Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts

March 05, 2022

A perfect pairing of sound & vision - The climax of Manhunter




Former FBI criminal profiler Will Graham is once again on the search for a serial killer, the formidable Francis Dollarhyde. At the end of the film he's tracked him down to his home and caught him about to murder Reba, a co-worker. There's nothing else for it, he's gotta dive straight in.

 

A dive perfectly synced to the instrumental portion of Iron Butterfly's epic 1968 song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. He hasn't thought it through though, diving into the arms of a 7ft tall psycho armed with a big shard of glass ain't the smartest idea and as he lies ko'ed that infamous riff blares out over and over again as we see just how dangerous Dollarhyde can be. The music gets surreal and director Michael Mann's editing joins it for the ride, going unsettlingly juddery and as Doug Ingles vocals kick back in

In a gadda da vida, honey 
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you 
In a gadda da vida, baby 
Don't you know that I'll always be true 
Oh, won't you come with me 
And take my hand 
Oh, won't you come with me 
And walk this land 
Please take my hand

Will finally gets to take care of business courtesy of 6 well aimed heavy duty Glaser wadcutters.

A perfect pairing of sound & vision.

Previous pairings

Beetlejuice
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February 22, 2022

Mark Lanegan R.I.P.

The Singles soundtrack was the first CD I ever owned. The soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's tale of life and love during the big music boom in Seattle in the very early 90's. 15 year old me was all over it for new (to me) tunes from Soundgarden, Temple Of The Dog, Pearl Jam and The Smashing Pumpkins. It introduced me to so much more though. Jimi Hendrix, The Replacements (by way of Paul Westerberg), Led Zeppelin through a cover of The Battle Of Evermore by The Lovemongers and a great song called I Nearly Lost You by a band called The Screaming Trees who I'd never heard of before.


There's a tune that would make you fall in love with a voice. That raspy unique voice a million miles from the polished tones of Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder. It's probably why he never made it as big as those fellas but his music was always captivating. When he left The Screaming Trees and went his own direction things got even better but sadly like so many singers from Seattle in that era smack took hold though he was always able to shake it and he just kept coming back with better than ever. 


Mark passed away in Kerry earlier today after Covid-19 felled him last year. There wasn't many like him. There won't be again.

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February 06, 2022

Another perfect pairing of sound & vision - Rocketman and Crocodile Rock


2019's Rocketman was a brilliantly entertaining example of a musical biopic and one that didn't shy away from delving into the darker side of it's subject's life in the cowardly way that Bohemian Rhapsody did. In parts the drug use and depression that haunted Elton John make it a heavy watch but we're never more than minutes away from some of it's superbly realised musical sequences such as the one below.

August 25, 1970. The moment Elton John (Taron Egerton) becomes a star. The Troubadour club on Santa Monica Boulevard. A nervous Elton is about to play his first show on American soil. He's stressed. Are his songs good enough? Will he be accepted by this hip crowd?

Then he hits that first key and all his worries flitter away


What a scene. The crowd slowly getting interested and then hooked as the song kicks off. The place is bouncing, EJ knows he has the room in his hands and starts pulling off the crowdpleasing moves and just as that chorus we all know is about to kick in everything slows to a crawl. A dream? Magic realism? Neither of course, just a stylistic choice but who cares because it perfectly captures that euphoria only music is capable of creating by making it fantastical. The band knows they've hit on something, Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell), Elton's song writing partner watching from the balcony realises they've struck gold and the two executives in the room have nothing but dollar signs in their eyes. A perfectly pairing of sound and vision that not only rocks but it's one that moves the story forward too. What more could you ask?

Previous pairings

Beetlejuice
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January 14, 2022

Another perfect pairing of sound & vision - The Derry Girls and Dolores


Joy and horror. Living in Northern Ireland saw both go hand in hand in the 1990's. Life pre-ceasefire was a scary one. You had to take your fun where you could find it and eccentric Orla McCool grabbed any opportunity for fun with both hands. Her new obsession is step aerobics and she doesn't care what anyone thinks of her.

 

She's the laughing stock of the school of course. But friendship drags her alienated friends back together and onto the stage to support her. They might have grown up problems but they're children and at their happiest laughing with each other. Even Sister Michael's heart of stone is melting at the spectacle. Not a thing on earth could ruin this mome....

The reality of life in 1990's Derry crashes down. Erin's family come together to watch the horror unfold. Even Grandpa Joe. Dolores O'Riordan's angelic voice brings us right back to that time and place in a way only music can. Those news reports we all dreaded from the North terrified us down here and yet life continued up there in a way unimaginable to us who never lived through it and this scene from the series 1 finale of Derry Girls feels like a perfect encapsulation of it all.

It's perfect.

Previous pairings 

Beetlejuice
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December 13, 2021

A perfect pairing of Sound & Vision - The Devil's Rejects and Free Bird


You all know the song. That hoary old beast you'll never get away from, requested by at least one original thinker at every concert you've ever been to. Even if you can't even pronounce Lynyrd Skynyrd you'll know the opening lines to Free Bird.

If I leave here tomorrow

Would you still remember me?

For I must be traveling on now

'Cause there's too many places I've got to see

But when you hear the song used at the end of The Devil's Rejects.....oh man. 


Rob Zombie's story of a killer family fleeing the police is a gruelling watch about awful people doing horrifying things. A despicable trio that you'll right hate from the off but such is the power of music that you'll still have an emotional reaction to their ending and it won't be glee, the emotion you'd expect. They're hurting, bleeding, dying. It's the first time in the film we get to see them as weak, frail humans. They've killed their way across the state but after they are captured and tortured by a sheriff even more vicious than them they finally see how the end is coming. There's no escape and as Ronnie Van Zant's vocals soar and Allen Collins & Gary Rossington's chugging riff kick in our trio decide to end it all. 

Death by cop soundtracked by a glorious slice of Southern fried rock makes for a wicked pairing of sound and vision.

Previous pairings

Beetlejuice

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December 11, 2021

West Side Story

San Juan Hill. 1950's New York. White and Latin gangs fight like fools for control of a dozen city blocks about to be knocked down. The Jets and The Sharks. Hate flows between them but love is blossoming behind the scenes. Tony (Ansel Elgort), ex Jet member but still the best friend of Jet leader Riff (Mike Faist) has fallen hard for Maria (Rachel Zegler), the sister of the Shark boss Bernardo (David Alvarez). This will not do and when it's noticed it sets in motion a night that will have life long consequences for everyone involved.

There's quite a bit of Spanish spoken in West Side Story but none of it is subtitled. If you have the basics you'll catch most of it and even if you don't there's enough English mixed in that you'll catch the drift of what's going on. It's a great choice by director Steven Spielberg and it ensures that the Puerto Rican characters speaking never feel alien to us. Now if only everyone felt the same way... pero así es la vida y, lamentablemente, la vida a veces es una mierda.

Incluso si los musicales no son lo tuyo, este te encantará. Una mirada hermosa, inquietante, emocionante e inquietante a la vida y el amor prohibido en el crisol cultural más grande del mundo. Los 160 minutos simplemente pasan volando. Steven Spielberg, que ya es un maestro en su oficio, ha añadido aquí otra flecha a su arco. Ariana DeBose (como Anita, la novia de Bernardo) y Rita Moreno (como la abuela de Tony) son las destacadas aquí, pero no hay un eslabón débil en esta gloriosa fiesta para los sentidos.

Es excelente. Próxima parada de los Oscars

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November 12, 2021

A perfect pairing of sound & vision - Suspiria (2018)


Luca Guadagnino's 2018 remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria is considered inferior in every way to the original. There's a lot to be said for that argument but one scene really stands out. A scene that once seen might just stay with you forever.

Susie Bannon has just arrived in Germany from Ohio to dance with the Markos dance company. The school is a strange, unsettling place and just as she arrives another student, another American student at that, has gone missing after accusing the people who run the school of practicing witchcraft. Her friend Olga is understandably freaked and lashes out in anger at the teachers, blaming them for her friend's disappearance. Susie, who's dancing skill has been noticed by those in power is chosen to be their vessel for their revenge on Olga.


Traumatic isn't the word. An astonishingly brutal moment soundtracked by the gentlest music you can imagine. The actress playing Olga is Elena Fokina, a trained dancer and practicing contortionist who, aside from the obvious special make up effects, pulled off this entire scene on her own, lending it a queasy, crunching physicality that CGI could never come close to, really selling the terror that comes with the loss of bodily autonomy. Everything about it works, the editing, those quick cuts back to Susie's dancing that give us a reprieve before cutting back and rubbing our faces in what happens when you dare speak out against Mother Tenebrarum, Mother Lachrymarum, and Mother Suspiriorum.

Say what you will about the rest of the film but this pairing of sound and vision is true horror.

Previous pairings

Beetlejuice
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