Soundtrack September Selection #4: WALK HARD (2007)

Soundtrack September Selection #4 comes from Angie & Chantale at Cinema Obsessed. They picked a sublime soundtrack indeed:

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY

"Oh man, did this movie surprise us. As much faith as we have in Judd Apatow and John C. Reilly, they just don't make spoofs like they used to. We're SO done with these "Not Another 'blank' Movies." They just throw in every pop-culture reference they can think of, and have entirely lost the true meaning of spoofing. I mean honestly, what does Amy Winehouse have to do with a Disaster movie? Ridiculous.

Back to the film at hand. Walk Hard had a brilliant soundtrack, full of original songs that fit the decades they are emulating PERFECTLY. Many critics praised the soundtrack, saying the songs were not only funny, catchy and well-written, but perfectly reflected the genres and times of the film.

The soundtrack was nominated for both a Grammy and Golden Globe Award and was nominated and won the Sierra Award for Best Song in a Motion Picture from the Las Vegas Film Critics Society. (Wikipedia)

Some of the influences (in story AND in music) of Dewey Cox are:

Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson, Glen Campbell, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Donovan, John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, but mainly Johnny Cash.

Reilly was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. Not only was it comedic triumph, but he played guitar and sang his own songs.

The film was actually a flop, earning less at the box office than the film's budget, but received critical acclaim later, especially for the brilliant soundtrack.

Here you see Dewey's early music in the 50s (as a 14 year-old. Yes. Hilarious). His utterly offensive and blasphemous Take My Hand. As Dewey's unsupportive father tells him, "You know who's got hands? The DEVIL! And he uses 'em for holdin' things!"




Below we get a taste of Dewey's 70s Bob Dylan phase, when he's wacked out on drugs and writing very "deep" songs.

Lyrics:

Mailboxes drip like lampposts in the twisted birth canal of the coliseum
Rim job fairy teapots mask the temper tantrum
O' say can you see 'em
Stuffed cabbage is the darling of the Laundromat
'N the sorority mascot sat with the lumberjack
Pressing passing stinging half synthetic fabrication of his-- Time
The mouse with the overbite explained how the rabbits were ensnared
'N the skinny scanty sylph trashed the apothecary diplomat
Inside the three-eyed monkey within inches of his toaster oven liiife...




Not to be missed is the title track, Walk Hard, and the lovely Let's Duet, a wonderful piece of harmonious, hilarious innuendo."

For more Sublime Soundtracks, visit cinemaobsessed.com.

More later...

MUSIC DVD FUNTIME JAMBOREE

Okay, I promised some music reviews last week and didn't post any so here goes :

You could not come up with 2 concert films that are more different from each other than NEIL YOUNG : HEART OF GOLD and AWESOME! I FUCKIN' SHOT THAT! Jonathan Demme's work documenting Young's 2005 Ryman Auditorium performance is straight-forward and polished much like the music it presents. I'm far from a hardcore Young fan - I have I guess what you'd call the essential discs ("Harvest", "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere", "After The Gold Rush", "Rust Never Sleeps", etc.). have seen him live a few times, but over the years have drifted away from his newer releases because of too many same-sounding songs. A few songs into the show - that complaint melts away. With a large band of ace players (including Emmyloo Harris, Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, and wife Pegi Young) Neil plays the Prairie Wind album in its entirety then a smattering of crowd pleasing hits (like the title song especially) and it all sounds sweet to these ears. The DVD has some cool extras most notably a clip of Young on The Johnny Cash Show in 1970. Man, they need to release that show in full!

AWESOME! I FUCKIN' SHOT THAT! throws out the traditional approach and goes for the jugular - 50 fans are given Hi-8 and digital-video cameras to a Madison Square Garden Beastie Boys show and Adam Yauch's alter ego Nathaniel Hornblower edits together all their footage into one of the most rowdy, renograde, in your face concert films ever. One of the camera people even films his trip to the bathroom! Whatever your opinion of the Beastie's music this film is a lot of fun to watch - the split screens, the fast cutting, the wide range of angles, and the sense that the whole arena was pumping and pounding. It does drag a bit at times - the trance instrumental set wasn't as exciting as other bits but this inventive and punchy concert flick definitely deserves the right to, you know...party.

The best music documentary since Scorcese's NO DIRECTION HOME : BOB DYLAN in my book (or more accurately on my blog) is definitely THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON. Funny, disturbing, and never dull - the story of bipolar Beatles-obsessed quirky songwriting Devil-fearing Johnston is told by his extensive archive of home made films, audio-cassette diaries, magic marker drawings, and interviews with family and friends. The overwhelming amount available of Johnston's self documentation pours out of the movie and into the bonus features on the DVD - it takes quite a bit to get through all of it but it is worth every second.


More later...