Monday, January 16, 2012
THERE WILL BE PEACE 4 THOSE WHO LOVE GOD A LOT: Graffiti Bridge is airing on the Encore channel today, and I couldn't help but wonder: is there a movie with a more skewed ratio of Quality of Soundtrack: Quality of Film? If we can establish the metric where this film represents 1.0 GBs and The Graduate is 0 GBs (film and soundtrack are equally good), is Trainspotting at 0.2 GBs? Does any film exceed 1.0 GBs?
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Rushmore and Royal Tennenbaums are both pretty damn close to 0 GBs. As for something close to 1 GB, how about "City of Angels." Terribly mawkish film, but soundtrack gives us "Uninvited," "Iris," and "Angel," as well as tracks from Clapton, Hendrix, John Lee Hooker, and Peter Gabriel.
ReplyDeleteStand By Me gets close to 0GBs, as does The Blues Brothers. Good Morning Vietnam is about 0.4 GB, Pretty In Pink at about 0.7 GB.
ReplyDeleteI suspect mileage varies wildly on both Dirty Dancing and Forrest Gump.
By the way, Adam, I keep meaning to tell you about this...
Let me understand your scale of measurement. I first assumed that you are saying that (S - F)/100 = GB, where S = the quality of the soundtrack on a scale of 1 to 100 and F = the quality of the film on a scale of 1 to 100. So your scale would run from -1 (theoretically the worst soundtrack of all time and the best film of all time; let's say something like Godfather 2, since we're talking soundtrack and not score, and to my knowledge that movie didn't have a non-score soundtrack) to 1 (best soundtrack of all time with worst film of all time; the closest example probably would be Superfly).
ReplyDeleteBut then you give Graffiti Bridge a 1.0, and I assume you don't mean to suggest that Graffiti Bridge is the best possible soundtrack (that is, one could never make a better soundtrack) or the worst possible movie (that is, it is the worst movie one could ever make), plus you use the word "ratio." So maybe you meant (S-F)/|s| (or maybe the denominator should be the absolute value of the greater of S or F).
Anyway, I'm not okay with any scale that gives Graffiti Bridge the same number as Superfly, or, for that matter, that gives the Graduate the same number as any other movie whose soundtrack quality is the same as the movie's quality (say, Take Me Home Tonight, which gets a pair of 15s on a scale of 100).
Adventureland is on the list of those close to 0GB's. As are most Tarantino films.
ReplyDeleteIt's a pretty great soundtrack tethered to an unwatchable movie. Superfly may be higher. You are correct that ratios might not be in play here, but rather units of distance?
ReplyDeleteI'm REALLY not trying to be a geek or a dick here, but I'm also confused by the math. You say "ratio," but then give Godfather a "0." A ratio can't come to zero unless the numerator is zero and the denominator is nonzero. So if it's a ratio, equipose really should be 1, I think (movie and music of equal quality).
ReplyDeleteI saw Angus only for the soundtrack. If I remember correctly, which I probably don't, that's how they were selling the movie on the newly alternative Y100. Oh man, the 90's.
ReplyDeleteAs for scoring movies, The Harder They Come is somewhat of a barely understandable mess, but my favorite soundtrack of all time. Can we agree Top Gun is the perfect mix of movie and soundtrack?
What's the category for "I own the soundtrack because it's good but I've never seen the movie"? Examples: Until the End of the World, Stealing Beauty, Valley Girl.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE Angus. It's a little gem of a movie that I wish had seen wider success.
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference between a movie whose soundtrack is perfect FOR IT (Top Gun's certainly is) and a movie that is full of great music such that you buy and love the soundtrack album (indepemdent of the quality of the movie). I have no affectiona t all for the Top Gun Soundtrack, and most of the songs are really dated and kind of weak. But it works beautifully in the film. I love the use of the songs in the Big Chill, and I love the soundtrack as an album to play at home.
ReplyDeleteI will now sit here and be blasted by Isaac for loving the Big Chill soundtrack.
But...but...I own the Top Gun soundtrack. And listen to it semi-regularly.
ReplyDeleteI'd say Garden State is a .8 or a .7 at least. It's a mix tape set to a plot.
ReplyDeleteBut a great mix tape.
Put me down for Into the Wild (but I read the book!) and I'm Not There.
ReplyDelete"I Am Sam," full of magnificent Beatles covers, fits into Amy's "haven't seen it" category.
ReplyDeleteI'd think Out of Sight is a 0. Love the movie, great soundtrack.
ReplyDeleteUnder the Cherry Moon is both a worse movie than Graffitti Bridge and a better album.
ReplyDeleteAny soundtrack with Queen is probably better than its movie: Highlander, Flash Gordon, ??
ReplyDeleteI own the movie Steaing Beauty. Should I send you a care package of Stealing Beauty and homemade bias tape?
ReplyDeleteguest was me
ReplyDelete<span>I like the second half of the soundtrack -- Mountains, Kiss, Anotherlover..., Sometimes It Snows In April. But it doesn't compare to Graffiti Bridge in quality, even if you just looked at the Prince songs.</span>
ReplyDeleteI think this beats both Prince movies: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Bee Gees are just better vocalists than the Beatles; unfortunately, the movie is Ed Wood bad.
ReplyDeletelisten to the soundtrack, skip the movie:
Xanadu
Elizabethtown
Saturday Night Fever
Rocky Horror Picture Show
SPLHCB director has a number of movies on his resume that probaby qualify, the most obvious being Krush Groove.
I think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is another one that comes close. It might not quite make it to 0GBs, but it's a .1 or .05.
ReplyDeleteWes Anderson is up there with Tarantino for all-time GB ratio. The Life Aquatic is my most listened to movie soundtrack. Seu Jorge's Portuguese David Bowie covers are glorious, and the rest of it is peppered with Ennio Morricone, Iggy Pop, The Zombies, and finally David Bowie himself (during that excellent closing scene).
ReplyDeleteBlues Brothers is somewhere close to 0 (maybe a 0.2) while Blues Brothers 2000 is somewhere up around a full 1.0, if not higher.
ReplyDeleteForrest Gump also falls high on the scale (maybe 0.7 GBs?)
Scorcese's Mean Streets and Goodfellas approach 0,0 GBs
ReplyDeleteAdam: And I thought I was the only one watching Graffitti Bridge, mouth agape, this week. It's a telepod back to 1989. It exists in a world without metrics. I love the scores to Garden State, Darjeeling Limited and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
ReplyDeleteI actually assumed it was a logarithmic scale: C*log(S/F), with S and F rated on the same non-negative range (e.g. 0-100, 0-10, or 0-4 stars), C chosen so Graffiti Bridge has a rating of 1, and informally allowing log(0) = -infinity and log(+infinity) = +infinity.
ReplyDeleteI was not trying to be a dick, but I really was trying to be a geek. I like Russ's scale better, though it can be hard to graph with a big difference in quality.
ReplyDeleteThe Horse Whisperer: great soundtrack, okay movie (that I finally saw much later).
ReplyDeleteO Brother Where Art Thou?: magnificent soundtrack, pretty good movie that can in no way compete.
(I'd say The Big Lebowski comes closer to a blissful match.)
It's music - we all have our own tastes! The Top Gun soundtrack isn't one that really holds up for me, but I'm glad it does for you!
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with the Big Chill? I love Motown. The Motown on that album is a little bit elementary, and the non-Motown a little bit obvious, but as between that album and, say, the soundtrack to Flashdance (same year), no question I'd take the Big Chill and not feel bad about it for one second. I'm sure I've said before that there are about 20 Marvin Gaye songs where I think I know every last inflection. I don't talk about it a ton, but there's some oldies stuff that has established a bulkhead in my black, black heart -- Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, and, under the right circumstances and with the right song, Jackie Wilson (though I realize Wilson can get really corny sometimes).
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I do not feel that way about the Top Gun soundtrack. Ugh. My deleted comment said that I would have given both that soundtrack and that movie a 25 out of 100, making it an even 0 on Adam's scale but nonethless terrible. It is a scientific fact that food tastes 40% worse if Kenny Loggins is playing while you eat it.
Graduate gets a 0.5 for me. Decent movie, great soundtrack.
ReplyDelete<span>Bee Gees are just better vocalists than the Beatles
ReplyDeleteAgree to disagree. My cousins had this album, and as a 10-year-old whose album collection consisted, in its entirety, of Sgt. Pepper and Elton John's Greatest Hits, my reaction was: What the fuck? 31 years later, my opinion is basically, What the fuck? But I guess if you live long enough, you hear some crazy stuff. A guy with whom I was acquainted in college was certain that trees caused wind. I'll just file "The Bee Gees' & friends' Sgt. Pepper album is better than the same songs sung by the Beatles" along with that one. </span>
Ha! Since my teen years, I have always confused Godfather and Graduate. I mean, I totally know the difference between the movies, but I think one and say the other, and vice versa. Oops!
ReplyDelete1. I love Flash Gordon the movie and Flash Gordon the soundtrack equally, enthusiastically, and unabashedly.
ReplyDelete2. I really, really wish I could find a clean release (CD or mp3) of Queen's version of "New York, New York" from Highlander.
Go Flash Go!
ReplyDeleteYeah, even if you were to grant that Bee Gees > Beatles as vocalists (I don't, but if you were to), you'd still have to confront the fact that Beatles > Peter Frampton (who plays Billy Shears in the film), Earth Wind & Fire, Billy Preston, and Steven Tyler, and Beatles >> Sandy Farina, George Burns, Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, Frankie Howerd, Dianne Steinberg, and Donald Pleasance, all of whom also contribute vocals on the SPLHCB soundtrack. That's a lot of non-Bee Gees singing there.
ReplyDeleteA good piece of trivia here: Kiss was included on Parade after having been ruled out for his last three albums -- he kept taking it off the shelves, listening to it, saying, "No, it's still too weird for them," and putting it back.
ReplyDeleteThat said, GB is one of my favorite Prince records (the other two are Purple Rain and the Gold Experience), what with "Joy in Repetition," "The Question of U," "Tick Tick Bang."
Ooh! Another piece of trivia: "Round and Round," the Tevin Campbell track, is sampled in the Top Chef theme.
Graffiti Bridge's soundtrack is an exercise in improvement by omission -- the absence of Ingrid Chavez' musing verses and Robin Power's "Number One" alone elevate the whole. If you listen to the album without watching the movie, the plots imaginable are myriad (and believe me when I say that Morris Day was a much more menacing figure to me before I finally got to see the movie itself, when it hit rentals). In "The Latest Fashion," in particular, I pictured "you're fired" as code for "you will now be killed in ritual exercise."
ReplyDelete"Pump Up The Volume," however, gains a few decimal points for the soundtrack's exclusion of both Leonard Cohen songs featured in the film (the version of "Everybody Knows" is Concrete Blonde's, played on the summit during the chase scene. I submit that "Everybody Knows" is maybe the only Leonard Cohen song on which no cover version will ever elevate the material, because that track is sooooo nasty-rad), "Dad I'm In Jail" by Was (Not Was), and "Talk Hard" and "The Scenario" by, respectively, Stan Ridgway and the Beastie Boys, which two tracks would have seen exclusive release to this date on this nonetheless quality soundtrack album.
Valley Girl is really worth a watch. If only for young Nic Cage.
ReplyDeleteWayne's World?
ReplyDeleteEnron: The Smartest Guys in the Room -- terrific documentary, great soundtrack.
ReplyDeleteGrosse Pointe Blank - very good movie, excellent soundtrack.
Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion - fun but so-so movie, better soundtrack than movie.
Easy A: excellent movie, very good soundtrack (but maybe it's just a well-fitting soundtrack).
and of course High Fidelity has to have a top-notch soundtrack, and is a terrific movie.