The Screengrab : high fidelity

Screengrab's Favorite Movies About Music: Fiction Edition (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:00:00 GMT

HEAD (1968)

I think just about anyone who’s familiar with the Monkees’ sweet, goofy Peter Tork was bummed by the actor/musician’s recent diagnosis with head and neck cancer (although, apparently, the prognosis is currently good). And I think no matter how silly or cynically conceived hippies found the Pre-Fab Four back in the sixties, the songs the TV band had written for them (“I’m a Believer,” “Daydream Believer,” “Steppin’ Stone,” etc.) are a helluva lot better than most of the songs being written for today’s prefabricated music industry shills, most of whom don’t even have the self-awareness to be self-deprecating and more than a little embarrassed by their place in the pop culture firmament. To their credit, Tork and his bandmates Mickey Dolenz (the funny one), Davy Jones (the cute one) and Michael Nesmith (the smart one) tried their best to rebel against their corporate overlords with Head, a big-screen attempt at image-smashing phantasmagoria that plays like an LSD-inspired episode of the group’s small-screen show, i.e. a brainy, mostly well-behaved mind-fuck that’s actually a lot more entertaining and thought-provoking than some of the more “authentic” freak-outs of the era, what with the underwater imagery accompanying the haunting “Porpoise Song,” the burlesque meditations on fame and the peculiar cameos by the likes of Victor Mature, Annette Funicello and Frank Zappa with a cow.

HIGH FIDELITY (2000)

That High Fidelity is playfully self-conscious and yet not overly precious is a testament to both director Stephen Frears, here smoothly segueing between goofy comedy and sobering drama, as well as star (and co-writer) John Cusack, whose turn as romantically challenged record store owner Rob stands as one of his finest performances. Retaining the ragamuffin spirit of Nick Hornby’s source novel, Frears’ funny and incisive adaptation boasts two superb supporting players in Jack Black and Todd Louiso as Rob’s employees, as well as a script that refuses to sentimentalize the stunted-maturity failings of its protagonist. Rob is a man-child whose compulsive habit of concocting lists – about favorite songs and past break-ups – speaks to the vital role music plays in his romantic life, while also serving as his means of engaging in self-analysis through a safe, detached filter. A bit too much of Cusack’s narration and dialogue (taken verbatim from Hornby’s novel) lands with a writerly thud on screen, but the actor’s warts-and-all performance – unafraid to posit his protagonist as a navel-gazing prick, and still capable of making him endearing – is so energized that it overshadows any occasional missteps.

LAST DAYS (2005)

The high point of Gus Van Sant’s Béla Tarr-inspired “death trilogy” (following 2002’s Gerry and 2003’s Elephant), Last Days charts the final, pedestrian events in the life of a Kurt Cobain surrogate (Michael Pitt) in and around his Pacific Northwest estate. A ruminative, melancholy work with little interest in traditional narrative, Van Sant’s evocative gem aims mainly to situate viewers in a particular physical environment and headspace. In this case, that’s the remote residence and fuzzy mind of a shuffling, head-downturned, shaggy-haired rock star who wanders about his property like a ghost burdened by some ill-defined psychological and emotional misery. Rife with ambiguous religious overtones that contribute to an atmosphere of spiritual malaise, obliquely addressing the relationship between image and reality, and depicting its protagonist – constricted by claustrophobic full-frame compositions – as beset by hangers-on and record studio execs who take but don’t give, Last Days operates as a richly textured, arrestingly evocative avant-garde hypothesis about the forces that might have contributed to Cobain’s suicidal demise.

SINGLES (1992)

No one will mistake Singles for a great rom-com, but viewed as a snapshot of a very particular musical era, Cameron Crowe’s 1992 film holds up surprisingly well. The story has to do with two on-again, off-again couples (Campbell Scott and Kyra Sedgwick, Matt Dillon and Bridget Fonda) attempting to navigate choppy romantic waters. However, despite Crowe’s reasonably sturdy dramatization of twentysomethings in search of love and their post-collegiate identities – as well as his inconsistent (but far-from-disastrous) decision to have characters break the fourth wall to deliver commentary – the film’s lasting appeal has as much to do with timing as with storytelling. By setting the action in a Seattle grunge scene on the brink of exploding, Crowe hopelessly dated his film. Yet that turns out to be a good thing, since Singles, bolstered by cameos and performances by various members of the bands (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains) that would temporarily make Seattle the epicenter of rock, while comfortably rooted in the damp, sleepy, basketball-loving atmosphere of his Pacific Northwest milieu, proves an engaging, enduring time capsule.

GRACE OF MY HEART (1996)

This movie is character actress Illeana Douglas's best role to date. As in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine and I'm Not There, Grace of My Heart attempts to create a transcendent reality for the stories about Carole King, who some readers may need to be reminded was one of the Brill Building songwriters of the early '60s who later went on to have commercial success as a singer-songwriter with her album Tapestry. Perhaps you saw her on Stephen Colbert's show. In this movie, she is known as Denise Waverly. Denise comes to work in the Brill Building for a Phil Spector-alike played by John Turturro, writing songs for girl groups. She takes up with her co-songwriter, a Gerry Goffin-alike played by Eric Stolz (among the real-life Goffin-King compositions: "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "The Loco-Motion," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"), but their marraige falls apart. Later, she moves to California and takes up with a Brian Wilson-alike played by Matt Dillon. Even though it's not as smart as the Haynes rock fictions, it's quite a lovely little movie with lots of nice touches to people familiar with the characters portrayed. I especially enjoy the faux-Wilson's mental breakdown while working on the movie's version of Smile, the real-life album that broke Brian Wilson's spirit for a time.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three & Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Hayden Childs

The Ten Best Deleted Scenes of All Time, Part 1

Peter Smith — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:00:00 GMT

"STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN," ALMOST FAMOUS

Depending on your feelings about Cameron Crowe, this is either the ballsiest or the most pretentious deleted scene ever released on DVD. Either way, Almost Famous would have been ten minutes and eleven seconds longer if Crowe had secured the rights to "Stairway to Heaven," which plays over this scene in its entirety. Here's the set-up: it's the early '70s, and high-school music critic William Miller (Patrick Fugit) has been offered the opportunity to accompany his favorite rock band on tour, but his mother (Frances McDormand) believes that rock n' roll is the devil's music. In order to convince her otherwise, William sits his family down and makes them listen to "Stairway." And they listen. And we listen. And we watch them listen. For eight minutes. The most amazing thing about this scene is that it works : it's a battle between William's youthful enthusiasm and his mother's skepticism, played out in facial expressions and body language. When McDormand's character reaches her decision, it's perfectly clear how she got there.

THE SPIDERWALK, THE EXORCIST

For all its grotesque make-up, bodily fluids and levitation effects, The Exorcist gets the most scare mileage from scenes in which possessed adolescent Regan (Linda Blair) does something that almost seems human — but is, in fact, frightening and impossible. The scene in which her head turns completely around is a bone-chilling example. This infamous deleted scene, achieved with the aid of a contortionist body double and suspension wires, is another. Director William Friedkin cut the spider walk from the theatrical release of The Exorcist, believing that it showed "too much" too soon. It later became the most talked-about inclusion in the director's cut, and it ranks among the film's most notable scenes for sheer creepiness.

THE RECORD-SELLING SCENE, HIGH FIDELITY

For record store clerk/owner Rob Gordon (John Cusack), romantic passion and musical passion are completely intertwined. If he were to lose faith in either one, life would not be worth living. That sentiment is perfectly encapsulated in this deleted scene from High Fidelity, in which a jilted wife (Beverly D'Angelo) attempts to sell Rob her husband's priceless record collection at an obscene discount. Most collectors would pounce on the deal, but Rob is thrown into a moral quandary — almost as if he's afraid of hurting the records' feelings. In addition to its endearing portrait of Rob's unique personal ethics, this scene forshadows his pivotal realization later in the film: that he actually kind of loves the job he spends his life bitching about.

THE PHONE CALL HOME, BIG

The '80s were a decade of body-switching comedies, but Penny Marshall's Big was a cut above the rest. Twenty years later, it's still fresh, believable and funny, mostly because Marshall eschews bloated gags and focuses on the small, day-to-day difficulties of being a child in a middle-aged world. There's a dark edge to the film's best moments, which inevitably emerge from Josh's fear, bewilderment and naiveté. This deleted scene takes place after Josh (Hanks) has received his first adult paycheck ("One hundred and twenty dollars!" he exclaims, having never seen that much money before) and spent it gorging on junk food. Up all night with a stomachache, the only thing Josh can think to do is call his mother — who, of course, doesn't recognize his post-puberty voice. The newly released extended version of Big includes this scene, and it's a moving counterpoint to the giddy junk-food-and-silly-string orgy that precedes it.

"MERCY" (THE LAIR SCENE), ALIEN

This gut-wrenching scene, cut from the theatrical release of Alien, contains a startling revelation: with the exception of John Hurt's character (whose chest was memorably split open), none of the alien's victims are dead. Instead, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) discovers the half-alive bodies of her friends being devoured, slowly and painfully, by the alien's offspring. In addition to being a great scene for Weaver — you can see her humanity leaking away as she aims that flamethrower — it's one of the more horrifying visuals that the filmmakers created, and it contains a stunning H. R. Giger set piece that didn't make it into the theatrical version.

— Gwynne Watkins

Check back tomorrow for Part 2!

Morning Deal Report: Actually More Like Star Trek Deal Report These Days

Peter Smith — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Karl Urban is Dr. McCoy (uh, that's him on the right.)

Nicolas Cage plays a father searching for his Muslim-American son in The Vanished. Here's the question: is Cage's character Arab-American? Cause if so, I really hate that shit. Like there aren't any actual Arab-American actors who could use an interesting role. But they don't just cast a white actor — oh, no — they cast the most ridiculous white actor available. Talk about a slap in the face.

Tony Scott, that lovable scamp, will direct a biopic of Don Aronow, who invented the cigarette boat. That doesn't really sound like Tony Scott material, until you realize that Aronow was killed in 1987 by Columbian drug smugglers. Now we're talking.

Steve Pink, the cowriter of High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank, just signed on to the Kevin James comedy Mall Cop. Mall Cop just got slightly more interesting. But then, the guy also wrote Accepted.

— Peter Smith