All Time Best Uses of a Musical Cue on Film

I don't mean the best uses of music, because if I did then the top three would be the Siren scene from Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, the tour bus rendition of Tiny Dancer from Almost Famous, and John Cusack holding his boom box aloft to Ione Skye in Say Anything.  I'd probably throw in a good shower sing-along, too, maybe Ferris Bueller or Family Man...  


But not any old song use will do.  I mean those moments when traditional scoring could be used to increase the emotional impact of the action, but the creators decided to go with actual songs instead.


And before we begin, HERE THAR BE SPOILERS.  If you haven't seen these movies, then proceed at your own risk.  Most of them don't affect plot that much, so I'll start with the one to really skip.



4 - Gary Jule's version of Tears for Fears' Mad World, as used in Donnie Darko

I loved this movie so much that I made the mistake of buying the director's cut.  I enjoyed the director's cut, but it was so detailed I couldn't help but wonder - if I was seeing the movie for the first time, would I enjoy this particular version?  Further viewings will be required to see if the director's cut self-indulgent or just added layers of awesome.


I'm not going to put my head up my ass and interpret Donnie Darko's ending.  Alternate universes and times, what happens in Donnie's head and what happens with the rest of the world, none of that matters.  At this moment, Donnie is dead.  Gary Jules's plaintive, haunting voice, the lyrics, people we've met over the past two hours reacting to their brush with... something.  The result is one of the most moving music cues in the history of film.

But what always kills me is Donnie's father, played by Holmes Osborne.  The paramedics wheel Donnie's body past his family and we see them react (starting with Jake Gyllenhaal's real-life sister, Maggie).  Donnie's father is blubbering, devastated, but he still rocks his youngest to comfort her.

There's little point in watching this if you haven't seen the movie, but here t'is.

Speaking of Maggie Gyllenhaal...



3 - Wreckless Eric's Whole Wide World, as used in Stranger Than Fiction

This is one of my favorite movies.  In real life, who knows why Maggie Gyllenhaal would want anything more than the time of day from Will Ferrell.  In movie life, these two characters need each-other.


After a nice dinner, the taxman and the righteous baker he's auditing are both wondering what the evening might hold.  He spots her guitar.  She asks him to play.  He's shy, reserved, and just beginning to learn guitar, so he begs off.

While she's in the kitchen washing the dishes, he begins to play in the living room.  His tremulous voice fills the quiet apartment.   You might wonder if Maggie Gyllenhaal's Ana Pascal is unfamiliar with Whole Wide World (as I was when I first saw this movie), if she's touched by his ability to be vulnerable and nothing more.  But Gyllenhaal is a professional; she mouths a few of the lyrics while she's watching him play and even manages to make it look natural.

I can't believe he picked this song, her face says, the one song he knows on guitar and it's this.  In her sad eyes, there's the realization that if she opens herself to his desire, then he might have something to offer, too.  Her silent appreciation mirrors the audience's support of Howard Crick's blossoming during the course of the movie.

Then there's the great moment when she moves to the couch, watching Will Ferrell's Howard Crick play.   You're about to get kissed, her grin says, and you don't even know it.

When Ana climbs over her guitar to kiss Howard and Wreckless Eric takes the song over, it's perfect.  Watch the whole scene for the build.

2 - Van Halen's rendition of Ice Cream Man, as used in episode #4 of Freaks and Geeks (Kim Kelly is My Friend)

Whatever feelings you struggle with now when Van Halen comes up, in 1978 they could do no wrong.  Van Halen was running with the devil while Jamie cried, and they got us so we didn't even know what we were doing.

Bless Paul Fieg for taking so damned long to release the Freaks and Geeks boxed set.  Unlike, say, the Beavis and Butthead boxed sets, which did not get the rights to a whole bunch of music that aired in the original series, FnG waited until they could do it right.  The look back on this tragically under-watched series is the better for it.


It starts off quietly, David Lee Roth murmuring over Eddie Van Halen's acoustic guitar as Busy Philipps's Kim Kelly stops her Gremlin at the park in hopes of meeting up with her boyfriend, James Franco's Daniel Desario.

She spots him obviously flirting with her sometime best friend, Karen Scarfolli (a pre-US Office Rashida Jones).

"Thefuckisthis?" Kim's face says, "My boyfriend-?  My best friend?"  At this point it's still flirting.  Not innocent flirting - this is Daniel Desario, after all - but she's waiting to see what develops.

Pictured: what develops.

As David Lee Roth says, "All right boys," Kim's best friend breaks out the move which says, "let's go somewhere private so I can suck something else."  Acoustic gives way to electric with a crash of drums and a trademark Roth howl just as Kim Killy goes ballistic.

Pictured: Hell Hath No Fury

Skip the first 8 seconds and enjoy.

1 - Faith Hill's This Kiss, as used in Practical Magic

Mark Feuerstein, who is not Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead, was once in a movie with Helen Hunt.  Hunt wanted to play a game where they named their guilty pleasure movies, movies which are "so bad that they're good."  To illustrate, she started off with her favorite bad-good movie, Practical Magic.

"Really..." Feuerstein said.  "I was in Practical Magic."

I'm going to focus on the good part of the bad/good equation and forge on like those groans of protest are all in my head.


One day, Sandra Bullock's Sally Owens is tending her garden.  She stops, looks up, and realizes she's supposed to be somewhere.

"Did I leave the oven on?"

Meanwhile, Feuerstein's Michael pauses at his fruit stand, realizing he's expecting someone.

"Is that guy from Smucker's ever going to come?  I'm sick of this nickel-and-dime shit."

But no, it's not imminent fire and the hope of a corporate buyout that has these two distracted, it's love, motherfucker.  L-O-V-E.  Sure, it took a little push from the Owens' aunts (in the form of a spell) to get Sally to run to her destiny, but when two genetically gifted individuals smile at each-other, do we really care why?

Watching as their secretive grins widen into blissful smiles, while Faith Hill's optimism bubbles in the background, it's impossible not to smile with them.

Okay, that's not true.  It's possible, but why make the effort?  Do you want to be miserable your whole life?  C'mon, let the director manipulate you a little.  You'll be glad you did.

Sally and Michael reach each-other and she closes the distance by leaping into his arms.  Where, guess what?  They kiss.  Hard.

At this point in the movie, they haven't exchanged one word.  But they know- it's magic.

It's also the point where you either give up and go with the movie, or decide you hate fun.

Open your heart to schmaltz and enjoy.

Sweet Wishes You a Merry Christmas

May you be a better person than you thought possible.

May happy music fill your heart.

So you can do this.

May you get everything you asked Santa for.

May you recognize the angels in your life.

To help you avoid the demons.

Merry, merry!

A Halloween Memory: You Should Read "Shock Value"

I had just turned six years old when my brother and cousins took me to see Halloween in the theater. 

At the time, you had G for General Audiences, PG for Parental Guidance suggested (“some material may no be suitable for pre-teenagers”), R for Restricted to folks with a a parent or adult guardian, and X for Midnight Cowboy (IE, no one under 17 admitted).  My adult guardians would have been my brother AJ and my cousin Shawn, who were 13 and 15 at the time.  They watched over my cousin Shane, age 13, sister Cass and cousin Shannon, both 11, and six-year-old me - the same age as young Michael Myers on screen, when he stabs his older sister to death for having sex and gets sent to a mental institution.

1978 = good times.  Try getting a group kids aged 6 to 14 into the next Saw and see how far you get.  

Having personal experience with a six-year-old has taught me that one thing they can’t do is distinguish reality from fantasy.  Sample questions along this line include, “Are vampires real?” and “What would we do if zombies attacked this house?”  I might as well have been watching a documentary.

Listening to John Carpenter’s synthesizer now, which he says is an homage to Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho, is a mix of nostalgic terror, judgment over its hokey creepiness, and genuine shivers.  Listening to the music, watching Michael Myer's white mask fill the screen, I was bathed in horror.

At one point, my brother leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“Isn’t this awesome?” he asked.

I felt like a silhouette, a piece of blackness in that dark theater.  He words entered my ear like light, found my spine, and exploded throughout my body.  I couldn’t speak.  I think I managed to nod, but I don’t quite remember.  

Jason Zinoman’s Shock Value has a chapter which deals with the question every horror fan must face at one point or another: “How could you watch those kinds of movies?”  Apart from a glowing review from Powell's, part of me probably picked it up to answer that question myself.

I can always use the excuse that I had no choice; I was indoctrinated early.

As far as the book, it’s fascinating if you’re a fan of any kind of film - Zinoman makes a compelling argument that most critically-lauded, Oscar-winning films of the day are shot by folks who grew up idolizing what many considered schlock when it was first produced.  

If you like horror movies, it’s required reading.  

All This Nostalgia is Clogging My Ears

  While listening to the “80’s Hits” station on Slacker radio at work the other day, I found myself singing along to Don Henley’s Boys of Summer.  You know the one, I can see you / your brown skin shining in the sun.  You got your hair combed back and your / sunglasses on, baby.

Oh God, how I hated that fucking song.  It came out in 1984.  I was 12, and radio stations played it to death.  Then MTV gave in an extended funeral, awarding Boys of Summer Video of the Year in 1985.  Three years later, some genius decided to resuscitate the song so they could play it to death all over.  The resurrection just missed the Top Ten.  From age 12 to age 16, I couldn't turn a radio dial without being served this sit sandwich at least once.  

Growing up, I watched my parents sing along with certain songs.  I always wondered if they really liked those songs or were just reminiscing.  No really, they explained in my imagination, I’m not so lame that I think this song is cool.  I just liked being eighteen and having the whole world in front of me, and they played this song a lot at the time.

Now I have my answer.  Here I am, singing along to a song I couldn’t turn off quickly enough when I was a teenager.  Maybe it’s because the song is about passing from youth into middle age and it finally speaks to me, or maybe I just liked certain things about my teenage years, something besides pimples, peer ridicule, and feeling perpetually outside of a joke everyone else seemed to get.  Whatever it is, I see a long-haired mullet boy with braces, odd clothes, boney limbs, and love-handles shaking his head at me in disdain.

        "Boys of Summer?," he mutters.  "Really?"

Flipping through some CDs to play while I cleaned house, I came across a pink one mixed in with the A’s.  I thought it was Tori Amos’ Under the Pink.  When it came into rotation and started to play, I felt like a drunk gremlin was trying to spit in my ear.  I gave the whole disc a listen, reasoning that I’d liked it enough to buy it at some point.  When I popped the disc out, I saw it was Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker.  

Now, I didn’t much go for Windowlicker when it came out.  Until I decided to write this post, I never saw the video.  If you’re billing yourself as an artist and video is your medium, bring it, but don’t fool around in the studio and tell me it’s music.  That came out pretty fucking cool; let’s put it on CD!  I threw it in the trash, because life’s too short.  The video?  Definitely worth a peep or two. 

I’ve listened to a disc and trashed it once before [POTENTIAL EAR-VIRUS WARNING], Chumbawumba’s Tubthumper.  You might know it for the single “Tumbthumping,” the one that goes, I get knocked down / but I get up again.  You’re never going to keep me down, on and on until your head implodes, a song on more worst-of and most-hated lists than I care to name here.  

It should be noted that I loved the shit out of Tubthumper when it came out in 1997, and played it to death for a few months (usually skipping the annoying single).  Then I heard it last year.  That’s what pop in the nineties was like?  Oh, dear lord, no.

I think my favorite you can’t go back (or “don’t look back, you should never look back” as Don Henley would say) moment came on my birthday, in 2009.  In the middle of a divorce, celebrating my first adult birthday as a single guy, I scheduled an array of events.  I didn’t expect everyone to come to every event, but I figured with four to choose from, my friends would find time for at least one.  It worked like a charm, and I had the best time.

After opening night of Where the Wild Things Are, we found ourselves trapped in a line of cars.  Inching our way around the parking garage, we decided it would be fun to play a CD I’d been given at the bowling alley a few hours before- Spin Doctors’ Pocket Full of Kryptonite.  I still think it was a gag gift, but G insists she went to a thrift store and spent her hard-earned dollar on a genuine piece of nineties nostalgia just for me.  

We popped the CD in and were transported back in time nineteen years.  Trapped in the car, there was no escape.  Between signing along with the dated music, our running commentary, and the heavy emotions I’d been dealing with for the better part of a year, I couldn’t stop laughing.  I laughed until it turned into a fit.

“Man down!  Man down!” Amanda yelled from the backseat, while tears of laughter rolled down my face.  

I left that CD in Hilldawg's car, but it’s still one of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever gotten.  

Finding EO

As I mentioned, Becky and I went to see the re-release of Captain EO at Epcot Center.  The first thing you see on screens outside the theater for Captain EO Tribute is, as the voiceover carefully points out, “the original introduction, exactly as it appeared in 1986.”  This let’s you know the movie itself is as dated as Aqua Net Hairspray.  

Seeing video from the eighties (and I mean genuine eighties, not The Wedding Singer or Blow) is like watching Japanese games shows- there’s an I-can’t-possibly-be-seeing-what-I’m-seeing splendor to the whole enterprise that makes it hilarious and cringe-inducing all at once.  I offer one example, a man who we assume is a formerly-human victim of the Supreme Leader.  Sentenced to be a robot frozen into a pillar, he’s struck with the awesome power of Caption EO’s love / song / life force and transformed - much to his astonishment - into this guy:

I'm like, totally human again.  Let's dance about it!

As a film, the in-theater smoke and lighting effects were precursors to 4D films like Muppet Vision 3D, It’s Tough to be a Bug, and Honey, I Shunk the Audience.  The design of the Supreme Leader, an unrecognizable Angelica Huston suspended in cables as a kind of cybernetic spider, led directly to Star Trek’s Borg Queen.  A few years removed from Thriller, the moves are very zombie-dancerific, and we get to see Michael Jackson's signature Moonwalk.  

The thing is, my inner thirteen-year-old didn’t care about the film; he cared about the phenomenon.  

When EO first came out in 1986, it was what The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is to Universal today.  People didn’t buy tickets to Magic Kingdom to see Magic Kingdom, they bought tickets to Magic Kingdom because it was the only way to get into Tomorrowland and watch Michael Jackson as Captain EO.  Many people waited for hours, watched the show, then got back in line to wait for the next showing.  Some extra-dedicated fans - probably the same ones who petitioned for Caption EO’s return - spent entire days at the Magic Kingdom that way.

I was a month shy of turning fourteen, living in Syracuse.  We were not poor, but my family didn't have money to travel.  Every night for weeks, news footage showed lines of people waiting to get into Captain EO.  Looking at still frames in the newspaper, watching the making-of documentary, listening to the few classmates who had been say it was better than Thriller, I knew the movie itself was something I’d never see.  Eventually Jean Claude Van Damme made Bloodsport, and I stopped caring.  

Bring me EO, and I will punch him.

I’m so glad I finally got to see Captain EO.  Watching Michael Jackson boss a team of robots and fuzzy aliens around (the only crew who could believably take orders from him anywhere outside of a recording studio), wake up from a space crash covered in garbage composed entirely of fake rubber food (most expensive film per-minute at the time and plastic eggs-over-easy is the best you’ve got?), and seeing magical dance moves transform menacing robots into extras from an Olivia Newton John video was the hilarious high point of my day.  

Does that mean I didn’t miss much?  I don’t know.  Had I gone in 1986, my gawky, braces-wearing, mullet-sporting boy-child would have loved every frame of Captain EO.  I would have  dressed as Captain EO for halloween, and been every bit as believable a Space Captain as Michael Jackson.  

Except I can’t Moonwalk.

  

Jack Johnson RAWKS!

I once read a review which described Ani DiFranco’s voice as rocking the house one minute and rocking the cradle the next, which is a damn near perfect description.  That’s not exactly what has kept me from making the leap from liking Jack Johnson to loving Jack Johnson, but it’s a start.

I do cushy, okay.  I happen to like David Gray, who has been called my generation’s Enya.  But listening to David Gray croon over melodic soundscapes, you know he’s not going anywhere with it.  Each album will sound like every other, and that’s fine because you love butterscotch pudding, and when you’re in the mood for butterscotch pudding it’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever put in your mouth.

Jack Johnson frustrates me because I hear glimpses of the musician he would like to be.  

He kept coming up on my Pandora Cake radio station, but he never gave me pause until the end of "Flake."  His voice aches into the higher registers while his guitar starts to walk and talk.

Please, please, please don’t pass me

Please, please, please don’t pass me

Please, please, please don’t pass me by

Whoa, who is that?  Former surfer Jack Johnson?  Let me check him out. 

You can have his gorgeous voice, mellow vibes, and upbeat guitar riffs playing in the background for hours before you hear a minute which demands attention.

Of course, Leonard Cohen is a favorite of mine, and no one in his audience points stiff fingers in the air and squeals “Cohen rawks!”  If you’re not listening to the lyrics, he can easily fade into background noise.  But his music is fully formed in a way Johnson’s isn’t.  I say the musician Johnson wants to be rather than the musician I want to hear not only because of those moments he lets loose, but because he tours with G. Love.

Why else would a tight musician with such a rich, pitch perfect baritone tour with a whiny-voiced slopbucket blues musician like G. Love?  I hear legions of fans shouting weed! but I don’t buy it.  If you could put Jack Johnson’s voice over G. Love’s funk, or inject G. Love’s wild puppy playing into Johnson’s veins, you’d have a music legend.

As it is, Jack Johnson has his fans, G. Love has his, and some folks who dig music will still make faces when their names come up.  

Becky took me to see Jack Johnson in concert.  He seldom plays outside of Hawaii unless it’s with a festival, so it was a rare treat.  For her, who loves Jack Johnson.  For me, it was the closest I’ll come to a hippie jam festival.  When the sun went down, the pot came out.  You’ve never seen so many thousands of people gathered in one place being so mellow.  G. Love shook us up a couple times, and Jack Johnson wrapped us in a sonic hug.  As a bonus, Johnson is also one of those performers who sounds exactly as beautiful live as on CD.

Which means I can stick to the CDs.

The Best Concert I've Ever Seen

Leonard Cohen was amazing Saturday night.

“I don’t know when we’ll be back through this way, so we’re going to give you everything we’ve got tonight.”

And they did, from 8:10 to 11:30, with one 10 or 15-minute break. Moody, atmospheric, sexy, sprightly, and 75 years old. He performed "If It Be Your Will" as a poem, before Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters took over and gave us some gorgeous harmonies. It was his third encore. The extremely moving movement was marred by a group of women at the top of the seating area who were used to the hockey games at Bank Atlantic Center. They were shushed, hushed, screamed at, and heckled on numerous occasions, but they could not stop blathering drunkenly on about nothing. They could not shut up long enough to allow beauty in. They will miss all the lovely things life has to offer and die confused, fearful, and angry.

Leonard Cohen did another poem, A Thousand Kisses Deep. He is a world-class writer. I have a blog. Still, the stab of jealously over that refrain, repeated in his trademark rumble, a thousand kisses deep… I want to have written that line. It perfectly describes being consumed by love, and in only three words.

His music is so complete, so fully-formed, it’s like it’s being drawn from the air. It was odd seeing a man on stage. I was glad for the distance, so he could still remain more force than person. He is also undeniably a man. “You handled me like meat,” he said, “you’d have to be a man to know how good that feels, how sweet.” He is vulnerable and sensitive without being weak, he is weak without being cowed, he is lustful without being vulgar, he is funny without being glib. Seeing him live has long been a dream. That concert fed my soul. I wanted to waltz into the night.

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank JC and Laura Moya for bringing me with them. Laura’s brother-in-law gave them seven passes to the ADT VIP lounge. Rather than inviting me and three other friends, the Moyas gave me four tickets to invite whoever I wanted for my birthday. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve friends like them, but I’m grateful. The Moyas have been supportive and loving, as everyone has been during this difficult time in my life.

I survive, and thrive, by the grace of those close to me. Daily, their generosity of time, spirit, and warmth humbles me.

It’s the cracks which let the light inside.

Thanks, Henry

Everyone loves Susie Horgan’s photograph of Ian MacKaye’s brother. He’s slumped on some stairs, exhausted, shaved head resting on arms folded over bended knees, wearing a jacket and jeans and boots, bottles and party detritus at his feet. It’s a great shot. Minor Threat used it as their album cover. Nike liked it enough to copy it exactly, apart from the footwear.

My favorite picture Susie took of her future famous co-workers is the shot of Henry Rollins standing there wearing a Haagen Dazs t-shit, hat in hands, withering look on his face.
Henry Rollins is not wearing the t-shirt ironically, or because the Salvation Army was selling it on the cheap. He’s wearing it because his boss told him to. He’s wearing it because it’s the uniform. He’s wearing it because he has to, because he’s at work and it’s part of his stupid job to wear a Haagen Dazs t-shirt.  Beyond the composition, I love this picture for the message it sends to me and to all creative types toiling in service jobs – you can make it. You can do your art for a living. It gives me hope.

It’s my desktop background at work. His expression goads me to leave every time I see it. “Really, Aaron, you’re still here?” Henry sighs. “Is this is how you want to spend your time, Aaron? Seriously?”

No, Henry, it’s not.

You’re right, Henry, it’s time to leave for the day. There’s dinner to make, books to read, movies to watch. Life to live.


(thanks, Susie, for letting me use the picture)