The Niles Files Movie Montages
Every Thursday on the Nite Show,
I highly recommend you try to catch The Niles Files. If
you're a fan of movies, it's a segment you don't want to
miss. The Niles Files can usually be found in the second
hour of the program and is not just a review of current movies,
but actually features incredibly insightful and in depth
discussions of films - both past and present. This page is
dedicated to highlighting the popular movie montages that Niles
has taken the time to put together. If you'd like to read
Niles' work and musings about the movies, make sure to check out
his incredible, thought provoking blog - The Niles Files!The Niles Files montages began appearing in February of 2011, and are attempts to sonically explore the themes of film genres and influential filmmakers. They are a collaboration between Niles and his "personal Walter Murch" Marshall Bolin, with whom he worked as a teenage barista, and bonded with over a mutual love for the work of David Lynch and "Twin Peaks." Marshall is a musician and performer, whose bands include Run at the Dog, Case Murphy, A Series of Clicks and Beeps, and the Abba tribute band, "Abbasolutely." He is currently on the road, lost in America and pursuing new adventures, in addition to working on a solo hip-hop album. He and Niles are collaborating on a screenplay involving process servers, murder, infidelity, and fearsome scutigera house centipedes.
The
2011
Oscars Montage (February 2011) For
the Academy Awards show I wanted to do something a little
special, and I called up Marshall, a musician who had mixed the
albums of his various bands (Run at the Dog, Case Mursphy, A
Series of Clicks and Beeps) and shared my taste in movies, to
see if it was possible if we could cut together something.
The idea was ambitious, and the result is probably a little hard
to accurately interpret and, at six minutes, pretty
self-indulgent, but I'm proud of it. I was reading Mark Harris'
book "Pictures of a Revolution," about how the films vying for
Best Picture of 1967 - "The Graduate," "In the Heat of the
Night," "Bonnie and Clyde," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" -
related to what was happening in American culture, and signaled
a change in Hollywood as the mantle was being passed to a more
riotous and rebellious generation. Martin Luther King was
assassinated days before the Oscars, and there was Vietnam.
The two big movies of 2010 were "The King's Speech" and "The
Social Network," which were about technology affecting culture
and how human beings communicated; in January and February,
leading up to the Oscars, we had the Arab Spring, where the term
"social networking" was being thrown around in the media.
Individuals like Mark Zuckerberg and Wikileaks founder Julian
Assange were like neuromancers of sci-fi cyberpunk novels,
changing the world.
There was also debates on gay marriage and the repeal of Don't
Ask Don't Tell, which played to themes in "The Kids Are All
Right"; the forgotten lower class seemed applicable to "Winter's
Bone"; "127 Hours" is about a kid - and a world - saturated in
recorded images, while "The Fighter" has a protagonist who
disdains performing for cameras, mirroring an entertainment
infrastructure built on Reality TV.
The two years - 1967 and 2010 - are sort of intertwined with
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' "Social Network" music and Simon
and Garfunkel from "The Graduate," both of which work well. The
theme might not be too clear in places, and it was hell spending
hours trying to get the right clips from a dozen movies and news
stories (while a snow-storm was transpiring outside), but for a
first run I think it's all right. Anyway, this is what started
things off.
Music
Show
Montage (Part 1) (March 2011) Another trilogy of pieces.
The first is built around "Amadeus" and features iconic
selections from: "Psycho"; "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly";
"Titanic"; "City Lights"; "Vertigo"; "The Pink Panther";
"Rocky"; "The Mission"; "The Godfather Part II"; "The
Magnificent Seven"; "Star Wars"; "Patton"; "Chariots of Fire";
"Terms of Endearment"; "The Sting"; "The Exorcist";
"Beetlejuice"; "The Shawshank Redemption"; "Brazil"; "Shaft";
"2001: A Space Odyssey"; "There Will Be Blood"; "Magnolia";
"Silence of the Lambs."
Music Show Montage (Part 2) (March 2011) The second details specific directors and their methods: Stanley Kubrick; Thelma Schoonmaker on Martin Scorsese; Moby on Michael Mann; and Hans Zimmer on Terrence Malick.
Music
Show
Montage (Part 3) (March 2011)
The third is a more comedic collection of filmmakers using
music: the Coens ("O Brother, Where Art Thou?"; "The Big
Lebowski"; "A Serious Man"), Tarantino ("Pulp Fiction, Reservoir
Dogs"), Altman ("Nashville"), Trey Parker & Matt Stone
("South Park"; "Team America"), and Monty Python ("Life of
Brian").
Billy
Bob
and Jolene go to Schindler's List (March 2011)
A Minnesota-based Academy member told me that he voted for "The
King's Speech" over "The Social Network" because it made him
cry. It's the same reason why, 20 years earlier, he committed a
similar sin in voting for "Dancing With Wolves" over
"GoodFellas." As a result, Mischke and I decided to do a show on
tearjerkers.
Billy
Bob
and Jolene go to Gladiator (March 2011)
Marshall
and I tried something a little different here in trying out a
little radio drama. With his girlfriend Elizabeth McAllister, we
all created the All-American couple "Billy Bob and Jolene," and
improvised three scenarios wherein Jolene drags her
"Fuseball"-lovin' husband to the movies for some war and
carnage. Instead, he encounters his feminine side. Accompanying
each clip is some tearjerker tidbits/clips/interviews.
Billy Bob and Jolene go to The King's Speech (March 2011) We intended to bring Billy Bob and Jolene back, but, for better or worse, never got around to it. One scenario for the summer was to have Billy Bob frustrated by viewing "The Tree of Life," which he had seen only because he had heard Mischke talk about it on The Niles Files. In retaliation, Billy Bob assassinates Mischke and kidnaps Niles, forcing him to watch Michael Bay's "Transformers" trilogy repeatedly until he loses his mind. Suffice to say, this adventure never happened, and maybe that's a good thing.
Sex
on Film Montage (April 2011) Maybe my
favorite clip. The gods were aligned against us on this though,
as the much anticipated "Sex Show" was delayed for over a month
because of illness (for both Mischke and myself), hockey games,
and vacations. It was as if there was a divine dictate from
heaven stating that this was a subject we couldn't touch. So for
weeks I had the Sex Montage floating around, waiting for air. It
still amuses me. Films used: "The Big Lebowski"; "Monty Python's
The Meaning of Life"; "The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen";
"Love and Death"; "MASH"; "The Unbearable Lightness of Being";
"Eyes Wide Shut"; "When Harry Met Sally"; "Basic Instinct"; "The
Naked Gun"; "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex * But
Was Afraid to Ask"; "Young Frankenstein"; "South Park"; "The
Crying Game."
Psycho
Killers
Montage (Part 1) (April 2011) Madness
in the movies, with a lot of bodies to spare. The first montage
(Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer") mainly dwells with the killers
in their own private and twisted worlds. PART ONE/"PSYCHO
KILLER": "Taxi Driver"; "Psycho"; "Silence of the Lambs"; "No
Country for Old Men"; "Manhunter"; "Insomnia"; "Seven"; "The
Dark Knight"; "The Shining"; "The King of Comedy"; "Cape Fear."
Psycho
Killers
Montage (Part 2) (April 2011) The
second (Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man," from "Zodiac") follows the
investigators pursuing them. PART TWO/"HURDY GURDY MAN":
"Manhunter"; "The Dark Knight"; "Taxi Driver"; "Seven";
"Insomnia"; "No Country for Old Men"; "Zodiac."
War
Movies
Montage (May 2011) For our Memorial
Day show. The obvious choice for a background songwas Guns and
Roses' "Civil War," which has a perfect momentum. Here you have
a couple cases of luck in the arrangement. Usually, I script out
a general order of clips before we hit the editing. But it just
kind of worked out that Private Joker's "war cry" from "Full
Metal Jacket" would happen just before Slash's guitar would
explode, and more interestingly, the dialogue between Israeli
and Palestinian from "Munich" happens just before Axl Rose
sings, "-when everybody's fightin' for his promised land!" All
in all, not bad. Films used: "Patton"; "Full Metal Jacket";
"Black Hawk Down"; "Platoon"; "Green Zone"; "Salvador";
"Munich"; "Paths of Glory"; "The Thin Red Line"; "Apocalypse
Now."
Tim
Burton
Montage (June 2011) The Trylon
Microcinema was doing a Burton retrospective over the summer.
This is a rather sub-par effort. Actually, it kind of sucks.
Marshall didn't have a hand in it, the mixing is bad, and I put
it together in about an hour, shortly before showtime. A lot of
Burton movies are absent (nothing from the Batman series,
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Sweeney Todd," "Big Fish,"
"Sleepy Hollow," or "Mars Attacks!"). Films: "Pee Wee's Big
Adventure"; "Beetlejuice"; "Edward Scissorhands"; "Ed Wood."
Terrence
Malick
Montage (June 2011) The problem with
doing a Malick montage, Marshall and I found out, is that he
specializes in a film language of silences and music, so
plucking dialogue moments and mashing them up is nearly
impossible. It's also hard to approach him, because Malick
creates the most beautiful moving images, and anything without
those images - e.g. a radio montage - is going to necessarily be
inadequate. Our approach was pretty linear. We begin with "The
Tree of Life" trailer, setting up the philosophical binary of
Nature and Grace, and then go back to the past: Sissy Spacek's
existential wanderings over Carl Orff in "Badlands"; Sam
Shepherd expressing his naked longing for Brooke Adams with
Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals" in "Days of Heaven";
Private Witt's "One Big Soul" exhortation from "The Thin Red
Line"; and Pocahontas' prayer, with Wagner's "Das Rheingold,"
from "The New World." The message is the largeness and wonder of
life.
Citizen
Kane
Montage (September 2011) Originally I
assembled some Kane cuts on top of Bernard Herrmann's classic
score. But it was too lumbering and dark. To me, especially
without the benefit of images, it just didn't play and would
inevitably bore a radio listener. I wanted a "Kane" to which you
could tap your feet. At the time, I was repeatedly listening to
Arcade Fire's "Suburbs" album, and the songs were connecting not
only to what I was feeling at the time as a person, but to the
nostalgia for a lost youth, which is what "Citizen Kane" is for
me. Hours before showtime, I rearranged the cuts onto the song
"Deep Blue." For me, the fire in the song, for the most part,
equals the fire in Charles Foster Kane's soul.
David
Lynch
Montage (October 2011) Marshall and I
co-hosted a David Lynch show in October, commemorating the 25th
anniversary of "Blue Velvet" and the 10th anniversary of
"Mulholland Drive" (which both top my list of all-time favorite
films). As teenage baristas at the Barnes & Noble cafe in
Edina, Marshall and I first connected as David Lynch and "Twin
Peaks" fans. He even has a knack for impersonating the bizarre
reverse-playback speaking one hears in the Black Lodge Red Room
from "Peaks," and I sense a lot of the wonderment and
fascination with life you can see in Special Agent Dale Cooper.
Together we've spent hours discussing the spirituality in
Lynch's work, attended midnight screenings of "Twin Peaks" at
the legendary Oak St. Cinema, "Blue Velvet," and then "INLAND
EMPIRE." Making this was a long time coming, though it was
difficult given how both of us were having net and computer
problems. Lynch is exploring the abstract worlds of Darkness and
Love, the coexistence of Evil and Good, and the strange terrain
of Dream where those powers move in uncanny shapes. Of course,
Angelo Badalamenti, Julee Cruise, and Roy Orbison's "In Dreams"
provide the soundtrack. Films used: "Eraserhead"; "Mulholland
Drive"; "Twin Peaks" (various episodes); "Blue Velvet"; "Wild at
Heart"; "The Elephant Man." On the cutting room floor were cuts
from "INLAND EMPIRE," "Fire Walk With Me," "Lost Highway," and
"The Straight Story."
Twin
Peaks
Montage (October 2011) For the Lynch
show, Marshall and I concentrated our "Twin Peaks" love on this,
a serial television drama at a time when such shows weren't
fashionable (while they're all the rage right now). We begin by
introducing Dale Cooper and his delight with Douglas Firs, and
head into the mystery of Laura Palmer's murder, with some of the
program's popular phrases ("wrapped in plastic," "the owls are
not what they seem," Sarah Palmer's hair-raising cries, etc).
The Log Lady cuts in to voice Lynch and Mark Frost's
dissatisfaction with solving the murder: "It was almost better
NOT knowing." We conclude with the haunting finale of the
series, as the once heroic Cooper stares into the mirror, demon
possessed, and cackles "How's Annie?"
Dracula
Montage (October 2011) A short
collection of stuff associated with my favorite movie monster;
Marshall surprised me by finding Count Van Count, who neatly
gives it closure. The Draculas on hand: Martin Landau as Bela
Lugosi in "Ed Wood"; Coppola's "Dracula" with Gary Oldman; Bela
Lugosi; "Shadow of the Vampire," with Willem Dafoe as Max
Schreck; Christopher Lee; George Hamilton in "Love at First
Bite"; Count Van Count. Set to Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead,"
covered by Nine Inch Nails and TV on the Radio.
Halloween
Montage (October 2011) From the same
show, a tiny piece of bumper music with Oingo Boingo's "Dead
Man's Party" alongside "Army of Darkness," "The Shining,"
"Rosemary's Baby," and Robert Blake's Mystery Man laugh from
"Lost Highway."
God
Montage
(Part 1) (November 2011) There was
enough ground and material to cover on the subject of religion
in film that I requested we do a two-hour show, and Marshall and
I had ammunition for three separate tracks. You could argue one
of the debits is that, for 12-minutes of mashing up, the bits
are concentrated on a small group of directors: Woody Allen,
Martin Scorsese, and the Coen brothers. But those guys more than
anyone else - at least in English - capture religious and
existential conflict best.
From the beginning, I knew I wanted Peter Gabriel's "Rhythm of
the Heat," a song about C.G. Jung's spiritual experiences in
Africa, and which inspired Martin Scorsese to select Gabriel as
his composer on "The Last Temptation of Christ" in 1988. From
that, and most especially "Last Temptation," the them we
developed for the first montage was the struggle, or
irreconcilable differences between the spirit and the flesh: the
agony and absurd ecstasy of religion vs. day-to-day life. Films
used: "Love and Death"; "Mean Streets"; "Hannah & Her
Sisters"; "Wise Blood"; "The Big Lebowski"; "A Serious Man";
"The Ten Commandments"; "History of the World Part I"; "The
Ladykillers"; "Coming to America"; "The Last Temptation of
Christ"; "There Will Be Blood"; "Monty Python's Life of Brian";
"Pulp Fiction."
God
Montage
(Part 2) (November 2011) The second one
followed a theme of doubt leading to an affirmation of hope and
faith. I think it's a love letter to religious belief from an
atheist. We used Philip Glass' music from Scorsese's Dali Lama
biopic, "Kundun," and the rhythm sort of evolves like that
film's magnificent and expressive sand-painting montage. Films
used: "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy"; "Kundun"; "Crimes and
Misdemeanors"; "Star Wars"; "Mean Streets"; "No Country for Old
Men"; "Last Temptation of Christ"; "Hannah & Her Sisters";
"Ten Commandments"; "There Will Be Blood"; "Pulp Fiction."
God
Montage
(Part 3) (November 2011) A favorite
movie for both Marshall and I is "A Serious Man," which may also
hold a special place because it's a Minnesota movie, and its
Minneapolis setting (one of the most anti-Semitic cities in the
nation up until the 1950s) kind of carries a subtextual weight
when interpreting it. Behind everything is that film's pop
theme, Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love." We also put in
some Woody Allen cuts here, where the theme is basically how God
can sometimes be a jerk. Our only given option is, "Please,
accept the mystery." Films used: "Ten Commandments"; "Love and
Death"; "A Serious Man"; "Crimes and Misdemeanors."
David
Fincher
Montage (December 2011) With
Fincher's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" looming, I sent the
Trent Reznor/Karen O "Immigrant Song" cover to Marshall with
some film clips, and he emailed back the result, which is short,
satisfying, dark, and basically gets at the heart of the
director. Films used: "Seven"; "Fight Club"; "Zodiac"; "The
Social Network"; "Panic Room." Unfortunately, I couldn't get a
hold of anything from "The Game," and nothing from "The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button" fit into the energy of the track.
Martin
Scorsese
Montage (Part 1) (December 2011) Scorsese
is
probably the most-discussed filmmaker on the Files, his work
being central to the discussions on music in film,
psycho-killers, and gangsters. In December, 2010, we did a show
highlighting "Raging Bull" and "GoodFellas." A director with
such a broad body of work, and so much music iconically aligned
with those images, poses a lot of dilemmas in the decision
making for creating a montage at an appropriate length (Mischke
hates it when things go more than three and a half minutes).
Just a couple weeks before this, Marshall and I used a lot of
Scorsese for our trilogy of God montages, and there was still a
hell of lot to work from. We split it in two. Part 1 kicks off
with Scorsese addressing his love for movies, as J.R. (Harvey
Keitel) talks about "The Searchers" in "Who's That Knocking at
My Door?" (1968), the director's feature debut. The familiar
chords of "Gimme Shelter" kick in, and the track draws from an
assortment of characters longing for transcendence, or something
to elevate them above the earth: being a singer, an artist, the
son of God, a gangster, or the richest man in the world. It ends
with a triptych of Scorsesean heroes talking to themselves in
the mirror - Travis Bickle, Howard Hughes, and Jake LaMotta.
Films used: "Who's That Knocking at My Door?"; "Alice Doesn't
Live Here Anymore"; "Life Lessons"; "The Last Temptation of
Christ"; "The Aviator"; "GoodFellas"; "The Departed"; "Taxi
Driver"; "Mean Streets"; "The King of Comedy"; "Cape Fear";
"Gangs of New York"; "Raging Bull"; "After Hours"; "Shutter
Island"; "Casino."
Martin
Scorsese
Montage (Part 2) (December 2011) Part
2
takes the romantic strides of a Rolling Stones tune, with
Newland Archer expressing his love to the Countess Olenska in
"The Age of Innocence," continues the intensely heated spiritual
battles of various protagonists, and concludes with a clip from
the new release, "Hugo." Films used: "The Age of Innocence";
"Mean Streets"; "Taxi Driver"; "After Hours"; "New York, New
York"; "The Color of Money"; "The Aviator"; "Casino"; "Bringing
Out the Dead"; "The Departed"; "Cape Fear"; "Gangs of New York";
"The Last Temptation of Christ"; "Kundun"; "Shutter Island";
"Hugo."
David
Cronenberg
Montage (January 2012) Cronenberg
was difficult because we were dealing with a cult director whom
I love, but with whom most of the listening audience is probably
unfamiliar. The carnal and deeply disturbing subjects of his
work are also hard to put into words, but the repetitions of
"flesh," juicy sounds, and technology's relationship to the
human body keeps the message fairly consistent, if however
disconcerting. The new Cronenberg film, "A Dangerous Method," is
about Freud and Jung, and mines the theme of how even the wisest
of people are not in control of themselves: the body dictates
everything, and the unconscious "secret" world is governing.
These cuts are set to a cover of The Normal's "Warm
Leatherette," performed by Nine Inch Nails and Peter Murphy, a
song inspired by J.G. Ballard's novel "Crash," and which
Cronenberg made into a film in 1996. Films used: "Videodrome";
"Crash"; "Naked Lunch"; "Dead Ringers"; "eXistenZ"; "Shivers";
"The Fly"; "Scanners"; "A History of Violence"; "Eastern
Promises"; "Spider"; "A Dangerous Method.
Roman
Polanski
Montage (Part 1 - Sinnerman) (January 2012) Admiring
the
work of Polanski will not win you many friends. It's
understandably hard to try and evaluate the art when someone
despises the man, and any discussion on Polanski only results in
someone's blood beginning to boil - kind of like his new film,
which was the focus on this show, "Carnage," based on Yasmina
Reza's play, "God of Carnage." But I grew up with his films, and
he was one of the very first directors I studied. The key themes
of his work are equivalent to the themes of his life: guilt,
sex, paranoia, absurd bureaucracy, voyeurism, obsession,
dehumanization, revenge, and survival. The director himself,
playing the lead role in "The Tenant," starts things off with a
contemplation of his capability for foul deeds, and "Sinnerman"
by Nina Simone is all too perfect for being a fugitive's
backdrop. The second is set to Max Richter's "On the Nature of
Daylight" with Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth" vocal, as
Polanski's life and work both bespeak the hell and insoluble
despair of existence. Unfortunately, I don't think either piece
would really communicate the theme to someone with a passive
understanding of his work. PART I (Sinnerman) Films used:
"The Tenant"; "Chinatown"; "Macbeth"; "Cul de Sac"; "Bitter
Moon"; "Repulsion"; "Death and the Maiden"; "Tess"; "Rosemary's
Baby"; "Frantic"; "The Pianist"; "The Ghost Writer"; "Oliver
Twist."
Roman
Polanski
Montage (Part 2 - This Bitter Earth) (January 2012) PART
II
(This Bitter Earth) Films used: "Tess"; "The Pianist";
"Chinatown"; "Oliver Twist"; "Macbeth."
The
Godfather
Triology Montage (March 2012) Maybe
everything
in me is six degrees of "The Godfather." Before it, my favorite
movies were of the "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" ilk
(which is not to say I don't still love those). Every year, I
set aside a 10-hour slab and watch Francis Ford Coppola and
Mario Puzo's saga from start-to-finish, and never fail to feel
enriched afterwards. "The Godfather" isn't about gangsters; for
me, it's a hall of mirrors, where different times, places, and
faces are reflected against each other, always in flux. That's
what I wanted this montage to reflect: a thriving empire falling
into decay, and them whimpering, concluding with the golden
moment when the transfer of power between father and son occurs:
"Wasn't enough time, Michael, wasn't enough time." "We'll get
there, pop. We'll get there." But they never did. With the
40th anniversary of the first film, we finally got around to
doing a two-hour show on "The Godfather" and gangster movies in
general, the first hour featuring author Tom Santopietro,
discussing his recently published "The Godfather Effect." I was
moved that Santopietro emailed WCCO the next day to say how much
he enjoyed both the interview and the opening montage.
This was also a transfer of power in another respect. Marshall
and Liz were leaving town, going out on the road to pursue
adventures, without any clue as to when they would come back (or
if they would come back). So my own personal Walter Murch
was giving me sole responsibility. He gave me a few tips on
editing this, but otherwise this was a solo effort. Regardless,
I'm certain any future montages will more brazenly wear their
flaws of mixing and rhythm loudly and in abundance.
Gangster
Montage (March 2012) Part 2 of the
Mafia show, drawing from several pictures and set to "House of
the Rising Sun," used so memorably in "Casino." Yes, there are
many omissions, and you could get drunk in no time if you took a
shot every time either Pacino or De Niro talks, but at least I
got the bleeping of profanities down. Films used: "Scarface"
(1983); "Little Caesar"; "The Public Enemy"; "Bonnie and Clyde";
"Miller's Crossing"; "Bugsy"; "Pulp Fiction"; "Donnie Brasco";
"Heat"; "Thief"; "The Untouchables"; "Public Enemies"; "Casino";
"Reservoir Dogs"; "Carlito's Way"; "GoodFellas"; "Gangs of New
York"; "The Wire."
Villains Montage (April 2012) A quickly assembled project of some favorite bad guys, set to David Bowie's "Cat People," used so well in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds." Villains: Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) in "Inglourious Basterds"; the Joker (Jack Nicholson) in "Batman"; Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) in "Schindler's List"; the Joker (Heath Ledger) in "The Dark Knight"; Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) in "No Country for Old Men"; Hedley Lemarr (Harvey Korman) and Taggart (Slim Pickens) in "Blazing Saddles"; Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) in "Misery"; Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"; Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) in "Training Day"; Jesus Quintana (John Turturro) in "The Big Lebowski"; Max Cady (Robert De Niro) in "Cape Fear"; Frank (Henry Fonda) in "Once Upon a Time in the West"; Will Graham (William Peterson) describing Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan) in "Manhunter"; Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) in "Wall Street"; Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in "Blade Runner"; Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) in "The Return of the Jedi"; the Wicked Witch (Margaret Hamilton) in "The Wizard of Oz"; Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) in "Bram Stoker's Dracula"; the Marbles (Mink Stole, David Lochary) in "Pink Flamingos"; Noah Cross (John Huston) in "Chinatown"; Satan (Trey Parker) and Saddam Hussein (Matt Stone) in "South Park; Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) in "Sexy Beast"; Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) in "Blue Velvet"; Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) in "Spaceballs."
Wes
Anderson Montage (June 2012) "Moonrise
Kingdom" gave us the opportunity to do an hour on Wes Anderson,
and with a director who is so thematically consistent and
musical, and with some of my all-time favorite movie characters
(Dignan, Max Fischer, Herman Blume, Royal Tenenbaum, Steve
Zissou, and in time, I'm sure Suzy and Sam from "Moonrise
Kingdom" will join the ranks), a montage was hard to pass up.
The original version was an overlong five minutes, tying the
animal imagery (birds and Benjamin Britten's "Cuckoo" song) to
"Fantastic Mr. Fox"'s wild creatures who come to terms with
their nature. A "director's
cut" is here, along with the condensed version that aired,
which begins with "Bottle Rocket"'s Dignan declaring his
"innocence," passing through conflict, fighting, grudges, and
"cussing" to reconciliation and forgiveness between generations,
youth and age. The Faces' "Oo La La" (from "Rushmore") is the
song. Films used: "Moonrise Kingdom"; "Bottle Rocket";
"Rushmore"; "The Royal Tenenbaums"; "Fantastic Mr. Fox"; "The
Darjeeling Limited"; "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou."
Oliver
Stone Montage (July 2012) I
made this Stone tribute after the release of his recent
thriller, "Savages," a startling pulp drama that continues the
director's fascination with multiple narratives and dual
concepts. Beginning with Stone's notion of America, you have the
two "kings or "gods" of the 20th century American
political dialectic, JFK and Nixon, beginning things, the former
lingering in death and being the Hamlet ghost instructing us to
seek truth, the latter exemplifying the double-bind torment of
an individual who's tragically merged with the institutional
narrative. The elegiac opening, containing our myths, gives way
to the nihilism, disillusionment with institutions, and
oversaturation of "Natural Born Killers" and Nine Inch Nails,
with Stone's idea of the institution as "The Beast," a
Frankenstein that history has created but cannot be controlled.
A Vietnam veteran, Stone is fascinated with the East, and its
collision with the West. The final pace begins with another
comparison and contrast of historical leaders following in the
footsteps of their fathers, going eastward to conquer: Alexander
the Great and George W. Bush, along with two approaches to
Empire: Alexander's "empire of the mind" vs. the neoconservative
empire of controlling oil reserves. Films used: "JFK," "Nixon,"
"Born on the Fourth of July," "Salvador," "Platoon," "Wall
Street," "Any Given Sunday," "Alexander," "W.," "The Doors,"
"Natural Born Killers," "Talk Radio," "World Trade Center."
Dark
Knight Montage (July 2012) "The
Dark Knight Rises" hovers, and here is an assemblage of clips
from all three installments of Christopher Nolan's
existentialist blockbuster trilogy, as Bruce Wayne (Christian
Bale) tries to give his troubled life purpose by assimilating
his identity with an Idea and Symbol that encapsulates his
anger, nightmares, and ambitions. Fear, anger, purpose and
plans, and then the wild card of the Joker's (Heath Ledger)
nihilism come together to convey the conflicts of this distinct
superhero-as-cyborg saga.
Christopher
Nolan Montage (July 2012) Set
to the Pixies' "Where is My Mind," Nolan's four other films show
how his interest in the delusions and possibilities of the mind
tie into the more popular and accessible Dark Knight films.
Ideas are "the most resilient parasites," says Cobb (Leonardo
DiCaprio) in "Inception," but they also too often trap Nolan's
heroes in self-made mazes, where forgetfulness (as in "Memento")
appeases the struggle of pain, while memory and guilt, the light
of the Truth, become oppressive ("Insomnia"). Obsessions take
people over, and human beings processing reality double for
theatrical audiences: we don't realize it, but we actually want
to fool ourselves. Theatricality, deception, and the Will to
Power all come together, expressing the work of a director whose
bleakness has somehow succeeded in the mainstream. Films used:
"Memento," "Insomnia," "Batman Begins," "The Prestige," "The
Dark Knight," "Inception."
Paul
Thomas Anderson Montage (September 2012) The
release of The Master, a powerful and ambiguous, impeccably
constructed oddity of Melville proportions, brings us to
director Paul Thomas Anderson, a filmmaker of unparalleled
ambition, originality, and character. He is unafraid of touching
both the sublime and the ridiculous. He reaches beyond the arch
of his peer and somewhat mentor Tarantino, making films that
carry a kind of religious weight. The Master is itself not a
critique of charlatanism, but an intimate epic of souls who need
to believe in something that gives a framework with which their
primal states can be articulated. Films here: "Hard Eight" aka
"Sydney" "Boogie Nights," "Magnolia," "Punch-Drunk Love," "There
Will Be Blood."
Daniel
Day-Lewis Montage (November 2012) Greatest
actor of his generation? Sure. Daniel Day-Lewis' performance as
a deeply cognitive patriarch and politician, introduced in the
same way as the similarly spectacular creation of Marlon
Brando's Godfather was in 1972, is further evidence of his
spectacular ability to transform himself, and his impeccable
technical abilities as an actor. Playing deep intelligence and
contemplative introversion better than any actor, even in
thuggish and loud roles, Day-Lewis gets to the mystical and
elusive quality eyewitness Walt Whitman spotted in the real
Abraham Lincoln's face, something the artists of the day
couldn't capture. He also, ironically as an Englishman, has a
streak of playing great figures of a flowing American mythology:
James Fenimore Cooper's Hawkeye, Edith Wharton's Newland Archer,
Arthur Miller's Salem witch trial victim (and Red Scare
metaphor) John Procter, the Nativist gang leader Bill "the
Butcher" Cutting, and Texas oilman Daniel Plainview, in addition
to the revered President Pennyface. Performances featured:
"Lincoln," gay punk in "My Beautiful Laundrette," aristocratic
snob in "A Room With a View," womanizing Czech brain surgeon in
"The Unbearable Lightness of Being," palsy afflicted Irish
writer Christy Brown in "My Left Foot," wild frontiersman in
"The Last of the Mohicans," repressed 19th century New Yorker in
"The Age of Innocence," Puritan colonialist in "The Crucible,"
1860s Five Points gang leader in "Gangs of New York," and
obsessive oilman in "There Will Be Blood."
Quentin Tarantino Montage (January 2013) With Django Unchained wreaking spaghetti western style vengeance in theaters, we go to the fabulous video store nerd whose film landscape represents a stored away, pop culture collective unconscious. Films used: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds.