"I was invited to participate in "Soundtrack September" over at Film Babble Blog, and it got my wheels a-turning. The task was just to discuss some favorite soundtracks - easy enough. But I didn't want my choices to be too obvious. Like, of course I could mention The Graduate or Singin' in the Rain, but that's not really breaking any new ground, now is it? So I thought I'd use this space to highlight some of my more obscure or unappreciated faves. What was supposed to be a couple of blurbs spiraled quickly out of control! I have broken my picks into three categories, with three selections each: preexisting songs, scores, and musicals.
PREEXISTING MUSIC
I started to see a theme emerging in the picks for this category - all of them were preexisting songs that had new versions recorded for a film. It's not that I don't love mix-tape soundtracks (looking at you, Garden State), but it's always interesting to see beloved songs re-appropriated for a new context.
1. DE-LOVELY (2004) The move itself is kind of lame. Skip it. You're allowed to. But the soundtrack is, in a word, ravishing. The film is a biopic of Cole Porter, which attempts to right the wrongs of earlier biopics such as Night and Day by painting a more thorough portrait of Porter that includes his homosexuality. Along the way, his famous songs get new life breathed into them by artists such as Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello, Robbie Williams, and Alanis Morrissette. Now, I know this seems odd. Like isn't Morrissette really angsty and a peculiar choice to be singing such happy songs? Not so. Her version of "Let's Do It" is super perky and I actually choreographed a super perky dance to it in high school. They also don't try to modernize the songs at all - they record them in a way that's true to the originals, but with a fresh feel. It's the ultimate primer on 30s/40s music. Download. Now." Read the rest of Julie's picks from pre-existing music, scores, and musicals here.
Kirby Holt from the marvelous Movie Dearest site referred me to a post from a bit back about a favorite soundtrack of his - the movie musical of John Waters' cult classic HAIRSPRAY (2007):"Movie Music: You Can't Stop The Beat" (July 16, 2007)
More later...
