August 30, 2026 • 61 mins
Adam and Josh return with guest Rico Gagliano (MUBI Podcast) for Part 2 of their Top 5 Needle Drops. This episode brought to you by Anderson, Linklater, Fincher, and Scorsese.
Notes:
-The Sigur Rós song “Starálfur” means "staring elf," not "little elf." Josh harmar mistökin.
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Speaker 1 (00:21):
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Speaker 2 (00:45):
What kind of a show are you guys putting on
here today?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
You're not interested in art?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
No.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Well, look, we're going to do this thing.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
We're going to have a conversation.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, film spotters, Adam and Josh here.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
It is time for part two of our top five
movie needle drops. Josh, I think we've had everybody on
pins and needles anticipating.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm sure.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Three through one. I mean, it was such a tease.
Hopefully it was some good conversation, some illuminating, insights about
some great scenes, some great music. Maybe illuminating is too
strong a word. It's what we strive for occasionally here
on Film Spotting, but we've still got the best ahead
of us.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
We've got The B-side. We've offered a double album of
film spotting this week. And I don't know, are B-sides
considered usually better or a letdown?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Usually the throwaways, I think. I know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So it's the opposite. Let's not say B-side. Let's say
double album, okay?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Double album.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah. Let's go that.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
And this double album, every tune is a banger. Every
track is a banger with this one. 15 tracks, or
I'll give you a little spoiler, only.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
14 tracks.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
My math is bad. 14 tracks, I think, because we
do share. There is a shared choice coming up here
in a bit. We did give you part one picks
five through four a couple of days ago. You can
find that in the film spotting feed. You can also
hear a recommendation of the new movie. It ends a
golden brick contender now. We shared the poll results for
(02:22):
the best third movie by a director. And since 2020,
we should also stipulate, we also announced a new poll
where we want to know who's the best 90s movie villain.
We think it's obvious. I haven't looked at the results yet.
We'll see if our listeners agree, Josh, that it is
in fact obvious. So let's now go to Rico. Let's
(02:44):
go to the two of us. And here are three
through one.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Needle drops. Rico, you're number three.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Number three. This one, it's almost too obvious, but I
also like, I think maybe the reason, the way that
I was picking this, I never really talked about what
my parameters were, just like the things that moved me
that I really, and nothing beats the, well, two things
beat this because we've got two more on our list,
but almost nothing beats this, which is the use of
(03:16):
trouble by Cat Stevens in Harold and Maude. One of
the great soundtracks ever. And a movie that I saw
probably like a lot of people, you know, in repertory,
you know, it was in a place in Pittsburgh called
the Pittsburgh Playhouse that had a different movie every night.
(03:37):
And Harold and Maude was one of the perennial favorites,
along with things like Monty Python and the Holy Grail and,
you know, The Graduate, things like that. But that was
probably the first time I'd ever heard Cat Stevens. And
it seemed, first of all, is that so many of
his songs, even though they were written in the 70s, feel,
in some cases late 60s, still feel so modern to me.
(04:01):
They're these perfect, they're not like, you know, in that era,
there was a lot of epics. There was a lot
of prog going on. These were just like these perfect
little pop gems. And there's like 10,000 of them in
this movie. And that one is the most heartbreaking. Should
I say what it is for those who somehow listen
to the show and haven't seen Harold and Maude? Because
it is a pretty big spoiler. It's like right at
(04:22):
the end.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I think you've given them enough warning.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Turn it off if you must. So, you know, Harold
and Maude, of course, about a May-December romance between young
Harold and octogenarian Maude. At the end, he thinks that
he's going to marry this woman. And he's also a
guy who's ironically been obsessed with death, and she's given
him a reason to really love life. And he goes
(04:45):
to her house thinking that he's going to marry this person,
and she reveals that she's decided on her birthday to
take pills and end her life. And in one of
the great cuts ever, he looks at her for forever
and ever and ever when she tells him that she's
done this. And he just says, what? And at the
second that he says it, it cuts to an ambulance.
(05:08):
And him not wanting her to die. And that song
by Cat Stevens starts playing. And it's a very obvious
song to play. It's about trouble. Oh, trouble. Trouble, move
from me. In some ways, it's a really obvious choice
if you're going to be soundtracking your entire movie with
Cat Stevens. But it's also just so freaking beautiful. And
I think if my memory serves, you can't even hear
(05:30):
the siren. It's just the music. You know, the actual...
Details of what happens almost don't matter. What matters is
how truly sad this is. And it continues through the sequence.
She has passed away. The doctor comes out. You can't
hear what's being said, but you know that she's actually died.
He goes and gets into his car. It seems like
(05:53):
he's going to kill himself by driving off the edge
of a cliff. And just as he's about to drive
off the edge of a cliff and the song ends...
The car goes over the edge of the cliff, but
we reveal that he jumped free and he did not
go over the edge of the cliff. And he's just
standing there holding a banjo. It's the saddest moment followed
by the most hopeful moment ever. And just thinking about
(06:15):
it makes the hairs on the back of my neck
stand on end pretty hard to top. And by the way,
Cameron Crowe was responsible for re-releasing that album in its entirety.
That soundtrack was often truncated. And I think it was
back in the 90s, Cameron Crowe, of all people, decided
that he was going to get the full soundtrack reissued.
(06:37):
And there's just tons and tons of great music on that.
Since then, it's also been reissued with everything. But I
just want to say that Cameron Crowe agrees with me.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
As he should.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
And how about just the fact that you could do
an entire top five of uses of Cat Stevens songs
in movies?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Because you would have.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I mean, Rushmore has two of them.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Yeah, I mean, this is maybe an incomplete list, but
not only do you have Trouble, of course, you have
From Harold and Maude, If You Want to Sing Out,
Sing Out, which is also great. Rushmore, The Wind, fantastic.
Maybe not that great of a movie, but Father and
Son in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Wild World, my favorite.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It's amazing.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
Cat Stevens song. Peace Train in Almost Famous and The Holdovers.
There are probably others. The Wind is also in The Holdovers.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah. Rushmore. I think Rushmore has Here Comes My Baby.
That's his too, right? Here Comes My Baby too. So
I don't think Cat Stevens certainly was played as I
was growing up. You know, my parents had those records,
but I think my movie experience of his music was
probably Rushmore first. I came sadly late to Harold and Maude,
(07:45):
which of course is, you know, has been noted as
a huge influence on Wes Anderson. So it makes complete
sense that he would use two of Steven's songs in Rushmore. But, um, yeah,
I think, you know, the wind was a tempting in
Rushmore was a tempting choice for me, but I went
another Wes Anderson direction. Um, as we'll get to, we'll
(08:07):
get to not going to go there for my number three. However, um,
let me make another choice first. And that is going
to be, uh, from killer of sheep, the Charles Burnett film. Um,
the song is this bitter earth. sung by Dinah Washington.
This is Burnett's 1978 masterwork set in the Watts neighborhood
(08:29):
of LA. Basically follows a husband, a father. He's a
slaughterhouse worker. He puts in these long hours working. He
notably avoids taking illegal shortcuts to make money. And yet
the American dream, he just can't get it. He can't
grasp it. The movie itself, famously couldn't get distribution for
(08:54):
years precisely because of the music. Burnett couldn't secure the
rights to all the music that he uses here. And
it's so key to what the film does. So it's
understandable that he had to fight this battle because in
addition to Dinah Washington, the movie employs Paul Robeson, Earth,
Wind & Fire, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin. The needle drop that I'm
(09:14):
going with though is Dinah Washington with This Better Earth.
And this plays... As the husband and wife, they're played
by Henry Gale Sanders and Casey Moore. They're dancing. They're actually,
they're almost like just kind of slowly, softly swaying in
the room of their apartment. They're against this window that's glowing.
(09:37):
So it's this sadly beautiful image because it should be romantic.
It should be sentimental. But here's where the song's title
comes in and how the song just, you know, sounds,
it's about, partly about life feeling like a dead end.
You know, the world being stacked against you.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
This bitter earth. Well, what a fruit it bears.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Burnett uses this long extended fixed take. for this, to
let the music play out, to let them be in
the moment together and not interrupt it, interrupt it with
any edits. It's interesting, like more is moving more than
Sanders is. She's trying to caress him and he's not responding.
It's almost like he's this statue floating in the air
(10:33):
more than he's fully embracing the music. And sure enough,
when the song ends, she tries to kiss him Some more.
And he just kind of peels himself away and walks
off screen. So it's a deeply sad moment. It's deeply moving.
And I would say this is like a complimentary example.
It's just perfectly complimented by the use of this bitter earth.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
In some ways, based on your description of the track, Josh,
maybe one that is complimentary with the song I'm going
to talk about next. And you were just mentioning Wes Anderson.
not going to go with the wind, a song I
was very familiar with. So not a discovery for me here.
And we know the Royal Tenenbaums is out, still definitely
(11:17):
dozens to choose from. And while I know most of
the songs I've heard in Wes Anderson's films, there are
still occasions where he surprises me. And ironically, I'm going
with the needle drop from a relative disappointment because I,
I still, I liked the movie when I saw it,
but it is, it is second from the bottom on
(11:39):
my Wes Anderson ranked list. And the only, the asterisk
I have to put here is it is the only
Wes Anderson film that I haven't revisited. It's the only
one I've seen once that I saw, I saw it
in the theater and that is it. Maybe since Josh,
we have Subsequently to this movie coming out, we have
(12:01):
done a Satyajit Ray marathon, and I am now a
real appreciator of his work. Maybe I will appreciate this
film more. The film is The Darjeeling Limited, and the
song accompanies, and it's my only choice, it accompanies an
opening sequence. Yeah, of course, I knew the kinks. I
(12:24):
had heard Lola before. I'd heard You Really Got Me
a million times on the radio. I'm pretty sure I
had never heard another kink song behind those two. And
in this scene, the opening of the Darjeeling Limited, a
train is leaving. We're in India. A train is departing
(12:46):
the station. Bill Murray is running after it. That's my train.
He's late. He's trying to chase it down. And There's
traditional music playing. It's fairly quiet on the soundtrack. And
then all of a sudden, as we see Bill Murray running,
it's in close-up, in profile. And then we see Adrian
(13:06):
Brody's character, Peter, appear in the frame running alongside him.
And on the next cut, it's so good. It's a
wide shot. And the train is on the left of
the frame and the empty space on the right. The
guitar chords of the song come in this time tomorrow.
And we get the glorious Andersonian combination of Britpop and
(13:30):
slow motion. It's Brody running towards and eventually, unlike Murray,
successfully getting on board the train. As Ray Davies intones
this time tomorrow, where will we be? On a spaceship
(13:52):
somewhere sailing across an empty sea. this time tomorrow, what
will we know?
Speaker 3 (13:57):
It's folky.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
It's catchy as hell. I remember sitting in the theater thinking, yeah,
it seems British, but I can't completely place it. I
definitely didn't know that it was the kinks for sure.
I did know that as soon as the movie was over,
I was going to have to figure out how I
could hear this song again. I was instantly in love
(14:19):
with that track. And beyond that, it's just... It's not
just Andersonian perfection. The reason why it works so well
with that scene. Here's where I'll just start out saying
it is to the earlier criteria you mentioned, Josh, why
it complements the scene so well. This is a movie
about characters on a journey in a strange land. And
(14:44):
we're all like this at the beginning of any trip,
especially in a strange land, but especially one where if
we're like them, we're reuniting. with people that maybe we
haven't seen in a long time or we're estranged from.
They're considering it a spiritual journey. They're assigning mystical powers
to this location. And they're wishful. They're hopeful. So where
(15:10):
will we be? All these possibilities, right? They're imagining themselves
on a spaceship somewhere, leaving the sun behind you. But then,
This is Wes Anderson. So you read between the lines
or even some of the text and it's so tinged
with regret. The clouds sadly pass by me. Will we
(15:31):
still be here watching an in-flight movie show seven miles
below me? I can see the world and it ain't
so big at all. Is that comforting that the world
ain't so big at all? Is it comforting to realize
that or is it actually kind of disheartening? that it
ain't so big that there aren't maybe as many possibilities
that your life is actually more limited than you thought it,
(15:53):
it could.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Be or should be.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
You know, you don't, you don't need to be an
A plus English major to get all that, but I
I'm sure that Wes Anderson also knew his, his kinks lore.
I looked this up after, after doing all this prep,
I was like, I wonder, I wonder what Wes Anderson said.
If he said anything about picking this song, couldn't find anything.
I wonder what Ray Davies said about writing this song.
(16:17):
Tell me if there could be a more appropriate song
for this movie or maybe any Wes Anderson movie based
on what Ray Davies said about it. He said, I
felt that I'd lost contact with my family because I'd
been in a pop music bubble for five years and
I didn't know the people around me anymore. This time
tomorrow was about transience and an ephemeral world. clouds and
(16:41):
where do we play tomorrow and what am i doing
as a person tomorrow it's a floating song and i
was floating into a different era going with the flow
for a while until i work out where i want
to be and that says it all but just it
is a poppy song it's a catchy song it's so
upbeat it's live like wes anderson's films themselves it's lively
(17:03):
it's colorful it's energetic and at the core.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Of it it's so this is also the nature of
travel this is another travel.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah and that That contrast between the poppy, the upbeat
nature and the use of slow motion here is also
very interesting. And I think, you know, Darjeeling limited, which
I like, and it's worth, it's worth another view. I
would say, Adam, um, I, it didn't leap ahead of
his other films for me when I looked at it again,
but one thing that helped clarify is his, um, use
(17:31):
of slow motion and how it's more than just an
easy go-to for effect. To get us to feel like
something important is happening when it really isn't. I think
that's how lesser filmmakers use slow motion, but this is
a great example of how Wes Anderson tends to employ
it when there are, this speaks to the layered nature
(17:51):
of the song. There are like eight things going on
at once. And so we're able to take it all in.
And if you think about Brody in particular, his. face
and how the slow motion allows us to register what
he's registering when he beats Murray onto the train.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
We see the competition. We see the triumph. We see
the smugness and those are all different, right? Those are
all different layers. Then it shifts and you wouldn't catch
this without slow motion. It shifts into like a little
hint of guilt, some helplessness. Like there's a part of
them that feels like, oh, could I have done something? um, sadness,
(18:32):
maybe even pity. And then ultimately I think there's like
some dismissal there. It's like, well, I'm on the train.
I'm moving on too bad for that guy. Um, and
to have, you know, the song is part of that
like this, because the song is as complicated as all
of those emotions in the way it's lyrics point against
(18:52):
the poppiness in certain aspects.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
So I've always wanted to talk to Wes Anderson. I've
never gotten a chance to him. One of the reasons
is to know how he gets a, that kind of thing,
any director to get, how do you direct? Like it,
it seems like if you're going to slow down and
the point of slowing down, which I think you're right,
is to get all of that. How do you direct
(19:15):
it so that you get all of that? Because how
do you get an actor to flash through all of
that at once? And I also wondered to what extent
he knew the music that he was going to put
into that sequence at that moment. I'll bet he knew.
There are a few.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I'll bet he wrote it in.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I would think so.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It's my favorite soundtrack, by the way. I agree with
you that it's one of his, like, yeah, I love
that soundtrack. And by the way, there are a ton
of Indian tunes, including Indian film music on that. And,
you know, I think it's maybe one of his most
cinematic sounding soundtracks, maybe.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Number two.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Number two.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
This is one of the great, this would be number
one if I didn't have an even better number one.
That's how good my number one is, in my opinion.
Number two is Amy Mann, Wise Up from Magnolia.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
I mean, the.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Experience.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I saw that I'm pretty sure it was opening weekend
because I know it was packed. The theater was packed.
It was here in L.A. where I live. And there
was a lot of buzz about that movie and nobody
knew what to expect. The preceding movie had been Boogie Nights.
I think maybe people were expecting something on that level,
maybe with a little bit more, maybe a little more form.
and less episodic and, you know, heady and emotional the
(20:34):
way that it was, that moment in that movie is
still like amazing to me. I feel like since that
movie's come out, there've been something similar, but for those
who don't know, first of all, that movie was written
with Amy Mann songs in PTA's head. He knew Amy Mann.
She had given him, I think a tape of unreleased
songs or I think something like that.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Maybe they've been released.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
I can't remember. But he listened to them over and
over again and lyrics from the song appear in the
script and the references to the songs through the script.
And in the middle of it, as almost a love
letter to her as well as being a great dramatic
moment in the movie, every character stops what they're doing
or basically pauses in the middle of what they're doing.
And they lip sync to the entirety of one of
(21:20):
the most beautiful songs ever written, Wise Up, which is
an incredibly sad song as is typical of Amy Mann.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Every character in all their different situations are all basically
saying to themselves what this song is saying, which is...
When are you going to stop repeating these really bad
patterns in your life? When are you going to wise up?
When are you going to stop dating the wrong person,
listening to the wrong people, living for the wrong things,
(22:04):
all of this stuff and the audacity of it. You
cannot imagine if you were not there at the time,
because like I said, I think that this kind of
thing has happened since, but to stop a movie. And
have everybody acknowledge the song in some strange way and
for it to make total sense. And it's so beautiful
and heartbreaking. It's like you could have heard a pin
(22:24):
drop in that theater. And I just was like, what
is happening? It's just an incredible kind of artistic leap
of faith to take, particularly at that moment in his career.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Great way to phrase it.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's still like mesmerizing. It's my favorite part of that movie.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Yeah, it's so good. Let's go ahead and go out
of order here a little bit, Josh, because it's my
number two.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Okay, go for it. Go for it.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
And it's a needle drop that is both non-diegetic, the
song is playing over the film, but it is a
performance scene.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
It's diegetic.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
They're singing it within the scene, even though they're not
hearing the song ostensibly, right? But it's emanating from the
movie world, the characters all singing it. They're all unified
within the movie world. The characters are all unified by experience,
by trauma. And the filmmaker then could have a music
(23:23):
sequence like another very good needle drop, like Donnie Darko.
It could be like Mad World, right? Where it just
goes from character to character, letting us observe each one
of them while we contemplate the juxtaposition of their circumstances. Yeah. But,
you know, this song is fundamentally about, as you said, Rico,
it's about life choices and it's about their regrets and
(23:48):
it's about misfits, which they all are. And it's about
whether or not there's a possibility of growth and whether
or not you can move forward. And here you have P.T.A.,
In 99, still kind of this renegade filmmaker saying, screw
it to all the rules. And it's, you know, I'm
going to actually unify all of them. And the song
(24:11):
isn't going to be just backdrop. It's going to be
this kind of vocal handoff where each character is actually
going to express what they've been repressing. And the music
is going to be the vehicle for that expression.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
And you're right.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
It's completely audacious. It's arguably totally absurd. But that's what's
so brilliant about it. The Brechtian nature of it, just
the pure emotional nakedness of it, I think is why
it's brilliant and why it's so moving. And I remember
sitting in the theater just like you. If you didn't
have that theatrical experience, it's hard to maybe fully appreciate it,
(24:46):
watching it on DVD now. But in the theater, and
you don't have many experiences like this anymore. In the theater,
there was a charge. It was sort of like, are
we all unified by this experience? Are we all together
sharing this experience right now?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Is this actually happening? That was incredible.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
And I definitely didn't know the song at the time.
Even when I looked up later, I was like, I
don't know who Amy Mann is. Then I put it
together a little bit.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Oh, the face, the voice.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
I grew up seeing the video for Voices Carry by
Till Tuesday in constant rotation on MTV, but I was
still surprised that that was her. I had no idea
that it was apparently on the Jerry Maguire soundtrack. Cameron Crowe, again,
had originally put that song on the soundtrack but didn't
use it in the film.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
It's just a stunner.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, I should have gone with this.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Come on, Josh.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
It could have been three for three. Honestly, the only reason...
Here's the only reason, and you guys have spoken to it.
It's so unique. It's almost not a needle drop. It's
its own cosmic use of music that has rarely been repeated.
And I just felt like, I don't know. I should
have done it. I just felt like it was too unique.
(26:07):
It was too singular and didn't quite fit the definitions
I was working with. But I agree with everything you said.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
So what's your lesser number two, Josh?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Go ahead, beat it.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, well, okay. I think I have a filmmaker who
one-ups Paul Thomas Anderson in the needle drop category. Are
we ready to talk about Scorsese?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Okay, you're right. The only one, perhaps.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
You're right.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Okay, all right. You challenged me.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
What do you do with Scorsese? I mean, in a way,
the fact that Adam and I couldn't choose Goodfellas helped
a little bit, but Goodfellas is actually integral to the
pick I'm going to go with. And What helped me
work my way through this is this dissertation I just
finished up. I did devote a section to Scorsese's sacred
(26:55):
use of secular music. And that led me to a
bit of a peculiar choice. So I'm curious to see
what you two make of this one. I'm not going
to go with Rolling Stones, Jumpin' Jack Flash from Mean Streets.
That's like the source of Scorsese's needle drops. Yeah, it's
ground zero. And perhaps all needle drops. I mean, I
know they were used before that, but still. Not going
(27:18):
to go with that. If I were going to go
with a Goodfellas pick, and this relates to my pick,
it would be The Crystals' Then He Kissed Me, when
Henry and Karen are being ushered to their VIP table
at the Copacabana. I'm going to go with something that
I think of as a response to Then He Kissed Me,
and it comes from The Irishman, which I think is
(27:38):
a response, a continuation, a culmination of all of Scorsese's
mob movies. And that song, my pick, is going to
be the Five Satins doo-wop classic In the Still of
the Night, which actually bookends The Irishman. So if I
were restricting myself, I'm breaking two rules here. It both
opens the movie and ends the movie. Not really credits necessarily,
(28:00):
but yeah, it bookends the movie for sure. At the
same time, Scorsese is employing in a new way one
of his techniques, the single take here. The camera is
finding its way to Robert De Niro's Frank Sheeran, who's
sitting in a wheelchair at this senior care facility. So
something I noticed the first time I saw The Irishman
(28:21):
in 2019 is the way the use of In the
Still of the Night here is really the inverse of
Then He Kissed Me. So when you think of Then
He Kissed Me, it has this expectant rumble. There's an
air of exhilaration to the music and also to the moment.
It matches it, right, in Goodfellas. In the Still of
the Night instead has a gentle swing. It has reflective
(28:42):
lyrics repeating, I remember, I remember. It invites introspection rather
than celebration. And that's fitting, of course, right? For a
movie about a man slowly coming to grips at the
end of his life with his days as a mob hitman.
(29:07):
The music works this way, as I was just describing,
but the lyrics are interesting as well. I'll hope and
I'll pray to keep your precious love well before the light.
Hold me again with all your might in the still
of the night. Now, in the context of this aging
man who is beginning to reckon with his crimes, the
(29:27):
singer sounds less like making a romantic pledge and more
like this prayerful plea. coming from the darkness, pleading for
some sort of redemption, which we know is a theme
Scorsese is interested in, the possibilities of redemption. So in
terms of, this is my collide pick, basically. It's not
necessarily colliding with the moment, but I think it's colliding
(29:51):
or at least contradicting or commenting on Goodfellas and one
of Scorsese's other masterful needle drops, For me, maybe because
of that restriction, not being able to go with Goodfellas,
I'm going to go with In the Still of the
Night from The Irishman.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
It's one of the few of his movies you're going
to look at me like I'm an insane person because
it's also one of his, it was instantly one of
his most available movies. I didn't even have to go
to the theaters to go and see it, but I
haven't seen it. Um, I have seen that opening sequence though,
because there were a lot of clips going around at
the time and it's, uh, I've, it looks amazing. And
(30:28):
I love that in a way, I don't know why,
but the first thing that I'm flashing on is the movie.
Do you guys see train spotting too? Surprisingly decent movie. Yes.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Talk to Boyle here on the show.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I actually spoke to that movie too. And it's a
surprisingly good movie. And that it acknowledges his own mortality
and subverts a lot of what is in the first movie.
Instead of trying to go for the same thing that
they did in the first movie, it acknowledges that you
can't because we're all older now. And that's ridiculous to
try to go for.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, you've really got to see the Irishman for that quality.
But I understand the reluctance, absolutely. If I hadn't... I mean,
who wants to experience a Scorsese movie for the first time?
Speaker 5 (31:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
You know, on... streaming. If you had the opportunity, I think,
you know, I understand reluctance, but it's really rich. It's
really rich as a commentary on, you know, what a
quarter of his career. So, yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Agreed.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
And I'll just add that another option you could have
gone with certainly. And I wonder if you did consider
it is the Santo and Johnny sleepwalk, which would be
a perfect example of collision because there, I think he
uses it twice and And you would never, only Scorsese
would think to use that when there's mob hits being
(31:46):
carried out.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
It's so well done. So Rico, here's the thing.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
I know what your number one is, and I obviously
know how good your number two was because I shared it.
And the thing is, you're right. Your number one's even better.
That's how good your number one is. I can't wait
for you to drop it on our listeners.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Have you built up expectations enough? There's no way to
meet this level of expectation, my friend.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You know what?
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Our listeners, when they hear it, they'll understand. They know
my tastes and they'll understand why I'm so backing this.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
It is the moment in the movie Before Sunrise. When
Ethan Hawke's character and Julie Delpy's character, who have just
met a few hours before on a train going through Europe,
they've decided to get off together in the city of
Vienna and they go to a record store. And this
is one shot. They go into a little listening booth, again,
(32:41):
literally drop the needle. Nobody knew this song at the time.
There's no way that anybody had ever heard of this tune.
It was a completely unknown tune by this woman named
Kath Bloom, who I don't think, you know, that album
may even be like self-released or something. I'm not even
(33:01):
sure it was released on a label. I don't know
how Linklater heard about it.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
There's a wind that blows in from the north And
it says that loving takes its course Come.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
These two have just met, but they're attracted to each other.
And we just hold on the two of their beautiful
young faces while they kind of sneak shy looks at
each other because they 100% should kiss at this moment.
They know they should kiss. They just met though.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Will they kiss?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Should we kiss? I don't know. What is she looking
at me? I'm not sure. Emma, it is like the
most tangible moment. And you're like, and it's all one shot.
You were literally watching two people falling in love on screen.
Julie Delpy later said that she kind of did fall
in love with Ethan Hawke a little bit during the
filming of this scene. And what I really love about
(33:58):
it is that it starts diegetic. Other movies do this too,
and I realize I love this as a technique. It
starts diegetic, and we're watching them in this moment. And
instead of showing us whether they kiss or not or
resolving that scene at all, suddenly it cuts off. With
the music, it goes from being a diegetic song to
a non-diegetic song. And it's just them now going through
(34:21):
Vienna together and seeing all the beautiful sights of Vienna.
And it goes from being this little intimate moment to
something huge. It's not just about these two characters. It's
about the feeling of finding somebody you're into, knowing that
you're probably into each other, not waiting for just the
right moment to do it and being in the perfect
(34:41):
place with the exact right person at that moment. Like
we've all had maybe a few of these perfect moments
and this, it just captures it so intensely. And if
you're ever in a, I don't know if I can
totally say this. I just feel like whenever I'm like
down on humanity, I will go to YouTube and I
will watch that clip and then read the comments. And
(35:02):
it's almost, it's just like a license for people to
tell their most beautiful life story in the comments. They're
all like, this reminds me of the girl that I
met once in Spain. Or this reminds me of the
girl that got away. Or this reminds me of when
I met my husband, you know, something like that. Or
just like this perfect moment of travel or transcendence. Everybody
has some way into that scene. And it just, even
(35:26):
in the moment that I saw it, I was just like,
this has captured something so universal and so amazing. And
it is also pure cinema. It's one shot, one song,
no dialogue. It's just one of the most perfect moments
of cinema ever. I feel like that and the ending
of that movie instantly put it in my top 10
movies of all time.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Oh, I just realized I don't have to feel shame
about this, Josh, before Sunrise is in the Pantheon.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
It was ineligible.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
So there, you have an excuse.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
I have an excuse. I knew that.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Are you going to add it out where you forgot
to include it?
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yes, Sam, take that out.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
No, because of course it would have been eligible because no,
there's no way I knew that song.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
That you're right.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
The scene is a wonder. I'm moved by it every time.
And I will, I will every time. And I will
point out on behalf of film spotting PA, Sophie Kempinar,
that you will occasionally very, very regularly spot her wearing
her Alton new t-shirt, the record store, because she, when
she studied abroad and, She was sure to travel to
(36:31):
Vienna simply so she could do her before sunrise walking tour.
And she went to the Alta new record store so
she could have that.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
It's still there.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
My understanding, you can tell me whether this is true.
My understanding is that that listening booth did not exist.
They made it for the movie and they just left
it there.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I want, I totally, by the way, that's one of
the episodes that I wanted to do this year. I 100%
wanted to do that thing. We just couldn't get it together.
And I was in Germany last year. I was like, well, maybe.
If we do that episode, why don't, Mubi, why don't
you just pay me to go down to Vienna and
I'll just go record in there. It'll be a great
little thing.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Turns out they didn't.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
But amazing. Next time.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Thanks, man.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Well done. Well done, Rico.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Excellent.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Your pick, Rico, was my number one Richard Linklater scene
when we did that top five. And yeah, couldn't go
that way because of the Pantheon. But I am going
to go with another number one filmmaker scene for my
number one needle drop scene. This is a filmmaker we've
already discussed, Wes Anderson. Hope people are up for a
(37:38):
little more Wes Anderson talk. I think so because this
is a movie, I guess, kind of like Darjeeling Limited,
not quite as highly regarded as some of the others
in his filmography. Um, but I'm going to go with
a choice from the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. And
the stong is Starover from Sigur Rós. It anchors the
(38:01):
climactic encounter with the Jaguar shark in the Life Aquatic
with Steve Zissou, which was my pick for best Wes
Anderson scene. I called it the, I wonder if it
remembers me scene. That's the response Bill Murray's Steve Zissou
has to finally meeting this creature who's devoured his friend
Estevan on an expedition Rather than this exercise in vengeance, though,
(38:23):
Zissou is overcome. He's stunned. Just has this experience of
awe when he sees this creature. You know, it is
Zissou's moment, but it's also this experience of communal epiphany.
All the other characters in the movie, almost every single one,
they're squeezed into the submarine with Zissou for this. And
(38:46):
I do often reference the epiphanies that take place in
Anderson's films. And for me, this is his grandest. Even
if it's hard to, this is probably what I like
about it, it's hard to exactly locate what's happening here.
What is the nature of the illumination that is actually
taking place during this epiphany? I mean, we do have
what I mentioned, Zissou going from vengeance to reverence, but
(39:07):
why are the others reaching out to touch him in
this strange benediction? I mean, probably half of them have
been wronged by him over the course of the movie.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
He does not deserve this.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Um, but it's, but it's happening now anyway. Um, so
there's something, you know, more mystical than those going on
here that I've never quite been able to put my
finger on. And I do think holding all of it
together and enabling that mystery is this Sigur Rós track.
You've got these swelling chords that sort of usher us
(39:39):
into the moment. You have the twinkling keys that start
just when we get this, these bioluminescent hints. of something
out there in the depths, in the darkness? Could it
be the shark? That's when those keys start to come in.
And then, of course, you have Yancey Bergeson's glorious vocals, too,
which they just break out over the screen as the
(40:02):
shark cruises over the submarines. as we were talking about
with Darjeeling limited, you know, the timing of the bits
of music with the images is so precise and on
track here. I didn't ever really think about what this
(40:25):
song meant. Like I never had it translated before as
the many times I've watched it as I've picked it
for other lists. So I took the time to do it.
The title means little elf. It's basically about going to
bed and encountering A magical creature? So, okay. I guess.
It actually is translatable.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I always thought that they like sang in their own language.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
This is what I found researching it. So maybe my
information is incorrect, but take this with a grain of
salt then. What I found does track though. I mean,
a few lines I found that they did catch my attention.
Stares at me, a little elf, transforms me into, but
doesn't move. And I like that notion of being transformed,
but not exactly how or into what. I think that
(41:14):
fits so well for this moment in the movie. It's
just this emotionally, even spiritually resonant experience that can't entirely
be explained. So I don't know. I hope, Rico, that
that isn't all gibberish that I found. But what I
did discover does track with kind of my experience of
the moment, at least. Help me process it. And it's
(41:35):
another completion for me in terms of compliment collide or complete.
This definitely completes that moment. And in a weird way,
I've never really figured out kind of completes the movie.
Maybe someday I'll get there. I'm probably going to watch
it again next week.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I kind of feel like as you were saying this,
and I don't know if I've ever like thought this
through though, but you're right. It's like, he's done terrible things.
He's wrong people. And they kind of forgive him in
a way that, All of, a lot of his movies.
I mean, certainly the Royal Tenenbaums. A lot of them
are about, even, yeah, Grand Budapest Hotel. These are characters
(42:13):
who aren't always like doing the right thing. They were
not always nice. And by the end, they're somehow forgiven
in a way.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Some redemption for the bastards. Inevitably.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Which is lovely. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
And it is like, by the way, it's also a
really great use of that song because of that. That
could be a really obvious song. Like basically using any
time using Sigur Rós because they are so cinematic by design.
They're so orchestral in a way.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
But it really deserves it.
Speaker 5 (42:40):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
You're halfway to a movie score with their music already.
And so, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
But it really deserves it. And I think it may
also work because he has such that picture box aesthetic.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Where the image isn't necessarily grandiose. It's beautiful. It's beautifully composed,
but it's kind of like, you know, it's not like
an actual creature. It's not CGI. It's not like beautifully done.
It's almost puppety in a way, but the music gives
it a little more grandeur.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Do you know, I saw, I actually saw the actual
Jaguar shark prop because I was in London when the
Wes Anderson exhibit was there at the design museum. It's,
it's smaller. I want to say it's like maybe seven
or eight feet. Yeah, it's like a puppet. It's like
a model. And not quite as awe-inspiring as it was
(43:31):
for Zissou, but interesting nonetheless.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
I remember actually seeing Grand Budapest at the Arclight Cinema
here in LA, and they had the Grand Budapest Hotel model. Again,
it was large, but yes.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
That was there too. That was incredible.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
But it's beautiful to see.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
Well, I had to have, or I ended up having
one good opening scene needle drop. I thought it was
fitting or I guess it's, it's ironic a little bit too, too.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Or no appropriate damage.
Speaker 5 (44:03):
To conclude my list with a closing needle drop. And I,
I am going to reveal to the world just how
uncool I was, or certainly how non edgy I was
back in 1999. Not that that will be a shock
to anyone because I had heard the, Of Pixies in 1999. Yes,
(44:26):
I am going with back-to-back 1999 films here at number
two and number one. I had never heard Pixies in 1999.
So I had never heard the song that would be
playing on a loop on my little MP3 player. Yes,
I had an MP3 player throughout the entire fall after
(44:47):
seeing David Fincher's Fight Club. The song, Where Is My Mind?
even though it was released in 1988 on their Surfer
Rosa album, that scene with Edward Norton, Eleanor Bonham Carter,
looking out on all the skyscrapers as the bombs go
(45:09):
off and the buildings fall, the timing of the cut
from Ed Norton's face, the timing of that cut and
the flashes from the bomb's With the snare hits building
to the guitar riff. And then you get, of course,
(45:30):
Ed Norton's memorable line, You've met me at a very
strange time in my life. I actually think this number
one pick, Rico, is like the evil romantic cousin to
your number one pick from... You two people standing there
looking at each other.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 5 (45:49):
And you've met me at a strange time in my life.
All the, all the cutting to, to this song. So
this is, this is like you were saying, Josh is
you can have great songs that are used at the
end of a movie and it's.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Not just over the credits.
Speaker 5 (46:03):
It can even be somewhat leading into the credits, but
it kind of feels like any great song could have
been plopped in there. That's not the case with your
choice or this choice. It's.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Integral.
Speaker 5 (46:16):
No other song feels like it could be used in
terms of not only the thematic resonance, but also the
way it's cut together, the way the camera moves here,
the rhythm of it, the body movements. It's all timed
with the music. That main shot is the wide shot
(46:38):
from behind them, and it tracks slowly forward.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
As they hold hands. It's in pace.
Speaker 5 (46:45):
With this kind of dirge of the song. And Kim
deals that, that wailing is just completely eerie and deranged.
And it's, that's how I've always thought of it.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
And it's, it's hollow sounding too.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Right.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
And so it, to me, it really is like a
voice in your head that just is incessant and will
not go away. I think it's the paradigm of, to
use the terminology you were using, Josh, I think it's
the paradigm of a complimentary needle drop. It goes without
saying that the lyrics are totally appropriate for a movie
(47:23):
about a main character having psychological issues.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Where is my mind?
Speaker 5 (47:29):
Also, literally, the lyrics say, you'll have a collapse as
financial buildings and potentially the market collapses. And The song,
apparently it was fairly successful for them as a tune
on that album. But then Sense, as you would imagine,
(47:50):
has become their signature song. And Rolling Stone in 2021
did a top 500 greatest songs of all time. And
it made the cut at number 493, which would not
have happened, surely, without the boost it got from this movie.
I mean, I think it's thought of You already have
one of the great twist, iconic twist endings in movie history.
(48:12):
You add on to it one of the greatest needle
drops ever, and it just elevates it even beyond that.
So the choice of Fincher here, I don't think we
think of Fincher as one of the top seven needle droppers,
even though there are other good options from Fincher, including from.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Zodiac, Hurdy Gurdy Man.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 5 (48:38):
And possibly some others that are not immediately coming to mind.
But he was the one that didn't, he was the
one of the five for me that maybe wasn't in
that upper echelon of filmmakers who regularly employs them.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Ironic because he's a rock video director. He starts off
being a rock video director.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Yes, good point.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
It's almost like he consciously didn't quite want to lean
super into that. He was going to be an auteur,
damn it.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Maybe, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Perhaps.
Speaker 5 (49:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
I mean, I'm a little older than you guys. I
was around when the Pixies first broke. And for the
college radio crowd, they were instantly iconic. That was one
of the things that was amazing about them, actually. They
broke on the scene. They put out basically three perfect albums.
They put out one more after that. But the first
three records that they put out, it was like every
single song was amazing. The entire albums were amazing. It
(49:27):
was the sound that you wanted before you knew that
you wanted it. And they also... Looked like they should
not be the people to deliver it. They just looked
like the squarest people. They were like from Boston. They
wore like, you know, t-shirts, you know, Frank Black is
kind of, you know, at the time he was calling
himself Black Francis and he screeches like a banshee. You
(49:47):
expected him to be this like crazy punk and he's
like this schmo wearing like a t-shirt and shorts. And
Kim Deal was very beautiful, but also I loved when
they came back. She basically was dressing like a soccer
mom on stage and doing those exact kind of eerie vocals.
It was like this incredible thing. But they never quite
(50:08):
during their lifetime had the impact on the larger culture
during the first phase of that band. They broke up
before they got huge. I mean, they were like opening
for U2 and stuff. They were always right on the
verge of being gigantic. And people within a subculture really
dug them. But it was, I feel like that was
the thing that really brought them to mainstream fame for
(50:30):
sure was that track. And it is like, in a way,
it's the ultimate Gen X moment because it's so, although
you're right, all of those lyrics work with the images
you're watching, the song is actually just about Frank Black
being really high in the Caribbean, like swimming around looking
at fish.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Yeah, like scuba diving or something and a fish that
wouldn't leave him alone.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
It's like it's the end of the world and you're
listening to a song about a dude stoned in the ocean.
You know what I mean? It's like, and yet it works.
Speaker 5 (50:55):
It is.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
It is perfect. Talk about a collision.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
Indeed. Those are our top five needle drops. We do
have some honorable mentions. I know you have some, Rico,
that you wanted to share. Just before we get to those,
I mentioned that I had a top seven.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
We've named all of them. They've come up. I had
them in this order.
Speaker 5 (51:13):
Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, PTA, Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Richard Linklater,
Cameron Crowe. And then those are the top seven. And
then I think number eight would be probably a battle
between like.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Edgar Wright and Danny Boyle.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Perhaps.
Speaker 5 (51:30):
Those seem like the filmmakers, the directors who most commonly
use needle drops. I, of course, encourage any listeners to
write in with other filmmakers they think of when they
immediately think about needle drops being used in films, feedback
at filmspotting.net. But Rico, who are some other Not who
are some other directors, but actually what are some other
(51:51):
films and some other needle drops that were really tough
for you to omit?
Speaker 2 (51:55):
This one mainly because it's a pretty deep cut of
a movie. I don't even remember who directed this. Maybe
you guys can remember this. It's a 1987 movie called
Five Corners. What I mainly remember it as is being,
I think it's the film debut of screenwriter John Patrick Shanley,
who went on to make Moonstruck, write Moonstruck. And there's
this moment in it. It's typical John Patrick Shanley. It's
(52:16):
about kind of like wisecracking people. I think that's set
in Baltimore, something like that. It's a period piece. It's
set in the mid 60s. So there's a lot of
mid 60s music in it. But this moment stands out
because there are a number of needle drops like the
doo-wop stuff that you would imagine that would be in it.
It actually ends with In My Life from the Beatles.
But there's a moment right in the middle of it
(52:37):
where these two kind of juvenile delinquent types who are
playing hooky from school, who you're not quite sure how
to feel about. They're, they're kind of cool. They seem fun.
One of them, I think might even be an exchange
student or something, but they're playing hooky from school. They
meet up with these two gum cracking girls who are
also playing hooky from school and convince them to hang
out with them. And they go to, it's great because
(53:00):
it's a moment where they, they, It's like this is
something they've done before that they know is going to
wow these girls, but it's the last thing that you'd expect.
They have created some device that allows them to open
up an elevator doors and step out through the open
elevator doors onto the top of elevators. And As they
(53:20):
go up and down inside the elevator shaft, being able
to see the inside of the elevator shaft instead of
being stuck inside the elevator. I think they paired up
as couples, one's on one elevator, one's on the other.
And they're kind of going up and down and seeing
each other and talking to each other. Suddenly, Deleuze's Lakme
starts playing, which is actually a pretty cliched cut. I've now,
(53:40):
since I've seen that movie, which I saw when I
was pretty young, that is used all the time. It's
a very elegaic piece of music. So anytime you want
to convey grace, you use that thing. But to use
that in the middle of this milieu, this gritty milieu,
this moment of magic that is actually not all that magical.
They're in an elevator shaft, but to them, it's this
(54:01):
magical moment. That just really always resonated with me as
this beautiful moment. I've since returned to that movie and
it has some flaws, but that moment still kills. So
that's one of them. Maybe we should be going around
or do I just get to like reel these off?
Speaker 3 (54:13):
Oh, just go ahead and list the other ones that
stand out to you. Okay.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Hush from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. That's my
Tarantino pick. That just captures what it's like to drive
late at night in Los Angeles if you've ever been here.
All the Elliott Smith tunes from Good Will Hunting. That
was the movie that brought him to fame, and I
will always love it for that. I can't believe I
didn't use anything from Repo Man, that song. album changed
(54:38):
my own and a lot of people's musical lives. Uh,
probably TV party by black flag from that, uh, soundtrack
head over heels from Donnie Darko. Another example of kind
of doing a music video in the middle of your film.
And like the filmmaker is just like, that's what I
want to do. And it's awesome. Um, an end credit
song from my own private Idaho, the old main drag by, uh,
(54:59):
the Pogues, which kind of sums up the story that
you've just heard. And I'd never really heard the Pogues
before that. It's beautiful. You got to go with Blue
Daniel Waltz, 2001. That is a needle drop. That was
not score.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
It wasn't written for the film?
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
And Under Pressure from After Sun, the way that that,
oh my God, I just.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Brings you to tears, that thing.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
And then finally, just for fun, Slaughterhouse. That's my David
Lynch pick. Which is this metal tune that's used twice
in wild at heart. Yes And the reason that I
really love it is the second time it's used the
first time they go out dancing They're like, let's go dancing.
You think it's gonna be like to some David Lynch
in like 1950s. That's Speed metal Dancing to speed metal
(55:48):
later They're driving through the desert and they switch through
the radio and they hear it and they have to
stop the car and get out and start dancing to
speed metal in the desert Which then suddenly fades out
and turns into like this elegaic Angelo Badalamenti score. Only
David Lynch would fade from speed metal to like whatever
(56:08):
Angelo Badalamenti is doing with his beautiful lush music.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
So good. Josh, what about you?
Speaker 1 (56:13):
I'm just going to name one because though I'm happy
you put a Sofia Coppola film on your list, Adam,
I couldn't not at least mention where I would have gone.
And that would have been from Lost in Translation. Jesus
and Mary Chain over the ending, just like Honey. It's
just beautiful.
Speaker 3 (56:31):
Just a few for me.
Speaker 5 (56:32):
A couple that fit my criterion about Discovery, anyway, songs
I wasn't familiar with. The one that made your list already,
Silly Games from Lovers Rock. I did actually mention this
one already, Mad World from Donnie Darko, a song I
hadn't heard until I saw that film. Link later, the
song Hero from Boyhood by Family of the Year. how
(56:54):
that's used.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
In that movie. How about this one?
Speaker 5 (56:58):
Damn, it feels good to be a gangster by ghetto
boys from office space.
Speaker 4 (57:03):
So good.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
So good.
Speaker 5 (57:04):
Now the, this is, this is all I have in
terms of three more. Cause it would just go on
two more, two, two long, three more that it just
pains me that I couldn't find a way to fit
into my list. One of them is the one you
said Rico already under pressure from after sun. Yeah. Cameron Crowe,
both in your eyes from say anything that wasn't written
(57:27):
for the film. Was it Peter Gabriel already, already had that, right?
Speaker 1 (57:30):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (57:30):
Don't, I want to make sure in your eyes from
say anything. And of course, tiny dancer, most famous, almost.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
That's one of those tracks where it was just like,
I would not, I'm, I was too much of a
hipster at that time to give that song credence. And
it was like, that I don't care. It's a nose.
Speaker 3 (57:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
There's a, there's a, yeah. I mean, we could do
a list of, I wouldn't call it a reclamation project,
but something where you could do top five needle drops
as reclamation projects where they take a song that you're,
you dismiss perhaps unfairly, but used in the right hands
in the right film. Suddenly you're made, you're made aware.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Of how good the song is.
Speaker 5 (58:10):
I didn't love Tiny Dancer when I saw it used
in that film. I wasn't a big Elton John guy
and now I'm kind of obsessed with it. And then PTA,
of course, one of the most famous ones, maybe the
most famous one.
Speaker 3 (58:21):
In any of his films. It's Boogie Nights.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
Sister Christian.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (58:23):
It's Sister Christian in Boogie Nights. Of course, the use
of Night Ranger. So have to at least get that
one on the record. This was obviously.
Speaker 3 (58:33):
Fun because we had a lot to say about these picks.
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Thanks, Rico, for giving us four shows worth of discussion
and conversation here.
Speaker 3 (58:41):
I don't know if you knew you were in for this,
but you were game.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
No, I knew as soon as it was like, oh,
this is going to be a night.
Speaker 3 (58:48):
Once again, just remind people where they can find your show.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
That is MUBI Podcast, cunningly named after the film company
that puts it out, MUBI Podcast. And you can find
it wherever pods are cast. And I hope you do.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
Yes, definitely seek it out.
Speaker 5 (59:08):
We thank Rico Galeano from the MUBI Podcast for joining us.
And we hope you will send us your picks or
any other feedback about the top five. You can email
us anytime, feedback at filmspotting.net.
Speaker 2 (59:20):
Thanks, Rico. Thank you, sirs.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
Our thanks again to Rico Galeano. So much fun.
Speaker 5 (59:25):
And next time we have him on, not that it
was his fault, certainly, we'll try to have a strategy
in place.
Speaker 3 (59:31):
When we pick such a good topic, Josh.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
Maybe we could do a joint list, though. Sometimes that
works for a topic, sometimes not. But yeah, it was
fun every minute of it. So good to have Rico on.
Speaker 5 (59:43):
Producer Sam right now is banging his head against the
table because he's wanting to announce to the world... I
knew this would happen. I proposed a joint list, which
he did to me. And I said, there's no way
this can be a joint list. I already can't get
my list down anything lower than 22. And you want
(01:00:04):
me and Josh to agree on five?
Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
No.
Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Can't happen.
Speaker 5 (01:00:07):
So we remind you that you can find all of
our picks and links to clips over at filmspotting.net slash lists. Josh,
that is part two of our show.
Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
That's it for Film Spotting for now, but we have
more coming ahead in the Film Spotting feed on Monday.
Look for the movie Racket with Michael Phillips. The movie
Law he'll be exploring on that episode is pictures are
for entertainment. Messages should be delivered by Western Union. Samuel
Goldwyn shared that one on Tuesday. It's Film Spotting SVU.
(01:00:40):
They'll be discussing Desert Warrior. This is a Hulu podcast.
offering a 7th century Arabia set epic with Anthony Mackie
and Ben Kingsley. The director of this one is Rupert Wyatt,
who did Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On Thursday,
we will have the next picture show for you, where
there will be a little bit more of the end
(01:01:02):
of Oak Street talk. They're pairing it with Steven Spielberg's
The War of the Worlds. Friday, we're back with a
draft and another guest. Roxanna Haddadi from Vulture is joining us.
We'll be picking our favorite Ridley Scott films. Film Spotting
is produced by Golden Joe Disseau and Sam Van Hogren.
(01:01:22):
Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our
production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Ariana Martinez is our new
marketing and social media assistant. Welcome, Ariana. Great to have
you aboard. And special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago.
More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm
(01:01:43):
Josh Larson.
Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation can
serve no purpose anymore.
Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
Goodbye.
Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all-you-can-watch movie
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Speaker 2 (00:45):
What kind of a show are you guys putting on
here today?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
You're not interested in art?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
No.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Well, look, we're going to do this thing.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
We're going to have a conversation.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, film spotters, Adam and Josh here.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
It is time for part two of our top five
movie needle drops. Josh, I think we've had everybody on
pins and needles anticipating.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm sure.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Three through one. I mean, it was such a tease.
Hopefully it was some good conversation, some illuminating, insights about
some great scenes, some great music. Maybe illuminating is too
strong a word. It's what we strive for occasionally here
on Film Spotting, but we've still got the best ahead
of us.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
We've got The B-side. We've offered a double album of
film spotting this week. And I don't know, are B-sides
considered usually better or a letdown?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Usually the throwaways, I think. I know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So it's the opposite. Let's not say B-side. Let's say
double album, okay?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Double album.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah. Let's go that.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
And this double album, every tune is a banger. Every
track is a banger with this one. 15 tracks, or
I'll give you a little spoiler, only.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
14 tracks.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
My math is bad. 14 tracks, I think, because we
do share. There is a shared choice coming up here
in a bit. We did give you part one picks
five through four a couple of days ago. You can
find that in the film spotting feed. You can also
hear a recommendation of the new movie. It ends a
golden brick contender now. We shared the poll results for
(02:22):
the best third movie by a director. And since 2020,
we should also stipulate, we also announced a new poll
where we want to know who's the best 90s movie villain.
We think it's obvious. I haven't looked at the results yet.
We'll see if our listeners agree, Josh, that it is
in fact obvious. So let's now go to Rico. Let's
(02:44):
go to the two of us. And here are three
through one.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Needle drops. Rico, you're number three.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Number three. This one, it's almost too obvious, but I
also like, I think maybe the reason, the way that
I was picking this, I never really talked about what
my parameters were, just like the things that moved me
that I really, and nothing beats the, well, two things
beat this because we've got two more on our list,
but almost nothing beats this, which is the use of
(03:16):
trouble by Cat Stevens in Harold and Maude. One of
the great soundtracks ever. And a movie that I saw
probably like a lot of people, you know, in repertory,
you know, it was in a place in Pittsburgh called
the Pittsburgh Playhouse that had a different movie every night.
(03:37):
And Harold and Maude was one of the perennial favorites,
along with things like Monty Python and the Holy Grail and,
you know, The Graduate, things like that. But that was
probably the first time I'd ever heard Cat Stevens. And
it seemed, first of all, is that so many of
his songs, even though they were written in the 70s, feel,
in some cases late 60s, still feel so modern to me.
(04:01):
They're these perfect, they're not like, you know, in that era,
there was a lot of epics. There was a lot
of prog going on. These were just like these perfect
little pop gems. And there's like 10,000 of them in
this movie. And that one is the most heartbreaking. Should
I say what it is for those who somehow listen
to the show and haven't seen Harold and Maude? Because
it is a pretty big spoiler. It's like right at
(04:22):
the end.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I think you've given them enough warning.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Turn it off if you must. So, you know, Harold
and Maude, of course, about a May-December romance between young
Harold and octogenarian Maude. At the end, he thinks that
he's going to marry this woman. And he's also a
guy who's ironically been obsessed with death, and she's given
him a reason to really love life. And he goes
(04:45):
to her house thinking that he's going to marry this person,
and she reveals that she's decided on her birthday to
take pills and end her life. And in one of
the great cuts ever, he looks at her for forever
and ever and ever when she tells him that she's
done this. And he just says, what? And at the
second that he says it, it cuts to an ambulance.
(05:08):
And him not wanting her to die. And that song
by Cat Stevens starts playing. And it's a very obvious
song to play. It's about trouble. Oh, trouble. Trouble, move
from me. In some ways, it's a really obvious choice
if you're going to be soundtracking your entire movie with
Cat Stevens. But it's also just so freaking beautiful. And
I think if my memory serves, you can't even hear
(05:30):
the siren. It's just the music. You know, the actual...
Details of what happens almost don't matter. What matters is
how truly sad this is. And it continues through the sequence.
She has passed away. The doctor comes out. You can't
hear what's being said, but you know that she's actually died.
He goes and gets into his car. It seems like
(05:53):
he's going to kill himself by driving off the edge
of a cliff. And just as he's about to drive
off the edge of a cliff and the song ends...
The car goes over the edge of the cliff, but
we reveal that he jumped free and he did not
go over the edge of the cliff. And he's just
standing there holding a banjo. It's the saddest moment followed
by the most hopeful moment ever. And just thinking about
(06:15):
it makes the hairs on the back of my neck
stand on end pretty hard to top. And by the way,
Cameron Crowe was responsible for re-releasing that album in its entirety.
That soundtrack was often truncated. And I think it was
back in the 90s, Cameron Crowe, of all people, decided
that he was going to get the full soundtrack reissued.
(06:37):
And there's just tons and tons of great music on that.
Since then, it's also been reissued with everything. But I
just want to say that Cameron Crowe agrees with me.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
As he should.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
And how about just the fact that you could do
an entire top five of uses of Cat Stevens songs
in movies?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Because you would have.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I mean, Rushmore has two of them.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Yeah, I mean, this is maybe an incomplete list, but
not only do you have Trouble, of course, you have
From Harold and Maude, If You Want to Sing Out,
Sing Out, which is also great. Rushmore, The Wind, fantastic.
Maybe not that great of a movie, but Father and
Son in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Wild World, my favorite.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It's amazing.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
Cat Stevens song. Peace Train in Almost Famous and The Holdovers.
There are probably others. The Wind is also in The Holdovers.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah. Rushmore. I think Rushmore has Here Comes My Baby.
That's his too, right? Here Comes My Baby too. So
I don't think Cat Stevens certainly was played as I
was growing up. You know, my parents had those records,
but I think my movie experience of his music was
probably Rushmore first. I came sadly late to Harold and Maude,
(07:45):
which of course is, you know, has been noted as
a huge influence on Wes Anderson. So it makes complete
sense that he would use two of Steven's songs in Rushmore. But, um, yeah,
I think, you know, the wind was a tempting in
Rushmore was a tempting choice for me, but I went
another Wes Anderson direction. Um, as we'll get to, we'll
(08:07):
get to not going to go there for my number three. However, um,
let me make another choice first. And that is going
to be, uh, from killer of sheep, the Charles Burnett film. Um,
the song is this bitter earth. sung by Dinah Washington.
This is Burnett's 1978 masterwork set in the Watts neighborhood
(08:29):
of LA. Basically follows a husband, a father. He's a
slaughterhouse worker. He puts in these long hours working. He
notably avoids taking illegal shortcuts to make money. And yet
the American dream, he just can't get it. He can't
grasp it. The movie itself, famously couldn't get distribution for
(08:54):
years precisely because of the music. Burnett couldn't secure the
rights to all the music that he uses here. And
it's so key to what the film does. So it's
understandable that he had to fight this battle because in
addition to Dinah Washington, the movie employs Paul Robeson, Earth,
Wind & Fire, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin. The needle drop that I'm
(09:14):
going with though is Dinah Washington with This Better Earth.
And this plays... As the husband and wife, they're played
by Henry Gale Sanders and Casey Moore. They're dancing. They're actually,
they're almost like just kind of slowly, softly swaying in
the room of their apartment. They're against this window that's glowing.
(09:37):
So it's this sadly beautiful image because it should be romantic.
It should be sentimental. But here's where the song's title
comes in and how the song just, you know, sounds,
it's about, partly about life feeling like a dead end.
You know, the world being stacked against you.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
This bitter earth. Well, what a fruit it bears.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Burnett uses this long extended fixed take. for this, to
let the music play out, to let them be in
the moment together and not interrupt it, interrupt it with
any edits. It's interesting, like more is moving more than
Sanders is. She's trying to caress him and he's not responding.
It's almost like he's this statue floating in the air
(10:33):
more than he's fully embracing the music. And sure enough,
when the song ends, she tries to kiss him Some more.
And he just kind of peels himself away and walks
off screen. So it's a deeply sad moment. It's deeply moving.
And I would say this is like a complimentary example.
It's just perfectly complimented by the use of this bitter earth.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
In some ways, based on your description of the track, Josh,
maybe one that is complimentary with the song I'm going
to talk about next. And you were just mentioning Wes Anderson.
not going to go with the wind, a song I
was very familiar with. So not a discovery for me here.
And we know the Royal Tenenbaums is out, still definitely
(11:17):
dozens to choose from. And while I know most of
the songs I've heard in Wes Anderson's films, there are
still occasions where he surprises me. And ironically, I'm going
with the needle drop from a relative disappointment because I,
I still, I liked the movie when I saw it,
but it is, it is second from the bottom on
(11:39):
my Wes Anderson ranked list. And the only, the asterisk
I have to put here is it is the only
Wes Anderson film that I haven't revisited. It's the only
one I've seen once that I saw, I saw it
in the theater and that is it. Maybe since Josh,
we have Subsequently to this movie coming out, we have
(12:01):
done a Satyajit Ray marathon, and I am now a
real appreciator of his work. Maybe I will appreciate this
film more. The film is The Darjeeling Limited, and the
song accompanies, and it's my only choice, it accompanies an
opening sequence. Yeah, of course, I knew the kinks. I
(12:24):
had heard Lola before. I'd heard You Really Got Me
a million times on the radio. I'm pretty sure I
had never heard another kink song behind those two. And
in this scene, the opening of the Darjeeling Limited, a
train is leaving. We're in India. A train is departing
(12:46):
the station. Bill Murray is running after it. That's my train.
He's late. He's trying to chase it down. And There's
traditional music playing. It's fairly quiet on the soundtrack. And
then all of a sudden, as we see Bill Murray running,
it's in close-up, in profile. And then we see Adrian
(13:06):
Brody's character, Peter, appear in the frame running alongside him.
And on the next cut, it's so good. It's a
wide shot. And the train is on the left of
the frame and the empty space on the right. The
guitar chords of the song come in this time tomorrow.
And we get the glorious Andersonian combination of Britpop and
(13:30):
slow motion. It's Brody running towards and eventually, unlike Murray,
successfully getting on board the train. As Ray Davies intones
this time tomorrow, where will we be? On a spaceship
(13:52):
somewhere sailing across an empty sea. this time tomorrow, what
will we know?
Speaker 3 (13:57):
It's folky.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
It's catchy as hell. I remember sitting in the theater thinking, yeah,
it seems British, but I can't completely place it. I
definitely didn't know that it was the kinks for sure.
I did know that as soon as the movie was over,
I was going to have to figure out how I
could hear this song again. I was instantly in love
(14:19):
with that track. And beyond that, it's just... It's not
just Andersonian perfection. The reason why it works so well
with that scene. Here's where I'll just start out saying
it is to the earlier criteria you mentioned, Josh, why
it complements the scene so well. This is a movie
about characters on a journey in a strange land. And
(14:44):
we're all like this at the beginning of any trip,
especially in a strange land, but especially one where if
we're like them, we're reuniting. with people that maybe we
haven't seen in a long time or we're estranged from.
They're considering it a spiritual journey. They're assigning mystical powers
to this location. And they're wishful. They're hopeful. So where
(15:10):
will we be? All these possibilities, right? They're imagining themselves
on a spaceship somewhere, leaving the sun behind you. But then,
This is Wes Anderson. So you read between the lines
or even some of the text and it's so tinged
with regret. The clouds sadly pass by me. Will we
(15:31):
still be here watching an in-flight movie show seven miles
below me? I can see the world and it ain't
so big at all. Is that comforting that the world
ain't so big at all? Is it comforting to realize
that or is it actually kind of disheartening? that it
ain't so big that there aren't maybe as many possibilities
that your life is actually more limited than you thought it,
(15:53):
it could.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Be or should be.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
You know, you don't, you don't need to be an
A plus English major to get all that, but I
I'm sure that Wes Anderson also knew his, his kinks lore.
I looked this up after, after doing all this prep,
I was like, I wonder, I wonder what Wes Anderson said.
If he said anything about picking this song, couldn't find anything.
I wonder what Ray Davies said about writing this song.
(16:17):
Tell me if there could be a more appropriate song
for this movie or maybe any Wes Anderson movie based
on what Ray Davies said about it. He said, I
felt that I'd lost contact with my family because I'd
been in a pop music bubble for five years and
I didn't know the people around me anymore. This time
tomorrow was about transience and an ephemeral world. clouds and
(16:41):
where do we play tomorrow and what am i doing
as a person tomorrow it's a floating song and i
was floating into a different era going with the flow
for a while until i work out where i want
to be and that says it all but just it
is a poppy song it's a catchy song it's so
upbeat it's live like wes anderson's films themselves it's lively
(17:03):
it's colorful it's energetic and at the core.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Of it it's so this is also the nature of
travel this is another travel.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah and that That contrast between the poppy, the upbeat
nature and the use of slow motion here is also
very interesting. And I think, you know, Darjeeling limited, which
I like, and it's worth, it's worth another view. I
would say, Adam, um, I, it didn't leap ahead of
his other films for me when I looked at it again,
but one thing that helped clarify is his, um, use
(17:31):
of slow motion and how it's more than just an
easy go-to for effect. To get us to feel like
something important is happening when it really isn't. I think
that's how lesser filmmakers use slow motion, but this is
a great example of how Wes Anderson tends to employ
it when there are, this speaks to the layered nature
(17:51):
of the song. There are like eight things going on
at once. And so we're able to take it all in.
And if you think about Brody in particular, his. face
and how the slow motion allows us to register what
he's registering when he beats Murray onto the train.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
We see the competition. We see the triumph. We see
the smugness and those are all different, right? Those are
all different layers. Then it shifts and you wouldn't catch
this without slow motion. It shifts into like a little
hint of guilt, some helplessness. Like there's a part of
them that feels like, oh, could I have done something? um, sadness,
(18:32):
maybe even pity. And then ultimately I think there's like
some dismissal there. It's like, well, I'm on the train.
I'm moving on too bad for that guy. Um, and
to have, you know, the song is part of that
like this, because the song is as complicated as all
of those emotions in the way it's lyrics point against
(18:52):
the poppiness in certain aspects.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
So I've always wanted to talk to Wes Anderson. I've
never gotten a chance to him. One of the reasons
is to know how he gets a, that kind of thing,
any director to get, how do you direct? Like it,
it seems like if you're going to slow down and
the point of slowing down, which I think you're right,
is to get all of that. How do you direct
(19:15):
it so that you get all of that? Because how
do you get an actor to flash through all of
that at once? And I also wondered to what extent
he knew the music that he was going to put
into that sequence at that moment. I'll bet he knew.
There are a few.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I'll bet he wrote it in.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I would think so.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It's my favorite soundtrack, by the way. I agree with
you that it's one of his, like, yeah, I love
that soundtrack. And by the way, there are a ton
of Indian tunes, including Indian film music on that. And,
you know, I think it's maybe one of his most
cinematic sounding soundtracks, maybe.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Number two.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Number two.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
This is one of the great, this would be number
one if I didn't have an even better number one.
That's how good my number one is, in my opinion.
Number two is Amy Mann, Wise Up from Magnolia.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
I mean, the.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Experience.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I saw that I'm pretty sure it was opening weekend
because I know it was packed. The theater was packed.
It was here in L.A. where I live. And there
was a lot of buzz about that movie and nobody
knew what to expect. The preceding movie had been Boogie Nights.
I think maybe people were expecting something on that level,
maybe with a little bit more, maybe a little more form.
and less episodic and, you know, heady and emotional the
(20:34):
way that it was, that moment in that movie is
still like amazing to me. I feel like since that
movie's come out, there've been something similar, but for those
who don't know, first of all, that movie was written
with Amy Mann songs in PTA's head. He knew Amy Mann.
She had given him, I think a tape of unreleased
songs or I think something like that.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Maybe they've been released.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
I can't remember. But he listened to them over and
over again and lyrics from the song appear in the
script and the references to the songs through the script.
And in the middle of it, as almost a love
letter to her as well as being a great dramatic
moment in the movie, every character stops what they're doing
or basically pauses in the middle of what they're doing.
And they lip sync to the entirety of one of
(21:20):
the most beautiful songs ever written, Wise Up, which is
an incredibly sad song as is typical of Amy Mann.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Every character in all their different situations are all basically
saying to themselves what this song is saying, which is...
When are you going to stop repeating these really bad
patterns in your life? When are you going to wise up?
When are you going to stop dating the wrong person,
listening to the wrong people, living for the wrong things,
(22:04):
all of this stuff and the audacity of it. You
cannot imagine if you were not there at the time,
because like I said, I think that this kind of
thing has happened since, but to stop a movie. And
have everybody acknowledge the song in some strange way and
for it to make total sense. And it's so beautiful
and heartbreaking. It's like you could have heard a pin
(22:24):
drop in that theater. And I just was like, what
is happening? It's just an incredible kind of artistic leap
of faith to take, particularly at that moment in his career.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Great way to phrase it.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's still like mesmerizing. It's my favorite part of that movie.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Yeah, it's so good. Let's go ahead and go out
of order here a little bit, Josh, because it's my
number two.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Okay, go for it. Go for it.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
And it's a needle drop that is both non-diegetic, the
song is playing over the film, but it is a
performance scene.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
It's diegetic.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
They're singing it within the scene, even though they're not
hearing the song ostensibly, right? But it's emanating from the
movie world, the characters all singing it. They're all unified
within the movie world. The characters are all unified by experience,
by trauma. And the filmmaker then could have a music
(23:23):
sequence like another very good needle drop, like Donnie Darko.
It could be like Mad World, right? Where it just
goes from character to character, letting us observe each one
of them while we contemplate the juxtaposition of their circumstances. Yeah. But,
you know, this song is fundamentally about, as you said, Rico,
it's about life choices and it's about their regrets and
(23:48):
it's about misfits, which they all are. And it's about
whether or not there's a possibility of growth and whether
or not you can move forward. And here you have P.T.A.,
In 99, still kind of this renegade filmmaker saying, screw
it to all the rules. And it's, you know, I'm
going to actually unify all of them. And the song
(24:11):
isn't going to be just backdrop. It's going to be
this kind of vocal handoff where each character is actually
going to express what they've been repressing. And the music
is going to be the vehicle for that expression.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
And you're right.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
It's completely audacious. It's arguably totally absurd. But that's what's
so brilliant about it. The Brechtian nature of it, just
the pure emotional nakedness of it, I think is why
it's brilliant and why it's so moving. And I remember
sitting in the theater just like you. If you didn't
have that theatrical experience, it's hard to maybe fully appreciate it,
(24:46):
watching it on DVD now. But in the theater, and
you don't have many experiences like this anymore. In the theater,
there was a charge. It was sort of like, are
we all unified by this experience? Are we all together
sharing this experience right now?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Is this actually happening? That was incredible.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
And I definitely didn't know the song at the time.
Even when I looked up later, I was like, I
don't know who Amy Mann is. Then I put it
together a little bit.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Oh, the face, the voice.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
I grew up seeing the video for Voices Carry by
Till Tuesday in constant rotation on MTV, but I was
still surprised that that was her. I had no idea
that it was apparently on the Jerry Maguire soundtrack. Cameron Crowe, again,
had originally put that song on the soundtrack but didn't
use it in the film.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
It's just a stunner.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, I should have gone with this.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Come on, Josh.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
It could have been three for three. Honestly, the only reason...
Here's the only reason, and you guys have spoken to it.
It's so unique. It's almost not a needle drop. It's
its own cosmic use of music that has rarely been repeated.
And I just felt like, I don't know. I should
have done it. I just felt like it was too unique.
(26:07):
It was too singular and didn't quite fit the definitions
I was working with. But I agree with everything you said.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
So what's your lesser number two, Josh?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Go ahead, beat it.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, well, okay. I think I have a filmmaker who
one-ups Paul Thomas Anderson in the needle drop category. Are
we ready to talk about Scorsese?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Okay, you're right. The only one, perhaps.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
You're right.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Okay, all right. You challenged me.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
What do you do with Scorsese? I mean, in a way,
the fact that Adam and I couldn't choose Goodfellas helped
a little bit, but Goodfellas is actually integral to the
pick I'm going to go with. And What helped me
work my way through this is this dissertation I just
finished up. I did devote a section to Scorsese's sacred
(26:55):
use of secular music. And that led me to a
bit of a peculiar choice. So I'm curious to see
what you two make of this one. I'm not going
to go with Rolling Stones, Jumpin' Jack Flash from Mean Streets.
That's like the source of Scorsese's needle drops. Yeah, it's
ground zero. And perhaps all needle drops. I mean, I
know they were used before that, but still. Not going
(27:18):
to go with that. If I were going to go
with a Goodfellas pick, and this relates to my pick,
it would be The Crystals' Then He Kissed Me, when
Henry and Karen are being ushered to their VIP table
at the Copacabana. I'm going to go with something that
I think of as a response to Then He Kissed Me,
and it comes from The Irishman, which I think is
(27:38):
a response, a continuation, a culmination of all of Scorsese's
mob movies. And that song, my pick, is going to
be the Five Satins doo-wop classic In the Still of
the Night, which actually bookends The Irishman. So if I
were restricting myself, I'm breaking two rules here. It both
opens the movie and ends the movie. Not really credits necessarily,
(28:00):
but yeah, it bookends the movie for sure. At the
same time, Scorsese is employing in a new way one
of his techniques, the single take here. The camera is
finding its way to Robert De Niro's Frank Sheeran, who's
sitting in a wheelchair at this senior care facility. So
something I noticed the first time I saw The Irishman
(28:21):
in 2019 is the way the use of In the
Still of the Night here is really the inverse of
Then He Kissed Me. So when you think of Then
He Kissed Me, it has this expectant rumble. There's an
air of exhilaration to the music and also to the moment.
It matches it, right, in Goodfellas. In the Still of
the Night instead has a gentle swing. It has reflective
(28:42):
lyrics repeating, I remember, I remember. It invites introspection rather
than celebration. And that's fitting, of course, right? For a
movie about a man slowly coming to grips at the
end of his life with his days as a mob hitman.
(29:07):
The music works this way, as I was just describing,
but the lyrics are interesting as well. I'll hope and
I'll pray to keep your precious love well before the light.
Hold me again with all your might in the still
of the night. Now, in the context of this aging
man who is beginning to reckon with his crimes, the
(29:27):
singer sounds less like making a romantic pledge and more
like this prayerful plea. coming from the darkness, pleading for
some sort of redemption, which we know is a theme
Scorsese is interested in, the possibilities of redemption. So in
terms of, this is my collide pick, basically. It's not
necessarily colliding with the moment, but I think it's colliding
(29:51):
or at least contradicting or commenting on Goodfellas and one
of Scorsese's other masterful needle drops, For me, maybe because
of that restriction, not being able to go with Goodfellas,
I'm going to go with In the Still of the
Night from The Irishman.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
It's one of the few of his movies you're going
to look at me like I'm an insane person because
it's also one of his, it was instantly one of
his most available movies. I didn't even have to go
to the theaters to go and see it, but I
haven't seen it. Um, I have seen that opening sequence though,
because there were a lot of clips going around at
the time and it's, uh, I've, it looks amazing. And
(30:28):
I love that in a way, I don't know why,
but the first thing that I'm flashing on is the movie.
Do you guys see train spotting too? Surprisingly decent movie. Yes.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Talk to Boyle here on the show.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I actually spoke to that movie too. And it's a
surprisingly good movie. And that it acknowledges his own mortality
and subverts a lot of what is in the first movie.
Instead of trying to go for the same thing that
they did in the first movie, it acknowledges that you
can't because we're all older now. And that's ridiculous to
try to go for.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, you've really got to see the Irishman for that quality.
But I understand the reluctance, absolutely. If I hadn't... I mean,
who wants to experience a Scorsese movie for the first time?
Speaker 5 (31:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
You know, on... streaming. If you had the opportunity, I think,
you know, I understand reluctance, but it's really rich. It's
really rich as a commentary on, you know, what a
quarter of his career. So, yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Agreed.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
And I'll just add that another option you could have
gone with certainly. And I wonder if you did consider
it is the Santo and Johnny sleepwalk, which would be
a perfect example of collision because there, I think he
uses it twice and And you would never, only Scorsese
would think to use that when there's mob hits being
(31:46):
carried out.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
It's so well done. So Rico, here's the thing.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
I know what your number one is, and I obviously
know how good your number two was because I shared it.
And the thing is, you're right. Your number one's even better.
That's how good your number one is. I can't wait
for you to drop it on our listeners.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Have you built up expectations enough? There's no way to
meet this level of expectation, my friend.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You know what?
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Our listeners, when they hear it, they'll understand. They know
my tastes and they'll understand why I'm so backing this.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
It is the moment in the movie Before Sunrise. When
Ethan Hawke's character and Julie Delpy's character, who have just
met a few hours before on a train going through Europe,
they've decided to get off together in the city of
Vienna and they go to a record store. And this
is one shot. They go into a little listening booth, again,
(32:41):
literally drop the needle. Nobody knew this song at the time.
There's no way that anybody had ever heard of this tune.
It was a completely unknown tune by this woman named
Kath Bloom, who I don't think, you know, that album
may even be like self-released or something. I'm not even
(33:01):
sure it was released on a label. I don't know
how Linklater heard about it.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
There's a wind that blows in from the north And
it says that loving takes its course Come.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
These two have just met, but they're attracted to each other.
And we just hold on the two of their beautiful
young faces while they kind of sneak shy looks at
each other because they 100% should kiss at this moment.
They know they should kiss. They just met though.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Will they kiss?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Should we kiss? I don't know. What is she looking
at me? I'm not sure. Emma, it is like the
most tangible moment. And you're like, and it's all one shot.
You were literally watching two people falling in love on screen.
Julie Delpy later said that she kind of did fall
in love with Ethan Hawke a little bit during the
filming of this scene. And what I really love about
(33:58):
it is that it starts diegetic. Other movies do this too,
and I realize I love this as a technique. It
starts diegetic, and we're watching them in this moment. And
instead of showing us whether they kiss or not or
resolving that scene at all, suddenly it cuts off. With
the music, it goes from being a diegetic song to
a non-diegetic song. And it's just them now going through
(34:21):
Vienna together and seeing all the beautiful sights of Vienna.
And it goes from being this little intimate moment to
something huge. It's not just about these two characters. It's
about the feeling of finding somebody you're into, knowing that
you're probably into each other, not waiting for just the
right moment to do it and being in the perfect
(34:41):
place with the exact right person at that moment. Like
we've all had maybe a few of these perfect moments
and this, it just captures it so intensely. And if
you're ever in a, I don't know if I can
totally say this. I just feel like whenever I'm like
down on humanity, I will go to YouTube and I
will watch that clip and then read the comments. And
(35:02):
it's almost, it's just like a license for people to
tell their most beautiful life story in the comments. They're
all like, this reminds me of the girl that I
met once in Spain. Or this reminds me of the
girl that got away. Or this reminds me of when
I met my husband, you know, something like that. Or
just like this perfect moment of travel or transcendence. Everybody
has some way into that scene. And it just, even
(35:26):
in the moment that I saw it, I was just like,
this has captured something so universal and so amazing. And
it is also pure cinema. It's one shot, one song,
no dialogue. It's just one of the most perfect moments
of cinema ever. I feel like that and the ending
of that movie instantly put it in my top 10
movies of all time.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Oh, I just realized I don't have to feel shame
about this, Josh, before Sunrise is in the Pantheon.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
It was ineligible.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
So there, you have an excuse.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
I have an excuse. I knew that.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Are you going to add it out where you forgot
to include it?
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yes, Sam, take that out.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
No, because of course it would have been eligible because no,
there's no way I knew that song.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
That you're right.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
The scene is a wonder. I'm moved by it every time.
And I will, I will every time. And I will
point out on behalf of film spotting PA, Sophie Kempinar,
that you will occasionally very, very regularly spot her wearing
her Alton new t-shirt, the record store, because she, when
she studied abroad and, She was sure to travel to
(36:31):
Vienna simply so she could do her before sunrise walking tour.
And she went to the Alta new record store so
she could have that.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
It's still there.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
My understanding, you can tell me whether this is true.
My understanding is that that listening booth did not exist.
They made it for the movie and they just left
it there.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I want, I totally, by the way, that's one of
the episodes that I wanted to do this year. I 100%
wanted to do that thing. We just couldn't get it together.
And I was in Germany last year. I was like, well, maybe.
If we do that episode, why don't, Mubi, why don't
you just pay me to go down to Vienna and
I'll just go record in there. It'll be a great
little thing.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Turns out they didn't.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
But amazing. Next time.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Thanks, man.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Well done. Well done, Rico.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Excellent.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Your pick, Rico, was my number one Richard Linklater scene
when we did that top five. And yeah, couldn't go
that way because of the Pantheon. But I am going
to go with another number one filmmaker scene for my
number one needle drop scene. This is a filmmaker we've
already discussed, Wes Anderson. Hope people are up for a
(37:38):
little more Wes Anderson talk. I think so because this
is a movie, I guess, kind of like Darjeeling Limited,
not quite as highly regarded as some of the others
in his filmography. Um, but I'm going to go with
a choice from the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. And
the stong is Starover from Sigur Rós. It anchors the
(38:01):
climactic encounter with the Jaguar shark in the Life Aquatic
with Steve Zissou, which was my pick for best Wes
Anderson scene. I called it the, I wonder if it
remembers me scene. That's the response Bill Murray's Steve Zissou
has to finally meeting this creature who's devoured his friend
Estevan on an expedition Rather than this exercise in vengeance, though,
(38:23):
Zissou is overcome. He's stunned. Just has this experience of
awe when he sees this creature. You know, it is
Zissou's moment, but it's also this experience of communal epiphany.
All the other characters in the movie, almost every single one,
they're squeezed into the submarine with Zissou for this. And
(38:46):
I do often reference the epiphanies that take place in
Anderson's films. And for me, this is his grandest. Even
if it's hard to, this is probably what I like
about it, it's hard to exactly locate what's happening here.
What is the nature of the illumination that is actually
taking place during this epiphany? I mean, we do have
what I mentioned, Zissou going from vengeance to reverence, but
(39:07):
why are the others reaching out to touch him in
this strange benediction? I mean, probably half of them have
been wronged by him over the course of the movie.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
He does not deserve this.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Um, but it's, but it's happening now anyway. Um, so
there's something, you know, more mystical than those going on
here that I've never quite been able to put my
finger on. And I do think holding all of it
together and enabling that mystery is this Sigur Rós track.
You've got these swelling chords that sort of usher us
(39:39):
into the moment. You have the twinkling keys that start
just when we get this, these bioluminescent hints. of something
out there in the depths, in the darkness? Could it
be the shark? That's when those keys start to come in.
And then, of course, you have Yancey Bergeson's glorious vocals, too,
which they just break out over the screen as the
(40:02):
shark cruises over the submarines. as we were talking about
with Darjeeling limited, you know, the timing of the bits
of music with the images is so precise and on
track here. I didn't ever really think about what this
(40:25):
song meant. Like I never had it translated before as
the many times I've watched it as I've picked it
for other lists. So I took the time to do it.
The title means little elf. It's basically about going to
bed and encountering A magical creature? So, okay. I guess.
It actually is translatable.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I always thought that they like sang in their own language.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
This is what I found researching it. So maybe my
information is incorrect, but take this with a grain of
salt then. What I found does track though. I mean,
a few lines I found that they did catch my attention.
Stares at me, a little elf, transforms me into, but
doesn't move. And I like that notion of being transformed,
but not exactly how or into what. I think that
(41:14):
fits so well for this moment in the movie. It's
just this emotionally, even spiritually resonant experience that can't entirely
be explained. So I don't know. I hope, Rico, that
that isn't all gibberish that I found. But what I
did discover does track with kind of my experience of
the moment, at least. Help me process it. And it's
(41:35):
another completion for me in terms of compliment collide or complete.
This definitely completes that moment. And in a weird way,
I've never really figured out kind of completes the movie.
Maybe someday I'll get there. I'm probably going to watch
it again next week.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I kind of feel like as you were saying this,
and I don't know if I've ever like thought this
through though, but you're right. It's like, he's done terrible things.
He's wrong people. And they kind of forgive him in
a way that, All of, a lot of his movies.
I mean, certainly the Royal Tenenbaums. A lot of them
are about, even, yeah, Grand Budapest Hotel. These are characters
(42:13):
who aren't always like doing the right thing. They were
not always nice. And by the end, they're somehow forgiven
in a way.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Some redemption for the bastards. Inevitably.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Which is lovely. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
And it is like, by the way, it's also a
really great use of that song because of that. That
could be a really obvious song. Like basically using any
time using Sigur Rós because they are so cinematic by design.
They're so orchestral in a way.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
But it really deserves it.
Speaker 5 (42:40):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
You're halfway to a movie score with their music already.
And so, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
But it really deserves it. And I think it may
also work because he has such that picture box aesthetic.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Where the image isn't necessarily grandiose. It's beautiful. It's beautifully composed,
but it's kind of like, you know, it's not like
an actual creature. It's not CGI. It's not like beautifully done.
It's almost puppety in a way, but the music gives
it a little more grandeur.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Do you know, I saw, I actually saw the actual
Jaguar shark prop because I was in London when the
Wes Anderson exhibit was there at the design museum. It's,
it's smaller. I want to say it's like maybe seven
or eight feet. Yeah, it's like a puppet. It's like
a model. And not quite as awe-inspiring as it was
(43:31):
for Zissou, but interesting nonetheless.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
I remember actually seeing Grand Budapest at the Arclight Cinema
here in LA, and they had the Grand Budapest Hotel model. Again,
it was large, but yes.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
That was there too. That was incredible.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
But it's beautiful to see.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
Well, I had to have, or I ended up having
one good opening scene needle drop. I thought it was
fitting or I guess it's, it's ironic a little bit too, too.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Or no appropriate damage.
Speaker 5 (44:03):
To conclude my list with a closing needle drop. And I,
I am going to reveal to the world just how
uncool I was, or certainly how non edgy I was
back in 1999. Not that that will be a shock
to anyone because I had heard the, Of Pixies in 1999. Yes,
(44:26):
I am going with back-to-back 1999 films here at number
two and number one. I had never heard Pixies in 1999.
So I had never heard the song that would be
playing on a loop on my little MP3 player. Yes,
I had an MP3 player throughout the entire fall after
(44:47):
seeing David Fincher's Fight Club. The song, Where Is My Mind?
even though it was released in 1988 on their Surfer
Rosa album, that scene with Edward Norton, Eleanor Bonham Carter,
looking out on all the skyscrapers as the bombs go
(45:09):
off and the buildings fall, the timing of the cut
from Ed Norton's face, the timing of that cut and
the flashes from the bomb's With the snare hits building
to the guitar riff. And then you get, of course,
(45:30):
Ed Norton's memorable line, You've met me at a very
strange time in my life. I actually think this number
one pick, Rico, is like the evil romantic cousin to
your number one pick from... You two people standing there
looking at each other.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 5 (45:49):
And you've met me at a strange time in my life.
All the, all the cutting to, to this song. So
this is, this is like you were saying, Josh is
you can have great songs that are used at the
end of a movie and it's.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Not just over the credits.
Speaker 5 (46:03):
It can even be somewhat leading into the credits, but
it kind of feels like any great song could have
been plopped in there. That's not the case with your
choice or this choice. It's.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Integral.
Speaker 5 (46:16):
No other song feels like it could be used in
terms of not only the thematic resonance, but also the
way it's cut together, the way the camera moves here,
the rhythm of it, the body movements. It's all timed
with the music. That main shot is the wide shot
(46:38):
from behind them, and it tracks slowly forward.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
As they hold hands. It's in pace.
Speaker 5 (46:45):
With this kind of dirge of the song. And Kim
deals that, that wailing is just completely eerie and deranged.
And it's, that's how I've always thought of it.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
And it's, it's hollow sounding too.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Right.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
And so it, to me, it really is like a
voice in your head that just is incessant and will
not go away. I think it's the paradigm of, to
use the terminology you were using, Josh, I think it's
the paradigm of a complimentary needle drop. It goes without
saying that the lyrics are totally appropriate for a movie
(47:23):
about a main character having psychological issues.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Where is my mind?
Speaker 5 (47:29):
Also, literally, the lyrics say, you'll have a collapse as
financial buildings and potentially the market collapses. And The song,
apparently it was fairly successful for them as a tune
on that album. But then Sense, as you would imagine,
(47:50):
has become their signature song. And Rolling Stone in 2021
did a top 500 greatest songs of all time. And
it made the cut at number 493, which would not
have happened, surely, without the boost it got from this movie.
I mean, I think it's thought of You already have
one of the great twist, iconic twist endings in movie history.
(48:12):
You add on to it one of the greatest needle
drops ever, and it just elevates it even beyond that.
So the choice of Fincher here, I don't think we
think of Fincher as one of the top seven needle droppers,
even though there are other good options from Fincher, including from.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Zodiac, Hurdy Gurdy Man.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 5 (48:38):
And possibly some others that are not immediately coming to mind.
But he was the one that didn't, he was the
one of the five for me that maybe wasn't in
that upper echelon of filmmakers who regularly employs them.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Ironic because he's a rock video director. He starts off
being a rock video director.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Yes, good point.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
It's almost like he consciously didn't quite want to lean
super into that. He was going to be an auteur,
damn it.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Maybe, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Perhaps.
Speaker 5 (49:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
I mean, I'm a little older than you guys. I
was around when the Pixies first broke. And for the
college radio crowd, they were instantly iconic. That was one
of the things that was amazing about them, actually. They
broke on the scene. They put out basically three perfect albums.
They put out one more after that. But the first
three records that they put out, it was like every
single song was amazing. The entire albums were amazing. It
(49:27):
was the sound that you wanted before you knew that
you wanted it. And they also... Looked like they should
not be the people to deliver it. They just looked
like the squarest people. They were like from Boston. They
wore like, you know, t-shirts, you know, Frank Black is
kind of, you know, at the time he was calling
himself Black Francis and he screeches like a banshee. You
(49:47):
expected him to be this like crazy punk and he's
like this schmo wearing like a t-shirt and shorts. And
Kim Deal was very beautiful, but also I loved when
they came back. She basically was dressing like a soccer
mom on stage and doing those exact kind of eerie vocals.
It was like this incredible thing. But they never quite
(50:08):
during their lifetime had the impact on the larger culture
during the first phase of that band. They broke up
before they got huge. I mean, they were like opening
for U2 and stuff. They were always right on the
verge of being gigantic. And people within a subculture really
dug them. But it was, I feel like that was
the thing that really brought them to mainstream fame for
(50:30):
sure was that track. And it is like, in a way,
it's the ultimate Gen X moment because it's so, although
you're right, all of those lyrics work with the images
you're watching, the song is actually just about Frank Black
being really high in the Caribbean, like swimming around looking
at fish.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Yeah, like scuba diving or something and a fish that
wouldn't leave him alone.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
It's like it's the end of the world and you're
listening to a song about a dude stoned in the ocean.
You know what I mean? It's like, and yet it works.
Speaker 5 (50:55):
It is.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
It is perfect. Talk about a collision.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
Indeed. Those are our top five needle drops. We do
have some honorable mentions. I know you have some, Rico,
that you wanted to share. Just before we get to those,
I mentioned that I had a top seven.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
We've named all of them. They've come up. I had
them in this order.
Speaker 5 (51:13):
Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, PTA, Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Richard Linklater,
Cameron Crowe. And then those are the top seven. And
then I think number eight would be probably a battle
between like.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Edgar Wright and Danny Boyle.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Perhaps.
Speaker 5 (51:30):
Those seem like the filmmakers, the directors who most commonly
use needle drops. I, of course, encourage any listeners to
write in with other filmmakers they think of when they
immediately think about needle drops being used in films, feedback
at filmspotting.net. But Rico, who are some other Not who
are some other directors, but actually what are some other
(51:51):
films and some other needle drops that were really tough
for you to omit?
Speaker 2 (51:55):
This one mainly because it's a pretty deep cut of
a movie. I don't even remember who directed this. Maybe
you guys can remember this. It's a 1987 movie called
Five Corners. What I mainly remember it as is being,
I think it's the film debut of screenwriter John Patrick Shanley,
who went on to make Moonstruck, write Moonstruck. And there's
this moment in it. It's typical John Patrick Shanley. It's
(52:16):
about kind of like wisecracking people. I think that's set
in Baltimore, something like that. It's a period piece. It's
set in the mid 60s. So there's a lot of
mid 60s music in it. But this moment stands out
because there are a number of needle drops like the
doo-wop stuff that you would imagine that would be in it.
It actually ends with In My Life from the Beatles.
But there's a moment right in the middle of it
(52:37):
where these two kind of juvenile delinquent types who are
playing hooky from school, who you're not quite sure how
to feel about. They're, they're kind of cool. They seem fun.
One of them, I think might even be an exchange
student or something, but they're playing hooky from school. They
meet up with these two gum cracking girls who are
also playing hooky from school and convince them to hang
out with them. And they go to, it's great because
(53:00):
it's a moment where they, they, It's like this is
something they've done before that they know is going to
wow these girls, but it's the last thing that you'd expect.
They have created some device that allows them to open
up an elevator doors and step out through the open
elevator doors onto the top of elevators. And As they
(53:20):
go up and down inside the elevator shaft, being able
to see the inside of the elevator shaft instead of
being stuck inside the elevator. I think they paired up
as couples, one's on one elevator, one's on the other.
And they're kind of going up and down and seeing
each other and talking to each other. Suddenly, Deleuze's Lakme
starts playing, which is actually a pretty cliched cut. I've now,
(53:40):
since I've seen that movie, which I saw when I
was pretty young, that is used all the time. It's
a very elegaic piece of music. So anytime you want
to convey grace, you use that thing. But to use
that in the middle of this milieu, this gritty milieu,
this moment of magic that is actually not all that magical.
They're in an elevator shaft, but to them, it's this
(54:01):
magical moment. That just really always resonated with me as
this beautiful moment. I've since returned to that movie and
it has some flaws, but that moment still kills. So
that's one of them. Maybe we should be going around
or do I just get to like reel these off?
Speaker 3 (54:13):
Oh, just go ahead and list the other ones that
stand out to you. Okay.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Hush from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. That's my
Tarantino pick. That just captures what it's like to drive
late at night in Los Angeles if you've ever been here.
All the Elliott Smith tunes from Good Will Hunting. That
was the movie that brought him to fame, and I
will always love it for that. I can't believe I
didn't use anything from Repo Man, that song. album changed
(54:38):
my own and a lot of people's musical lives. Uh,
probably TV party by black flag from that, uh, soundtrack
head over heels from Donnie Darko. Another example of kind
of doing a music video in the middle of your film.
And like the filmmaker is just like, that's what I
want to do. And it's awesome. Um, an end credit
song from my own private Idaho, the old main drag by, uh,
(54:59):
the Pogues, which kind of sums up the story that
you've just heard. And I'd never really heard the Pogues
before that. It's beautiful. You got to go with Blue
Daniel Waltz, 2001. That is a needle drop. That was
not score.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
It wasn't written for the film?
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
And Under Pressure from After Sun, the way that that,
oh my God, I just.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Brings you to tears, that thing.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
And then finally, just for fun, Slaughterhouse. That's my David
Lynch pick. Which is this metal tune that's used twice
in wild at heart. Yes And the reason that I
really love it is the second time it's used the
first time they go out dancing They're like, let's go dancing.
You think it's gonna be like to some David Lynch
in like 1950s. That's Speed metal Dancing to speed metal
(55:48):
later They're driving through the desert and they switch through
the radio and they hear it and they have to
stop the car and get out and start dancing to
speed metal in the desert Which then suddenly fades out
and turns into like this elegaic Angelo Badalamenti score. Only
David Lynch would fade from speed metal to like whatever
(56:08):
Angelo Badalamenti is doing with his beautiful lush music.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
So good. Josh, what about you?
Speaker 1 (56:13):
I'm just going to name one because though I'm happy
you put a Sofia Coppola film on your list, Adam,
I couldn't not at least mention where I would have gone.
And that would have been from Lost in Translation. Jesus
and Mary Chain over the ending, just like Honey. It's
just beautiful.
Speaker 3 (56:31):
Just a few for me.
Speaker 5 (56:32):
A couple that fit my criterion about Discovery, anyway, songs
I wasn't familiar with. The one that made your list already,
Silly Games from Lovers Rock. I did actually mention this
one already, Mad World from Donnie Darko, a song I
hadn't heard until I saw that film. Link later, the
song Hero from Boyhood by Family of the Year. how
(56:54):
that's used.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
In that movie. How about this one?
Speaker 5 (56:58):
Damn, it feels good to be a gangster by ghetto
boys from office space.
Speaker 4 (57:03):
So good.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
So good.
Speaker 5 (57:04):
Now the, this is, this is all I have in
terms of three more. Cause it would just go on
two more, two, two long, three more that it just
pains me that I couldn't find a way to fit
into my list. One of them is the one you
said Rico already under pressure from after sun. Yeah. Cameron Crowe,
both in your eyes from say anything that wasn't written
(57:27):
for the film. Was it Peter Gabriel already, already had that, right?
Speaker 1 (57:30):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (57:30):
Don't, I want to make sure in your eyes from
say anything. And of course, tiny dancer, most famous, almost.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
That's one of those tracks where it was just like,
I would not, I'm, I was too much of a
hipster at that time to give that song credence. And
it was like, that I don't care. It's a nose.
Speaker 3 (57:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
There's a, there's a, yeah. I mean, we could do
a list of, I wouldn't call it a reclamation project,
but something where you could do top five needle drops
as reclamation projects where they take a song that you're,
you dismiss perhaps unfairly, but used in the right hands
in the right film. Suddenly you're made, you're made aware.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Of how good the song is.
Speaker 5 (58:10):
I didn't love Tiny Dancer when I saw it used
in that film. I wasn't a big Elton John guy
and now I'm kind of obsessed with it. And then PTA,
of course, one of the most famous ones, maybe the
most famous one.
Speaker 3 (58:21):
In any of his films. It's Boogie Nights.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
Sister Christian.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (58:23):
It's Sister Christian in Boogie Nights. Of course, the use
of Night Ranger. So have to at least get that
one on the record. This was obviously.
Speaker 3 (58:33):
Fun because we had a lot to say about these picks.
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Thanks, Rico, for giving us four shows worth of discussion
and conversation here.
Speaker 3 (58:41):
I don't know if you knew you were in for this,
but you were game.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
No, I knew as soon as it was like, oh,
this is going to be a night.
Speaker 3 (58:48):
Once again, just remind people where they can find your show.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
That is MUBI Podcast, cunningly named after the film company
that puts it out, MUBI Podcast. And you can find
it wherever pods are cast. And I hope you do.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
Yes, definitely seek it out.
Speaker 5 (59:08):
We thank Rico Galeano from the MUBI Podcast for joining us.
And we hope you will send us your picks or
any other feedback about the top five. You can email
us anytime, feedback at filmspotting.net.
Speaker 2 (59:20):
Thanks, Rico. Thank you, sirs.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
Our thanks again to Rico Galeano. So much fun.
Speaker 5 (59:25):
And next time we have him on, not that it
was his fault, certainly, we'll try to have a strategy
in place.
Speaker 3 (59:31):
When we pick such a good topic, Josh.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
Maybe we could do a joint list, though. Sometimes that
works for a topic, sometimes not. But yeah, it was
fun every minute of it. So good to have Rico on.
Speaker 5 (59:43):
Producer Sam right now is banging his head against the
table because he's wanting to announce to the world... I
knew this would happen. I proposed a joint list, which
he did to me. And I said, there's no way
this can be a joint list. I already can't get
my list down anything lower than 22. And you want
(01:00:04):
me and Josh to agree on five?
Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
No.
Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Can't happen.
Speaker 5 (01:00:07):
So we remind you that you can find all of
our picks and links to clips over at filmspotting.net slash lists. Josh,
that is part two of our show.
Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
That's it for Film Spotting for now, but we have
more coming ahead in the Film Spotting feed on Monday.
Look for the movie Racket with Michael Phillips. The movie
Law he'll be exploring on that episode is pictures are
for entertainment. Messages should be delivered by Western Union. Samuel
Goldwyn shared that one on Tuesday. It's Film Spotting SVU.
(01:00:40):
They'll be discussing Desert Warrior. This is a Hulu podcast.
offering a 7th century Arabia set epic with Anthony Mackie
and Ben Kingsley. The director of this one is Rupert Wyatt,
who did Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On Thursday,
we will have the next picture show for you, where
there will be a little bit more of the end
(01:01:02):
of Oak Street talk. They're pairing it with Steven Spielberg's
The War of the Worlds. Friday, we're back with a
draft and another guest. Roxanna Haddadi from Vulture is joining us.
We'll be picking our favorite Ridley Scott films. Film Spotting
is produced by Golden Joe Disseau and Sam Van Hogren.
(01:01:22):
Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our
production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Ariana Martinez is our new
marketing and social media assistant. Welcome, Ariana. Great to have
you aboard. And special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago.
More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm
(01:01:43):
Josh Larson.
Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation can
serve no purpose anymore.
Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
Goodbye.
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