More insanely terrific garage punk from the Pacific Northwest, this time from Oregon’s Paul Revere and the Raiders. I love the fact that all of these verses degenerate into screaming by the end, but please get that vocalist some lozenges quick.
The Sonics’ “Psycho” is an insanely wild kick to the head from the mid-1960s that needs to be played extremely loud. I don’t know what it is about the Pacific Northwest that produces such incredibly insane music. Maybe nine months of rain makes people a little edgy.
A great song by Nine Inch Nails that was in heavy rotation for about 6 months back in 1999 and then disappeared. I always loved the wall of noise on this song and this video (directed by Mark Pellington). A completely stunning track that was allegedly inspired by David Bowie’s “Heroes.”
In my earlier tribute to Tony Scott, I forgot to mention his stunning first film as a director, “The Hunger.” I remember seeing this on HBO late one Saturday night around 1984 or so and this opening sequence was so mind-blowing, I remember running into people at my junior high who saw the same thing (“My God, did you see that weird vampire movie on HBO?”) and were as flabbergasted as I was. So flabbergasting, that when I heard he was directing “Top Gun,” a needle went off the record in my mind. Well, he definitely found his commercial niche and while Scott made some wildly entertaining and commercial films (“Last Boy Scout,” “Crimson Tide,” “True Romance,” “Domino”), it would have been interesting to see if he had continued in this artier, less commercial mode. This isn’t the full sequence that features the seduction / sex / murder sequence afterwards, but you can find the longer version on YouTube if you so desire. You can see a lot of influence on Gaspar Noe in this clip. Highly recommended.
One of my favorite instrumentals of all time, from Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.” The combination of strange and near-obsolete instruments performing together in a Phil Spector-like wall of sound is a wonder to behold. It’s even more amazing when you’ve heard all the songs before it on the album. I’m surprised (and pleased) this hasn’t been used in a trailer for some indie film. I don’t think Jeff Magnum would ever release the rights, but if I ever get off my ass and make a film (yeah, THAT’LL happen), this is going on the trailer, regardless of the subject matter.
One of my favorite songs from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and one of the sequences from the movie that I continue to find the most powerful. First of all, I love the song’s 1950s doo-wop feel filtered through a 1970s Quaalude fog. However, the way this sequence was shot and edited by Parker is consistently amazing to watch. The transition from horrific war footage to the lead character’s trashed hotel room as the vocals change from David Gilmour to Roger Waters as the camera pans over to the pool is a sequence that always gives me goosebumps.
Another trailer I saw when I was 6 or 7 that seriously freaked me out. This played before a Disney (?!?) film of all things. The scene where the family wearing the white space suits vanishes gave me nightmares. I also thought it was odd that the actor they kept referring to as “David” (David Bowie) looked like a woman. I think that’s William Shatner narrating the trailer.
From Reed and Cale’s song cycle about Andy Warhol (“Songs for Drella”). A really funny and moving song about Warhol’s work ethic. Favorite lyrics: “Andy said a lot of things … I stored them all away in my head … Sometimes when I can’t decide what I should do,
I think what would Andy have said … He’d probably say ‘You think too much … That’s ’cause there’s work that you don’t want to do.'”
I remember hearing this late one night in a friend’s car back in 1989 and immediately bought the “Doolittle” CD when the record store opened the next day. While many quibble about what the best Pixies album is, I’ve never heard a negative thing said about “Doolittle.” And thanks to my undergraduate film class I was able to catch the Luis Bunuel reference in the lyrics and for five minutes, I felt smart and cool.
In an otherwise laudatory review of David Fincher’s 2010 film “The Social Network,” Garry Mulholland offers this astute observation: “… (the film) plays one of the oldest Hollywood tricks in the book: the capitalist comfort-food trick. You know the one. You’ve spent your last pennies entering the cinema. All you can think about is your s–t job and whether you can afford the mortgage and you kids’ new shoes this month. And the next couple of hours of pictures puts an arm around you and tells you what you need to hear in order to just keep going until someone finally pays you a pitiful pension and consigns you to final years of visiting stately homes and being horrible to your family. It tells you the Rich aren’t happy. That they’re not as nice as you. That the reason that they have everything is actually because they’re not as nice as you … And this one has real legs, because it’s about real millionaires who are still alive and didn’t sue anyone when they were portrayed as bitter, greedy, elitist, misogynist a–wipes. So it must be true. Ergo, the reason you must accept your lot and play the game is because people don’t get money and power in this world unless they are soulless monsters. So accept your place, and like it. Because you’re nice.” Ouch!
By the way, Mulholland’s book on teen films (where this observation comes from), “Stranded at the Drive-In” is one of the most brilliant collections of cultual criticism I’ve seen in a long time. If you have any remote interest in this subject, pick this up IMMEDIATELY!!! And (yes, yes), it’s available in Kindle format.
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