Film | Dave's Strange World

“American Pop” (1981) dir. Ralph Bakshi

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“American Pop” is animator Ralph Bakshi’s immensely ambitious attempt at telling a multi-generational story through the musical ambitions of one family. Beginning in Russia at the turn of the 20th century and ending somewhere roughly in the late 1970s/early 1980s, “American Pop” chronicles American popular music from ragtime to punk. It’s one of the few cinematic attempts at creating a non-pornographic (but still R-rated) animated film for adults. Sadly, it wasn’t successful at the box office.

“American Pop” is one of those movies that I wish was better than it is. But what’s there is still extremely impressive. Bakshi’s use of rotoscope animation (where live actors are filmed and the animator creates images over the live ones) is still stunning to watch even over 30 years later.

For many years, it was not available due to rights issues over the extensive soundtrack (which ranges from Scott Joplin to Jimi Hendrix, to Lou Reed to Bob Seger). However, such obstacles were cleared in the late 1990s and the film is easily available on DVD these days. Here’s hoping a remastered Blu-Ray release is in the planning.

“Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)” – Tom Waits

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It’s hard to pick what the best Tom Waits song of all time is. However, “Tom Traubert’s Blues” is the greatest in my opinion. A beautiful and sad variation on the Australian folk song “Waltzing Matilda,” “Tom Traubert’s Blues” is about the ravages of alcoholism. According to Bones Howe, Waits’ producer, the inspiration for the song came from a time when Waits “went down and hung around on skid row in L.A. because he wanted to get stimulated for writing this material. He called me up and said, ‘I went down to skid row … I bought a pint of rye. In a brown paper bag.’ I said, ‘Oh really?.’ ‘Yeah – hunkered down, drank the pint of rye, went home, threw up, and wrote ‘Tom Traubert’s Blues’ […] every guy down there… everyone I spoke to, a woman put him there.”

According to Waits, he used the melody from “Waltzing Matilda” because “”when you’re ‘waltzing matilda’, you’re on the road. You’re not with your girlfriend, you’re on the bum. For me, I was in Europe for the first time, and I felt like a soldier far away from home and drunk on the corner with no money, lost.”

The song was used brilliantly in the film “Basquiat” when Jean Michel-Basquiat learns that his mentor Andy Warhol has passed away.

“Basquiat” (1996) dir. Julian Schnabel

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One of the best films about an artist’s life I’ve ever seen, as well as being one of the coolest films I’ve ever seen about any subject, “Basquiat” is a biopic chronicling the fast times and short life of legendary 1980s postmodernist/neo-expressionist painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat created some brilliant (and highly commercial) art and also ran with a lot of famous people (Andy Warhol, Madonna, Keith Haring) back in the day. However, personal demons and drug abuse wound up getting the better of him and Basquiat died of a heroin overdose in 1988.

Jeffrey Wright does a terrific job in the lead role as Basquiat and leads an all-star cast that includes David Bowie as Andy Warhol, Gary Oldman playing a character based on director/artist Julian Schnabel, Michael Wincott as critic Rene Ricard, Dennis Hopper as art dealer Bruno Bischofberger, and Christopher Walken, Courtney Love, Claire Forlani, Benicio Del Toro, Tatum O’Neal in supporting roles.

“Basquiat” also boasts one of the coolest soundtracks of any film, featuring the Pogues, Public Image Ltd., Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Charlie Parker, Melle Mel, the Modern Lovers, and Peggy Lee among others.

This was director Julian Schnabel’s directorial debut, a career that has led to great films such as “Before Night Falls,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” and “Lou Reed’s Berlin.”

“Ballad of Maxwell Demon” – Shudder to Think (from the 1998 film “Velvet Goldmine” dir. Todd Haynes)

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When Todd Haynes decided to make a film loosely based on the life of David Bowie, he took a similar approach to his idea that Allison Anders did when she wanted to make a film about a Carole King in “Grace of My Heart.” That approach was to use significant events from their subject’s lives, but make a fiction film and to change things enough to make their films more dramatically interesting. The approach was smart in both cases, because they didn’t have to worry about being factually accurate and could tell whatever story they wanted.

The result isn’t perfect, but Haynes’s film “Velvet Goldmine” is mesmerizing and he hired some great 1990s-era musicians to recreate the highlights from the English glam-rock era. “The Ballad of Maxwell Demon” is Shudder to Think’s variation on Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” and “All the Young Dudes” and it’s a damn good song. The lyrics even recall “Dudes” directly: “Six feet down when I’m 25” is similar to the first verse in “Dudes.”

“You’re Breaking My Heart” – Harry Nilsson

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I first heard this song over the opening credits of that immortal early 1980s Phoebe Cates/Matthew Modine T&A comedy “Private School … for Girls.” By the point it appeared in the film, the song was over 10 years old, but it was certainly memorable then … and now. Arguably one of the best opening lines of any song ever: “You’re breaking my heart, you’re tearin’ it apart, so f–k you!”

Crispin Glover and Dennis Hopper in “River’s Edge” (1987) dir. Tim Hunter

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If there was ever a better argument for pot legalization than this scene from the creepy 1987 cult movie “River’s Edge,” I have yet to see it. This is probably the scariest … and funniest … variation of the “buying pot from the weird older guy” scenario that many of you may or may not have experienced in your wayward youth. By the way, that’s Keanu Reeves in the background.

“The Way I Walk” – Robert Gordon and Link Wray

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Before the Tuff Darts recorded their first album for Sire, Robert Gordon left the group and arguably had greater success as a rockabilly singer. This cover of Jack Scott’s “The Way I Walk” with 50s guitar legend Link Wray is a masterpiece of swagger and menace. Wray’s guitar on this track must rank among the sickest solos ever recorded. In 1994, this was used during the pre-credits sequence of Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers.”

2000 Hits on Dave’s Strange World!

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Dave’s Strange World just had it’s 2,000th view today. Many thanks to everyone, from followers to lurkers, for the continued success of this blog.

To celebrate, esteemed British actor Oliver Reed has agreed to come back from the grave to do a solo performance of what dance purists call “Drunk on Aspel.”

The all-time Top 10 most popular posts on Dave’s Strange World:

10. “Copendium” written by Julian Cope

9. “Mother” – Natalie Maines (with Fred Norris) live on the Howard Stern Show 1-4-2013

8. “The Rebel Jesus” – Jackson Browne and the Chieftains

7. “Spirit of Truth aka One Man Show” (1997) – Vincent Stewart as Reverend X

6. “Hard Working Man” – Captain Beefheart / Ry Cooder / Jack Nitzche, from the film “Blue Collar” (1978) dir. Paul Schrader

5. “Russ Meyer’s Vixen” (1968) dir. Russ Meyer

4. “Saturday Night Live 1980″ – Nathan Rabin’s “How Bad Can it Be? Case File #23″

3. “Poetic License is Not Appreciated” a look at “American Me” (1992) dir. Edward James Olmos and “Blood In, Blood Out” (1993) dir. Taylor Hackford

2. “Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson” by Kevin Avery

and still #1 with a bazooka …

1. “The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With At A Party” … From Saturday Night Live (2012)

“A Simple Plan” (1999) dir. Sam Raimi

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One of the best crime thrillers of the last 15 years, “A Simple Plan” has never quite gotten its due. It was based on a best-selling novel, had perfect actors for their respective roles (Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, Brent Briscoe, Bridget Fonda), had a terrific script by the novel’s author Scott B. Smith, and excellent directing by Sam Raimi. It got some respectful nods from critics, Oscar nominations for Thornton and Smith, but bombed at the box office and has now been virtually forgotten.

That’s too bad, because this is a superior, intelligent thriller that presents more ethical quandaries and dilemmas than a graduate course on Ethics. The premise seems simple: three men find over $4 million in the woods near a crashed plane and decide to keep it. But then things unravel … and all three men find themselves in a world of danger that keeps escalating and the men find themselves doing things they would have never thought possible.

It reminds me of something I read once … maybe by Russian philosopher and semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin … that basically asserted that it’s not one act that causes man to act unethically. If you wonder how you would act if presented with a significant moral and ethical dilemma, your answer is in how you act when presented with arguably minor ethical dilemmas (i.e. getting too much change back from a cashier, finding that jewelry item you reported missing after were paid for the item by your insurance company). It’s the little decisions you make in your day to day life that comprises your character and what will define what you do in the face of a horrible decision. Nobody’s perfect and even good people can make bad decisions. But a callous disregard for such things in minor situations is likely to lead to more horrendous decisions later. I may be wrong on whether it was Bakhtin that said this, but the sentiment holds very strongly to this film … and to what I have seen is behind most people’s very bad decisions.

“A Simple Plan” is deep. Very deep. And it will stay with you for days.

“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982) dir. Amy Heckerling, scr. Cameron Crowe

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One of the best films about teenagers ever made, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” was based on screenwriter Cameron Crowe’s real-life attempt to go back to high school undercover and write about what high school life was really like. The results are very funny, though they’re also sometimes extremely painful and awkward. Director Heckerling was especially sensitive in viewing how these kids were experiencing life. The characters are young, but they also face many things we tend to regard as adult issues (i.e. employment issues, unplanned pregnancies). I don’t know if things these days are better or worse for teenagers … especially given how nasty things have gotten with bullying, the internet, etc., but also with helicopter parenting being accepted as normal.

This scene between Sean Penn’s stoner character and Ray Walston’s teacher is a comedy classic. Walston’s character may be a “dick,” but he also deals with Penn’s character in a very calm, non-hysterical way … that’s also funny as hell. Seriously, what would YOU do, if you had Penn’s character as a student? I think it speaks volumes for Heckerling’s and Crowe’s instincts to have them at least come to a meeting of the minds at the end of the film. They’ll never be buddies, but you get the sense that there is a mutual respect there.