Posts Tagged ‘Soundtrack Saturday’

Soundtrack Saturday: “National Lampoon’s European Vacation”

Very recently, I collected almost all the songs from the soundtracks of National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) and National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985). I knew I wanted to write about one of the two this week, but couldn’t decide which one. So I asked my tweeps and Facebook friends to pick one or the other, not telling them why I made the request.

Winning with almost 100 percent of the vote was European Vacation. Some of my pals provided their favorite quote from the movie along with their vote, the most popular being, “Dad, I think he’s gonna pork her!” I can’t ignore what the people want, so the Griswolds in Europe it is. (Don’t worry, Vacation ‘83 fans — I’ll write about it soon enough.)

Written by our old pal John Hughes and directed by Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Clueless), European Vacation follows the Griswold family — Clark (Chevy Chase), Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), and their kids Rusty (Jason Lively) and Audrey (Dana Hill) — as they head off on a whirlwind [insert title of movie], which they won on the completely ridiculous game show “Pig in a Poke.” They make stops in England, France, Germany, and Italy, leaving a trail of injury, damage, and general confusion wherever they go.

This is one of those movies where I don’t think a plot synopsis would do it any justice. If you haven’t seen European Vacation, just know that it’s chock-full of physical humor and hilarious, quotable lines. One that my family and I still bring up if we’re out driving and we get lost and keep passing the same scenery is: “There’s Big Ben! And there’s Parliament!”

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Soundtrack Saturday: “Bull Durham”

“I see great things in baseball. It’s our game — the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.” —Walt Whitman

Bull Durham

With the All-Star Game right around the corner, I suggested to Kelly Stitzel that she feature Bull Durham for this week’s Soundtrack Saturday. I was shocked — shocked, I tell ya! — to find out she’s never seen writer-director Ron Shelton’s 1988 summer hit, one of the best sports movies of all time, if not the best movie about baseball. It’s also one of the finest romantic comedies of the past 25 years.

First-time director Shelton drew from his own experiences as a minor-league ball player for Bull Durham’s screenplay, and he was blessed with a stellar cast that brought his richly drawn characters to life. It’s a movie full of smart dialogue and character-based comedy that celebrates the lunacy, hijinks, and joy of America’s two favorite pastimes — baseball and sex.

Susan Sarandon, radiant as ever, flew on her own dime from Italy to audition and win the role of Annie Savoy, a part-time teacher in Durham, North Carolina. Annie dedicates each summer of her life to tutoring a player on the Durham Bulls, the local minor-league team, that she believes has the best potential to get a call up to the majors. However, Annie isn’t interested in improving the players’ reading and writing. And she isn’t a coach, although she knows as much about baseball as any manager. No, she’s more of a spiritual and sexual adviser: “You know how to make love, then you’ll know how to pitch.” She reads Walt Whitman to her lover-players and puts on Edith Piaf records in the hopes of making them well-rounded human beings and therefore better ball players. At the top of the film she chooses as her new student Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh, the Bulls’ latest gifted pitcher, who has a million-dollar arm but a five-cent head on his shoulders.

The role of Nuke went to Tim Robbins in a career-breakthrough performance. Shelton had to fight to get Robbins cast in the part; up to that point he’d been in Howard the Duck, an infamous flop, and mostly blink-and-you-missed-him bit parts (raise your hand if you recall him in Top Gun). In addition to his lack of experience onscreen, executives at Orion Pictures felt that a woman as classy as Sarandon would never fall for a guy like Robbins. Luckily, Shelton prevailed, and the two actors not only worked wonderfully on the set but fell in love and remain a devoted couple to this day. Shows you how smart those movie execs can be.

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Soundtrack Saturday: “Two of a Kind”

A couple months ago I was browsing around the vinyl section at my local Half-Price Books when I came across a near-mint copy of the soundtrack to Two of a Kind (1983), the film that reteamed John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John after Grease, the highest-grossing movie of 1978. Now, I know that when I wrote about Staying Alive (1983) last fall I was giving myself some shit for writing about a Travolta movie, and I promised myself it would be the only Travolta movie I’d write about. But when I found this soundtrack, I knew I’d have to break that promise. I mean, a movie like Two of a Kind is made for this column, don’t you think? And yes, I know it’s been brought up on Popdose before, along with its soundtrack, but it hasn’t been covered yet by me!

As with many of my favorite bad movies from the ’80s, Two of a Kind is one of those films I used to watch on cable all the time as a kid. I imagine it drew me in because of my love for Grease and Newton-John (”Physical” was my jam for much of 1982). I still have a soft spot for it, even though it is pretty terrible, but I prefer to think of it as one of those terrible-in-an-amazing-way movies.

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Soundtrack Saturday: “Pretty in Pink”

I’m going to guess most of you have seen Pretty in Pink (1986), but if you haven’t, I’m sure you have a good reason — like being totally lame.

I kid, I kid. You’re not lame. (Or are you?)

Of all the movies John Hughes wrote, produced, and/or directed, this one just might be my favorite. I had wanted to see it in the theater when it was first released, but I was only eight, so that never happened. I did, however, get to watch it many times on video and cable and could probably recite every line of dialogue by the time I was 12.

Written by Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch — who also directed Hughes’s Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) and The Great Outdoors (1988) — Pretty in Pink is the story of Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald), a high school senior “from the wrong side of the tracks” with a new-wave fashion sense, an unemployed father, and a best friend, Duckie Dale (Jon Cryer), who’s madly in love with her.

Rich preppy Blane (Andrew McCarthy) makes a visit one day to Trax, the record store where Andie works, and the two do some serious flirting. After a few more flirtatious encounters there and at school, he finally asks her out.  The two attempt to start a romance but encounter judgment and resistance from their friends, including Blane’s best friend, Steff (James Spader), who secretly likes Andie; Steff’s girlfriend, Benny (Kate Vernon); and Duckie.

Things get especially rough after Blane asks Andie to the prom, and once Steff gives him the hard sell, Blane backs out of taking her. Heartbroken, but refusing to let the “richies” get the better of her, Andie decides to go to the prom anyway — by herself. But once they’re both there, she and Blane realize they do love each other and want to be together in spite of their friends’ objections.

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Soundtrack Saturday: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

I should begin this post by telling you that I’ve only seen two episodes of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. I’ve never read a single volume of the Twilight or Sookie Stackhouse books, I’ve never seen an episode of True Blood, and I generally don’t give a shit about the current vampire obsession all the girls seem to have thrown themselves into. That said, I love the original 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, and this is as close as I’m going to get to joining the vampire love-in.

So, let’s take a step back to 1992, when Beverly Hills 90210 was one of the most popular shows on the teevee and Luke Perry was one of the biggest teen-dream heartthrobs. At the time Perry only had two films under his belt, neither of which his 90210 fans, mostly teenage girls, probably would have seen. When posters for Buffy the Vampire Slayer started showing up in movie theaters, all the teenyboppers — myself included — were aflutter. Not long after it opened, I read a review in some magazine that basically said the movie sucked, but do you think that stopped me from seeing it? As Whitney would say, “Hell to the no!”

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Soundtrack Saturday: “Threesome”

I know I just wrote about a mid-’90s Gen X-centered tale a couple weeks ago, but I decided to do it again, just for kicks. I was inspired to write about Threesome (1994) for two reasons (not three). First, I recently decided to rewatch the excellent Aaron Sorkin comedy series Sports Night (1998-2000), which costars one of Threesome’s stars, Josh Charles, who I used to have a big crush on back in high school. And second, our own Robert Cass and I recently had an e-mail conversation about Stephen Baldwin’s bad acting and douchey haircuts, though it started out being about something else entirely.

Even if you’ve never seen this movie, I bet you can figure out what it’s about. But I’ll give you a quick and dirty synopsis anyway. Horndog jock Stuart (Baldwin) and sensitive film major Eddy (Charles) are roommates in their college dorm. Their testosterone-filled living situation is thrown into chaos when a clerical error made by the college’s housing office places Alex (Lara Flynn Boyle) — a chick! — in the dorm as their third roommate. At first, the three don’t get along at all, but eventually they get to know each other and start hanging out all the time, chasing away anyone who tries to break into their little circle (or is it be a triangle?). Here’s the fun part: Alex is in love with Eddy, who’s in love with Stuart, who’s in love with Alex. Oh, the drama! I don’t want to spoil the film for you, but since the title pretty much does it anyway, the three eventually act upon their desires all at once and engage in a threesome. But instead of bringing them together, their little tryst only drives them apart — and scares the shit out of them.

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Soundtrack Saturday: “Desperately Seeking Susan”

When I was a kid, there were two standing arguments about pop stars among my circle of friends: Madonna vs. Cyndi Lauper, and Michael Jackson vs. Prince. My choices back then were Madonna and Prince.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Cyndi or Michael; I just preferred the risque edge that Madge and Prince had. I was obsessed with the videos for “Borderline” and “Lucky Star” and, like many girls who were Madonna fans in the mid-’80s, I wanted to dress like her and wear my hair like her — and my mom let me! Well, for Halloween anyway. When Desperately Seeking Susan came out in 1985, I begged my parents to take me to see it, but that didn’t happen. It only had a PG-13 rating, but it was “too adult” for a seven-year-old to see in the theater, or some such bullshit. So, I had to wait until it came on Skinemax a year later to see it.

In director Susan Seidelman’s film, bored New Jersey housewife Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) keeps track of the escapades of a woman named Susan (Madonna) and her boyfriend, Jim (Robert Joy), through the personal ads they use to communicate with each other. One day she decides to observe a rendezvous of theirs in New York City, but a bump on the head and a case of amnesia later, Roberta thinks she’s Susan and ends up on the run from some mobsters who are looking for the real deal. The suburbia-meets-big-city element provides a predictable plot device as Roberta’s square husband, Gary (Mark Blum), and his obnoxious sister, Leslie (Laurie Metcalf), begin looking for her and Gary meets the real Susan. Meanwhile, Roberta begins a new romance in her amnesiac state with Dez (Aidan Quinn), a film projectionist and friend of Susan’s boyfriend. The two women finally meet when they’re chased by a hit man who’s after some Egyptian earrings they have in their possession. Reviews I’ve read have called Desperately Seeking Susan a screwball romantic comedy, but I don’t really think that’s an accurate description.

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