007 Songs

Deborah Lipp, author of The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book, is counting down 007 Favorite Things while we await Skyfall during this, the 50th anniversary year of Bond, James Bond.

It started with Goldfinger. Shirley Bassey belted out a bold, brassy, remarkable title song that changed everything. Oh, sure, Matt Munro had sung From Russia With Love, but over the end credits, not over the titles. Besides, a sweet-voiced crooner delivering a pretty but bland love song was not about to make movie music history! No, it was Shirley who turned the tide, busting her vocal chords on Newley and Bricusse’s lyric while she busted the charts. From then on, a Bond film had to have a great (at least in theory) title song, and the rest of the movie industry sat up and took notice — movies sell songs, and songs sell movies.

Bond songs usually play over the title and reflect them. There's a new double CD out called "Best of Bond... James Bond 50th Anniversary Collection" and I've included a track listing at the bottom of the post so you can play along in choosing your 007 favorite Bond songs.  

Trivia Alert: "Nobody Does It Better" was the first Bond song with a different title than the film, although it name-checked The Spy Who Loved Me in the lyrics. "All Time High" made no effort to name-check Octopussy—can you blame it? Other than those two, every Bond song has reflected the film's title until we get to the Daniel Craig era. Adele's song, at first reported to be called Let the Sky Fall, appears to be a real title song; "Skyfall".

Deborah's Favorite 007 Bond Songs after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Will Oscar Voters Sing Along With "Skyfall" ?

My freinquaintance Mark Blankenship at New Now Next is in love with Adele's "Skyfall" theme. That crush is sweeping the internet though the song also has its "it's dull!" naysayers.

He's written a fun article but I wouldn't be so bold about predicting an Oscar to go along with the chanteuse's Grammy statues. For one thing you can hear iconic Bond underscoring and you know how the music branch loves to disqualify the best movie songs for stupid reasons or just not nominated the best ones even if they do qualify. (Moulin Rouge!'s über classic "Come What May" -- not that Adele's song is that caliber -- is an example of the former and Bruce Springsteen's Wrestler theme is an example of the latter.)

Here's Adele's song if you haven't yet committed it to memory.

I should stop being a killjoy about Oscar dreams and such a bitch about the music branch but it's impossible for me not to note the statistics -- it's a sickness! -- and they aren't promising. Oscar's music branch has been notoriously stingy about awarding this Original Song Bonanza of a Franchise. To date these are the only three Original Song Oscar nominees from 007 films (four if you count the non-official Bond film Casino Royale from the 60s since "The Look of Love" was nominated)

• Live and Let Die (1973)
  "Live and Let Die" Paul & Linda McCartney (sung by Paul McCartney)
• The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
  "Nobody Does it Better" Marvin Hamlisch & Carole Bayer Sager (sung by Carly Simon)
• For Your Eyes Only (1981)
  "For Your Eyes Only" Bill Conti & Michael Leeson (sung by Sheena Easton)

That statistic will shake your faith but it's not very stirring.

Oscar Updates: Rule Changes, Germany's Submission, Child Stars

Oscar, continually bewildering himself with rule changesRULE CHANGES & THE BIG SHOW
If you thought you heard paradoxical wild-mild applause at Oscar's new rule changes that was, uh, me. The Art Direction category will now be called Production Design which is all well and good since it's the Production Designer (aka the boss) that wins the prize, not the Art Director (who reports to him/her). The Best Original Song category finally gave up its horrifically unfair voting procedures where you could sabotage competitors rather than voting for them (yuck) by scoring them with low marks and now it'll be a simpler process with a standard five nominees and ranked nomination ballots like all the other categories. I'm going to pretend that this is The Film Experience's fault for our years of bitching about how screwed up that voting process was. Oh shush. It's possible we talked some sense into them... especially since every other site seems to have been asking them to just cancel the category already. I'd rather stick with history and keep the same categories, but treat them fairly. Too bad we can't use a time machine to get Cher her rightful performance time at the 2011 ceremony.

Meanwhile, I know you've heard that Craig Zadan and Neil Meron of Chicago and Hairspray fame will produce this year's ceremony. If they're true to their roots maybe they'll rescue the newly reformed Song category with big ass production numbers? Or maybe they'll hire Hugh Jackman to host again since they'll need a song & dance man to move the High Holy Night along. Yes, Jackman hosting might get awkward if Les Miz is in the (major) running but the Tonys do that all the time (nominees as hosts). Not that we approve...

Oh and while we're on the Oscar topic, I have finished updating the charts. Just in time to alter them again when film festival season [Venice, Telluride, TIFF and NYFF comin' atcha] give us more info on the competition to come.

BARBARA (2012). Germany's new Oscar submission

GERMANY'S OSCAR
The drama Barbara, from director Christian Petzold of Yella fame, will represented Germany in the Foreign Film competition. Can the drama about a doctor in trouble with the government in East Germany become their 17th nominee? Their 16th nominee last year was the 3D dance documentary Pina. Barbara stars Petzold's regular muse, the award winning actress Nina Hoss.

Ewan holds his family in the poster for THE IMPOSSIBLECHILD STARS FOR LEAD OSCARS?
Meanwhile Kris Tapley at In Contention weighed in on the somewhat suddenly buzzy tsunami family survival drama The Impossible and Summit's plan for a lead actor campaign for its 11 year old boy star Tom Holland (who plays the child of Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts). With both Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) and Holland's camps planning lead campaigns, might it be time to reinstate the Juvenile Oscar?

Frankly, I don't much like it when children win acting prizes (I know Kris considers this objection "nonsense" but the world would be dull if we all agreed), for a variety of reasons. It's not because they aren't sometimes worthy but because they...

a) ...are usually fraudulently campaigned
b) ...often have an unfair advantage based on general cuteness (nothing wrong with voting with your heart so long as your head is allowed a word in edgewise)
c) ...accidentaly reveal Hollywood's ugly sexism since time and again the Academy has shown that they don't mind snubbing unOscared mature actresses for "thank heaven for little girls" moments but would never ever dream of giving an Oscar to a little boy when there are men who have paid their dues waiting -- don't believe me? Just look at how few little boys have won acting Oscars (i.e. never competitively) compared to little girls.
d) ...are unschooled in acting so it's hard to know how much of their performance we must credit to the director and how much they found on their own in the role.

I think the occassional juvenile Oscar for performances that are just too wonderful to ignore might be the way to go.

How are you feeling about the rule changes and the presence of child thespians in this year's race?

Review: "Sparkle"

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad.

Leaving for the theater to see Sparkle, the boyfriend wrinkled up his nose. "Is that that Dreamgirls remake?" he asked rhetorically. He doesn't care about movies (...I know!) so I just said "yes" rather than getting into it. Sparkle, like Dreamgirls before it, does pair an "American Idol" alum in her big screen debut (Jordin Sparks / Jennifer Hudson) with a genuine legend (Whitney / Beyoncé) to tell the story of a troubled female pop trio in 1960s Detroit attempting to make it big as Motown explodes. But the similarities are cosmetic. (Which is not, unfortunately, to Sparkle's benefit. If you're going to load up your screenplay with familiar clichés, rob from superior work!)

The immediate jarring difference between the two films is first noticeable in the Jennifer/Jordin continuum. In both films the biggest talent of the trio has to play second fiddle to "the hot one" but only in the earlier property does the Major Talent bristle mesmerizingly against her runner-up status; Jordin's "Sparkle" is a willing wallflower, happy to let her sister (the crazy gorgeous Carmen Ejogo) sing all of her songs whilst shimmering in the warmth of the spotlight. Sparkle's sister's name is "Sister" and their group is called "Sister and Her Sisters" and the men competing dramatically for their hands (that's a euphemism for vaginas) are named "Stix" (Derek Luke) and "Satin" (Mike Epps). So any moviegoer with a sybilant "S" should avoid all discussions of the movie. 

Click to read more ...

And the LINK said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the Blog

<-- Look it's Russell Crowe as Noah in Darren Aronofsky's hopefully insane biblical epic. I hope he's nicer to the CGI tigers than he was in Gladiator.

Links
Vulture Will now middle age Bill & Ted have another excellent adventure?
Pajiba whoa. Darlene Cates, the nearly immobile obese mama from What's Eating Gilbert Grape (the movie that brought us baby Oscar nominee Leo DiCaprio) has lost 244 lbs.
MNPP Shia Labeouf joins Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac
Towleroad Lady Gaga vs. RuPaul. Fierce x 2? 
Cinema Blend looks at the rumors and facts about Warner Bros plans for a Justice League movie. Warner Bros still doesn't get it though, since so many Green Lantern people are still involved. Wake up WB. Green Lantern was terrible. The Avengers would not have become a beloved mega hit if everyone hated the movies that led to it.
Coming Soon Oooh, track listing for Tim Burton's Frankenweenie remake. Karen O has an original song (will Oscar notice this time? They so screwed up with Where The Wild Things Are and Winona Ryder is on the CD too.  

Just 4 Fun
3 things that made me LOL this morning when I most needed to.
Olympic Booty Appreciation I ♥ the titles so much
Call Me Maybe ♫ Chatroulette version
"Pile of PeeWees" from the Crazy 4 Cult show. Scotty C. is the best