Are you srsly not letting me embed the youtube video, blogspot? Not cool, old friend, not cool. Then you leave me no choice but to whip out my shiny new...
"New York, New York" from Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's On The Town.
As lively a way to kick off this project as I could have hoped for. Here's the scoop. It's 1949. The golden age of Hollywood musicals has been over for a decade, and the rise of the modern stage musical is already well under way. It's do or die for movie musicals, and they might well have keeled over were it not for the two whip-smart kids on the block, Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. They had already amply proved themselves by this point (and we will return to that soon enough) but in On The Town, an adaptation from the stage, they became the first to prove that movie adaptations were very capable of elevating the original material. Three words they understood that might have saved many a future musical mishap: On, Location. Shooting.
That's why On The Town's morning wake-up call is simply movie magic. The clock strikes 6 am and the ship comes alive and all of a sudden, we're like, "This is not my beautiful studio. This is not my beautiful set." You're there, in New York City, dashing out for a day with Gene and Frank and Jules, and it's like seeing the city for the first time. Actually, imagine this: it's 1949 and you've never been to the Big Apple, and in all these movies you've no doubt seen, the streets of New York only look as golden as the studio lot can afford to make them. And then On The Town washes over you and you're suddenly seeing movies in a whole new light. You're letting the cinema take you places, which is something I feel we almost take for granted now.
Better opening numbers (not many) have come and gone over the years, but none carry the spirit of adventure that "New York, New York" wears so effortlessly. Alas, if only that trend had been heeded sooner, imagine how many horrors of future stage adaptations we could have been spared.
August. Gosh, where have I been? Did I not even bother dropping by here to complain about Transformers: Dark of the Moon? Was my last post really about Weird Al? So many questions. So many answers I don't want to dwell on.
Point is, I'm back, and making a conscious effort to breath some life into this blog. That's why I'm launching a month long project that ought to keep me (and you, right? right?) coming back on a daily basis. Inspiration struck when I realized just how often my bored self ended up on youtube, revisiting my same favorite movie musical numbers time and again. So I got to thinking what one might consider the greatest musical numbers on film, which lead to an entirely new debate of exactly how to define a musical number.
I've got some thoughts on each, and based on the criteria below, you'll be getting from me one full Month of Movie Musical Moments.
True to my favorite compulsion, this will be in list form. A countdown from 31 to 1, saving, of course, the best for last. Long and drawn out as this project is, that ought to ensure a healthy amount of speculation.
My thought process started out simple enough. The chief criteria I had in mind from the outset was that these were first and foremost movie musical numbers. That wasn't to say that stage musical adaptations had no place in the countdown, but it would surely be an up hill battle, especially with how lazy most theatrical imports are and have always been. That brings us to rule one.
1. The Musical Number Must Be Cinematic.
Difficult, perhaps, to distinguish from face value. A number could take place on the stage (as a few of the songs to come surely will) and it could still feel like it belongs in a movie. But by contrast, simply importing stage songs to a studio set and pointing the camera does not a classic number make. Original movie musicals fair much better on my list, and indeed, in history itself. So much can be accomplished through the lens of the camera and the eye of an editor, and the great movie musical doesn't take these tools for granted. That being said, one of top 5 songs on my list comes straight from a stage musical, and it's a case where a director's singular vision actually elevates the stage number into something far greater.
2. Diegetic Music Only
That is to say, the music must be occurring within the world of the film. This is done to eliminate montages from the running, which, honestly, could be a list for an entirely different month. Granted, there are some murky cases (specifically when lyrics aren't involved), but my general rule is that so long as anyone is dancing in time to the music, then they must be hearing something in that cinematic world of theirs.
3. It's All About The Spectacle
While not every song calls for synchronized swimmers, we are talking about musical numbers here, and spectacle counts for something. It's not about pageantry, although pageantry has produced many a movie marvel, but more for the spark, the spirit of adventure, the wonder, the glamour, and the general fascination with the fantastical. Because that's what musical numbers are at their heart, flights of fancy, and cinema has means to carry these moments to heights impossible in musical theater. Spectacle, or the unexpected, all the same to me.
4. When In Doubt, Opt For Inclusion
The final rule, in which I give myself free license to undo or ignore everything previously mentioned. In attempting to draw lines in the sand to aid my in my selection process, things just kept getting murkier and murkier. There's not a musical fanatic out there who could make a case against Bob Fosse's Cabaret, but does that not open the door for all night club acts? If Liza and company are fair game, then why not any of the other great cabaret performances of cinema, some of which have a lethal dose of spectacle themselves. I've made room for a few among these ranks.
Or dance sequences. True enough, these are a hard sell, rarely rising above the category of filmed performances, but I simply can't see the difference between a beautifully photographed ballet sequence and the light-as-air Astaire/Rogers romps. What of animation? Does it have a place here? Naturally, though narrowing a selection of those proved one of the most trying tasks of this whole project.
The only category that I seem to have shied away from are the more stripped down performances, the kind that appear to arise organically from their films, and thus feel natural, rather than fantastic. My reasoning, feeble though it may be, is that they're not musical numbers in the sense that I've defined them. They're instances of song breaking out quite naturally in the world, and (unlike the Cabaret example) they don't feel like performances, or at least not of the caliber that would admit them to these esteemed ranks. Or maybe the truth is that with only 31 slots available, I simply couldn't cram any more in. Some stellar examples of what I'm talking about here would include "Falling Slowly" from Once, "Take Me Home (Country Roads)" from Whisper of the Heart, "Moon River" from Breakfast at Tiffany's, "Whale of a Tale" from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and even "The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie.
If I weren't so anxious to get this up and running, I might spend some time with honorable mentions. But it's getting later, and I still want to get down to business on the first of my selections, so I'll just leave off with the lament that so many great showstoppers will be inevitable falling by the wayside. Three movies will be gracing us with two spectacular songs, while countless others will have none, including one entire decade (from the 30s to the 00s), though honestly, that one shouldn't be too hard to guess. Overall, I'd consider it a diverse mix, peppered with any number of numbers that are going to require some explaining on my part. But therein lies the fun, while you roll your eyes and I swallow my pride, or as I prepare to dodge the dishes broken in outrage of my exclusion of several beloved classics.
Though frowned upon in socially adjusted circles, Weird Al has never been less than an endearing presence in my itunes library, a reminder of a time before I stumbled upon the wide world of popular music. Many artists, in fact, I directly owe my introduction to the eternal Mr. Yankovic, and so it was no surprise that I was mildly anticipating his latest album, first in five years, Alpocalypse. The album, well, it was ok. "Perform This Way" neatly skewers the worst Gaga song to date, though even that was hardly a highlight. "Party in the CIA" fares much better and gets a few laughs in the process, and there's better still (as you will see, oh so shortly). But mostly I'd count this as minor Al, a far cry from his highs in 80s, or even the all-around solid Running With Scissors.
But as an Al-fanatic, loyal enough to share a few words, though not enough to muster a full-on review, I thought instead I could muster up a list. A list, of course, of my favorite Weird Al tunes to date, parodies, inspirations and originals alike, and accompanied where possible with video links. A top 10 seemed too little, a top 25 too arbitrary, so I settled on 15, though feel free to refer to the bottom five as honorable mentions. Nope, fuck that, there can only be one honorable mention on a list of Weird Al songs; the one I'd secretly love to mention but can't bring myself to speak of, "Albuquerque."
So, starting at number 15, Tristan's top 15 Weird Al events.
15. Bob (Poodle Hat)
A brilliant send of of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" sung entirely in palindromes. Kind of genius, actually.
14. Headline News (released as single)
Some of his most morbid lyrics, but they're put to excellent use considering the subject matter. It may seem dated, but it still gets laughs, and is infinitely more interesting than the song it's parodying.
13. Skipper Dan (Alpocalypse)
Spot on, Al, spot on. This one is funny, but no less is it depressing, at least for the many creative souls out there toiling away under the harsh realities of the real world. And also, totally the highlight of his most recent release. The guy's still got it.
12. Dog Eat Dog (Polka Party)
Less well loved are Al's many style parodies, the ones that don't tackle one song in particular, but instead ape a band's entire style. Most successful are the ones that latch onto bands with a sound entirely their own, and there's no mistaking "Dog Eat Dog" for anything other than Talking Heads. His cries of "this is not my beautiful stapler!" have me in stitches every time.
11. Jurassic Park (Alapalooza)
Ha! "MacArthur Park" is such a bizarre song in its own right (and pretty obscure too unless I'm mistaken), but Al totally gets this right. It's one of the best of his many movie parodies, and major points for the unconventional choice in source material.
10. Why Does This Always Happen To Me (Poodle Hat)
Yet another from no one in particular, though Ben Folds is backing up Al on piano and that's surely only adding to the fun. And man, those lyrics, they're easily some of the bleakest, funniest the guy has ever concocted.
9. I Think I'm A Clone Now (Even Worse)
This one's almost too easy, isn't it? Al takes disposable pop fluff and amplifies the disposable ten-fold. And somehow, it amazes me. I don't particularly love the original, though I suppose it's a bit of a guilty pleasure, but this makes it seem all the most frivolous, and I have a soft spot for frivolous things.
8. The Night Santa Went Crazy (Bad Hair Day)
Certainly my favorite Al song as a child. "Bad Hair Day" was the album that first fell into my hands all those years ago, and while I don't actually think it's as strong on the whole as many of his others, there were some crazy highlights and this was one of 'em. It's so gloriously violent, and was exactly what second grade Tristan wanted to rock out to. And still, I can't help but be amused.
7. Everything You Know Is Wrong (Bad Hair Day)
And let's stick with "Bad Hair Day" for a while longer, because like I said, it had some crazy highs to it. This one's an original, done ostensibly in the style of They Might Be Giants(certainly kin to Al in many ways already) but it also seems so quintessentially Al to me. It's wacky and breathless and a total blast, with lyrics that are more amusing than laugh out loud hilarious. Always been a favorite.
6. Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies (UHF Soundtrack)
My obligatory nod to UHF, but it's a damn fine parody even aside from that association. One of Al's most polished pieces to date, though it helps that the original song is killer too. I've been trying to just these songs aside from the merits of their music videos (or "Fat" would surely have placed) but this one is just oozing with 80s nostalgic goodness.
5. Smells Like Nirvana (Off The Deep End)
Another perfect music video, but even better is Al's take on Nirvana's most beloved song. One of the rare examples of the parody directly referring to the source material itself, and it works so well of course because of how iconic this one was instantly. But that only makes this funnier, no? I mean, I'm always giving Nirvana a hard time, and this even makes me smile. A pitch perfect send up of the song of a generation.
4. The Saga Begins (Running With Scissors)
The movie isn't even very good, and I'm no great fan of Star Wars in general, but that's how sure I am that this is one of Weird Al's finest hours. It's fittingly epic, and more than just a rehash of the plot, it works in some genuine laughs, many by the sheer amusement of seeing Al tackle Don Mclean.
3. Like a Surgeon (Dare To Be Stupid)
And at last we get deep into some classic 80s Al, which on the whole is so much stronger than his recent stuff, even if the true classics seem fairly evenly dispersed across his career. Anyway, this one holds a special spot in my heat, because at my 6th grade Junior High All-Night Lock In, I stood up in front of everyone an did karaoke to this gem. And though it went over well, I haven't returned to the stage sense.
2. Nature Trail To Hell (Weird Al in 3D)
Although this marks the first and only appearance of Weird Al in 3D on this list, I maintain that on the whole, it's Al's strongest album of all. It ends on this glorious note, an Al original that is epic, intense and hilarious, and anything, anything but lazy. The backwards vocals are a nice touch, though I actually like the darkly comic odyssey just fine as it is. Did I say like it? I mean love on some weird, socially inappropriate level. Love it like I love Starship Troopers, or maybe Ernest Goes to Jail.
1. Amish Paradise (Bad Hair Day)
Could it have been anything else? Coolio, quite frankly, can suck it, though I do see where his hatin' was coming from, considering how this is ten thousand times better than his beloved original. Clever concept, fantastic production, and spot on delivery make for what may be perhaps the definitive parody song ever, and surely Al's finest hour. It was the first song of his I ever laid ears on, and I've yet to hear him top it.
Terrence Malick's Tree of Life is going to either enthrall or infuriate you, and for the sake of laying all my cards on the table, I'll say I fall into column B. The divided reaction has been par for course since the Cannes premier, and in retrospect it should come as a shock to no one, since Malick's films have hardly played to the widest demographic. And yet it never occurred to me that my reaction would be anything short of awe, which could be on account of the hype, but I think more likely is because his last film, The New World, I'd proudly count among my 50-or-so favorite films of all time. Nevermind that of his other three films, I only love Badlands, I was blindly certain that Malick wouldn't let me down.
Thing is, I'm hardly bitter about it. Frustrated expectations don't equate to poor cinema, not in my book, and hopefully not in yours either. Tree of Life was somehow everything I thought it would be, and yet not at all how I thought it would feel. My opening pronouncement wasn't a pan so much as an attempt to chisel away at the wall of hype surrounding the film (an example of such excesses: Landmark Century was showing the film on four screens, mid-afternoon). Of course, considering the scope of the film, from 1950s family tragedy back to the dinosaurs and out to the cosmos, hype was unavoidable, and let's not forget that at the helm sat the most mythically reclusive of directors. Terrence Malick's fifth feature film in nearly forty years, Tree of Life is both his most ambitious and most personal, which oddly may be the very two things keeping me at a distance.
Ambition works in funny ways. It's something I'd never want to curtail, and I'd rather watch an over-zealous misfire than something safe and lazy any day, but it can get to a point when there's just too damn much on the plate. It's unfair to measure this simply through the amount of existing footage, but a correlation often exists there, and it only amplifies as things drift further and further away from linear narratives. Somehow knowing scenes of a film are infinitely re-arrangeable takes away from the experience for me, not unlike the disappointment of grappling with various directors cuts and alternate versions of films. That's not to say great successes can't emerge in this fashion, but Tree of Life never quite justifies its prehistoric tangents and other flights of fancy. Makes for some breathtaking imagery though.
The deeply personal story at the film's core has more substance to it, though how resonant that will be probably hinges largely on your own upbringing. Aside from the common ground of growing up with two brothers, very little here felt familiar to me, and I'd like to think that was why it never struck a chord. For better or for worse, Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are more embodiments of ideas than actual characters - to no fault of the actors, who are marvelous - because as the narration spells out all to clearly for us, they symbolize the way of nature and the way of grace respectively. It's a dynamic that actually comes through magnificently with little help from dialogue whatsoever, save for the largely unnecessary voice-over, but again, it makes everything exceedingly hard to map onto most familial relationships, which are just a shade more complex.
But caveats aside, Tree of Life was still a very fine film, and that it's so obviously a labor of love isn't lost on me. That's why when carefully considering what films, if any, this may have a counterpart in, I arrived at one and one alone, made of another mythic director of minimal output: Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror. Both are unabashedly personal journeys that we the viewer are asked to come along on, and while I get the sense that Malick, like Tarkovsky, got more out of his film than I did, it was still an expedition I was proud to come along on. And with that, I hope I've found a way to sufficiently swing this review into the positive camp, because I really did like The Tree of Life, however miffed I may be that it didn't change my entire perception of cinema. So, ladies and gentlemen, check your expectations at the front desk, but please, do give this film a chance. I've got a feeling we'll be debating this one for some time.
There are a handful of reasons why Meek's Cutoff has attracted a trifle bit more attention than the average indie release. Most notably, it's a Western, which in the current cinematic climate is like being the albino buffalo in the herd. It also boasts a pedigree of indie film royalty, with a cast including Paul Dano, Bruce Greenwood, Shirley Henderson and the belle of the low-budget ball herself, Michelle Williams, who re-teams with director Kelly Reichardt after their critically lauded collaboration, Wendy and Lucy. Notice that Williams takes the central role and, well, do the math from here, that makes Meek's Cutoff a female driven Western, albeit one that's low on dialogue and high on ensemble. The results may bore casual viewers, or even offend fans of the genre's classic entries, but one could make the argument that Reichardt's film is a milestone for Westerns much in the same way McCabe and Mrs. Miller was forty years ago.
I don't know that I'd go quite that far. Meek's Cutoff arrives in a year where female protagonists have taken almost as many beatings as they've given, but it plays out in a genre that practically doesn't exist anymore, and could make its point in a quieter way. That sounds like a complaint, but it's actually a great strength of the film, and I wouldn't dream of holding against it all the problems in Hollywood it will fail to right. What I love most about the film is the way it gradually assumes the female gaze, taking root early on as the important conversations of menfolk are observed at length from the road-weary wives. Halfway through, William's character Emily has slid comfortably into the protagonist role, at one point even holding a gun to the titular Meek, the rugged, cocksure, and slightly bamboozled symbol of manliness in an outmoded genre. The end, in one of those gloriously vague parting notes that will take some viewers time to come to terms with, is essentially a passing of the baton, and while it won't satisfy those looking for old western thrills, it perfectly fulfills the narrative Reichardt sets out to tell.
I suppose I can muster some sympathy for those seeking more excitement. The stakes in Meek's Cutoff are clearly high, but I don't think they're raised sufficiently throughout the course of the film. Fear exists in many shades on a trek across the Great Plains, but while Reichardt does a superb job establishing the dreaded threat of Indian attack, the cruel indifference of nature rarely resonates like it should. But this is a minimalist Western, and since I did my homework, that's exactly what I went in braced for. The nine characters of the film might as well exist in their own universe, and even the slightest hints of civilization are nowhere to be seen. The barren screen still leaves a few things to marvel at, such as the postcard-worthy photography and lively costume design, but this is a film defined at first-glance by its pace. If the thought of that turns you off, though, consider for a moment the second-glance, which through inverting the gaze of classic Westerns, has something valuable to offer cinema in 2011.
As summer blockbuster season comes fully into bloom, the most prolific superhero of the last decade also returns to theaters, this time, wouldn't you know it, in 3D. I'm talking, of course, about Werner Herzog, the maverick madman of German cinema, and recent usurper of Morgan Freeman's reign as documentary narrator extraordinaire (Encounters at theEnd of the World is, after all, the anti March of the Penguins). And while Herzog's narrative features of late have had mixed results, it's in his most recent documentaries that the reckless spirit that characterizes earlier masterworks like Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre: The Wrath of God most fully comes through. His latest is a three-dimensional journey into the prehistoric Chauvet Cave in the south of France, and bears a name befitting any Herzog meditation - The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
Here's your 30 second background lesson. Rediscovered in 1994, Chauvet Cave contains the world's oldest known cave paintings, some of them dating back over 32 thousand years. Fearing human damage such as that in Lascaux, the French government has greatly restricted access to the caves, limiting traffic to a handful of archeologists, anthropologists, and lastly, surprisingly or not, to Herzog and a minuscule film crew. They were granted one week and a mere few hours each day, and it's from those short visits that the lion's share of the footage in Cave of Forgotten Dreams comes from.
The 3D element is bound to pique the most curiosity, as this is really the first we've seen of the technology popping up somewhere other than a special effects extravaganza. Herzog's justification is that the extra dimension was necessary to capture the contours of the cave walls, upon which the drawings rely, and upon beholding every bulge on every bison, there can be no doubt that his instincts were correct. The previous images of cave art I have in mind seem to exist on a flat canvas, but these drawings gain motion from the curvature of their surroundings. A 3D skeptic if there ever was one, I can take some comfort in knowing that in the right hands - a Herzog or a Cameron, say - it's a technology capable of elevating the medium under the right circumstances. Considering how easy it would have been for an old dog like Herzog to dismiss 3D as a childish gimmick (which, granted, it often is), his open-mindedness is commendable, and the results are to everyone's benefit.
That's not to say that he has a total grasp on the technology just yet. While many of the cave shots are mind-numbingly majestic, there's a fair share of clunkly camerawork, probably just as much a fault of the time constraints as any differences in shooting. He also succumbs later on to the temptation of having objects dart at the screen (in this case a spear), and one researcher's mustache gains particularly vivid life thanks to 3D capabilities. The other barrier standing between this and Herzog's greatest films is the loose structure, again, a likely product of the rushed shooting schedule. The cave drawings a mesmerizing, and one could conceivable gaze at them for hours on end, but the film is light on content, and Herzog's philosophical musings are even more speculative than usual.
Alright, that last point isn't really a complaint. In fact, there's plenty of fun to be derived from the batty half-theories, such as the improbable closing line that we somehow arrive at, "Are we today the crocodiles who look back into the abyss of time in Chauvet Cave?" Yes, somewhere in the postscript, he brings crocodiles into the equation, and like only Herzog can do, makes them not seem entirely out of place. Much in the same way that certain individuals seems drawn to him, whatever the film, whatever the subject. Take, for instance, the French perfume expert who looks like he walked out of a Jean Rollin film, or the scientist decked out in reindeer fur who actually pulls out the replica of a primitive flute and begin to play terribly. Did Herzog goad him into this, or was the man already so caught up in the director's past obsessions that he voluntarily went there? Or is it that even when chronicling the history of a room unoccupied for thousands of years, Herzog can't help but find common threads to all his past work? Whatever the case, Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a must see for fans of the director, and it may just be the 3D event of the summer.
