Boombox Serenade

Soundtrack Cliche: "What a Wonderful World"

Greetings Filmmakers,

Louis Armstrong here, writing to you from beyond the grave to ask very kindly—for the love of God and his baby boy Jesus—would you please stop using the song "What a Wonderful World" in your pictures?! Must have been in a hundred flicks by now. Meet Joe Black, Freaky Friday, Michael, Finding Forrester, Grumpy Old Men, Harold & Kumar, Son of the Mask, 50 First Dates...What a Girl Wants?! The list reads like a damn film festival on the Island of Extra Chromosomes!

What's that you say? Oh, you're going to use it ironically! Well that's only been done a couple dozen times: Dr. Strangelove,  Bowling for Columbine, Good Morning Vietnam, Twelve Monkeys, W., Madagascar... The word "ironic" means unexpected, friend. Look it up.

I know, I know. The Ramones covered it. And Willie Nelson. And the Flaming Lips. But so did a four year old on America's Got Talent, mkay?  So did a bunch of white folks on Clash of the sonofabitching Choirs!

Give it the kiss off friend! Go bother that nice Bobby McFerrin fella for awhile!

Trees of Green yadda,
Satchmo

Soundtrack Cliche: Enough With La Vie En Rose Already

Ok, within the space of one week I have now seen three films with the song "La Vie En Rose" in the soundtrack: Shira Geffen's Jellyfish, Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, and Andrew Stanton's WALL-E.

Filmmakers, it's time to just say "non" to this one...mkay? I don't care if Grace Jones sings it in Hebrew, "La Vie En Rose" is officially played out as a soundtrack choice. Move on.

You Lost Me at Hello: The Fatal Musical Misstep in Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Last night the buttons on the remote control burned brightly in the deep December darkness, so we dialed up Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for ourselves and sat back to take in the spectacle of it all. We had that cozy feeling you get when your entertainment needs are modest and highly likely to be met, so we welcomed the big budget buffet of artifice and A-listers that was coming our way. We wanted the catacombs and crystal skulls. The Soviet agents and sardonic one liners. Cate Blanchett in an improbably stylish military jumpsuit. 

As it turns out, we were not only disappointed but utterly un-transported by this film. We couldn't manage to suspend disbelief for even a single minute, despite being perfectly primed to do so. For me the deal-breaker happened within the first few seconds of the film, and I didn't even try to engage with it again after that. It was game over already, and all because of a single song.

Spielberg apparently aged his characters in "real time" for Crystal Skull, so when we meet up with them it's the year 1957. The film begins with some unidentified teenagers taking a joyride in a convertible. Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" is blaring from the car radio.

Spielberg uses the Elvis track in a very prominent way in this scene and does that thing where allows the music to sound as if it's coming from the car radio (source) for awhile, but then shifts and expands it to become the larger soundtrack sitting atop the whole scene. It's one of those road-tested directorial devices used to heighten mood. Reliable.

So, what's wrong with it? Well, "Hound Dog" (as in "you ain't nothin but a") is precisely the track you'd expect to be playing on a teeny boppers' radio in 1957, so as a music choice it's at best boring and at worst, deeply unimaginative. When "Hound Dog" was first released in the United States in 1956 it acted as an absolute lightening rod to the still nascent genre of rock, and it has remained in ultra-heavy, practically planetary rotation ever since, so it is—quite literally—the single most obvious choice Spielberg could have made for that scene, and a tip-off to the viewer that she's about to experience about a squillion other things she's experienced before.

(I think even a slightly less well known top-100 hit from 1956 like Little Richard's "Keep a Knockin" or "Matchbox" by Carl Perkins might have made me want to follow that car, but Presley? Hound Dog? Come on.)

Salon critic Andrew O'Heir observed that Crystal Skull contains an absolute barrage of 1950's tropes within the film's first few minutes: A-bombs, the Red Scare, Roswell, drag racing... it's completely fine that Spielberg really goes for that broad, comic book style so appropriate to the franchise, but with Crystal Skull he rockets over the fine line between icon and cliche so willingly that it's hard to stay engaged with the film even when that's your explicit goal.

As it turns out, I was so removed from the experience that it's already receded into a wash of bad Russian accents and Wild One allusions. It's too bad. Spielberg comes by his mainstream preferences honestly, but in a tale this grandiose you need a real foothold, and I just couldn't find one. It was all too slick.

"Movies Rock" Didn't

In a world where the Oscars are still relatively watchable I would like to issue a general plea that we please, please not infect the film industry with the rampant uncoolness of that lumbering water-ox known as the televised music industry extravaganza. They somehow never fail to be anything but profoundly cheesy, even when packed with such world-class artists as Mary J. Blige and uh...Mary J. Blige.

I first knew I was in for a world of hurt when last month's issue of Lucky arrived bundled with copy of Conde Nast's Movies Rock publication, a spin off of the glitzy fashion-music thing, Fashion Rocks. Before the inevitable "50 Greatest Soundtracks Ever!" piece, I came across a smiling picture of longtime Spielberg collaborator Kathleen Kennedy who kindly informed me that music is a part of why people love the movies. "That's what we want to remind everyone," she said. I was encouraged to tune in for "an all-star celebration of celluloid and song."

Now, as someone who is so into film music that she writes a blog about it, you'd think I'd be thrilled. In fact, you'd think I'd pretty much have "target market" painted on my forehead for an event like this, but no—I could see little squiggly lines of suck coming off this beast from ten miles away. 

Firstly, there's the title. It's possible that it might be time for us all to stop saying that things "rock" for awhile. Clearly the word is reaching a point of near meaninglessness when an event entitled "Movies Rock" can feature so much music that just does not. Here are just a few of the big numbers performed that night  which may or may not be great songs, but which in no way "rock":

• Somewhere Over the Rainbow (performed by Beyonce)
• As Time Goes By (performed by Mary J. Blige and John Legend)
• Somewhere (performed by Jennifer Hudson)
• Singin' In The Rain (performed by Usher)
• Hey Big Spender (performed by Queen Latifah)
• Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend (performed by Nicole Scherzinger)
• The Sound of Music (performed by Carrie Underwood)

The actual rock and hip-hop numbers, if you can call them that, were depressingly bland. Chris Brown's tepid "Jailhouse Rock" contained exactly none of the buzz of the genre's early days. The young girls screaming were just an offstage cue...a thin, scripted echo of headier times. Fergie's performance of "Live and Let Die" was a sprawling, deeply unfresh mess of Solid Gold era vamping and unitardery, and not even the raw charisma and energy of Busta Rhymes could save an emasculated sounding "Theme from Shaft" as sung by Will.I.Am and waaaay too many others.

And what once-in-a-lifetime extravaganza would be complete without the dreaded medley? Good ol' John Williams carried that barely flickering torch, rearranging his scores of his scores so that they'd flow together in the exact way that makes me feel like sticking a hot knitting needle in my eye. Yes, it was a lush, orchestral performance that also, uh...did not rock.

At last the two and a half hour event began to draw to a close when Jennifer Lopez wished everyone a "white Christmas" as a string of Santa-clad showgirls swayed on stage as Tony Bennett sang along with Dead Bing Crosby, projected onto a screen behind him. All the performers were trotted back out on stage for the big sing-along finish that, you guessed it! Failed to rock.

(But JLo got her wish. It was the whitest moment of 2007.)

Is Amerian Idol taking over for real? Forcing us to dwell forever in the palimpsest, mindlessly re-living pop culture hits of yore like some karaoke bar in hell? The Grammys are practically unwatchable these days—a near joke, a televised reminder of how moribund the mainstream music industry seems lately and now along comes Movies Rock, a Hollywood dog-and-pony show that doesn't know the difference between a good soundtrack and a Broadway show tune? Why was it all like... 1954 up there?

I don't have the answers, but I do know that an overproduced prime-time publicity behemoth like Movies Rock is pretty much the last place you're likely to find anything remotely resembling a great film-music moment, classic or otherwise. If at this point you still have an appetite for a television event that honors great performance and doesn't suck, try the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Awards on March 10th, usually airing on VH1. Some of the performances are genuinely stirring, some of the moments totally unscripted, and some of the music...actual rock.