Savage Popcorn

Today is Valentine’s Day, so here’s a date appropriate song from Tim Minchin, from the 2008 Secret Policeman’s Ball.

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Tao Ruspoli’s Fix claims to be inspired by true events and follows two documentary filmmakers as they race across Los Angeles in order to get the brother of one of the filmmakers from jail to rehab before 8pm.

Along the way encountering dozens of colorful characters, each with their own anomalous perspective on Leo’s larger than life personality and style, and each with their own excuse for why they cannot help out. In the end, it may take a drug deal to get the necessary funds for rehab.

The film will be released on VOD this month and will be available on DVD on March 9th from FixtheMovie.com. And if you want to get a sense of how the film sounds, you can download the soundtrack, absolutely free, from the Fix film website.

It’s well worth a listen.

Dreaming wasn’t the first single I ever bought, but it was one of them. So I am indebted to The One Thousand for pointing me in the direction of this video of Debby Harry doing what she does best.

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White Wine in the Sun, the entertainingly sentimental encore to Tim Minchin’s Ready For This? show has now been released in the UK as a single. Inevitably enough, there is a video on YouTube and, if you like really long odds, click here to try and help the song into the UK charts.

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Check out this video of a children’s choir singing Ave Satani, the Satan hailing main theme to The Omen.

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According to his Twitter bio, Tim Minchin is a musician with a swollen sense of his ability to articulate his insignificance. I first heard about Tim Minchin by way of the SGU podcast back in January – he struck me as being both funny and articulate back then and everything I’ve seen from him since has confirmed that view.

What I didn’t know is that he was on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on Friday, which is a shame because I probably would have watched it had I been paying attention to the TV listings.

However, part of his performance has already made it onto YouTube, so here’s Five poofs and two pianos.

Enjoy.

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David Byrne’s (Nothing But) Flowers can be found on the Talking Heads album Naked and describes a post-apocalyptic world in which modern technology has been largely eliminated, and there is “nothing but flowers.”

Or, as Liberal England puts it:

This song is a Ballardian lament for the lost pleasures of consumerism, written for a future environmentalist’s paradise.

Enjoy

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Today, September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day and in honour of the occasion, here is George Harrison’s Pirate Song, which I found by way of @Filmsrtalker’s Twitter stream.

Avast me hearties!

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Drive-In Horrorshow is an anthology of films in the tradition of Tales From The Crypt and Creepshow. Five films are linked together by The Projectionist, a ghastly lost soul and owner of a decrepit drive-in that is staffed by a motley assortment of zombies, ghouls, trolls and other things that go bump in the night.

The film is currently in production, but there is a trailer out already which is worth taking a look at. Interestingly, the people behind the film have also released a sample DVD and a soundtrack album, both of which I’ve been able to lay my hands on.

The Ghoulish Videos DVD has four parts. First up is the music videos, of which there are eight demonstrating quite a wide range of styles. Highlights – for me – include the zombie-battling metal of Slip of the Skin by Hotblack; the poppy strangeness of Hollywood Nights by Common Thrill and the superb Bombshell by Trouble on the Airwaves. It should be no surprise that all of the videos use horror imagery to a greater or lesser extent, often with footage that is clearly from the film, and this imagery is used very effectively. It’s also worth noting that the songs are of a consistently high standard and all of them work well as standalone songs. Drive-In Horrorshow may be an independent film, but the people behind it have clearly managed to sign up a very talented cadre of musicians for their soundtrack.

We then have a Behind The Scenes section which comprises three featurettes demonstrating how some of the make-up and effects are achieved. This part, more than anything, feels like the sort of thing you would find as a DVD extra on the film proper. While the films are interesting, they also left me wanting to come back to them after having watched the full feature.

The third section is a collection of three trailers for other films. The first one, for God of Vampires, looks is both stylish and visually stunning while the final one, for the marvellously titled Elvis’s Dream Attack really does have to be seen to be believed.

And finally we have the Other Stuff, which includes the wonderfully silly Outer Rings, a two-part spoof of the cliffhanger serials of days gone by.

This DVD is a well put together collection and one thing that comes through very strongly is that the creative team behind it, and behind the film, have a lot of passion, a dark sense of humour and a lot of talent and really do know how to get the most out of a limited budget. It’s not expensive and is well worth picking up for the music videos and the Outer Rings. It’s also left me very keen indeed to see the Drive-In Horrorshow when it is released.

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Among the increasing avalanche of remakes and sequels that are being churned out at the moment is TRON 2, a sequel to the 1982 film starring Jeff Bridges. My attitude to this film has been to ignore it on the assumption that it will be yet another by-the-numbers piece of pap trading entirely on the name of its predecessor. Until now.

By way of Quiet Earth comes the remarkable news that bonkers electronica duo Daft Punk have signed up to provide the score.

While they have provided music for films in the past, and Interstella 5555 is derived from several of their songs, the duo haven’t written an entire score as yet. But they are one of the most original and entertaining bands in their genre, so whatever they come up with is going to be well worth listening to.

TRON 2 has just become a whole lot more interesting.

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