bother.
I will still end up buying the DVD; it's got Joy Division scenes. However
for any of you JD purists you will notice that although the person portraying
does an exceptional job, he doesn't quite get as ridiculously spastic on
stage as seen in some of the actual JD live concert vids out there...
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SoundTrack (by Captain America
PO BX 4865 Albq NM 87196 captainamerica1941@hotmail.com)
was
inspired by a music flick review submitted to Wig Wam Bam zine by The Madcow which didn’t fit the self-imposed
“local interest” parameters. Soundtrack indulges further monomaniacal music
obsession and spews additional unasked-for opinion on the unsuspecting masses.
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