Soundtracking: Her Smell

by Chris Feil

It’s not incorrect to call Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell a musical, it just feels like a simple categorization doesn’t contain all of the levels that the film operates on. It’s also King Lear on downstairs cocaine, a Cassavettes character study, and an epic saga of female friendship. And of course it’s also a subtle period piece, unfolding over the years when Spin magazine reigned supreme, bad behavior was a natural extension of star persona, and grunge and punk excesses converged into a million different stylistic offshoots.

But music remains the film’s connective tissue, whether it is pushed to the background by the impossible behavior of Elisabeth Moss’s demonic antihero Becky Something or returns because of her genius. What makes it all work is that the music feels authentic both to the period and the specific, fractious aesthetic Perry is going for.

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Soundtracking: The Life Aquatic

Chris Feil wishing Wes Anderson a happy 50th birthday!

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou feels like a transitional film for Wes Anderson, one caught between our perceptions of his “arrival” and the artist himself firming up his trademark approach. At the time of its release, dismissals of Anderson as all affect without substance were starting to take hold. The key traits used against the film were its dollhouse set design, its rudimentary and chintzy sea creatures, and a song score that relied heavily on revamping and repurposing the David Bowie songbook.

But now the (sure, flawed) film defies that perception on rewatch as a something that’s explicitly about living and creating with authenticity...

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Soundtracking: Teen Spirit

by Chris Feil

Cover songs used to be a pop music regularity, whether they were outright hijacked by artists like Elvis or a staple regurgitated among contemporaries. Recent decades have made them pop culture artifacts or ironic reimaginings that overturn the original mood - the era of somber takes on upbeat tunes really fooled us for awhile. And then another cycle came for the cover song: televised singing competitions. This phase comes to life in bisexually lighting in Max Minghella’s Teen Spirit.

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Soundtracking: Take This Waltz

by Chris Feil

Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz gets its name from Leonard Cohen’s indelible song, announcing itself immediately as musically astute. The film is a nuanced look at love and personhood, following Michelle Williams’ Margot through her affectionately dull marriage and flirtatious dalliance with a handsome neighbor. Cohen’s track arrives towards the film’s close, a swirling punctuation point on the film’s observations on love and sex as escape before reality (and mounting baggage) sets in. It’s the film’s largest stylistic flourish, but its richest musical insights lie elsewhere.

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Soundtracking: Other People

by Chris Feil

Writer/director Chris Kelly has quietly become one of our sharpest surveyors of gay life in a very straight world. His is a gay perspective adept at illuminating the very specific mileage between not only queer folk and the straight people who think they understand them, but also between gay generations often lumped into one.

We saw this at play this year in the new beloved series he co-created, The Other Two, but we first got that insight in his underrated debut feature Other People. This semi-autobiographical dramatic comedy saw a thirty-year-old gay writer David (played beautifully by Jesse Plemons) returning to his suburban home to care for his mother Joanne (the immaculate Molly Shannon), recently diagnosed with cancer. All of that human drama, including its gay textures, get embodied in one perfect song choice that Kelly uses throughout...

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