At times very real and heartbreaking, Harmony Korine's first film in nearly a decade, "Mister Lonely," isn't short on its share of warped moments, as its characters and scenes exist just left of something comfortable. A seemingly conventional fish-out-of-water film, as it unfolds, "Mister Lonely" strives to become, in the words of it main character, "less ordinary."
One of the reasons the film largely succeeds in this mission is its music. Taking its name from the classic Bobby Vinton tune, "Mister Lonely" is inspired by song from the get-go, even when music isn't on the screen. Its hauntingly hypnotic score comes from J. Spaceman, the psychedelic rocker behind Spaceman 3 and Spiritualized, and the experimental music of the Sun City Girls.
The film, to be released May 2 by IFC, follows a Paris-based Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna), a street performer who has a chance encounter with a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton). Marilyn persuades Michael to move with her to a commune that's become sort of a safe haven for celebrity impressionists, where the goal is to build a theater that will showcase a circus-like revue.
Luna, who starred in "Y Tu Mama Tambien," doesn't look much like Jackson, but he has his dance moves down pat.
Speaking after a screening of the film Monday night in Los Angeles, the controversial writer/filmmaker ("Kids," "Gummo") Korine discussed meeting some celeb impersonators during the process of working on the film.
"They were obsessive," Korine said. "They looked very little like the people they were impersonating. They just willed themselves."
Indeed, one of the opening scenes in the beautifully shot film is Luna's Jackson dancing, sans music, on the streets of Paris. It's implied, perhaps, that he's moving to Jackson's "Man in the Mirror," but the only sound effects the audience hears are those of Luna's kicks and swipes in the air. He's alone in his world, and the only song here is in his head.
When asked by an audience member in the below sound-clip if he ever sought out Jackson's permission or music, Korine said the thought didn't cross his mind.
Instead, later in the film, Luna moves to the music of the more frantic, electronic hip-hop of Spank Rock's "Backyard Betty," but that's as modern as the music in "Mister Lonely" gets. While Korine draws heavily from African field recordings and American folk from the 1930s to the 1950s (he briefly discusses his thoughts on picking sons in the below audio clip), it's the music of Spaceman and the Sun City Girls that fuel "Mister Lonely''s" eccentricities.
The "Mister Lonely" soundtrack was released today (April 22) via Chicago-based independent Drag City. It features 9 tracks from Spaceman, and 8 from the Sun City Girls. And while not an entirely easy listen outside of the film, Spaceman's songs immediately illustrate music's ability to provide an escape. There's a child-like wonder to the chiming keys that open the album, in which Luna tries to explain how difficult it all is when you "hate your own face" and simply want "to go completely unnoticed."
In tracks like "Blues 1" and "Paris Beach," Spaceman takes organic sounds and twists them just a little, creating a folk- or blues-based song with just a hint of manipulated guitar notes. It instantly brings utterly familiar and relaxed sounds to a slightly more wondrous, sometimes unsettling place. Or, in the case of "Garden Walk," the violins sway triumphantly, celebrating the pure cartoonish weirdness of the characters.
It's the Sun City Girls who get the score's centerpiece, however. The now-defunct experimental trio provide a take on the Vinton original with "Mr. Lonely Viola," in which the sounds of a choir and some deliberately plucked stringed instruments barely keep a melancholic violin afloat. The act also supplies the sun-scorched melodies and harmonies of "Vine Street Piano" and the orchestral overture in "Farewell," which flirts with grandness.
At one point in the film, Luna's Jackson is asked why he would ever want to be like everybody else. Why not continue to live in his fake celebrity world? Can't he see how miserable "everybody else" is? While the film does not ultimately provide an answer to the question, Spaceman and the Sun City Girls offer a musical detour while Korine tries to figure it out.
The trailer for the Wachowski brothers film "Speed Racer" opens with about 5 seconds of the familiar "Speed Racer" theme -- the horn that mimics a honk, the hurried, frantic rhythm. Then it leaves tradition behind, breaking off into pure rave territory with a full-on explosion of techno sounds.
But don't think the trailer foretells the sound of the film.
Composer Michael Giacchino says the 2-minute "Speed Racer" teaser cribs from his pre-"Speed Racer" work.
"They used a tiny bit of music from ‘Alias,’ I think," he says. "I don’t think the music in the trailer is representative of what the music in the film will be. The film is going to be a big orchestral thing, mixed in with some rhythm elements."
Giacchino, who has received recognition from this year's Grammys and Oscars for his work on "Ratatouille," says he was given about 8 weeks to compose the score for "Speed Racer," and will begin recording it on Feb. 11. More so than the music that's used in the trailer, Giacchino says his "Speed Racer" score will have a deeper connection to the '60s cartoon series.
"It will have an injection of feeling from the old show, but just on a bigger scale," he says. "I have every single score from ‘Speed Racer.’ I found them in Japan on CD, and I love that music. I want to make sure there’s a thread to it, so this feels like it was born out of the show."
That being said, he promises his "Speed Racer" score won't be as retro-influenced as his work for "The Incredibles." He also reveals that the live-action film, starring Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon and John Goodman, won't have much, if any, pop music.
"'Speed Racer' doesn’t really have any of that," he says. "It’s me and a blank slate, and 118 minutes that need to be filled. Movie starts, music starts, movie ends and music ends. It seems a lot of the films I work on are score-driven films. I’m not that drawn to projects where you’re filling in between songs."
After "Speed Racer," it's another much-beloved remake he'll tackle in J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek." Giacchino has worked closely with Abrams through the years, following him from "Alias" to "Lost" and "Cloverfield," for which he wrote the end-credits "ROAR!"
Expectedly, he offers no hints to his "Star Trek" score, saying he won't have time to dive into it until after completing "Speed Racer."
"They’re still shooting 'Star Trek,' so ‘Speed Racer’ fit into the waiting area in which I would have been tinkering around with ideas for it," he says. "I’ll start on that in April. What I am thinking about is how so much amazing music has been written for the series, whether it be for the show or TV or the later shows. There’s so much stuff there that I love, so to have to put something into that world is very daunting."
But fans should expect at least some tinkering with the classic theme.
"In the same way that J.J. took the story and is re-inventing what it is, this is a chance to create something new, thematically, so I am excited about that challenge," he says. "But I want it to feel like it deserves to sit up on the shelf with the other ones."
Word of a Scarlett Johansson album first hit last summer after the actress appeared with cult heroes the Jesus and Mary Chain at last year's Coachella. The album, titled "Anywhere I Lay My Head" and being released via Warner imprint Atco, will hit stores on May 20.
At least based on those Johansson is working with, the "Ghost World" actress has pretty good taste in music. She recorded the album with TV on the Radio producer David Sitek, and collaborated with Yeah Yeah Yeah's guitarist Nick Zinner on the album, which sees her covering 10 Tom Waits tunes. One original is said to be on the set, but a track-list is not yet known.
Johansson is not the only famed actress with some indie-rock cred. We reported on this album, and a host of other indie-friendly actresses, last summer. Check out the gallery here.
But there's more, at least for those following the actress-turned-singer beat.
Indie label Merge Records, home to Arcade Fire and Spoon, will release a collaboration between singer/songwriter M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel under the title She & Him on March 18.We plan on covering the pair's show from South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, in March, but in the meantime, check out some of their songs here.
The birth of rock ’n’ roll is not only a weighty subject for a film, but one in which myth takes precedence over fact.
John Sayles’ latest film, “Honeydripper,” looks at the moment when the electric guitar became the dominating instrument in music, and does so by humanizing legendary personas. Set in a small town in 1950s Alabama, “Honeydripper,” Sayles' 16th film as a writer/director, shows how rock ’n’ roll can captivate a community.
From its opening moments, the audience knows “Honeydripper” is building to a grand-finale concert. Yet Sayles is careful not to over-romanticize, as rock ’n’ roll doesn’t offer an out from the business and social concerns of the time. There’s rent, there’s racism and there’s little chance of escaping the life one is born into.
The music of “Honeydripper,” some of it original, written by Sayles and longtime composer Mason Daring, is a high point. But so is the way in which Sayles cuts between a rock club and a religious revival tent, and jerks the audience from the film’s searing Buddy Holly/Chuck Berry-inspired music to the more practical concerns of the times.
Speaking on the phone to promote the film, which is now in limited run and will open wider Jan. 18, Sayles was asked if “Honeydripper” was largely about the ways in which rock ’n’ roll can provide an escape, however fleeting it may be.
Much has been written about the eccentric characters of “Juno,” both those in front of and behind the camera.
Actress Ellen Page has won rave reviews for her portrayal of the title character, a sharp-tongued teenager who masks the emotional trials of a teen pregnancy with her quick wit and sarcastic one-liners. And the press can’t get enough of Diablo Cody, who penned the “Ghost World”-inspired story. The stripper-turned-author-turned-screenwriter just published her first EW column.
But the man who scored the Jason Reitman-directed film, Mateo Messina (right), might be even more unconventional. In composing the film, Messina turned an apple into a rhythmic instrument and experimented with the sound of water -- all this for a movie that demanded a seemingly simple indie-pop sound.
Messina, who also worked on Reitman's "Thank You for Smoking," had the difficult task of creating a score that would seamlessly coexist with “Juno’s” heavy reliance on pop music, noticeably the sweetly melancholic acoustic-strummed tunes of singer/songwriter Kimya Dawson, known primarily for her work with indie outfit the Moldy Peaches.
It’s Dawson’s semi-ironic/semi-cute songs that help define the character of Juno, with Page and actor Michael Cera (Paulie Bleeker) even performing one of Dawson’s songs in the film ("Anyone Else But You," which appeared on the Moldy Peaches' 2001 self-titled album).
Messina’s compositions manage to reflect Dawson’s work while also echoing the film’s characters. Juno may get illustrated with charmingly bouncy acoustic guitars, but other characters -- such as hipster-turned-square Mark Loring (Jason Bateman), who is set to adopt Juno’s child -- don’t get such flattering compositions.
With “Juno” on target to be the indie hit of the fall -- on just 40 screens, the Fox Searchlight film finished just outside the box office top 10 at No. 11 -- Messina took the time to share his thoughts on scoring the film. Read on, or just listen to the music.
This is such a music-heavy film, with Sonic Youth, the Kinks and Belle & Sebastian all being heard throughout. But it seems like your score really plays off Dawson’s work.
You know what’s interesting? Reitman was interested in the Moldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson after a suggestion from Ellen Page. So he and I flew up and recorded her for two days while she was on tour. He was temping her songs into some of the film, and he was realizing that when music with lyrics was going into the dialogue, it just wasn’t working.
So we ended up recording her just humming a lot of her songs.
After spending a couple days with her, and seeing her style of recording, and getting her sensibility, that was definitely a strong influence when I was writing the score. I was trying to capture the Kimya Dawson vibe.
Well, we went up and recorded Kimya before I really started writing the score. It wasn’t that I changed so much -- it was more about instrumentation.
She’s all about acoustic guitars, and my main instrument is the piano and I work with orchestras and everything. But for this it was quite obviously the acoustic guitar. You want to give it your own feel, no matter what, and I still had to write it in my own style, but I chose the same instrumentation as Kimya so the score would flow better.
And if she influenced me in any way, it was in the best way possible, which was simplicity.
This is such a character-driven film, were you thinking of different themes/melodies per character?
Yeah, but a lot of it is so subtle you probably won’t notice in the film. There’s a scene where Juno goes to visit the Lorings, and the Lorings definitely have their own theme. It’s kind of a bossa nova, and it’s almost kind of Muzak-like. It’s real vanilla.
But at one part in the cue, where we see Juno come onto screen in a van with her dad, I added some of the guitars associated with Juno. So all of a sudden you have this beautiful bossa nova with this acoustic guitar that we’ve been hearing throughout the whole movie.
I definitely go from character to character in this film. You always have to the play the scene and the emotion of the scene, but musically you’re subtly hinting at things that people will probably not notice. One of my goals is to write scores in which you don’t necessarily want the audience to hear it, but you do want the audience to feel it.
And what about the music for the character of Juno?
With Juno, she had so many dimensions to her in that she was this young, confident girl who’s rough around the ages. But she’s also a very vulnerable 16-year-old girl. So we had to find a sound for her with these jangly acoustic guitars that were filled with confidence, but also had a sweet side to them.
There’s also a bit of detachment, like the score never really dictates an emotion.
In this case, the story was so incredibly strong, so while we were adding some emotion and adding some color, we were never holding the viewer’s hand. You never had to. There was no scene we were trying to punch up. We didn’t want to lead the audience anywhere.
You mentioned Dawson inspired you to be simple. Was that a challenge for you? Did you find yourself having to pull back?
I love anything that feels organic, and I love to experiment with sounds. I like to use something that feels familiar to us, but isn’t traditional.
For instance, on some of the rhythms on this, there was one point where I was playing the grate of a fan. Then I would play a zipper at other parts in the percussion.
At one point I even played an apple. I would take water from a glass and pour it into a big giant bowl, and compare how it sounded in there versus a bucket. Then I would use that as part of the percussion.
People aren’t going to notice that it’s so different, since it sounds rhythmic and it works, but it still has such an unorthodox sound. So even though I was doing simple acoustic guitar stuff, I was still doing stuff that was out-there and wacky, especially when I was playing the apple with brushes and drumsticks.
This week’s box office topper, “The Golden Compass,” pulled in respectable but disappointing numbers. Much of the pre- and post-release discussion has centered on its supposed religious themes and expository nature rather than its music, which presented distinct challenges for composer Alexandre Desplat (at right).
As the first in a supposed trilogy, one in which the true intentions of characters may not be revealed until future films, the music in ‘Compass’ acts as a sort of guide.
Desplat’s score is being heavily pushed for Oscar consideration -- as is his music for “Lust, Caution” –- and on a recent Friday in Los Angeles, Desplat took a few minutes to discuss his approach to “Compass.”
Rather than look at the scope of the trilogy, Desplat turned his focus to the characters.
“You get the sense that these characters are still developing, and you don’t know who is good or bad yet,” Desplat said. “There’s a very distinct sound per each character. You’re almost using the music to navigate the film.”
If it’s not entirely successful, I put the blame on the story, which was adapted from Philip Pullman’s successful “His Dark Materials” trilogy, as opposed to Desplat.
After about 30 minutes into the movie, I decided to focus on the effects and the adventure, and gave up trying to make sense of what was happening on the screen. Simple things, such as why the main character Lyra is some sort of "chosen one," are never given even a cursory explanation.
Throughout the film, Lyra, the young child who gets swept up in the adventure, looks to numerous adults for guidance. For the those viewers who haven't read the books, Desplat’s music cues guide the viewer -- a brief flutter of a stringed instrument lets the audience know Lyra is in good hands, and a slight bass foreshadows impending doom.
“In the book, you have time to go through and think, and description is part of literature,” Desplat said. “In the movie, you can’t do that. The music can help a lot in shrinking the descriptive moments. That’s why I choose to give each character -- and each group of character -- its own color. Music is dictating you through the world.”
What also struck me about the score, which Desplat said was somewhat influenced by Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” was Desplat’s decision to avoid over-the-top fantastical sounds. Nicole Kidman’s Mrs. Coulter, for example, gets a very American, almost jazz-like theme.
Overall, the score is heavy on the rhythms, choirs are used only sparingly and while there may be brief flashes of Middle Eastern instrumentation, Desplat went with a more restrained composition rather than something more unearthly.
“Philip Pullman says a very important thing,” Desplat said. “He says the world in which Lyra lives is almost the same as our world, but different. So I couldn’t go to complete otherworldly or sci-fi. It had to be related to us. The main orchestra I used is a classical orchestra, but I put in some instruments that could tweak and twist a little bit. There’s a cimbalom, a saxophone, Tibetan bells and trumpets, which I used with all their mutes.
“We had to try and create a score that’s almost a classical score," he continued, “but a bit on the edge, and you can’t really tell why.”
The Oscar predicting/campaigning/guessing has been underway for weeks, and it's easy to get jaded, especially when it comes to the race for Best Original Song.
The award goes to ... can we please just pick a song from "Once" and be done with it?
Never mind the movie, the soundtrack is one of the stronger albums of the year and yet talk persists -- perhaps something from "Into the Wild," or a tune from "Enchanted," and don't forget "Hairspray" or "Walk Hard."
Each of them has tunes of varying quality, and some I've already expressed an appreciation for. Yet I can't help but find it all tiring, as the Flaming Lips recorded a song better than anything in the aforementioned films -- excluding "Once," of course -- but it won't be nominated.
Unfortunately, "I Was Zapped By the Super Lucky Rainbow" is featured in the critical punching bag that is "Good Luck Chuck," a film that fell sub-"August Rush" on the Metacritic scorecard.
But listen, and tell me this song isn't pure joy. Guitars shoot across the melody and keyboards fire off cartoon-like laser sounds, all while Wayne Coyne sings some hokey, brilliant nonsense about falling in love and rainbows.
It's unabashedly upbeat -- the Flamings Lips' take on something like the Herman's Hermits "I'm Into Something Good," complete with storm noises, hand-claps and a squeaky, Muppet-like background singer shouting expletives.
It's almost enough to make one ready to dive back into Oscar season talk -- almost.
A late and unexpected entry in the race for the Best Original Song Oscar comes from New Line Cinema's "The Golden Compass," which ends with a new tune from esteemed British singer Kate Bush.
The Chris Weitz-directed fantasy film opens Dec. 7 and stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Yet the centerpiece of the film is Dakota Blue Richards, who plays Lyra, a young academic rebel-type who's about to discover she's been chosen to fulfill a prophecy.
And unlike Luke and Frodo, Lyra gets a Kate Bush song in her name.
"Lyra" is an odd, sparse little number, putting the emphasis almost entirely on Bush's vocals. It's not all that out of step with some of the quieter, voice-and-piano songs of her 2005 effort "Aerial," and Bush is certainly an appropriate choice for a fantasy film with some abstract -- perhaps theological -- concerns, since there are plenty of examples of her lyrics tending toward the mystical.
If there's any noticeable effect used in the song, it's primarily the sound of wind, which adds a coldness to Bush's usually warm vocal styling. Indeed, it serves to bring a sort of distance between Bush and the soft hymn provided by the Magdalen College Choir of Oxford, England, making Bush feel a little more like an orator than a singer.
Lyrically, Bush sticks pretty close to the source material, which is the song's main weakness. Not only named after the main character in the film, "Lyra" recounts the mystery that surrounds the heroine of the trilogy-to-be. By so literally interpreting the film, the song likely won't have much of a life outside the movie.
Yet Bush loyalists will surely appreciate new music from the idiosyncratic artist. While not her among her strongest work, "Lyra" still shows Bush is a vocalist like few others. For instance, she's able to gently unfurl the song's main lyrical refrain -- "And her soul walks beside / an army stands behind her" -- a weighty, "Dungeons & Dragons"-like line that a lesser lyricist would trip over.
The song's course mirrors the film, which is designed to be the first of three. Rather than provide answers, Bush offers a question: "Who knows what's in the future?"
Ultimately, however, this makes the song (like the film, perhaps) feel a bit unfinished. It's a small, brief choral prelude to something more bombastic to come. Whether you're along for the ride will likely depend on your previous affection for Bush.
After a screening of "There Will Be Blood" last night at Writer's Guild theater in Beverly Hills, director Paul Thomas Anderson said he "had to learn how to be simple" to make film. The movie tracks the life of an oil magnate played by Daniel Day-Lewis, and takes its inspiration from Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel "Oil!."
Much of the post-film discussion focused on the way Day-Lewis (above, with Dillon Freasier) approached the role of an arrogantly scheming and oft-paranoid oil man. And if there's anything simple about the film, it's in Anderson's focus on this one man, as the film has an underlying -- almost horror-like tension -- to it.
That foreboding sense of dread, though, comes in large part from the score by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. The soundtrack won't be released until Dec. 18 via the Warner Bros. imprint Nonesuch, preceding the Dec. 26 opening of the film. It should be a fascinating, if difficult, listen, judging by the moments of the music in the movie.
It'll be curious to see if it stands as a singular piece, or if Academy voters find it too experimental, too hauntingly sparse, for the original score nomination it deserves.
Like Anderson's film, Greenwood's music often feels deceptively simple, playing out like a twisted, mutated take on orchestral music of the turn of the century.
At times, strings are manipulated into something that sounds like an air-raid siren, and in the few moments there's percussion, it's startling. The rhythms resemble the clangs of the oil machinery in the film, a carefully orchestrated but scattered-sounding noise -- the sound of a mind going mad, perhaps.
Greenwood and Anderson earlier discussed the music and how it relates to certain scenes of the film with Entertainment Weekly, where Greenwood said "The Shining" was a conversation point between the two. Indeed, the opening scenes of "There Will Be Blood," with its wide-open shots of Texas land and guttural orchestra sounds, certainly recall the 1980 Stanley Kubrick thriller.
I think it was about not necessarily just making period music, which very
traditionally you would do. But because they were traditional
orchestral sounds, I suppose that's what we hoped was a little
unsettling, even though you know all the sounds you're hearing are
coming from very old technology. You can just do things with the
classical orchestra that do unsettle you, that are sort of slightly wrong, that have some kind of undercurrent that's slightly sinister.
Greenwood's words above best describe the music.
Last night, Anderson also cited John Huston's 1948 film "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" as inspiration, and said he sent pieces of Max Steiner's score to Greenwood. While the music of the latter took a more majestic approach, Greenwood is able to grace "There Will Be Blood" with a similarly epic sonic scope.
"I knew our score would sound nothing like that," Anderson said, "but this is what I was trying to get into the mix."
More on the film, and the soundtrack, as their respective release dates approach.
Disney has made another song available from "Enchanted," this one the film's final number, "Ever Ever After," sung by "American Idol"-turned-country star Carrie Underwood.
Judging by her frothy pastel look at last week's Country Music Awards, Underwood is already comfortable looking the part of a Disney princess (cutesy insects worth a reported $6M affixed to hip? Check).
Coupled with the two songs shown here last week, it's clear Disney is making a huge push to showcase the tunes from its latest animated/live-action musical hybrid, which is due in theaters Nov. 21. One day earlier on Nov. 20, the 'Enchanted' soundtrack will be released.
Underwood's song isn't quite this writer's cup of Mad Hatter tea -- and violates Extended Play's Movie Song Rule No. 4 (quotes the name of the movie in the lyrics) -- but it is a fitting closer to the film, as it wraps the charming fairy tale up with a contemporary spin.
But even after repeated listens, it still sounds a bit too much like something one would hear at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, at least for my tastes.
Yet Disney and Underwood fans will surely enjoy the video, which gives Underwood an animated make-over before being stalked in New York City, and contains more than one reference to the studio's classic animated films.
