A decade on, the Coen brothers' woefully underrated
O Brother, Where Art Thou? [alt] is remembered for
a lot of things: its sun-drenched, sepia-rich
cinematography (a pioneer of
digital color grading), its
whimsical humor,
fluid vernacular, and
many subtle references to Homer's
Odyssey. But one part of its legacy truly stands out:
the music.
Assembled by
T-Bone Burnett, the soundtrack is a cornucopia of American folk music, exhibiting everything from
cheery ballads and
angelic hymns to
wistful blues and
chain-gang anthems. Woven into the plot of the film through radio and live performances, the songs lent the story a
heartfelt, homespun feel that echoed its cultural heritage,
a paean and uchronia of the Old South.
Though the multiplatinum album was recently
reissued, the movie's medley is best heard via famed documentarian
D. A. Pennebaker's
Down from the Mountain, an
extraordinary yet
intimate concert film focused on a night of live music by the soundtrack's stars (among them
Gillian Welch,
Emmylou Harris,
Chris Thomas King, bluegrass legend
Dr. Ralph Stanley) and wryly hosted by
John Hartford, an accomplished
fiddler,
riverboat captain, and
raconteur whose struggle with terminal cancer made this his last major performance. The film is free in its entirety on
Hulu and
YouTube -- click inside for individual clips, song links, and breakdowns of
the set list's fascinating history.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2011 -
107 comments
Nants ingonyama bagithi baba! It's been nearly two decades since that glorious savanna sunrise, and once again
The Lion King is
at the top of the box office. It's a good chance to revisit what made the original the capstone of the
Disney Renaissance, starting with the music. Not the gaudy show tunes or the Elton John ballads, but the soaring, elegiac score by Hans Zimmer which, despite winning an Oscar, never saw a full release outside of
an unofficial bootleg.
Luckily, it's unabridged and high-quality, allowing one to lay Zimmer's
haunting,
pulse-pounding,
joyful tracks
alongside the original video (
part 2,
3,
4), revealing the subtle leitmotifs and careful matching of music and action.
In addition, South African collaborator
Lebo M wove traditional Zulu chorals into the score, providing
veiled commentary on
scenes like this; his work was later
expanded into
a full album,
the Broadway stage show, and
projects closer to his heart. Speaking of expanded works, there were inevitable sequels -- all of which you can experience with
The Lion King: Full Circle (
download guide), a fan-made, three-hour supercut of the original film and its two follow-ups.
Want more? Look...
harder... [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 1, 2011 -
22 comments
Glengarry Glen Ross endures mainly as a spectacular display of verbal warfare and alpha-male gamesmanship. There’s a musical quality to it, with a great composer and a great chorus hitting the complicated runs of broken dialogue and solos that weave into profane poetry and nuggets of philosophical wisdom. Perhaps the greatest sign of the movie’s success, owed equally to Mamet’s script and this cast, is that it does a great sales job in itself, convincing us that there’s nobility to men who lie for a living — a bill of goods we’re all too happy to buy. [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Sep 29, 2011 -
67 comments
"
'Postcards to Alphaville' is a project dedicated to film characters featured in guest-made illustrations. Everyone participating in this adventure has to watch a film and make postcard portraying specific character from it. It is love-letter to films and those characters that brings us, the viewers, moments of joy, sorrow and revelation and sometimes seems more real than the neighbor next-door."
via
posted by Sticherbeast
on Sep 28, 2011 -
7 comments
Despite my absolute fidelity to Sade's text, I have however introduced an absolutely new element: the action instead of taking place in eighteenth-century France, takes place practically in our own time, in Salò, around 1944, to be exact. (some links extremely NSFW)
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 14, 2010 -
95 comments
Coloring the Kingdom: the story of the all-female “finishing school” of hand-drawn animation that worked behind the scenes to create the first animated full-length Disney feature, Snow White. (
via.)
posted by 1f2frfbf
on Feb 5, 2010 -
8 comments
Apparently whenever US movies were released in Soviet-era Poland, the posters were discarded and replaced by
new versions by Polish artists. Alternately disturbing and frickin' awesome, and often containing political comments of varying subtlety.
Previously.
posted by genghis
on Sep 6, 2008 -
60 comments
Better known for their modernist take on contemporary furniture design, Minneapolis furniture studio Blu Dot has just introduced a series of film shorts entitled
Blu Dot Shorts. Their first short film,
Seven Twenty (embedded Quicktime warning), was directed by
Christopher Arcella (Flash warning). While is is not earth shattering conceptually, it is a jaunty and fun little piece of cinema.
posted by ScottUltra
on Apr 6, 2005 -
15 comments
I think he liked the new Spider Man movie. Not only includes many arguments for why the movie is great, but goes so far as to say that Art is "culturally irrelevant," has been replaced by movies as the most successful reflection of our times, and that this movie will stand not merely as the best film of 2002, but might well be studied in the future as the creative work most symbolic of America in these troubled modern times. Wow. Now THAT's a good flick!
posted by conquistador
on May 7, 2002 -
43 comments
Attack Of The 50ft. Website! How do you kill a monster that never sleeps?! The monster created by atoms gone wild! All New! Thrills! Shock! Suspense! For your own good, we urge you not to see it alone! See the ghastly ghouls in flaming color! The greatest collection of classic science fiction and horror poster art on the net! Now showing in a browser near you.
This website has not been rated.
posted by riffola
on Apr 9, 2002 -
12 comments
