Tele-visions!
Now that we all are waiting for The Office, 30 Rock, Human Giant* and the few other shows that make up the “Quality TV endangered species list” to emerge from summer hibernation, some may be feeling anxious and scared with what you should be doing with your time. Those 30 minute blocks in your schedule start to add up after a while, and rather than staring blankly at David Hasselhoff may I suggest you check out two shows in particular that are taking their baby steps. One takes place in Los Angeles, the other New York, and both are quite promising.
Clark and Michael is an internet series** being made in conjunction with CBS written by and starring Clark Duke and Michael Cera. Cera is best known as young George Michael (not the singer/songwriter) on Arrested Development, which I cannot begin to quantify in terms of amazingness. George Michael Bluth was one of the most solid adolescent characters TV ever had, beautifully constructed out of naivete, goodwill, and a three season yearning…for his cousin Maebe.
But just because Cera is the more recognizable face, the comedy is shared equally amongst both parties as they embark on a journey to get their TV series made. The show, much like the popular trend dictates, is a faux-documentary of their efforts. The two have learned from characters like Regional Manager David Brent that an unflattering self-portrayal does wonders for comedy.
Their other influence seems to be Aquateen Hunger Force, strange as that may seem. Random humor is certainly there. Before I forget, I must say that they have terrrific opening credits. But like ATHF, who were detectives for about an episode and a half, Duke and Cera seem to almost forget their Hollywood dreams. I think that’s a good thing, because it’s their interactions with each other definitely outshine whatever narrative they might have, like when they explore the possibilities of rubbing alcohol:
“Clark: You can use this from asshole to elbow.
Michael: (With gleeful bewilderment) Like what do you want me to say? What am I going to say to a guy like you?”
That’s the shirts come off.
2000 miles away from there, New Zealand’s 4th most popular folk comedy duo march down their NYC apartment and take to the streets. Their shaggy black hair bounces with each step of their strut. They stick out their lips like Iceman after he played the most homoerotic volleyball game of his life. They are attitude.Then they open their mouths…and hopelessly moronic things start spilling out.Â
The Flight of the Concords are comprised of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. On their HBO show, premiering tonight at 10:30, they live together but are totally clueless towards each other’s thoughts and desires. Jemaine is even oblivious in the first episode that he has asked out Bret’s ex, though they have clearly met each other before. When he brings her back to his place and tries to entice her, Brett is lying in bed in plain view, staring at the couple.
The next day after much thought over the whole matter Jemaine says out of the blue “I think she found it weird with you there with the light on.”
Bret retorts “Yeah…IÂ think it also might be because she and I used to go out.
Jemaine – “Yeah, but also the thing with the light.”
With density such as this, Flight of the Concordes could (and would)Â drown in Salt Lake City.
As a folk comedy duo, it goes without saying that the guys will often break into song, Jemaine’s sexy ballad emerges smoothly: “You’re so beautiful you could be a paaart tiiiime model, but you’d probably still have to keep your normal job.”
If you don’t have HBO, you can still watch Flight of the Concords first episode over here.
When it comes down to it, Clark and Michael have a much better chance of succeeding and continuing to make episodes by fueling themselves off internet buzz and sticking to their very inexpensive doc style. The expectations and boundaries that come with an 30 minute HBO series may drain the New Zealand group after a while, as funny as they are. I don’t know how I feel about the women that stalks Jemaine and Bret, pretending to run into them whenever they come and go from their place. It certainly adds to their obliviousness.
I encourage you to give these two shows a chance, just a taste to see if you like it. If not, you can always spend your extra time this summer reading. God I’m a nerd.
*Who managed to get me to thoroughly watch and enjoy MTV for the first time in well over five years, especially with their (and their friends’) 24 hour takeover of the network. Ted Leo whaaa?
 **On a related note, am I alone when thinking that the term “webisode” sounds like something really filthy?
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Insert “i” in front of any word, and you are hip.
Jim Groom has brought up some important issues concerning the world of music consumption due to the ever increasing blanketed domination that Steve Jobs rules upon. Everyone’s a part of it, Pixar (whose films are the only high quality animated features coming out of America lately) to my favorite fake expert John Hodgman (taking self deprecation to new levels in the mac ads).
 I’ve always been Macintosh hesitant. Since grade school when the computers had their grip on every classroom, making us munch numbers and die from cholera on the way to Oregon for fun and giggles. For a while PC’s really took hold of the market, but any being with a couple of light sensitive flaps on their face know that mac is where it’s at.
 Especially since the iPod came out.
I don’t have one. I wouldn’t mind one. The idea of having all your media at your side is so tempting. A beautiful and authentic example of how far culture has come. but I get along fine without right now. Jim asked on my last post what the significance of tapes is now that iTunes playlists can easily organize songs for you. The accessibility and the ease of such a program are the very reasons that I think mixtapes are still important.
To make an iTunes playlist or mix CD, one does not need to actually listen to the songs placed on there. Point and click. But for a tape, it is essential to listen, the very construct requires you to become intimate with your selected songs. Hollow each tune out, settle down in them and get comfy. Get to know John Lennon or Elvis Costello before you put their songs on there, it’ll give you a real connection. That time that goes into making a tape (usually a good 4 hours for me) is your own personal bonding time with music.
Face it, you and music haven’t seen much of each other lately. Maybe for an hour at the gym, or for ten minutes in your car on the way to work, but remember when you two used to have some real romance going on? Thurston Moore does.
Despite not being a fan of Sonic Youth at all, I was intrigued when I heard this NPR interview with the indie-god-frontman a couple of years ago. Moore wrote a book examining the structure and art of mixtapes, and reflected on some of his and other peoples stories and lists. In this book you can find some romance. But you know, maybe the kids ten years younger than me have a sort of romance, walking down the street, hand in hand, listening to each other’s ipods.
.sigh.
Jim also brought up cassette labeling and original (or semi-original) album art. First off, if someone takes the time to make you a mixtape with album art, consider yourself honored. Not everyone takes that sort of time to make a cover, much less actually make art for the tape itself (The ultimate sign of commitment). I started using Brad Neely’s comics for my covers. Some of you may know Neely for his Harry Potter adaptation Wizard People or his George Washington video. Either way, the absurdist streak that runs through his work is great and I find it to be even better when I cut out the captions, turning them into something much more malleable.
 Listing though is funny, I constantly change this up, sometimes leaving out vital information (artist names or song titles). Some consider this cruel, but others see it as the exercising of a muscle, which when challenged, makes your mind and ear stronger, able to identify familiar artists. I listened to a tape that a very good friend gave to me for my birthday last year. Because it has no song listing/road map I rarely put it on, and yet when I do, I’m always delighted by her mix. So like I said before, it can go either way for me.
I was thinking today about one more rule. Spoken Word tracks are welcome, usually best at the beginning of a tape before your startup kicker. It might be good to get a standup comedy one liner or a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem before it really takes off. Don’t overdo it though.
Any technological advancement should make life easier, but that doesn’t mean it what came before it should be seen as excruciating. It’s just a different experience, one that I will continue doing, even if I shell out the money for that iPod one day.
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Mixtape Rules
The protagonist in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity gives us a short list of specific mixtape etiquitte practices. With Summer fully swinging now, I have been on some mixtape composing kicks, making my second one in less than 24 hours. The process is one of appreciation, creativity, and encyclopedic knowledge. With enough practice you can get your innovation on in a musical deca-dance.
 Anyways, Hornby has some pretty basic rules, no artist can have back-to-back songs, you can mix white and black music (isn’t most pop/rock black music by default? I know what Hornby’s getting at, but in these mashup times we get Biggie rapping to Tiny Dancer and this generation likes it that way.) Anyways, after this intense period in front of my stereo here are my mixtape rules.
1. Not only do I think you can’t put a single artist back-to-back on a tape, I don’t think one should have an artist featured twice on any single mix. But I have one exception to this rule. John Darnielle’s group The Mountain Goats are a personal favorite of mine and he has so many damn songs that I find it pretty much essential to include one song on each side of most my tapes. Darnielle writes and records so many songs (15 albums, 18 EPs and countless live bootlegs) that two Mountain Goats fans can discuss their favorites without any overlap whatsoever. Do it with any other artist (short of some freaky prolific Jandek-like recluse) and you have some explaining to do.
2. Always try to mix up mood/tempo. People need moments of quiet reflection juxtaposed with rock out/cock out instances.
3.Familiar songs are of course allowed, it helps pull a skeptical listener in with a trustworthy track, but it’s much more exciting to introduce the recipient to something now.
4. There are certain artists that just won’t wind up on a mixtape, especially if I make you a first time mixtape. Many of these artists I love or once loved when I was 13, but their very presence could destroy the delicate balance that is mixtape culture. Some of my restricted artists: Atom & His Package, Blink 182, Green Day, Rage Against The Machine. I still love Atom very much, but he is poison to most virgin ears.
5. You better have a kickass closer for both sides of your tape. Consider yourself warned.
6. In terms of how to read a tape, some Literary Criticism Techniques: Mixtapes always have authorial intent, so pay attention to what your tape’s architect is trying to say. They should be thoroughly analyzed and interpreted by the recipient. Lyrics ALWAYS have meaning. If I just wanted to throw a collection of songs that sounded really good together, I wouldn’t have spent 4+ hours on it. Learn what there is to be learned.
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I’m Waitin’ For The Man
When the concept of male characters struggling in cinema was brought up, I immediately jumped to Charlie Kaufman’s films, which usually center on submissive male protagonists not exactly sure of how to be assertive with the 21st century breathing down their neck (thanks Morrissey).
John Cusack in Being John Malkovich, Nicholas Cage in Adaptation, and Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind deal with various dilemmas. The former two have occupational crises, both being skilled at what they do (puppetry and screenwriting) but lack the confidence to appreciate it, even if others applaud their efforts. All three have relationship issues, often being too meek to approach the people they like without being plagued with self doubt, move over Alvey Singer, there’s a new neurotic force in town.
Nathan just made a nice observation that I think can be agreed on, it’s hard to be perceived as a masculine figure without subscribing to the rigid structure of gender roles. Wearing the pants in the relationship and drinking Budweiser is the sole way be your own man. Furthermore, metrosexuality has thrown us into even larger confusion. So I don’t spend an hour getting ready before going out (though I definitely floss) and I also don’t spend Sunday afternoon watching the big game. Well what the hell am I? Neither rough and ready nor slick and well groomed…well the one thing I know is that I’m not alone, because I think the larger population falls outside of these two planes. Kaufman’s characters fall outside as well.
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The Fog of War, Paradoxes Galore
I don’t like writing dense pieces, so if this seems more like an Entertainment Weekly review than one of our FTC Articles, my apologies.
After Robert McNamara is appointed Secretary of Defense by John F. Kennedy, he is in a television interview. There he is asked about the “know it all†label that many critics have been murmuring. “Are you just going around giving simple little lessons?†asks the interviewer. McNamara denies this, but director Errol Morris sees through his mask of humility. In all situations, McNamara values knowledge, whether spreading it or tallying it. Both actions are done in order to formulate the premise of The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.
Though Morris had dealt with the justice system in The Thin Blue Line a decade earlier, The Fog of War can be perceived by audiences as his most political film to date. In the past ten years, the role documentaries have been given is that of a political or sociological appeal. Films like Supersize Me, Fahrenheit 9/11 and An Inconvenient Truth have all fit this description and succeeded with their formulas. Morris’ film succeeded as well, garnering an Academy Award. But The Fog of War is less of a call to arms than it is a series of subtle suggestions revolving around McNamara. Morris records a lot of paradoxes and contradictory statements coming out of the former secretary’s mouth, but he never tells his audience what we should think of the man. It is the audience’s choice on how to judge his actions, appropriate since those actions are simultaneously being judged by historians as while being imitated by the current administration. When looking at the bare essentials though, I think The Fog of War has very close ties to the themes of Morris’ previous films, whether they are technical, structural, or philosophical.
There are a few elements of Morris’ filmmaking that stand out. As seen previously in Fast Cheap and Out of Control, the director implements the interrotron, choosing to shoot the former secretary in shots ranging from medium close to extreme close. We as the audience become intimate with our subject as he makes full eye contact with Morris. These shots are also framed with what seems to be slight Dutch Angles. Even if it’s just McNamara leaning in his chair, the background of the room has shadows of beams and columns that greatly slant. Perhaps in this technique Morris is creating the illusion of a Dutch Angle outside of the camera. Dutch Angles in FCOOC dealt more with the juxtaposition of several different men whose connections to each other seem skewed. But I think Morris uses it with McNamara in the way the Carol Reed did in The Third
Man. There the Dutch Angle was used at times where a character was dishonest or not being straight. It’s Morris’ way to be skeptical of McNamara without coming out and saying it to either him or to the audience.The picture below is of course not a shot from the film, and you can tell that because there is no eye contact, and those columns and beams are completely upright, parallel to the frame.
McNamara’s relationship with Curtis Lemay seems similar to Dave Hoover’s, the wild animal trainer who was inspired and motivated by Clyde Beatty in FCOOC. John F. Kennedy is also portrayed quite fondly. Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, is not. His phone recordings are visually matched up with a running tape recorder, similar to the final interview in The Thin Blue Line where David Harris admits his guilt. Kennedy’s recordings always have pictures of them around the table, and it offers a greater amount of comfort than Johnson’s disembodied drawl. There’s also a percussive noise on the recordings, like a heartbeat adding tensions to the situation. I noted a similar aural sensation when Morris shows his reenactment of the domino effect metaphor. When I watched the film with a friend, he laughed when seeing Johnson presenting the Congressional Medal of Freedom to McNamara. I asked him about it later and he said he had just watched that footage in a history class and it was so painfully obvious how Johnson had blown McNamara off in that ceremony. Yet in his interview, McNamara says Johnson treated him very warmly. I proposed earlier the idea of many contradictory statements made by McNamara and the people around him. This is one of them, and we will see more later.
You can hear Morris asking his questions very loudly, partially due to the fact that the two men are probably sitting at a greater distance than a traditional interview (due to the interrotron), but I think it also works because Morris seems genuinely desperate to find some sort of justification for Vietnam. It is a serious issue and he wants a real answer. Equally desperate is Phillip Glass’ score, I wrote in a previous post about the minimalist composer’s match with themes of searching. If one notes the second scene of the film, where battleship footage is used, Glass uses a flute which adds both an eastern influence and a startling note that is the musical equivalent at being out in the middle of the ocean, torpedoes could hit at any moment. Desperation.
My final major comparison to Morris’ previous works is to the film Mr. Death, which I have yet to see but know that it centers on an electric chair architect determined to construct chairs that kill people efficiently and humanely. The whole issue of humane killing comes up in both WWII and
Vietnam. McNamara questions the consequences of killing one hundred thousand people in one night during the Tokyo firebombing, should they have killed less and had American soldiers enter the city on foot, ultimately leading to losses on our side? And the use of Agent Orange begs why is it okay to use one chemical that helps us kill thousands and not another? McNamara admits that he cannot answer these questions and so he often retreats to an easier way of looking at things: Numerically.
Numbers are McNamara’s real joy, and they’re a lot cleaner than dealing with ethical and moral quandaries. It seems that numbers are the cold hard truth while language comes off as uncertain. McNamara’s earliest memory is victory celebrations for World War One, and he recalls that Woodrow Wilson referred to it as “The war to end all wars.†The irony of that statement is not lost on McNamara, who spends three years fighting in the south pacific as a soldier and seven years making near-executive decisions concerning Vietnam. Throughout his life, he is ranked in the educational system, the military, and the private sector.
So many of McNamara’s stories are about numbers, whether it’s three million killed in Vietnam, twenty thousand per year saved thanks to seat belts, 99% of Tokyo destroyed by fire bombing and so on. These are definite and recorded numbers. Compare that to the section of the film under section seven: “Belief and seeing are often both wrong,†where a battleship captain uses indefinite language concerning a torpedo attack. When asked if it actually did happen in the transmission, the captain says “No doubt about that…I think.†Wishy-washiness runs rampant.
Morris uses CGI at one point, showing numbers being dropped from planes onto Japan. Though this is a documentary, Morris never has qualms about bringing such metaphors to life. This challenges Stephen Prince’s concerns over CGI representing reality and whether one can take any truth from an image that looks real. In his essay “True Lies,” Prince asks the question “When faced with digitized images, will we need to discard entirely notions of realism in cinema?” (275) It is certainly a paradox of his own: “Creating credible photographic images of things which cannot be photographed.” (271)
What I think Morris wants us to do is not discard notions, but be able to build upon the notions we already have. The bombing numbers metaphor looks like slowed down archive footage, thus the key is to visualize what is not literally possible by allowing it to have similar semantic features to what we know of reality. Morris is ever fascinated with authenticity in his films, not by being overly cautious to make everything authentic but rather by using techniques like reenactments and specially staged sets to illustrate points. These visual features are not verbal, always occur while a subject in the film is talking, and conveys Morris’ opinions without explicitly spelling them out for the audience. It challenges Prince because it is not intended for belief, rather to show how much easier it is for McNamara to think about bombs being dropped in numerical terms, for efficiency is what’s truly at stake for Lemay and him.
What’s more is that these effects are not there to stimulate a gut emotional reaction in the way that Jurrasic Park, Prince’s main target, does with its frightening dinosaurs. Nor does it inspire the hope that comes with Forrest Gump’s ping pong career. As stated before, we are dealing with rationality…which according to McNamara, cannot save us.
And at several points in the film, Morris has scenes of extreme close up shots of texts, focusing on single terms. When McNamara is hired, “wiz kid,†“self made,†“efficient,†and “studious†are displayed. When he is about to be fired “Dictator,†“no good,†“fascist,†and of course “McNamara’s War†are shown. Morris rallies towards the power of words in these textual descriptions, and the same texts can make positive statements one day and negative ones another.
Another paradox, though not exactly language based, is mentor Curtis Lemay being willing and able to criticize military policies, such as the shipment of fuel in WWII, but McNamara exclaims that Lemay himself would not tolerate criticism from others. Also concerning Vietnam, McNamara has a quote that I missed the first few times I saw this film but absolutely devastated me when I heard it the most recent time. He speaks of the stress his family went through during the war. “My wife may have ultimately died from the stress…but it was the best years of our lives and we all benefited from it.†Those words truly strike me as coming from someone who has more than a problem with which adjectives are appropriate to use.
Despite this preference for quantifying life, the recent interviews show that McNamara is extremely expressive with his anecdotal evidence. The older man is so much livelier than the newsreel footage we see of press conferences where a colder, socially inept mastermind keeps his mistakes to himself. When asked about the Cuban Missile Crisis Calendar he has on his desk, the younger man cannot resist listing all thirteen dates sequentially. Sure they may have been thirteen of the most important days in his life, but he doesn’t win us over with his diction or vocal expression. The first shot of the movie is McNamara preparing for a conference and has to stop to make sure the chart is high enough, and then he stops to make sure the camera is working. Morris uses this grandly as an acknowledgment of his own film forty years later, but one can see his insecurity with being a newfound public figure. The man has managed to change, partially in mindset and mostly in delivery, and whether his lessons are directed towards us as an audience, to Morris as a director, or to himself, four decades previous is up for debate.
When Morris asks at the end of the film why McNamara never spoke out against
Vietnam if he was so against Johnson’s policies, the man declines saying “You don’t know how inflammatory my words can be.†There seems to be an understanding that words are a powerful force and can in fact hurt and lead to death and disappointment.
But there are also contradictions in the numbers. At Ford Motor Company, McNamara advocated safety measures like seat belts and he proudly states that if everyone wore them, they would save 20,000 lives a year. Later he states that at the end of his job as Defense Secretary, 25,000 were killed in
Vietnam. This naturally proposes the question of whether this almost balances out. Are human lives a score to be tallied? McNamara seems almost comfortable with such a clean cut concept. Numbers are easier to discuss than human lives.
Morris uses cinematic examples of contradictions similar to the language paradoxes I discussed earlier. He shows modern shots city streets in America, Japan, and
Vietnam after crucial decisions have been discussed. These scenes are double exposed with a sped up take over a slowed down take. I think this to mean that life can be a hustle and bustle for those unaware of the monumental decisions being made, while time slows down for those in charge. The threat of nuclear warfare builds tension for these people and at the most crucial point, time slows down for them. These scenes were similar to Geoffrey Reggio’s equally non-traditional documentary Koyaanisqatsi, which translates as “Life out of balance,†and spends a good amount of time examining human action, innovation, and destruction at sped up and slowed down footage, also to a Phillip Glass score interestingly enough. This all gets back to the fact that Errol Morris is not making a political powerpoint documentary, even though he deals with a politically complicated figure. His complications lie in other more subtle ways previously discussed and though the film does not have the extreme juxtaposition of FCOOC it does still obtain some of the deeper philosophical issues at play. Issues that we can observe in all of Morris’ films.
We all have our own paradoxes that lead to life mistakes, and McNamara seems to be optomistic that we can learn from them. But I think Morris is beyond that fact. Without the mistakes of life, there is no story, without the story there is no film. Paradoxes must continue to exist at all levels.
BLOG REVIEW
Nathan points out an important fact in his blog post on Fast Cheap and Out Of Control. The importance of peoples’ particular passions in drives society, even in the most dire of times. Building on that, McNamara is passionate in one of the most dire points of the 20th century, and his passion, in a way, are why things are dire. It is when we are most passionate that we end up making mistakes, and when you are the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, your mistakes tend to result in the loss of lives. Passion probably works best when you’re the naked mole rat scientist rather than the president’s right hand man….there you probably need to think things more thoroughly.
In her post about Errol Morris’ movie posters, Serena analyzed an aspect of cinema that is usually glossed over, considered part of the marketing process rather than a real art. One large focus is the acclaim from critics, and with The Fog of War, Morris received some of his most glowing reviews. Just examine to poster
Yes Serena, Ebert’s there too. I think it’s interesting since I speak a lot about contradictions, that McNamara looks both frail, due to his age, and intimidating due to his height. He is a mix of strengths and weaknesses as we all are. And upon looking at this picture, one might forget that he was reviled for an entire decade.
PUNisher manages to hit on something that was definitely on Morris’ mind while making this film. He discusses how Morris shoots an amazing amount of footage (I believe McNamara was interviewed from anywhere between 8 and 24 hours). In the post it says “ Of course, Morris edits the film to make it seem like they’re rambling.†Robert S. McNamara says in one scene that he learned not to answer the questions he’s asked, but instead answer the questions that he wished he were asked. Morris, in an NPR interview, said that right after that line, he said “Are you doing that to me!?†but he cut it out after a long debate, deciding that it was obvious that McNamara was doing that to him. Though Morris gets final cut, McNamara is clever enough to hold his own and control what goes on.
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What’s The Rumpus?
So before even starting my paper for class, I decided to idiotically undertake a personal project even though my completing it does nothing to help my grade nor my college career. It was out of sheer geekiness and probably a little bit of boredom. Despite the ipod revolution, I still am very much a subscriber of mixtape culture. I have a cruddy lil stereo from the 80’s with an audio imput. I used to use it to record NPR stories off the web, but lately I was just dealing with music, but I’ve always had this idea in the back of my head to do a movie mixtape where I capture audio of my favorite songs used in films. So the other night I hauled a helluva whole bunch of my DVD’s down and created the following tape.
Â
SIDE A
1. Boogie Nights – Jesse’s Girl – Excellent because Alfred Molina begins by discussing mixtapes It’s also good because the entire song is played, which often doesn’t happen thanks to editing. This is my favorite scene in that entire film. Molina is one of my top three actors and his cracked out performance in a bathrobe makes the film.Â
2. The Big Lebowski – Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In) – A fantastic dream sequence that really ties the film together.
 3. Rushmore– A Quick One While He’s Away – This performance by The Who is from the amazing bizarre Rock and Roll Circus (worth seeing just for George Harrison’s introduction “And now ladies and gentlemen…dig The Who.). The fact that it’s live really makes a difference, the CD soundtrack is the original record which, though wonderful, lacks passion. Here, Roger Daltry is pumped as he belts “forgivenforgivenforgivenforgiven!” and adds to the ironic vengeful nature occurring in the film. The music bows out for a few seconds while Harold Bloom (Bill Murray) reports Max Fisher (Jason Schwartzman) to the police, and then makes a rousing return as Max is carried out of school by two officers.
4. Shaun of the Dead– Don’t Stop Me Now- Word to the wise, ZOMBIES HATE QUEEN. So when the jukebox in Shaun’s (Simon Pegg) safe haven pub starts up with this super positive song, he and his friends must act quickly to keep the elderly owner zombie down. Worth it for the choreographed on tempo pool cure strikes.
5. Moulin Rouge – Roxanne – I know my masculinity is compromised by saying I like this film, but at least this is one of the less flamboyant songs. The tango version of the Police manages to come off classier than, say, Jim Broadbent singing “Like A Virgin.”
6. Reservoir Dogs– Little Green Bag – An excellent introduction by comedian Steven Wright enhances this opening credits song even more. I know some of you might think “Stuck In The Middle With You” would be a better choice, but there is that point where Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) leaves the room to get the gasoline. Sometimes it’s better to go with a less obvious choice.
7. Manhattan –Rhapsody In Blue – Though we lose out by not being able to see the beautiful cinematography of Allen’s 1979 film, we gain by being able to hear his dialogue. Having dialogue on the mixtape separates it from being just a taping of CD soundtracks (Which I also do a lot, but if this works out well, I may end up selling my soundtracks….except for Grease on vinyl)
8. Lost in Translation – What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding? –I haven’t watched this film in a while, but the karaoke scene is memorable. And I think Bill Murray’s choice to play quieter roles in the past decade makes him able to do things that other SNL cast members can’t do. Imagine Chevy Chase covering Elvis Costello…then clean up that vomit.
9. Rock n Roll High School –Do You Wanna Dance – In Clint Howard’s greatest film of all time, the Ramones take over the halls of a high school and they never sound as joyous than in this penultimate tune.
10. The Royal Tenenbaums– She Smiled Sweetly – A more obscure Rolling Stones song pops up at my favorite point of this film. A lot of his critics describes Wes Anderson’s directing as detached and unemotional, but I really find this scene to be both beautifully sweet and heartbreaking. It is followed by the equally charming Ruby Tuesday, and neither are on the film’s soundtrack…alas.
11. 24 Hour Party People– Digital – Craig Graziano’s pick for the best rock movie of the past ten years, with Steve Coogan playing music fan Tony Wilson in a hilariously more elite than thou way. I hope we start to see more of him in America. The first hour really shines chronicling the rise and fall of Joy Division.
12. Goodfellas – Layla – I’m considering going back and rerecording Side A for quality reasons, and when I do, I’ll probably change this to the song “And Then He Kissed Me.” Even without the epic tracking shot, it’s just worth it to hear Karen (Lorraine Bracco) ask Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) “What do you do?” after getting the best seats in the house.
13. Adaptation –So Happy Together – Number one with a bullet! Charlie Kaufman composes a self reflexive masterpiece in this film about himself (Nicholas Cage). After the screenwriter attends a script doctor’s seminar, the film becomes a fast paced mix of sex, drugs, violence and this hit Turtles song.
14. Bottle Rocket – This is the Story – As you can see, I have a thing for Wes Anderson soundtracks, but the reason is that he and writing partner Owen Wilson really do think about what songs to use in their scenes, creating mixtapes so they can construct the dialogue with the appropriate background music. This Proclaimers song gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it.
15. Trainspotting– Lust For Life – This may be the only time the dialogue surpasses the song on this tape, but Ewan Macgregor’s rally against choosing life dominates over Iggy Pop sneer. Next time Iggy.
16. Fight Club –Where Is My Mind – As Dr. Campbell said in class “Oh look, the phallic 
symbols are crashing to the ground.” And maybe using this song in a film about psychological deviance is laying it on a bit thick. But to be honest, it simply is an amazing song by the Pixies and the first one I had heard by them, adding to the personal significance. Lead singer Frank Black is certainly a film buff. The opening track on the album Doolittle is all about Un Chien Andalou by Luis Bunuel. “Slicin’ up eyeballs whoa ah ho ho!”
SIDE B
1. North By Northwest-Opening theme – Bernard Herrmann is a genius, we’ve already discussed it. I once put this on a mixtape that didn’t even have anything to do with film, cuz it’s just that good.
2. Blue Velvet –In Dreams – Psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper)Â pulls over to the side of the road, screams at idiot boy (Kyle MacLachlan), then proceeds to play the song and slowly repeat the lyrics “In dreams….I walk with you….In dreams….I talk to you…In dreams your mine…all the time….forever….in dreams.” Talk about a possessive nature.
3. Bound – She’s A Lady – So Tom Jones is funny, the final line of dialogue is funny, and the Wachowski brothers (pre-Matrix) do a marvelous job appropriating a somewhat creepy “female worship through male eyes” and turning it into a feminine anthem.
4. A Clockwork Orange– Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and The William Tell Overture – Alex (Malcolm McDowell)Â loves Beethoven in a way that current delinquent youths just don’t appreciate. Keep your ears open, because when the 14 year old punks start humming old Ludwig Van and and crooning Gene Kelly….a hard rain’s gonna fall.
5. Citizen Kane –Charlie Kane’s Celebration Song – Before it all goes sour for Orson Welles  tragic protagonist, he gets a chance to sing and dance with a bunch of lovely ladies to his very own personal theme song! This scene is spoofed wonderfully in one of my favorite Simpsons episodes “He’s Monty Burns! I’m MISTER Burns!”
6. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou – Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op – My final piece from a Wes Anderson film is from his resident score composer Mark Mothersbaugh. The ex-Devo frontman uses a variety of instruments, he’s very orchestral for The Royal Tenenbaums and here he employs electronic synthesizers which swell into a many brass instruments. But to some, he’ll always be known for the theme to Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats.
7. Jackie Brown– The Lions And The Cucumber – Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson) embodies badassity in this film, and when he finally finds out what’s up, he calls bail bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster) who is in on the scam that left him cold. Trumpets blaze as Ordell quietly but profanely sets his terms for the final showdown.
8. Chunking Express –Â Dreams – The obvious choice would have been California Dreamin’ since it’s played so often, but this Cantonese cover of the Cranberries is near exact to the original and is sweet, which of course means that Wong Kar Wai is screwing with you. He’s the new Godard! The song itself is sung by the female protagonist.
9. Magnolia –Wise Up – Aimee Mann’s music was a huge inspiration for PT Anderson’s three hour attempt to get over his own personal issues. Some people balk at the concept of all the characters singing the lyrics along with her, but it’s a boldly inventive move to others.
10. Nightmare Before Christmas– What’s This? – How could I leave out Danny Elfman? I mean, he’s even singing! This track, along with his magnum opus (The Beetlejuice Theme) get featured in any movie that even attempts to portray a facade of magical realism. It’s a good transition from the melancholy Aimee Mann.
11. Duck Soup– To War! – Not a lot of people know that many early Marx Brothers films had musical interludes, and this one beats them all, with a troop of soldiers being used as a giant xylophone and an hoedown interlude. Woody Allen’s monologue concerning this scene at the end of Hannah and Her Sisters really sets it as an immortal piece though. Life goes around once, why don’t you make the most of it?
12. Amadeus –The Magic Flute – So Mozart composed his most playful opera at the same time as his most emotionally devastating Requiem. Papageno’s song is spritely despite the fact that Mr. Mozart is only hours away from death. An anarchic film for music lovers everywhere.
13. Modern Times –The Tramp’s Nonsense Song – At the very end of this 1936 film, the  Little Tramp starts with a dance, opens his mouth, and low and behold, sound comes out, even if it is Italian-sounding gibberish. This is his grand exit, for Chaplin never made another film as the Tramp. His dance really makes the song, as he pantomimes the narrative of the tune, but then again, pantomime was always his strong point wasn’t it?
14. Dr. Strangelove –We’ll Meet Again – I almost totally forgot about this song being featured in Kubrick’s film, but when I remembered, I knew that I had the perfect closing. Introduced by Peter Seller’s eternally bizarre line “Mein Fuhrer…I can walk!” For an excellent cover of this song, check out Johnny Cash’s American IV record. It’s the last song that was released before his death…and a beautiful way to close.
So there. I spent a good 7 hours of my week on the tape and this blog post, but maybe you’ll be inspired to check out some of these films or come back to them and remember how good they are, or even make your own Movie Mix Tape…well maybe you’re not that crazy, you probably like your iPod just fine.
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The Difference Is…
Watching Vertigo for the first time in about ten years was terrific. I really think I was able to go past the bias I had against it when I was younger. It was emotionally ripping to see Scott descend deeper into a focused obsession, becoming less and less patient with someone he claims to love. I think one problem I had upon the first viewing is the fact that it’s Jimmy Stewart as a completely possessive and cold individual. Not George Bailey!
But Hitchcock has a great way of making these everyman characters that start off with a somewhat clean slate. For example, both Vertigo and North By Northwest deal with an average man being thrown into circumstances beyond his control and focuses on how they deal with their situations. Cary Grant’s and Jimmy Stewart’s characters are both wise-cracking cynics, but what’s intriguing is how Grant’s character, an ad executive who definitely has some mother issues, manages to become more charismatic as he manages to figure out what’s going on. Stewart on the other hand, becomes more and more withdrawn and paranoid…sort of like Rear Window with less jokes. It’s not strange to me that Dr. Campbell liked North By Northwest more at first, but then Vertigo snuck up to take the grand prize. The former is a great introduction to Hitchcock and my current favorite, but I think in ten or fifteen years, I too might prefer one of his more mature efforts. Not that the jokes aren’t lacking:
“Eve Kendall: I’m a big girl.
Roger Thornhill: Yeah, and in all the right places, too.”
Oh Cary, you are a wit.Â
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Kiri Kiri Kiri Kiri
The essay discussing women in horror films today made me really intrigued on what the writer’s perspective would be on the recent wave of Japanese horror films. Before the new type of gore and torture based horror films (Thanks to Saw and Eli Roth) the main influence of horror films in the early part of the decade were those like Ring and Dark Water which often feature female protagonists who are mothers, which often offers an easy vulnerability when they deal with supernatural forces. One could also see that not as an vulnerability but a determined altruism. I think the remake of The Omen tried to take from this style even moreso than from the original film. Another very different kind of Japanese horror film that I was really mulling over during the presentation though was Takashi Miike’s Audition, a 1999 film that acts as a “romantic dramedy” (what a cruddy word) until the final 35 minutes or so. The basic premise is a guy who lost his wife years ago ends up holding an audition to find a new romantic interest. He thinks he has found a perfect match in a shy ex-ballet dancer, but things turn progressively odder until a wretching climax. I don’t wish to give any more a way, but it definitely makes me ponder the issues of gender identity in Asian horror a bit more.
Also:
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I’m a Curmudgeon
When I was about 13 or so, I saw Vertigo for the first time and it surely went over my head. It’s not the only Hitchcock film to do this either. Both Strangers on a Train and Psycho did little for me at first and took repeat viewings for me to appreciate. It was my job to catch up to them. Interestingly enough, Notorious intrigued me from the beginning.
So in my grumblings over the mutual dedication of soul mates, I was reminded of Dr. Kennedy’s explanation on how dialogues do not work when it comes to love poetry:
“Shall I compare the to a sum-”
“No!”
Once someone answers, end of the courtship! Even if it’s “Yes,” what’s the point of continuing?  In romantic relationships, one person simply cares more than the other. We all had different definitions of soul mate, so a couple will have two completely different ideas of what kind of bond they have. Obsession I get: One person yearning for something. Hitchcock’s dealing with obsession left and right. I assume we’ll get to his thing for Grace Kelly and his determination to recreate her through a number of tall blonde actresses including Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and Janet Leigh. A single person’s yearning is believable. Two peoples’ yearning
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