The Screengrab : tom waits

Screengrab’s Five to Watch at Cannes

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Greetings from the Croisette on the beautiful French Riviera! The entire Screengrab gang has convened over croissants and café au lait at Le Grande Bleu, and we’re hashing over our picks to click for the fabulous festival kicking off with tonight’s screening of the opening night film, Up. Wait until the crew back at Nerve headquarters gets a look at these expense reports!

OK, so we’re not actually in France. But why should a little technicality like that prevent us from bringing you the best in Cannes coverage? Or at least linking to the best in Cannes coverage, which we’ll do when we launch our daily Cannes Roundup tomorrow. For now, here’s a look at five movies I’d be sure to check out if I actually were on the Riviera instead of sitting at my desk in my underwear.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Maybe Death Proof wasn’t all you dreamed it would be, and Brad Pitt’s cracker accent may not fill you with all the confidence in the world, and it’s just possible I’m describing myself here. Still, I have enough good will stored up for Quentin Tarantino as a filmmaker (if not as a personality) that I can’t help but be excited for his World War II epic, bad spelling and all.

TAKING WOODSTOCK

“It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, the El Monaco…When Elliot hears that a neighbouring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much needed business for the motel.” Ang Lee’s take on the ‘70s (The Ice Storm) worked out pretty well, so let’s see what he can do with the ‘60s.

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

Granted, Terry Gilliam’s track record of late has not been stellar. He couldn’t get Don Quixote off the ground, The Brothers Grimm was underwhelming, and I already regret leaving Tideland off my top ten list of the worst movies ever. But judging from the brief clips above, Imaginarium has more of an early Gilliam feel, and the curiosity factor of Heath Ledger’s last ever (partial) performance is definitely a draw. Plus: Tom Waits as the Devil!

PANIQUE AU VILLAGE (A TOWN CALLED PANIC)

I’d never heard of this Belgian film before this morning, but the description certainly intrigues. “Animated plastic toys like Cowboy, Indian and Horse have problems, too. Cowboy and Indian's plan to surprise Horse with a homemade birthday gift backfires when they destroy his house instead. Surreal adventures take over as the trio travel to the center of the earth, trek across frozen tundra and discover a parallel underwater universe where pointy-headed (and dishonest!) creatures live. Each speedy character is voiced -- and animated -- as if their very air contains both amphetamines and laughing gas.”

ANTICHRIST

“A grieving couple retreat to ’Eden’, their isolated cabin in the woods, where they hope to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse...” Hey, I’m always up for a good ol’ scary cabin-in-the-woods movie, and with Lars Von Trier at the helm, this one is sure to either terrify or infuriate – or more likely, both.

Screengrab's Favorite Movies About Music: Non-Fiction Edition (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:00:00 GMT

A few weeks back, I claimed the period from New Year's to Oscar Night was the most wonderful time of the year for movie geeks, what with all the Best-Of Lists and awards season festivities...but for movie AND music geeks (not to mention the small but powerful barbecue geek lobby), there is no better place or time than mid-March in sunny Austin, when the South-By-Southwest Festival unleashes 1,800 bands from around the world on the capital of Texas, along with several zillion filmmakers, wannabes, hucksters, tourists, web designers, Industry sleazeballs and bloggers (including yours truly, my esteemed colleagues Scott Von Doviak, Hayden Childs, Leonard Pierce and, heck, maybe half the Nerve.com staff for all I know...see you at the Yard Dog, guys)!

Thus, in celebration of SXSW’s yearly combo of films & fretboards, your pals here at the Screengrab are launching a two-week tribute to OUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE MOVIES ABOUT MUSIC!

Andrew Osborne’s Favorites:

IMAGINE (1988)

As far as I can remember, the first pop song I ever knew by heart was “Yellow Submarine” -- well, the chorus, anyway, which my brother and me would sing endlessly to the delight (and eventually, I’m sure, to the ear-piercing annoyance of) my parents on numerous long car trips throughout the early ‘70s. So I guess that would make the Beatles my first favorite band...and brilliant, heroic, sarcastic, acerbic, mean, funny, shit-stirring, peace-loving John was always my favorite Beatle (even if he didn’t lend his voice to his cartoon incarnation in the film version of Submarine...a deeply disillusioning trivia fact I’ve been trying to erase from my brain through strategic drinking ever since I learned it). My hipster college roommate cried conspicuously on the fifth anniversary of Lennon’s death (and possibly every year since), whereas I save my tears over the Smart One’s tragically premature and sinfully meaningless demise for periodic viewings of Andrew Solt’s warts-and-all (but ultimately loving) tribute, Imagine (allegedly released in part to counteract the warts-and-nothing-else Lennon biography published by icky toad Albert Goldman the same year). Narrated by Lennon himself, the film chronicles the life and times (and music and feuds and love affairs and political activism) of its subject while evoking the spirit of the 1960s and 1970s far more effectively than a certain reverse-aging button enthusiast I could mention...I only wish Solt's documentary had a better ending.

BIG TIME (1988)

I may have started off loving the Beatles, but after that my tastes wandered from the pop and rock aisles to the musical theater section. Thankfully, my cooler friends were kind enough to broaden my horizons just in time for adolescence with an endless series of mix-tapes, bringing me up to speed on punk, New Wave and, eventually, the one-man genre known as Tom Waits. As it happened, I became a fan smack dab in the midst of Waits' Island years, when he was recording the game-changing trilogy of albums (Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs & Frank’s Wild Years) considered by many to be the high-water mark of the singer/songwriter/Conundrummer’s more or less consistently brilliant career...and so I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment to catch the Boston stop of the tour captured (or, more specifically, reimagined) in Chris Blum’s barking, bantering concert film Big Time, which depicts Waits both onstage and wandering the periphery as Frank, the mysterious, muttering song character who infamously doused his house in gasoline and torched it, then got on the Hollywood Freeway headed North (and some time later, apparently, wound up working as an usher in a creepy old vaudeville house). Unfortunately, I had to leave that long-ago Boston concert halfway through to get to a stupid play rehearsal (...stupid! ...stupid! ...stupid!), little knowing I wouldn’t get to see Waits in the flesh again for 20+ years (and counting): in the ‘90s, I kept leaving cities just before Waits’ tour arrived in them, and here in the oughts, his infrequent tour stops always seem to be far, far away. So until I finally manage to track the man down again, Big Time will have to do.

STOP MAKING SENSE (1984)

The first time Talking Heads entered my consciousness was on the soundtrack of Risky Business, growling the dirty stomp of “Swamp” over scenes of teen sex in Tom Cruise’s suburban bordello. Shortly thereafter but around the same period, I put a face to the distinctive voice...specifically David Byrne’s weird moony face projected on the side of a house and the dotted white line of a highway in the wicked pissa video for “Burning Down The House” (back when videos were wicked pissa and MTV wasn’t a 24/7 suck-fest). Then, a year later, Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense finally gave me a full dose of Talking Heads (thus hooking me on the band for a lot longer than the band stayed hooked on each other). I never got a chance to see David, Tina, Chris & Jerry play live -- not all at the same time, anyway -- but dancing in the aisles with dozens of fellow Head-heads during the classic concert film’s theatrical run was the next best thing...kinda like Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience without the special glasses and shitty music. Indeed, Demme makes his subjects pop off the screen without 3D technology, pyrotechnics or any of the usual rock-doc clichés: all he needed was a lamp, a big suit, a good shot list and one of the best rock bands of all time.

WOODSTOCK (1970)

In the 1971 film The Omega Man, not-quite-last-man-alive Charlton Heston spends his lonely days in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles watching Michael Wadleigh’s super-size documentary of the mother of all concerts again and again...and, frankly, if I wind up being the sole survivor when the world ends in 2012, I’d be pretty psyched to find Woodstock in the projector of my local movie house. For one thing, it’s 184 minutes long (or roughly one hour for each of the three days of peace and music it chronicles)...and the special director’s cut released in 1994 contains an additional 40 minutes of still yet more peace, music and damn, dirty hippies. But what makes Woodstock perfect for repeat viewings is how much Wadleigh and his editors (including Martin Scorsese and BFF Thelma Schoonmaker) pack into the running time, using split-screen sensory overload to capture every conceivable angle of the epochal event, from the iconic onstage performances by Jimi, Joan, Joe, Country Joe, Richie, Arlo and the surprisingly awesome Sha Na Na (among many, many others) to the brown acid, Porta-Potty maintenance and holy-shit meltdowns of the poor bastards trying to keep the whole event from spiraling into the sort of madness and catastrophe captured by the Maysles Brothers and Charlotte Zwerin in 1970’s other notable concert documentary, Gimme Shelter, the yang to Woodstock’s yin and definitely not the sort of movie likely to cheer you up in an empty theater surrounded by killer mutants.

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four, Five, Six & Seven

Contributor: Andrew Osborne

Jailhouse Rock: The Greatest Prison Films of All Time (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:15:00 GMT

TITICUT FOLLIES (1967)

Before I got my driver’s license, the only way to get to Boston from my hometown of Middleboro, Massachusetts (besides a ride from Mom & Dad) was a local bus that stopped at a prison in the neighboring town of Bridgewater to pick up the newly released ex-cons and ship ‘em home (or the nearest equivalent). Years later, I discovered the prison was actually the notorious state hospital for alcoholics, sex offenders and the criminally insane profiled in Frederick Wiseman’s controversial documentary Titicut Follies, a movie even more disturbing than all those long-ago bus rides. In stark black and white, Wiseman shows the subhuman conditions of the 1960s version of the facility and the desperation of the inmates (including one poor bastard I still remember vividly, years after the first and only time I watched the film, who keeps explaining, over and over again, that he’s perfectly sane and would really, really, really like to leave the premises). As an avid psychedelic drug enthusiast in my younger days, winding up in a mental hospital (mistakenly or not) has always been high on my list of worst-case scenarios, but Titicut Follies (named for the grimly surreal inmate “talent show” depicted in the film) is worst-case by way of 18th century Bedlam: “We see men needlessly stripped bare, insulted, herded about callously, mocked, taunted,” Robert Coles wrote of the film in The New Republic. “We see them ignored or locked interminably in cells. We hear the craziness in the air...” Massachusetts was so embarrassed by the film they tried not only to ban it, but also to have all copies destroyed (!) on the grounds that somehow the documentary violated the patients’ dignity more than, say, being held indefinitely in cell blocks without toilets and periodically hosed down. Wiseman asserted repeatedly that he’d received permission from all the patients who appeared in the film (or their guardians), yet (according to Wikipedia, at least) the film wasn’t legally cleared for general public release until 1991, at which point the Massachusetts State Supreme Court also stipulated the film would need to include a “brief explanation...that changes and improvements have taken place at Massachusetts' Correctional Institution in Bridgewater since 1966.” One would hope.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

In this year of Rachel Getting Married, it’s not at all hard to see why Jonathan Demme once made a movie that swept the Oscars. What’s surprising is that he won it for The Silence of the Lambs, a movie that in lesser hands, with a lesser cast, would have been little more than a clever genre exercise. But Demme’s capable direction, a masterful sense of mood and tone, and some stunning performances carried it into the realms of greatness, with Anthony Hopkins’ brutally mannered performance proving what a great villain can do for a movie. Some prison films are all about the experience of being on the inside, but others derive their tension and power from the time-honored tradition of the jailbreak. While Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s escape from his dismal subterranean dungeon (where he’s kept from touching anything solid, even a pen cap) is inevitable, it differs from most escape yarns in that the criminal’s liberation is something that fills us with dread instead of excitement. Lecter’s cruel psychological manipulation leads him out from the underground, and his brutal violence unleashes him on the world again after a decade of imprisonment. The movie’s final scenes are less a triumph than a threat: Satan unleashed upon the world again.

ANIMAL FACTORY (2000)

Steve Buscemi does an admirable job, in his second full-length directorial effort, of conveying the casual brutality and bizarre social cycles of prison life. By refusing both glamorization and utter degradation, he keeps his storytelling solid and balanced, allowing the powerful action on screen to work itself out in more subtle ways. Edward Furlong’s young convict finds himself totally unprepared for prison life, and even after he’s taken under the wing of ex-gang boss Willem Dafoe, he finds himself given over to fear that shapes his reactions to the prison world as much as any real violence or sexual assault. Buscemi’s simple, un-flashy approach is perfect for the material, and he wisely keeps himself off camera and lets his actors and situations tell the story. Of course, he’s aided and abetted, so to speak, by a worthy bunch of co-conspirators: the screenplay to Animal Factory was written by Eddie Bunker – best known as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs, but also an established writer, actor, and career criminal whose own stints in prison inspired the script. Bunker’s friend Danny Trejo – a man he spent time with in prison and who, like him, was redeemed through his art – also has a leading role in the film, which is one of the reasons it reeks of authenticity.

I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932)

The melodramatic tone of most ‘30s films leads to an inevitable graying, and Mervyn LeRoy’s then-controversial I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang hasn’t aged like a fine wine. But it’s still an extremely worthwhile movie, with a harrowing escape scene and the nervous, twitchy shoulders of Oscar-nominated Paul Muni as a World War I vet who fled the intolerably brutal justice of the Georgia prison system. Based on a true story – in fact, Robert Burns, the man on whom Muni’s character was based, served as a technical adviser on the film while still a fugitive until he was forced to hit the road again – Chain Gang fudged the facts a bit. It’s no secret that the movie’s particulars were a bit glossed over in order to make Muni more appealing to audiences hard-hit by the Depression. But it certainly doesn’t make him a noble figure by any means; his downward spiral and lowlife ways only make it more shocking when we see how he’s systematically dehumanized by the chain gang system, which was little more than state-sponsored slavery. Even 75 years later, the movie’s final scene packs a punch, as Muni answers the question of how he manages to live with a simple, harsh response: “I steal.”

DOWN BY LAW (1986)

You don’t often hear the phrase “quirky prison comedy”, but if anyone can carry off that particular genre blend, it’s Jim Jarmusch. Assembling a unique cast – John Lurie as a big-talking pimp, Tom Waits as a laconic disc jockey, and Roberto Begnini (in his first English-speaking role, if you can call it that) as a bewildered Italian tourist – he deftly mixes together screwball comedy, existential drama, and the kind of quiet indie strangeness that would become his hallmark over the years to come. Compelled to escape from prison more or less because they can’t stand being stuck in the same cell with one another anymore (their scenes in jail are probably the funniest prison scenes this side of the end of The Producers), the three break out and trudge through the gorgeously photographed Louisiana bayou; they escape imprisonment, but they can’t escape each other, and freedom seems to have precious little to distinguish itself from jail for them. A perfect companion piece to Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law is perhaps the greatest of Jarmusch’s "beautiful losers" movies, and the whole thing should be experienced like your last night before heading off to jail: through a cloud of smoke and a fog of booze, with a good-looking and dangerous girl by your side.

Click Here For Part One, Three, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce

Screengrab's 2008 Person of the Year

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Next to People's Sexiest Man Alive, there is no more coveted honor in Hollywood than Screengrab's Person of the Year. At least, that's what we're hoping; we've never actually done it before. After combing the archives over the past year, I have determined the five individuals who recieved the most coverage - for good or for ill - here at our humble blog. Can you guess Screengrab's Person of the Year? The top five, after the jump:

5. Zooey Deschanel

Described by our Phil Nugent as "the unofficial muse of the Screengrab," Ms. Deschanel has an open invitation to our New Year's Eve party. We celebrated her SXSW performance, her survival of the Shyamalan bomb The Happening, her role in the surprisingly influential All the Real Girls, and her "Sweet Ballad" in Yes Man. Call us, Zooey!

4. Werner Herzog

The year in Werner news began with the director reminiscing over his gravedigging days with Errol Morris. Later, Herzog expounded on his many unmellow moods. More shocking developments arrived with the Cannes Film Festival, at which it was announced that Herzog would remake The Bad Lieutenant, a very bad idea indeed. Abel Ferrara agreed, and a celebrity feud was born. Next, Werner signed a cocktail napkin deal to collaborate with fellow weirdo David Lynch. In the end, Herzog redeemed himself with the acclaimed (here, anyway) Encounters at the End of the World.

3. Heath Ledger

Dying at the beginning of the year is perhaps not the most satisfying path toward Screengrab Person of the Year. We ran the breaking news of his death, the initial coroner's report, the Esquire diaries, the fate of Terry Gilliam's Doctor Parnassus and the somewhat unseemly buzz on Ledger's Oscar chances. We'd prefer he was only on this list for his performance as the Joker, but that's life (and death).

2. Uwe Boll

We're a little hurt that our favorite crapmeister hasn't been in touch to thank us for all the publicity. We've covered everything from the petition urging him to retire to his many feuds to the efforts of a gum company to end his career. We've reviewed his Unwatchables Alone in the Dark and BloodRayne 2: Deliverance, and watched as theaters shunned Postal. Heck, Paul Clark even defended the man! Come on, Uwe. Take out an ad in Variety to thank us already.

1. Scarlett Johansson

Oh Scarlett, what would we do without you? I think you can tell the Screengrab is sharply divided over you. Phil Nugent, for one, has little use for you, as you can probably tell from posts like Scarlett Johansson, Yellow Journalism, Grammys Snub Scarlett, Toast Tia, Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds: 2 B 2-Gether 4-Ever and Scarlett Johansson Sings! Sings Tom Waits Songs!! Others of us - like me - are more enamored of your attributes, as you might glean from such posts as Scarlett Johansson, Cover Girl, Your Scarlett Johansson Music Video Has Arrived, and the all-time favorite, And Now Scarlett Johansson Making Out with Penelope Cruz. Either way, there's no denying it: Scarlett Johansson, you are Screengrab's 2008 Person of the Year!

Grammys Snub Scarlett, Toast Tia

Phil Nugent — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:30:00 GMT

In a startling and surprising upset, the list of nominees for the 2009 Grammy Awards, which were announced earlier today, did not include Scarlett Johansson. Johansson's debut album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head, a concept record exploring the countless ways in which her head has been laid, was accorded extensive and breathless coverage here at the Screengrab, to the point that at one point, Zach Snyder became confused and thought he must be directing it. (He realized this was not the case only after his demand that Johansson's version of the song "Town with No Cheer" be beefed up with more CGI battle scenes fell on deaf ears.) Johansson was so determined to make a splash with her album that she went out of her way to give especially dull, unfocused performances in the fourteen films she made prior to the sessions, saving her energy for what mattered. (Johansson, who is rumored to have been in The Other Boleyn Girl and The Nanny Diaries, will next be seen in The Spirit, in which she is said to give an especially dull and unfocused performance, because she thinks she might like to go snowboarding sometime next year.) Johansson's musical efforts went unnoticed in 110 out of 110 categories, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Song of the Year, Best New Artist of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Metal Performance, a category in which she was thought to have at least a shot, given that Jethro Tull has one on their mantlepiece. There was some hope that, in a thin year, Johansson might narrowly squeeze into the category Best Pop Duet Vocal, but her hopes were dashed after the Academy called in expert mathematicians to confirm that there is only one of her.

The Grammys are given each year by the Recording Academy to celebrate "artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry." There is some speculation that some in the Academy deliberately omitted from its mission statement the goal of honoring recordings that best simulate the sensation of having one's eardrums massaged with ground glass just so that they would one day be in a position to snub Scarlett Johansson, just in case she were ever born and chose to release an album, preferably of Tom Waits covers. A few defenders were quick to suggest that the Academy's failure to mention Johansson in its nominations reflected an enduring bias against movie celebrities, especially young and comely ones, and so could not be taken as any implicit signal that Johansson's music itself was found to be lacking. Those making this suggestion were quickly shouted down with scorn and ridicule, however, when it was pointed out that the Academy had not hesitated to bestow nominations upon Gwyneth Paltrow for her work on Brown Bear and Friends (in the category "Best Spoken Word Album for Children") Cynthia Nixon (who shared a nomination for "Best Spoken Word Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Story Telling)" with Beau Bridges and Blair Underwood, for their collaboration on the audio version of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth), and Tia Carrere, whose collaboration with Daniel Ho was nominated for Best Hawaiian Music Album. Spokespersons for Scarlett Johansson report that while the star has taken to her bed feeling all pouty, she is confident that this setback will in no way effect her film career. In an unrelated story, Woody Allen is rumored to have contacted Tia Carrere to feel her out about a project tentatively entitled Relic Hunter: The Motion Picture.

Related Stories: Scarlett Johansson Sings! Sings Tom Waits Songs!!"

Scarlett Johansson, Cover Girl

Jena Malone's Musical Career: Her Shoe Was Made for Warbling

Phil Nugent — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Apparently, every young actress in the business wishes she'd become a musician when she was making those all-important career decisions when she was thirteen. Some content themselves with a few weeks in the recording studio with top indie talent and the Tom Waits songbook, but Jena Malone has other ideas. The 23-year-old Malone, who made her acting debut at twelve in 1996's Bastard Out of Carolina and has since appeared in Donnie Darko, Into the Wild, and, most recently, The Ruins, has looking to make her mark in the mad-inventor-genius category, making her the Harry Partch of young indie starlets. Malone, who performs with a band called the Shoe, has built what she calls "a one woman instrument". (As opposed to what, exactly? Is she also working on a banjo that takes six women to strum it?) The instrument is also called the Shoe, indicating that Malone is either really devoted to that word or that she prefers to channel her inspiration into areas other then naming things. Pitchfork Media reports that the band the Shoe, which consists of Malone and pianist Lem Jay Ignacio, "recently embarked on a busking tour of sorts around Los Angeles, one which finds them 'only play[ing] on street corners and underpasses and on rooftops and living rooms,' according to Malone." They've also recorded a six-song EP that they've been selling at gigs.

Malone, who may or may not still be working with her group Jena Malone and Her Bloodstains, clearly takes her music seriously, and if she takes it seriously in kind of an unusual way, well, it's unusual in a different, more cerebral way than, say, Juliette "Let's kill a snake and drink its blood so we'll be creatively inspired" Lewis. Reviewing a recent Shoe show in Los Angeles, Melissa Bobbitt described Shoe (the band), as a "beguiling" platform for Malone's "insular, folksy, and wonderfully weird oeuvre" and also described the Shoe (the instrument) as a "curious contraption she built from random samplers, keyboards, and an old-fashioned steamer trunk. From it emerge squelches, squeaks, and other perplexing noises that suggest Malone isn’t content to play it safe in a town where Dogstar and the ilk are practically punch lines." Whatever Malone's up to, she's smart enough to know that her film career is more likely to hurt her chances of being taken seriously at it, at least if she betrays any sense of entitlement, which may be why she's favoring such limited-room venues as, in Bobbitt's words, "a field alongside the depleted Los Angeles River, a rooftop, some dude’s living room … Just two 20-somethings, their musical wares and the hum of a generator — no pretense, just art." It's of a piece with the unaffected naturalness she's brought to her movie roles. Walk on.

OST: "Fight Club"

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:30:00 GMT

The soundtrack portion of David Fincher's 1999 cult-favorite adapatation of the pseudo-subversive Chuck Palahniuk novel Fight Club receives its fair share of praise, and justifiably so. It features great songs like Tom Waits' "Goin' Out West", terrific vocals courtesy Persian electronica songstress Azam Ali in Vas' "Svarga", a brilliant detournment of Andre Previn's main theme from Valley of the Dolls, and, of course, the stunning post-credits blast at the end of the Pixies' "Where is My Mind?". Unfortunately, you won't find any of those songs on the movie's official soundtrack release; fortunately, what you will find there -- the movie's score, perfectly realized by the Dust Brothers, is even better.

The Dust Brothers -- known to their moms as Mike Simpson and John King -- started out as Los Angeles-based DJs with a keen sampling sensibility and a knack for deftly combining the best qualities of hip-hop and rock. It was this quality that followed them throughout their successful careers producing huge hits for everyone from Tone-Loc to Hanson to Young MC to the Rolling Stones, and nowhere was it better realized than on their innovative and memorable production of the second Beastie Boys album, Paul's Boutique. But the Fight Club soundtrack -- their first full-length solo effort -- was a different animal altogether. Sounding much more like their rivals (and onetime namesakes), the Chemical Brothers, it was much more saturated in techno and electronica than most of their previous work, and given that it was meant to set the mood for one of the blackest, bleakest comedies of the 1990s, they couldn't rely on the sunny, open feel they usually brought to the hits they produced for other artists. Faced with the biggest challenge of their careers, the Dust Brothers came through like champions, putting together an insanely tense, claustrophobic record of unstoppable beats barely hemmed in by dark, sinister synthesizer buzzings and clangings, and schizophrenic ambient noises that perfectly suited the movie's nasty, crooked-grin postmodernism. In many ways, it was literally the peak of their career -- they never put out another solo record, concentrating instead on production, and possibly admitting to themselves that nothing they'd ever do could possibly top the creeping death of the Fight Club score's innovative blend of dance, ambient, trip-hop and drum 'n' bass mayhem.

BEST TRACKS: The third track on the album ("What is Fight Club?", often referred to as the "Fight Club Theme") is the standout of an excellent album, with a simple, relentless beat pushing forward unsparingly as a wobbling, unnerving synth line drops in and out of view around it -- in its own way, the track is as perfectly representative of the film as can be imagined. The epic album opener, "Who is Tyler Durden?", is almost as iconic, with a slashing dance drum line being undercut, interrupted and cruelly undermined by a titanic use of samples; the two tracks together (even though they're seperated in sequence by the less impressive "Homework") are a killer one-two punch. Later in the record, keep an ear open for the massive, crushing "Medulla Oblongata" and the deadly tandem of "Stealing Fat" and "Chemical Burn".

Scarlett Johansson, Cover Girl

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

We warned you about Scarlett Johansson’s album of Tom Waits covers a couple of months back, and apparently cooler heads have not prevailed because we now have the album cover art. Those of us who were hoping for a shot inspired by the Waits classic “Pasties and a G-String” will have to settle for a sort of nature girl-hippie-earth mother image that doesn’t exactly evoke the Waits oeuvre. To its credit, it’s about as literal a depiction of the album title Anywhere I Lay My Head as you could imagine. Take a look after the jump.

I guess there’s a voyeuristic quality to the shot, as if we’re sharing the point-of-view of some sort of woodland creature peeping through his favorite knothole. And who knows what’s happening just out of sight? We’re sort of hoping it involves Bigfoot. We also have a tracklist, which includes some lesser known Waits tunes like “Fawn,” “Fannin Street” and “Green Grass,” as well as tried-and-true favorites like the title track and “I Don’t Want to Grow Up.” (We know, we know, you were hoping for “Filipino Box Spring Hog.” We feel your pain.) There is also one original, “Song for Jo,” and none other than David Bowie guests on a couple of tracks. It will be in stores May 20th.

The Twelve Greatest Opening Credits in Movie History, Part 2

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:00:00 GMT

THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS (1966)

The great Ennio Morricone has contributed to some of the greatest opening credit sequences of all time, but the opening to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1966 masterpiece The Hawks and the Sparrows holds a special place in the hearts of anyone who has seen and heard it. Here, in tune with Pasolini’s conception of the film as “a comic opera,” the credits are actually sung, in a boisterous vocal performance (courtesy of the great Domenico Modugno) that ranges from cackling laughter to pronounced wail to gentle whisper. Reminiscent of both the rhythmic Spaghetti Western scores Morricone was becoming famous for and the more wacked-out electronic experimentation he was beginning to dabble in, it also displays a weirdo playfulness that is pure Pasolini. Indeed, try to imagine what’s going through the head of this fellow, as he performs this strangest of compositions in concert with Morricone, decades later.

RAGING BULL (1980)

With Martin Scorsese directing and Michael Chapman doing the cinematography, it’s no surprise that the Jake LaMotta biopic has opening credits that are a treat for the eyes (and they’re tremendously aided by the simple choice of making the title of the film show up in red against the black and white of the rest of the sequence, another little touch that makes the whole so incredibly memorable). The ears are also given their due, with the selection of the intermezzo from Pietro Mascagani’s Cavalleria Rusticana providing a mournful, rising sound against which the slow-motion camerawork and the silently exploding flash bulbs play like a dream. But the truly astonishing thing about the opening credit sequence of Raging Bull is how perfectly and precisely it echoes the thematic content of the film: the ring seems impossibly huge, almost as if it’s an open field, but to Jake LaMotta – a snarling, raging animal even before the fight starts, bounding about and throwing phantom punches, champing at the bit for the violence to start – it’s a cage that stifles him, that can barely contain him. Fighting is as close as he gets to Heaven, yet smoke encircles the arena and transforms it into Hell; and while he is at his greatest, his most legendary, in the ring, he seems somehow tiny against its permanence, and he grows as he dances, faceless, towards the camera, only to shrink again into anonymity and nothingness as he once again drifts away. It’s as if the entire film and everything it has to say is contained in these two and a half minutes.

DO THE RIGHT THING (1989)

Even the stinkiest of Spike Lee joints generally boast memorable opening credits; think of the kids playing street games like hopscotch and double-dutch in the otherwise problematic Crooklyn, or the unlikely slice of Americana – a lyrical slo-mo basketball montage scored to Aaron Copland’s “John Henry” – that opens He Got Game. So it’s no surprise that Lee’s finest film features one of the most vivid, arresting main title sequences of the past 20 years. Lee obviously knew he had created an incendiary piece of work, and determined to grab the audience by the throat right from the beginning as the pulsating, near-apocalyptic beat of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” kicks in on the soundtrack, accompanied by a take-no-prisoners one-woman dance-off. Alternately clad in colorful, curve-hugging tights and boxing apparel, Rosie Perez embodies the tale of tensions boiling over on a hot summer day with her aggressive, near-violent gyrations. This was Perez’s first screen appearance; it’s hard to imagine a more mesmerizing introduction.

SE7EN (1995)

It’s hard to believe how long ago Se7en was. It was not only pre-Brangelina, it was pre-Brad&Jen – it was, in fact, circa Brad and Gwyneth. It was before the gruesome goresploitation of all the Saw flicks and before the mind-f@#$ing of Memento. And the opening credits alerted you right away: you were watching something different. Someone was going to great detail to set a tone, and the tone made you uneasy. The jittery stop-motion, the yellowed pages, hand-scratched letters, red darkroom light, and the Nine Inch Nails “Closer to God” remix, it was all indicative of some serious sociopathology. Like the Tom Waits song, “What’s he doing in there?”, you were privy to someone obsessively doing something. And you just knew all that snipping, scrawling photo-developing, photocopying, and bandaged-fingers hand-sewing would amount to no good. Se7en’s opening credits not only caught you up in the horror of the film before the film started, it also launched director Kyle Cooper’s career. It set the bar pretty high for all the horror flick opening credits that came later. For all we know, it may even be responsible for launching a different creepy trend: the scrap-booking craze.

LOST HIGHWAY (1997)

A great title sequence does not guarantee a great movie, of course; sometimes the opening credits promise more than the filmmaker is able to deliver. The hypnotic opening of David Lynch’s Lost Highway is a prime example. Designed by Jay Johnson, the sequence is deceptively simple: a driver’s seat point-of-view of an endless road stretching out ahead into pitch blackness. Our progress is swift, but unsteady – we’re weaving all over the broken yellow line in the middle as credits swoop out of darkness ahead, pause briefly, then shatter against the windshield. David Bowie is no comfort on the radio, singing “I’m Deranged.” Wherever we’re going, something terrible is going to happen when we get there. Well, the movie that follows isn’t terrible; it has its moments, although on the whole it’s ponderous and half-baked, nowhere near the dangerous thrill ride promised by the opening. With its themes of identity confusion, it’s almost a rough draft of the much more successful Mulholland Drive; you almost wish Lynch could keep the title and the credits and take another crack at the rest of it.

PANIC ROOM (2002)

David Fincher, one of the most visually inventive directors working today, usually pulls out the stops when creating his title sequences (see Se7en, elsewhere on this list, as well as Fight Club and Zodiac). Panic Room, though a neat little thriller, isn’t his finest film, but it’s another fantastic accomplishment in terms of setting the table for what’s to come. Its very simple setup belies how incredibly effective it is: we see a number of exterior shots of Manhattan, as the names of the cast and crew appear in stylized photography throughout the sequence. But this bare-bones description in no way communicates the unsettling nature of the actual credits: the names appear as if they were floating in mid-air, part of the physical landscape of New York, carved into nothingness by the hand of God himself like the writing on the walls at Nebuchadnezzar’s palace as a quietly ominous score by the usually overwrought Howard Shore plays on the soundtrack. There’s a disturbing air to the entire sequence, even though nothing menacing actually happens (other than an almost subliminal glimpse of the film’s tagline – “FACE YOUR FEARS” – that appears on a Telex screen). A collaboration between Fincher, design company Picture Mill and special effects outfit Computer Café, the credits took almost a full year to finish, and the fruits of their labors are extremely rewarding, full of subtle menace and nameless dread.

- Bilge Ebiri, Leonard Pierce, Scott Von Doviak, Pazit Cahlon

Read Part 1 of this feature

Scarlett Johansson Sings! Sings Tom Waits Songs!!

Phil Nugent — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:00:00 GMT

If you've maybe gotten a little tired of Scarlett Johansson — she only seems to get a little less appealing and a lot less talented with every movie, and at twenty-three, the number of movies she's been in is far greater than the number of years she's been on our planet — the good news is that she's gotten a hobby. The perhaps not so good news is that her new hobby is singing professionally. Johansson, who will be seen later this year in He's Just Not That Into You — a title that could have applied equally well to audience reactions to The Back Dahlia or The Nanny Diaries — is releasing an album in May. Anywhere I Lay My Head consists of ten Tom Waits covers and an original, which I'm guessing — I'm hoping — will kind of stand out from the rest of the album. Reporting in the UK Independent, David Usborne writes that Johansson promises that the album will have "a dreamy, other-worldly feel," kind of like this post. "It was a really, really sort of inspired process, and it was something I'd never done before," she said. Johansson's only previously recorded work was a version of "Summertime" that appeared on Unexpected Dreams: Songs from the Stars, a benefit record for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's "Music Matters" educational program that also featured musical performances by the likes of Lucy Lawless, Jennifer Garner, Victor Garber, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ewan McGregor, Teri Hatcher, and Jeremy Irons, whose rendition of Bob Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love" was hailed by one on-line writer as "less creepy than expected."

The new album was cut in Louisiana, with production by TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek and a crew of musicians that included members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. If Johansson decides to do a follow-up, and if she really wants to shake things up, she should leave Tom Waits alone and do a concept album of versions of all the aching songs that various admirers and other horndogs have written about her. Scarlett Johansson singing "Scarlett Johansson, Why Don't You Love Me" by the Jai-Alai Savant and the tear-stained songbook of her ex-boyfriend Jack Atinoff, of Steel Train? Might be kind of funny. Of course, that's probably what she once thought about the script for Scoop.

Morning Deal Report: Whither The Dark Knight?

Peter Smith — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:45:00 GMT

Heath Ledger's death this week, as many speculated, has left several upcoming films up in the air. Production on The Dark Knight is finished, with all of Ledger's post-production done, but the film's ad campaign centered on him. Meanwhile, production on The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, the next film by Terry "Can't Get A Break" Gilliam, is on hold while the insurers figure out what to do. (Please, someone figure out how to make this movie. Tom Waits plays the devil.) And Ledger's directing debut, The Queen's Gambit (about a young female chess prodigy, possibly to have been played by Ellen Page) is needless to say on hold.

We can finally stop saying "Bond 22," for the second Daniel Craig Bond movie finally has a title. And it's. . . Quantum of Solace? Pardon?

Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Wilkinson join Clive Owen and Julia Roberts in Duplicity, Bourne screenwriter Tony Gilroy's directorial follow-up to Michael Clayton.

Will Gilliam’s Imaginarium Shut Down?

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:00:00 GMT

There are any number of tragic aspects to the sudden death of Heath Ledger, the very least of which is the effect his demise might have on films in production. But this is a film blog, after all, and it only took a couple of clicks at the IMDb to determine that at least one movie may be in jeopardy. No, it’s not The Dark Knight; as far as we can tell, Ledger’s much-anticipated turn as the Joker has been in the can for months. In a cruel twist of fate, it’s Terry Gilliam’s latest opus, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which began shooting last month in London. Yes, the same Terry Gilliam who saw his production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote grind to a halt when his star Jean Rochefort fell ill.

According to Variety, Imaginarium is not a sequel to Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, but rather “a characteristically convoluted tale of a travelling theater troupe led by the 1,000-year-old Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), whose magical mirror lets his audience escape into a universe of boundless imagination.” In the article, Gilliam acknowledges the troubled history of many of his productions, but insists “my problems have been no greater or less than anyone else's. I just talk too much, or there's always a documentary crew around.” One wonders if he’s changed his mind about that now. It’s not clear how large a role Ledger had in Imaginarium or how much of it had been shot; we do know that Tom Waits had been cast as the Devil, which sounds worth the price of admission in itself.

As noted earlier here on the Screengrab, Gilliam’s Quixote film may yet be revived. We’ll have to wait and see whether his latest production has been dealt a fatal blow.