Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek 08.06.08: Popular Music in the Movies
Posted by Jordan Bruns on 08.06.2008
Part 3...
Welcome to another issue of Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek! If you read last week's edition (and it doesn't look like many people did), you know that this is part 3 of Popular Music in the Movies. After this week I'll move on to other things, at least for a little bit. This is a topic I can continue to touch on for a very long time. Anyway, I'm getting straight to it this week, just like last time. This time I have included videos of the scenes whenever possible (something I should have done from the beginning).
Song: "Candy Girl" by New Edition
Featured in: Dogma
My Mad Ramblings
There's not much to say about this song except it's fitting for a strip club scene- especially a strip scene in a Kevin Smith movie. Especially when that strip club scene involves Jay and Silent Bob. I think I might venture to a strip club just so I can request this song. If the DJ understands my reference, I might spend a little money. If not, I will simply bludgeon him to death with a croquet mallet. Come to think of it, that could be an interesting set-up for a movie in and of itself- Strip Club Massacre! This is why I call this part My Mad Ramblings.
Song: "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton
Featured in : Blue Velvet
My Mad Ramblings
OK, I'll admit that my sole viewing of this movie was several years ago, but I still remember the use of Bobby Vinton's haunting romantic melody in the opening. I'm not even going to attempt to analyze it, so just watch it…
Song: "King of the Road" by Roger Miller
Featured in: Into The Wild
My Mad Ramblings
It's almost a travesty to mention a song from this film that's not part of Eddie Vedder's Original Soundtrack, but I said no original songs, and I have to adhere to the criteria I established. However, "King of the Road" has a huge significance to the story arc of Christopher McCandless. It's a song celebrating the nomadic lifestyle and it's used during a montage where a nomad rides the railroad as a stowaway. It's of even greater significance because McCandless, played by Emile Hirsch, references the lyrics ("no pool, no pets, I ain't got no cigarettes") in the opening moments, suggesting that he himself was a fan of the song. It doesn't get much closer to home than this.
Song: "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" by The Temptations
Featured in: The Temptations (miniseries)
My Mad Ramblings
Yes, there is an iconic scene in The Big Chill featuring this song, but I chose its use in the titular miniseries instead because it is an excellent example of a song being used to tell a story. The Temptations are performing at Detroit's Fox Theater when recently ousted lead singer David Ruffin (Leon) steals the microphone from his replacement, leaps onstage and "sings" this song (the actors were actually lip-synching to the original recording), much to the delight of the crowd and the chagrin of his former colleagues. He is wearing street clothes, which contrasts him from the uniforms of the other five. In this instance, "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" is not a song about a man asking his lover to come back to him- it is about a disgraced singer begging to be let back into his extended family. To further drive home the analogy, at one point he actually turns to the other Temptations and sings to them. Needless to say, after the performance ends he is hauled off by security and escorted from the building. The quality's not so good, but the scene is there.
Song: "Sweet and Dandy" by Toots and the Maytals
Featured in: The Harder They Come
My Mad Ramblings
This groundbreaking film help put reggae on the map (Bob Marley hadn't hit it big yet) and so did the groundbreaking soundtrack. Jamaican reggae star Jimmy Cliff played the lead role of Ivanhoe Martin, an aspiring singer who later becomes a kingpin of the ganja trade. However, "Sweet and Dandy" was originally recorded in 1969, three years before the film's release. Therefore, it was not written specifically for the movie. I have included the scene. You'll have to forgive the exaggerated aspect ratio, as the video I have included was not taken from the movie itself, but a compilation DVD that happened to include the scene. Ultimately, it was the only clip I could find that featured the sequence in its entirety. Cliff's character is the one who enters the recording studio mid-song.
Song: "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes
Featured in: Mean Streets
My Mad Ramblings
Forget the opening credits of Dirty Dancing, Scorsese used this song to open his breakthrough film. It accompanies home video footage of Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and their mob buddies. The credits even have a low budget, documentary-style look to them. Scorsese used his own collection of old 45's for the film's soundtrack.
OK, I had planned a full list of ten for this week, but some of my ideas were scrapped based on them being redundant or repetitive. So, I guess we have six this week. It was pretty challenging coming up with this many songs, and I think some of them were stretches. So, that's a wrap for Popular Music in the Movies. I'd love to write more about this topic in the future, but for now my brain is fried and I'm ready to move onto something else. But first, let me once again pimp the debut feature from the 12th Street Film Company, Look At What Your Son Has Done:
