“The Souvenir Part II”
You know who really knows her British art-pop music and how to tastefully curate it? Filmmaker Joanna Hogg. Much like “The Souvenir” part one, which featured a banger of a soundtrack (cuts from The Psychedelic Furs, Bauhaus, Robert Wyatt, The Fall, etc,), “The Souvenir Part II,” pulls from her coming-of-age 1980s London to create an evocative portrait of a young woman struggling with identity, tragedy, self-reflection, and self-doubt. Hogg knows how to pick ’em, to evoke time and place (“Sometimes” by Erasure, “Knowledge Of Beauty” by Dexys Midnight Runners) and knows how to use them to create beautifully painful and striking sound and vision moments of cinema (“Sixty/Forty” by Nico and awesome cuts by The Jesus And Mary Chain, Wire, Fine Young Cannibals, and especially that killer Eurythmics track). Hogg’s melancholy, meta-movie is gorgeous, heartbreaking, but ultimately triumphant in its bold recapturing of self-reliance and agency. And boy, does she knows how to forget a mood and also? She would make a terrific DJ at a party. – RP
“The Mitchells Vs the Machines”
Multi-instrumentalist and Devo founder Mark Mothersbaugh seems to have parted ways with filmmaker Wes Anderson (their last full soundtrack together was ‘Life Aquatic‘) and Anderson’s loss is everyone else’s gain, frankly. Perhaps most interestingly, with Anderson, Mothersbaugh was strictly in the past, with baroque instruments. But free of that milieu, he’s free to be the future-forward and future-thinking musician he is, never once resting on nostalgia, the past, his legendary contributions to music, or his legacy. Mothersbaugh never really looks back and this is perfect for the super-underrated “Mitchells Vs. The Machine” animated movie from Sony Animation (who is killing it) that was eventually sold to Netflix (bad move on Sony’s part, it rules). About a family who has to face a techbro douchebag and the calamity he has inadvertently created: a robot apocalypse looking to enslave and destroy all humans, Mitchells is hilarious, thrilling, fast-paced and of course, set within the framework of a futuristic disaster. Naturally, Mothersbaugh’s score is super thrilling, synthy/dreadful, and bleeby-bloopy in all the right ways, and also incredibly aspirational in its musical themes of lifting up its female protagonist (you will prolly well up and dweep in a couple of spots too, it’s that good). Plus the soundtrack cuts themselves? Alex Lahey, Le Tigre, Grimes, T.I./Rihanna, Sigur Rós? All bangers used as emotional bangers too. So terrific. – RP
“The French Dispatch”
OK, so we talked about Anderson and Mothersbaugh parting ways and how that’s a bummer. Though honestly, Just listen to the opening “Obituary” notes of Alexandre Desplat’s ‘French Dispatch’ score and tell me that a) he’s not essentially doing the same baroque/melancholy thing (that’s arguably a bit more advanced), b) it’s a seamless transition from where Mothersbaugh and Anderson left off and you probably didn’t even notice. There’s always ceremony and pageantry to the scores and soundtracks of Wes Anderson films and lord, Desplat always does an amazing job of it, in this one, which is such a tribute to Anderson’s new home of France, as much as it is a loveletter to the American past he’s left behind, major major musical motif tributes to the legendary French composer George Delerue who Anderson used in the past (“Fantastic Mr. Fox”). Given this is a wide-spanning tribute with lots of stories, there are lots of different types of music too. There are whimsical accordion numbers, that someone might play outside a French café, ditties that sound like Django Rheinhardt homages, plaintive Erik Satie acknowledgments, of course, the more bombastic, busy, and thrilling crescendos Desplat creates for Anderson’s various set pieces, generally fun, entertaining car chases or Mexican standoffs. Plus, you get a terrific selection of choice cuts, Grace Jones, Chantal Goya, The Swingle Sisters, Delerue himself, and an entire pop single (and accompanying album!) created by Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker made to feel like it was written and recorded into sound like it was made in the 1960s that is absolutely so lush and delicious. Anderson’s movie is a lovely diorama in praise of writers, the transportive worlds they create with stories, and the knowing, lonely, dolorous bond all ex-pats feel for being away from home and the music that accompanies “The French Dispatch” is pure heaven. – RP
“Last Night In Soho“
Yes, just like Jonny Greenwood, Edgar Wright is here twice, because, if it isn’t obvious already, he is one of cinema’s most foremost musicologists, and is arguably right up there with Tarantino, Scorsese, and Wes Anderson in curating the absolutely best movie music soundtracks. So, Wright’s “Last Night In Soho” is in many ways, many films, a murder-mystery, a slasher horror, a ghost story, a coming of age tale, and more. But one of its central elements is how its lead protagonist (Thomasin Mckenzie) is a ’60s fetishist and the movie becomes a paean to the style, music, and times of London’s Swinging Sixties. Thus the soundtrack is filled with vintage nostalgia of this sort and brassy, orchestrated, smoky, sophisticated pop of this era from singers like Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Sandie Shaw, Cilla Black, The John Barry Orchestra, and more. But then there’s the groovy rock side of things with choice cuts by The Kinks, The Who, The Searchers, The Walker Brothers, and others. Then, on top of all that, you have one of the best U.K. composers, Steven Price (“Gravity,” “Attack the Block“), who gooses and eggs on the creepy, mysterious vibe of the movie that balances out all the earworm choices that Wright so carefully and tastefully selects. The entire thing is a feast for the ears as Wright is always wont to do. – RP
