I can imagine that this worked really well on stage as the actors can feed off of the audience’s emotions and the immediacy of the theater brings everyone together. That feeling is hard to replicate in a film. Movies have an influence on the audience but the energy level does not change from each showing. The emotions can only flow in one direction, and the somewhat static nature of a film , even one that is dynamic, does not provoke in the same manner. The difficulty this movie will have is less due to the material and more to the medium.
One of the problems that I have with modern musicals is that the tunes are not distinctive and the lyrics don’t lend themselves to singing along. So much of this film is made up of dialogue that is sung and could easily have just been spoken. There are not any extravagant show stopping moments. The closest you get to something that you would describe as a production number is a sequence that takes advantage of social media as a way to advance the song and character. It’s as if this movie is the anti- “In the Heights”. That movie was all about the wild color and flourishes of a musical, this film is all internal self directed mediation where the songs are basically happening in a persons heads more than anywhere else (there are a couple of exceptions).
The story has it’s heart in the right place. The perspective of someone suffering from social anxiety, depression and ADD, is handled with a great deal of sympathy.. In my discussion of the film on the podcast this week, we had a brief debate about whether the lead character of Evan Hansen is the victim or the antagonist in the story. We all agreed he had the best intentions but we also acknowledge that old saying about the road to hell being paved by those kinds of intentions. For my part, I always try to see the context of events to try and judge actions. Evan’s deception takes place in circumstances where being honest would be hurtful to others, and he can’t bring himself to do that. The pain of the family of Connor is impossible not to empathize with. Connor was troubled, his sister at one point calls him a monster. He was certainly horrible to many others, but that seems to stem from biological and chemical issues more than anything else. The fantasy that Evan concocts would have been fine if he had not crossed a certain line and if Connor’s Mother could just accept the story on it’s face. Like every sitcom over the last fifty years, one complication has to lead to another and in this situation the result is tragic rather than humorous.
I have heard some criticism of the decision to stick with Ben Platt as the lead for the movie. He is the Tony Award winning actor who originated the role, but he has aged enough that playing a high school senior may be a reach. I did not really have a problem with that, since I have been conditioned by years of watching movies with thirty year old’s playing teens. His voice is superlative for the way the songs are arranged and presented. I may not be a big fan of that style but I can recognize the talent it takes to pull it off. The other actors are also capable in the singing department. Amy Adams is known for having those talents but Julianne Moore and Kaitlyn Dever have not been singers in the past, at least not that I am aware of, they both meet the needs of their parts.
This movie was going to be a hard sell from the get go. In spite of it’s credentials on the Broadway Stage, is is not a very appealing subject to most audiences. In the past we have had a successful holocaust comedy and a semi successful teen terminal cancer love story, so why not a musical about depression and teen suicide? The answer is that people go to the movies for different reasons than they go to the theater. The earnestness of your stories intentions don’t always translate into a warm audience embrace. We can be manipulated emotionally, but we have to be open to that manipulation to let it have an impact on us. Movie audiences are very fussy about what they will let themselves accept. My guess is that most of the film audience, in these times, will not be receptive to this sort of storytelling.
I did something today that is always fun, and sometimes pays off. I spun the wheel on what to see and went in blind to watch Copshop, the latest from director Joe Carnahan and actor producer Gerard Butler. I have seen a few of Carnahan’s films, my favorite of his is “The Grey”, the Liam Neeson Wolfpunching story from 2011. Butler has become the King of the “B” movie in the last few years, and he does in fact rule. I had no idea what the story involved, I’d not seen the trailer or read a review. I chose the film entirely based on the combination of these two talents. Boy am I glad I did. This is a tasty bit of nastiness that borrows heavily from the 1970s, and that is my jam.
When the credits start at the beginning of the film, I could swear I knew the music that was being played. It reminded me of a gritty 70s film like “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3”. It sounded like a Dirty Harry score. Imagine my delight when I sat thru the end credits and confirmed that the theme music from this movie was basically “Magnum Force”, by Lalo Schifrin. There are a couple more music cues in the film that harking to the early seventies. The film does finally get to a contemporary pace and style in the climax, but first we are treated to a slow burn set up that reminded me of so many films from that earlier era that I love. We end up with two guys confined in a space and wonder how and why that are facing off. The ambiguity feels very much like some of those cop films of the dirty New York era but this is set in Nevada.
This is a cross between “Report to the Commissioner” and “Assault on Precinct 13”. The two leads, Butler and Frank Grillo, are not good guys by any stretch of the imagination. Their showdown results in so much collateral damage that it will inspire books and movies for years if it really happened. It’s not the sort of John Wick violence where there are as many bodies as there are bullets, the dead do have some weight to them and so it feels a little more engaging from a story point of view, without the style of the modern shoot em ups that we have had in the last few years. The best hook in the film however, is the third billed Alexis Louder, who is the real star of the film and I think is making a breakthrough with this part. She plays the cop in the middle, who adheres to a code of ethics and has the skills to fight back when needed. I thought her persona jumped off the screen from the first moment she appeared.
It would not be fair to the supporting actors not to mention the good work they are doing in what is likely a film that most people will see as disposable. Ryan O’Nan, who will be familiar from several TV projects, is a feckless cop with corruption in his back pocket. It is Toby Huss however who steals the show for villainy in the piece. I literally saw him in an episode of CSI just last night, but this character was very different. If the psychotic contact killer can be classified as the comic relief in a movie, than I will say that is the part that Huss plays. Anthony Lamb (not really subtle) is a competing killer, injected into the mix to add some spice, and boy does he.
The film is not great, it has plot holes and unbelievable recoveries from gunshots that undermine any credibility. You won’t care however because it is entertaining as hell for those who like the plot to play out over the course of the film and not have everything handed to them is a series of fast cuts designed to get the adrenaline jumping. Butler does very limited action duty, and Grillo is not attempting any martial arts moves. This is a shootout at the end of a psychological puzzle, and it satisfied me completely.
There is probably no more discussed, written about, argued over and idolized film than “Citizen Kane”. What is amazing is that it has remained near the top of so many lists of the greatest films of all time, 80 years after it first appeared. The reasons are straightforward, “Kane” created the template that so many films that came after it also follow. The visuals are creative, the movie is shot from non-traditional perspectives in most of the scenes. The Edits are integrated into the story, they are not simply stopping places before the next scene. Film Noir owes a deep debt of gratitude to Gregg Toland who shot “Citizen Kane” like it was a noir story. The film also gave us Bernard Herrmann, who would go on to create unforgettable scores for a dozen iconic films.
Far be it from me to commit to trying a new take on the classic, this will simply be a few random observations that I made at my screening. To begin, if you were seeing this for the first time and watched the opening five minutes, you would think this was a horror film. It is possible that some could classify it that way, but most of us get past those trappings as the story plays out, although by the time of the conclusion, you may revert back to that original impression very easily.
The characters in the story appear at different ages and in various degrees of warmth or aggravation with the title character. The one exception that I noticed was Everett Sloane’s Mr. Bernstein, who somehow managed to roll with every mood that Charles Foster Kane went through, and still remained loyal to him. Maybe that would classify him as a sycophant, but after everything plays out, I thought he was the one character in the story who you could always feel sympathetic towards. Joseph Cotten’s Jed Leland becomes a self righteous hypocrite, in spite of the fact that he is basically correct about his friend Kane. I hope that I hold no grudges so long that I could not reach out to a former friend near the end of their life and provide a small amount of solace by giving them a phone call.
When I went to the list of credits on the IMDB page, I was amazed at the number of actors listed as having participated in this film. They are uncredited in the film but the list is as long as your arm, it includes dancers, singers, reporters, and pedestrians. Everybody got to be a part of history. Ben Mankiewicz, the TCM Host who is also the grandson of the screenwriter, provided a brief introduction and coda for the Fathom presentation of the film. There was nothing particularly new in anything he had to say, but it did include a reference at one point to the David Fincher film from last year, with the notation that the film about the making of the film got twice as many Oscars as the film that inspired it.
Orson Wells accomplishment with this film was something incredible for the level of film experience that he had, which was basically none. Regardless of the controversies over the screenplay, the author of the film is pretty clear and you can see his imprint on every frame of the movie. “Citizen Kane” does not need me to recommend it, my only purpose is to remind you that it is out there, waiting for you to discover for the first time, or rediscover for your thirtieth time.
Long in the tooth and slow in the gait, Clint Eastwood still has enough star power to wipe most other performers off the screen. This 91 year old national treasure keeps working and making the cinema world a better place as a result. While “Cry Macho” may not be up to the standards of his greatest films, it is certainly entertaining enough and it speaks to issues that seem contemporary, even though the film is set forty years ago.
Many Eastwood films have featured him in the role of mentor to a younger character. “Gran Torino” was all about a cross cultural lampooning and deconstruction of supposed “toxic masculinity”, so it is not really a surprise that this film treads familiar ground. Clint’s character Mike Milo, is a used up man, without much to look forward to except release from this world. When his estranged friend and former employer played by Dwight Yoakam enlists him to go to Mexico City and essentially kidnap his 13 year old son from the Mother that he has divorced, Mike sees red flags but also a chance to find some purpose to his continued existence.
There are a couple obvious problems that I want to discuss early and get out of the way. The dialogue in the two set up scenes is not good and the performances by the two leads live down to that quality. The film starts to feel like it is just conveniently setting up the road trip for us without bothering to make the characters that inspire it feel believable. The “antagonists” in the movie are the kid’s Mother and her boyfriends and entourage. They are also not very believable, in fact there is one moment that may cause a spit take from the audience. But…once Clint and the kid connect, the picture is on much steadier grounds and the characters begin to feel more as if this is a story worth telling. Young Eduardo Minett is a slightly more natural actor than his counterpart in “Gran Torino” was, but both performances feel a little amateurish. The character of Rafo does start to grow on us, in spite of some adolescent faults that are irritating early on.
The connection between the man and the boy is of course the main point of the story, but there are some surprising detours along the way, including some time spent in a small Mexican town and the people of that town. In particular, the two fugitives, find a stronger familial bond then they have experienced in a long time. This interlude is the strongest part of the story and will make you want to forget what has been set up and instead settle down with the possibilities that are now presented to the man and boy. Eastwood’s directing style which has always focused more on character than cinematic flamboyance, seems a perfect match for this section of the movie. There is some gentle humor and only a little tension during these sequences. Once they hit the road again, there is an opportunity for Clint to do some basic action that is still acceptable for his age. The tension in his film “The Mule” from a couple of years ago was mirrored almost exactly when a couple of federal Mexican police pull over the two and we get some sly dialogue that apes the earlier film.
Admittedly, Clint may be a decade past where he could pull this off without difficulty. Still I think his performance here works. The romantic elements of the picture have little to do with sexual attraction and instead focus on the sorts of qualities that people really should be looking for in one another. There is a conundrum built into the mission when we get a plot point revel later in the story. Mike will not be able to resolve it, but he has prepared young Rafo well enough to be able to figure his way out of the issue when it comes up, sometime after our movie ends.
The film will have to make due with an older audience because the things that draw in the typical movie crowd these days are largely missing from this. No real gunfights, barely any fisticuffs, no action scenes per se and a romantic relationship between characters that could be their grandparents. This may be a film that works with Warner’s HBO Max/Day and date simultaneous release. I hope older audiences will go out to see the movie, but if you can’t bring yourself to do that, click the watch button and enjoy an efficient little drama that starts off shaky but finishes well.
I don’t know all the comic book characters in the Marvel comics, because I stopped reading comics in 1969. I have nothing against them, I just developed other interests. Fans of the comics however will be burdened by their expectations with the introduction of each new character in a big screen adaptation of the comic. I both benefit and suffer because of my detachment. I benefit by not having preconceived notions about how a character should be played, what stories to be told and I don’t have the artwork from the comics haunting my brain and forcing unfavorable comparisons. I suffer because I miss out on the anticipation of a new character. I don’t have a ready data base of knowledge to draw upon when trying to figure out who is who in a new film. So which of these two sides do I prefer? It’s simple, I like my ignorance because it fuels my joy of discovery. This week, I got to discover a Comic Book hero that I suspect I will enjoy for a long time. This movie surprised me in all the good ways a movie should.
Moving into Phase Four of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe was going to be a challenge for me. Most of the characters I was long familiar with were being retired from active film service. I knew that new storylines and characters were coming, I just was not sure how I would respond to them. When Doctor Strange showed up in the MCU, I did not think I would care much for that type of story. It did not take long for me to take to it with enthusiasm. I felt the same way going into this film. I thought it might be OK, and I would live with being a little underwhelmed. It is so great to say I went the other way. This was a blast, the character has great potential, and the world building in this was not so convoluted that I rejected it out of hand. When taken on it’s own out of context, it is pretty darn great.
There are comic fans who grow weary of origin stories, but I am not one of those. I enjoy discovering the background of a superhero, learning about their human weaknesses as well as their strengths. If you create a rich environment and colorful characters to go with the hero, so much the better. Shang Chi starts in the past, travels to different dimensions, operates in familiar contemporary environments and then takes us back to those magical dimensions that we started off with. This film also manages to accomplish something a lot of comic book movies fail at, creating an interesting climax for the final battle of the movie. We were given enough information to know that we should dread something that is coming, but it was not belabored and when it arrives, there are still surprises for us and some tension as a result.
I’m not sure I would love a whole comedy show by Awkwafina, but I have been given enough of her in movies the last few years that I appreciate the dose level she is providing at the moment. Whenever she is on screen, expect a little injection of fun. When she gets some opportunity to act she has been solid (The Farewell), and in this movie, she gets to be more than the comic relief. There are a bunch of wonderful actors that I am not familiar with because they appear primarily in television shows or in Asian language films. Tony Chiu-Wai Leung as the powerful and evil Xu Wenwu was appropriately conflicted, he is more tunnel visioned than bad in this story. Simu Liu was great as the lead, he is not simply an iron fisted warrior, but presented as a complete character with a sense of humor and a young man’s foolishness. Michelle Yeoh, provides an elegant touch with aging beauty and wisdom to go with her character’s stern demeanor and family traditions.
Because there are some connections to earlier MCU films, it would be a spoiler to reveal too many appearances by other actors. I will say that the presence of one character in particular helps redeem his storyline in an earlier film, and makes this one the sort of fun movie we have expected from Marvel since the first “Iron Man”. So even though the earlier MCU films have played out their plots, there are still strings to be tugged on, and doing so has lead not to the unraveling of an intricate piece of knitting, but rather it reveals some hidden gems that we will get to explore more. It’s great when a movie is so much more than you expected, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is one of those.
What appears to be a fantasy adventure from the trailer above, is actually a slow moving meditative visual poem. That seems like it would be appropriate given the source material, but a theatrical film requires a few things to meet an audiences expectations. “The Green Knight” lacks those essential ingredients. That does not mean it is a worthless enterprise, but it will test the patience of most viewers and it will still frustrate those who are committed to experiencing it as it is meant by the director.
David Lowery has made three films I have reviewed on this site before: “Pete’s Dragon“, “A Ghost Story” and “The Old Man and the Gun“. I found value in all three but not much entertainment in one of them, “A Ghost Story”, unfortunately, that is the film in Lowery’s catalogue that feels the most like “The Green Knight”. Pacing is a legitimate tool for story telling. A slow burn toward an action scene or a pause for the irony of a joke to set in can make a film better. However, when the pace feels like a slog, and the audience begins to notice that the story is not moving so much as lumbering, pacing may defeat the film’s ability to hold an audience’s attention. I think that is the case here. There are several scenes that are beautifully shot, but you start to notice the shot more than the story. One sequence in particular stood out for me. As Sir Gawain, Dev Patel’s central character, encounters a group of giants, the film seems to stop merely to acknowledge the fact that we are seeing giants. They do not advance the plot and in fact, there is a moment of confusion as the only other character who accompanies Gawain on his whole journey, dissuades him from following up with the giants. We never discover why, and it is just another incident but not an event that happens on the journey to confront the Green Knight.
Patel is an interesting choice for the part of Gawain. I’m sure that somewhere there is a diversity driven audience that is pleased to see a person of color in this kind of film. There may have been a time when that seemed to be a breakthrough, but for me that time is long passed. The color of a character may be important in some stories, but in this and so many other films, why should it matter? To me, the question is whetehre the actor has the characteristics to sell us on the part they are playing. Patel is brash when he needs to be and subdued when it feels appropriate. The quality of humbleness, which is a characteristic of a knight is tested by the script rather than Patel’s performance. It is easy to project onto his face the fear, confusion and dread that the audience must go through. The problems with the film have to do with things other than the casting and work of the actors.
Although the story has the components of a narrative heroes journey, it never feels that way. Each incident or event feels independent of the next. There are some call backs toward the end of the piece which try to tie some components of the story together, but it does not really succeed at doing so. There are several instances where the audience point of view is that of the protagonist, and then the perspective shifts and we get an outside view of events. This could also potentially be a time loop film since we are told the same story in two completely different ways on more than one occasion. Does Gawain need to die to meet his expectations? Is he a good man or a fallen one? How best confront your own doubts? The fact that the film asks the questions and then provides multiple answers instead of suggesting a single vision is infuriating at the end.
We had a good discussion of this film on the Lambcast and you can listen to it here:
Tonight I was lucky enough to see a special preview of the new Dune trailer. Tickets were reserved through the Facebook site for the Dune movie. We went down an hour early and we were glad that we did because there was a long line when we got there. Having followed the directions I knew that I was not supposed to bring in any electronic devices. It turns out that they weren’t collecting them after all so well other people around me took some pictures posted on Facebook, Instagram, and assorted other sites I sat on my hands patiently waiting for the show to start. Everybody was surprised to discover that in addition to the trailer, which would be shown at the end of the presentation, we were going to get a chance to see the first 10 minutes of the movie. There was an audible gasp from the audience and people seemed quite excited. Once the film started excitement grew, this movie is going to be incredible. Last year when the trailer dropped for the film that was supposed to open in November, I was generally pleased but I was not inspired by what I saw. That first trailer seem to emphasize characters and a little bit of the action. You saw a little bit of the planet and that was it. This this material covered the first 10 minutes of the movie and then a 5 to 10 minutes segments that will probably be about Midway, that features the worm attack on a spice harvester. So we saw 2 long sequences that featured some spectacular special effects, amazing costumes, and unbelievable visuals and some solid acting.
The director Denis Villeneuve spoke on screen about his enthusiasm for the project and he introduced and spoke with composer Hans Zimmer, who talked about inventing instruments for the score to suggest an alien environment. The sounds that we heard we’re pretty amazing and they definitely are distinctive and different from other kinds of Science Fiction films. So this 30-minute presentation included the first 10 minutes of the film a long sequence that’s filled with action and special effects, and while they were talking about the music we saw several clips from other segments of the movie. This film is simply going to rock. You will be overwhelmed with a creativity that the director and other filmmakers have brought to this project.
I have high hopes for the movie success because the enthusiastic response of the audience and the number of people who showed up for this. We arrived an hour early and there were a hundred people in line in front of us, by the time they let us end they were another hundred people behind us. That’s not for a screening of the movie folks that’s for a screening of the trailer and some promo material. At the conclusion of the film as the audience was filing out we were all offered a miniature version of the IMAX movie poster. This was an AMC IMAX theater that we saw the preview in. The size of the screen is impressive although it is one of those IMAX presentations it is not really seven stories tall. Anyone who sees this movie for the first time streaming on their home television is crazy. You will want to see this with an audience, you will want to be part of an experience, you will miss the size of the screen no matter how big your home theater is.
If you were not aware, I am in essence, continuing the original project that launched this blog, with another project focused on the Summer Movies of the 1980s. We are only a few days in so it would be easy to catch up. Those of you who have followed or subscribed to this Web Site are encouraged to do the same on this new project. The Kirkham A Movie A Day blog page will continue, this is just something extra for the Summer Season. Come on over and have some fun.
One of the best horror films of the last few years has a follow up, and it does so much right that I am willing to ignore most of what is wrong (which was not much). The original film, “A Quiet Place” tells the story of a family, coping with the after effects of an alien invasion of a different kind. We don’t know what brought this species to our planet, but we do know the impact it has had on humanity and it is devastating. Our family is a microcosm of the world, managing as best they can, but early on in the story, there is a horrifying moment that inadvertently drives an emotional wedge between an adolescent girl and her father. While managing to survive is the main story, the key theme of the film is the love that the father has for his family and the lengths to which they all struggle to express that love. The suspense is built up in a slow and incredibly tense manner, and the conclusion of the film feels hopeful despite the fact that significant loss occurs and huge barriers lie in front of the family.
This film picks up at the same spot that the first film ended, with one major side road. We have a flashback opening that reveals the first day of the alien crisis on this part of the world. This is an incredibly tense sequence, which is reminiscent of two other apocalyptic type films in the not too distant past, Zach Snyder’s reworking of “Dawn of the Dead” and the Netflix film starring Sandra Bullock, “Bird Box”. In essence we see how quickly the façade of civilization can vanish in a catastrophe. This feels like we are watching the events in real time and the overwhelming confusion and panic are shared by we the audience as much as the characters in the story. The major problem with this film is that the opening sequence is the best one on the movie, so everything else will seem a little less than it should by comparison.
In reality, that should not be the case. There are a half dozen sequences of immense terror and even greater suspense. Like the best of Hitchcock and Spielberg, each of those moments gets racketed up with small complications that make the moment a bit more intense. Director John Krasinski, has studied those masters well. Most of those little complications have been set up in the story so they feel organic rather than tacked on, and the scenes work well in the moments. Having rewatched the first film two nights before, it was satisfying to see how efficient it was at getting to the point and moving the story along. This movie makes a great effort to repeat that efficiency. It would have been an easy side trip to take by spending more time with the groups of humans who are coping differently than our main family, but that would take away from the dynamic of those relationships, which are the point of the story.
Having managed to avoid the trap of turning this into another zombie movie, where we discover that humans are also the monster, Krasinski as principle screenwriter for this episode, falters a little by separating the story into two paths. It is a typical strategy, and it works adequately for the plot but not as much for the themes. Emily Blunt was the key figure in the first movie, and young Millicent Simmonds was important supporting point. Those roles are reversed her and Simmonds has to carry the movie, and her plot themes are good but had mostly been resolved in the first film. Blunt’s character here is a fierce fighter for the family, but her story is not advancing the plot, and we already knew what she is capable of. Noah Jupe, as the other child in the family does get to evolve a bit in the film, but that story line feels the least organic of all the things happening to this group. Cillian Murphy takes on a surrogate role in the film, and his character development is the new thing that we need more of in the movie. His hopelessness is a good counter point to the fragile perseverance of the Abbot family. Because the story has been bifurcated, we get a little less time with this plot than I personally would like. I thought it was credibly developed and played well by the actors, but the transitions between the action sequences feel a little too quick for this to be a complete story.
All movies with a horror theme seem to need a jump scare or two. Some of them seem to consist only of those kinds of moments. The first film was judicious in it’s use of those kinds of scares, this one is a little more dependent on them and so it feels like a lesser film, even though it is quite good. The movie does not feel like a cash grab, I think the story sustains itself well and we as an audience had earned a follow up by giving the Abbott’s our hearts in that first film. I can also see where a follow up to this film could work perfectly well without having to force us into a contrivance to justify the story. In large part because we understand the threat in this film more clearly than in the first, it loses something. There are also continuing plot convivences that will bother people who start to notice them, and that will likely occur to many. Still, I will give a pass to those points for the suspense and energy that this film brings to a theater, and yes, I said theater. That is where you have to see this movie if you want to catch it before Independence Day. So “A Quiet Place Part II” will not take a position on the podium of films who have sequels that are superior to the original. That will remain a fairly exclusive spot to reach. It will however satisfy the suspense fix you are looking for, and it will burnish the careers of all the principle, but especially the director and Millicent Simmonds.
As a child of the 70s, it is of course inevitable that I would be infected by the virus that was “Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell”. The original album was a late 70s antidote to Candy Pop, Disco and novelty music that made up so much of the decades music. Heh, I fully embraced all that stuff so that is not a criticism, merely an observation. I knew the singer Meat Loaf from the movies. Yes I was one of those regulars at “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” Saturdays at Midnight. When the inaugural recording project came out, it could not helped but be noticed by the stylized cover art.
Also on the cover was an additional credit, right at the bottom, “Songs by Jim Steinman”. That is where I first heard the name of the mad genius who practically invented the Power Ballad for the next generation of hard rock acts. I remembered reading a story about Steinman who said in the article, that one of the ways he was inspired to write the music for the album was by listening to the complete Ring Cycle by Ricard Wagner, in one sitting. That’s more than 14 hours of opera in a row. I thought that was a great idea so I went to the library to check out recordings of the Wagner Operas. I did not succeed. I listened quite a bit, but not all four operas and not all at one sitting. My failure convinced me that Steinman was crazy and also brilliant. Listening to the music on this album showed me how the scale and scope of an opera piece could be distilled down to a single musical segment (although a heck of a lot longer than most three minute pop songs).
The follow up to the album was complicated by Meat Loaf having vocal issues and some falling out between the two over artistic issues (probably money too). They would reconnect years later, but in the interim, Steinman released a collection of his works that he recorded himself.
I bought the LP while I was in grad school, at the record store in the University Village, right across from college. Once again I was drawn to the overblown passages, soaring melodies and humorously dark lyrics. There is definitely a style that is identifiable as a Jim Steinman work.
This last week, Mr. Steinman passed away at the age of 73. You might think his overblown songs were relics of a particular time, that is until you go to a movie or watch one at home streaming, and suddenly, there they are again, the distinctive building structure or repeated musical runs as they crescendo behind a booming voice that suddenly becomes softer, lulling you in until it slaps you again with an operatic outburst. Steinman’s work lives on in dozens of movies. Frankly, there are many that I have never seen, and some even slipped by that I have seen but I forgot. In concert with a Roll Your Own Top Five Lambcast, i now present an inventory of Jim Steinman music in films. Let me star with one that I was really surprised about and doesn’t seem to fit with his usual oeuvre.
No Matter What-From Notting Hill
This is a love song, that is smooth and melodic, and soft. It is actually performed by a boyband from the era that I never heard of, Boyzone. They were an Irish singing group that had substantial success in the U.K. and Ireland. The reason the music is atypical is because this was a collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Weber. Steinman is credited with the lyrics. It is an appealing enough song for a rom-com, and the montage of scenes form the movie suggest it was probably used to promote the film. I’ve seen Notting Hill a few times but I had never noticed this credit until this week.
The next three pieces were not written specifically for movies. The first of these is another soft rocker that is atypical of Steinman’s bombast but the lyrics and the sad melody betray him as it’s author. It was in fact a substantial hit in the U.S. for a band from Australia.
Making Love Out of Nothing at All
As you listen to the chorus build, that is the main clue to the authorship of the song. The lyrics have the vaguely sad and empty emotional component that Steinman can be known for.
The song was used in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie action film from 2005. It is apparently used in the Dumb and Dumber prequel that no one saw.
A more appropriate vocal for the Steinman style is found in the Bonnie Tyler version.
Paradise by the Dashboard Light
The ultimate car make out opera was of course a hit from “Bat out of Hell”, so it was not made for the movies but it has been used in them a few times
I have never seen “This is 40”, but this song is apparently used in it and I bet I can imagine how. It also was used in “Leap of Faith” which I have not seen since it came out 1992. I do however remember the brief reference to it which was a little spot on with the lyric, in “Josie and the Pussycats”. It did make me smile however so it was worth it.
Total Eclipse of the Heart
Not technically written as a song for a movie, but Steinman plundered his score for the 1980 film “A Small Circle of Friends”, to make this song’s verse melody. Bonnie Tyler became something of a muse for him when she sang this song and took it to the top of the charts (incidentally keeping the “Air Supply” song listed above from reaching number one).
The backing vocals are credited to other singers but if you listen to the first “turn around bright eyes” it sure sounds like Steinman from “Bad for Good”. He also said he started it as a song for a musical version of Nosferatu. So while it was not written for a specific film it has been used prolifically in a hell of a lot of movies, including: Urban Legend
Old School
Party Monster
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Some Days are Better Than Others
Dead Snow 2 Red v. Dead
Trolls
Gloria Bell
Stage Mother
The remaining songs for this post were all tailored for the movies.
Original Sin-The Shadow
As was typical in the 90s (and probably still is) a pop song was desired to play over the closing credits of a movie. “The Shadow” was a less than successful, although highly watchable take on the pulp character from the 1930 radio show and comics. The score from the film was by the great Jerry Goldsmith, with a big orchestra supplemented by synthesizers. It includes the usual innovative sounds of a Goldsmith work. The pop song for the credits is completely separate from that except that it has some of the same dark, lush melodies that might be found in the score. No Bonnie Tyler here, instead the song was performed by dance music diva Taylor Dane.
Holding Out for A Hero-Footloose
Dean Pitchford who is the screenwriter for the movie Footloose, has a writing credit on every song in the movie, including this one. I can’t say what his contributions were, but I can say the song is unmistakably a Jim Steinman epic. Wikipedia quotes The A.V. Club’s William Hughes as stating that the song “displays some of the worst of its decade’s (and composer’s) typical excesses: The lyrics are laughable, and the heavy-handed synths and piano riffs come dangerously close to cheese”, but adds, “The sum of those parts transcends their limitations, hooking directly into pure emotional need like only the greatest of torch songs can.
So even harsh critics can see the transcendent nature of a Steinman song’s passion. Once again, Bonnie Tyler is the muse that brings Jim’s song to [larger than]life.
Tyler’s original version has featured on several soundtracks, including Footloose, Short Circuit 2, Who’s Harry Crumb?, Bandits, Regular Show , The Way Way Back and The Angry Birds Movie 2.
Jennifer Saunders recorded a version for Shrek 2.
The last two songs I’m going to mention are both from the same movie.
Nowhere Fast-Streets of Fire
This may be my favorite song on the list (at least until I listen to the next one). Streets of Fire is a film that was a misfire from a narrative point of view but from a stylized visual perspective it is absolute genius.
The chorus is pure Steinman
“You and me are going nowhere slowly
and we’ve gotta get away from the past
There’s nothing wrong with going nowhere, baby
But we should be goin’ Nowhere Fast”
The song was performed by a studio group called Fire Inc. with Laurie Sargent as the lead vocalist. Diane lane is the on screen singer Ellen Aim, the lead of her own band. This is the dramatic opening song for the movie. It has a hard driving intro and takes off from there. The last song in the movie goes the other direction.
Tonight Is What It Means to be Young-Streets of Fire
The song is led into by the big single from the film [Not a Steinman song, “I Can Dream About You”] but you can tell it is the climax of the film. The story is that the film makers expected to get the rights to the Bruce Springsteen song “Streets of Fire” and they even shot an ending featuring that tune, but the rights to use that song were denied. Steinman was asked to come up with something quickly and he gave them this song which he wrote in two days.
According to the wiki version: So I wrote this song that I loved and I sent it to them and he and Joel, I remember, left me a great message saying, I hate you, you bastard, I love this song. We’re gonna have to do it. We’re gonna have to re-build the Wiltern Theater, which they had taken down, it was a million dollars to re-do the ending… and I felt all his hostility for Universal. A guy named Sean Daniels, who was head of production, one day said to me, well there is hostility because we understand you waited about eight months to come up with that final song and you never did it. I said, where’d you hear that? I did it in two days. He said, Jimmy Iovine. So I went to Jimmy Iovine and I said all that to his, yeah it’s true, I know. I blamed you but you can’t be upset with me. I’m not like a writer. I’ve gotta make my way with these people. I had to have a scapegoat.
Regardless of it’s origins, it’s a great song, again by the studio band this time with vocals by Holly Sherwood. She had a solo career in the seventies and sang backup vocals on many Steinman projects.
So there you have it, a list of some great songs from movies by an artist who was incredibly successful but was not the frontman for most of his career. His Wagnerian brand of Rock music calls to mind certain emotions that mesh well with a lot of films as you can see.
Today Jim Steinman is the angel on the beach, his hair flying out in ribbons of gold and his touch has the power to stun.
Kirkham A Movie A Day 