Category: Music

7 fun musical movies (that are not necessarily movies that are musicals)

Here’s a list of some great musically-oriented movies. Not musicals, necessarily. (Where I define a musical as “a movie or play where the characters up and sing a bunch of their lines, and dance around randomly in a way that has nothing to do with the plot.”) So, not musical movies, but music movies, I guess. These are about singing and playing music. (I’ll get around to the dancing later.) (Not that I’ll be doing any dancing. Or at least not that I’m willing to share. But I will make a list.)

7 fun musical (though not musical) movies

  1. This is Spinal Tap (1984)
    This movie goes up to 11. Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer totally rock in this heavy metal mockumentary. Okay, the music is bad. Deliberately bad. (With song titles like “Lick my love pump.”) In spite of the bad music, this early Rob Reiner-directed movie is lots of fun. And you just gotta love the Stonehenge scene.
  2. The Commitments (1991)
    A group of unemployed, underemployed and otherwise down-on-their-luck Dubliners put together a band to sing soul. The music is great, the story is entertaining, and the music is great. Plus, the music is great. (It’s actually a fun and funny movie, too.) Features an excellent, talented, but largely little-known cast. Maria Doyle Kennedy sings an excellent cover of Aretha’s “I Never Loved a Man.”
  3. Bob Roberts (1992)
    This movie is possibly more scary than fun. Not scary in a blood-and-guts nail-biting edge-of-your-seat sort of way. Scary in a too-close-too-home political sort of way. Tim Robbins plays a liberal-bashing manipulative politician. Who sings.
  4. Little Voice (1998)
    Jane Horrocks (perhaps best known as Ab Fab‘s Bubble) can sing like others like no other. Borrowing the songs (and voices) of such folks as Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and Marilyn Monroe, Jane Horrocks lights up the movie with her incredible range and talent. (Michael Caine also plays a memorable role as a skeezy talent scout.)
  5. O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000)
    Bluegrass music is one of the stars of this Coen brothers film. The other stars, George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson, play escaped convicts in the 1930’s deep south. Among the other adventures on their odyssey, they record an old-time song that becomes a radio hit.
  6. A Mighty Wind (2003)
    The brilliant minds and faces of Best In Show, Spinal Tap and Waiting For Guffman get together again. The amazing Christopher Guest directs. This time, the mockumentary is about folk singers. The music is fun, the dialog (improvised, mind you) is funnier. (“There was abuse in my family, but it was mostly musical in nature.”)

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This post is being warbled, crooned, chirped, yodeled and otherwise sung for the 3rd //engtech group writing project. Earplugs not included.

extra cheese

You know what really cheeses me off? When I finish a list and realize I’ve forgotten something.

It’s like going to the grocery store to buy bread, eggs and milk, and then remembering I need cheese too as I’m driving on my way there, but I figure I’ll wait to add it to my list, since it would be hazardous to write while driving, even if it is only one word, and then when I get there, going into this trance as I wander the aisles with my shopping cart, and wondering what it means that supermarkets now play music that was actually popular when I was in high school, and feeling up the melons and squeezing the toilet paper, then browsing the cereal aisle and feeling nostalgic for the days of my youth when lucky charms were an exotic unattainable bowl of cereal at the end of the rainbow because my mother insisted on having us eat healthy cereals like wheat chex and when I finally tried them, they really weren’t that thrilling, and resisting the urge to buy cookies and redi-whip and donuts, and before you know it, I’ve filled up the cart and then I head home with my bags of groceries, and after I put away my bread and my milk and my pint of organic blackberry sorbet, which seemed like a healthier choice than the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, but screw it, I bought that too, and bananas and maple syrup and zucchini and oatmeal and frozen peas, and then find a crumpled up paper in my pocket, and it’s my grocery list with its three measly items (bread, eggs and milk) scribbled on it, and realize that I’ve forgotten the eggs, and (crap!) I also forgot to get more cheese.

You know what I’m saying?

Anyhow, I realized that I left off some key pieces of cheese from yesterday’s cheeseful bounty. Such as:

  1. Richard Cheese, a musician who, along with his band Lounge Against the Machine, provides cheesy lounge music reinterpretations of so many your favorite contemporary songs. Also in the music category is the band The String Cheese Incident. Then there’s the apparently sadly now-defunct Cheese Patrol, a

    yearly homage to all the songs that people vociferously hate but secretly know all the words to. These are the songs we grew up with; overorchestrated. overwrought, oversynthed, over the top.

  2. Somehow I also managed to leave off the appearance of the cheese guy in the Buffy episode “Restless“, as well as a few other cheesy references. And in my research I came across this brilliant essay “An Analysis of Cheese as Metaphor in Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. Apparently, the layers of cheese in the Buffy series run far deeper than I’d realized.
  3. For more on cheese philosophy, you can check out this essay “on the non-existence of cheese.” Is there proof of the existence of cheese in the universe? Perhaps not.
  4. Then there’s the Cheese Burglar. But I’m not really a big fan of the cult of which he is a member. So instead I offer this cartoon mouse classic, The Cheese Burglar (1946). (You can even see it on YouTube. Though I admit to not having watched anything close to the whole 7 minutes.)
  5. I actually like the animation of this (shorter) shortThe Cheese Trap better, which features a cg version of the board game Mouse Trap, one of my childhood favorites.
  6. Do you hanker for a hunka cheese? Do you remember this rather creepy cartoon psa from the 70s? You might also be interested in the hunk-hankerers guest appearance on the Family Guy.
  7. Yesterday’s cheese did not include much in the way of cheese activities for those of you with too much time and not enough cheese on your hands. Options include: a quiz to let you know what kind of cheese you are. (There’s also a similar-veined one-step cheese “comparator,” but the reviews are not stellar.)
  8. There’s even an experiment with cheese that you can perform at home on your own. (However, the author does recommend exercising caution if you are lactose tolerant.) (And no, my dear seester, this is not the same cheese experiment you tried with me that one time when we were little. I’ll write about that later.)
  9. Most thrillingly, you can actually watch cheese *live* online. That’s right, you can watch watch cheddar cheese aging. Not only is it just as exciting as it sounds, it is also apparently the cool thing to do. (If you don’t have the months to spare to see the change in progress, you can also check out this time-lapse video encapsulating 3 months of the cheese-aging process.)
  10. And even though I offered it up yesterday, no cheese list would be complete without The Cheese Shop sketch. This time, I serve it up in its youtubiful glory:

say cheese

swiss_cheese.jpgYou might think you need to go to the grocery store to find cheese, but I have found cheese in a variety of unexpected places: books, movies, music and more. (And yes, it can get messy. Let me tell you, camembert is not something you want to find in an unexpected place.) I’ve come across so much cheese that there’s far too much for just me. So, I offer up to you this delectable platter of assorted cheesy goodness. Get your crackers ready.

  1. “The Big Cheese”: an expression meaning “the top banana” or “the head honcho.” (Please note that the “head cheese” means something totally different.) Here’s something I did not now about the origins of the expression “big cheese“:

    This use of the word probably derived not from the word cheese, but from the Persian or Hindi word chiz, meaning a thing.

  2. Little Miss Muffet This nursery rhyme girl not only sits on her tuffet, but she eats her curds and whey. That’s cottage cheese, my friend.
  3. “The Cheese Alarm,” a song by Robyn Hitchcock. This is a song of many cheeses:

    Roquefort and grueyere and slippery Brie
    All of these cheeses they happen to me

  4. “the cheese stands alone“: a line from the song “The Farmer in the Dell”. The title of I am the Cheese, a young adult book by Robert Cormier, and also a movie based on the same, references this line of the song, and the loneliness of being cheese.
  5. Cheese has long been used as a bait in mousetraps, and is especially good for trying to catch cartoon mice. Recently, this cheesy bait concept has been extended to motivating office workers with the book Who Moved My Cheese. This irritating-looking parable appears to have spawned a slew of cheese parody books, at least three of which are entitled “Who Cut the Cheese?”
  6. The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by the illustrious Lane Smith. This picture book features, among other things less cheese-oriented, a cheesy reinterpration of the gingerbread man fairy tale. Catch it if you can.
  7. “Cheeses of the World Series“: Jefferson Mint’s series of hand-painted collector’s plates featuring the cheeses of the world. Available only as an extra on the Austin Powers DVD. This is funniest deleted scene I can remember. It’s part of the overview that Number Two (Robert Wagner) gives of the activities of Virtucon, the “legitmate face” of Dr. Evil’s evil empire.
  8. Wallace and Gromit, Grand Day Out. Wallace loves cheese. Enough to go to the moon for it. And as we all know, the moon is made of cheese. (The other W&G features also feature some cheese, at least I know that The Wrong Trousers, and A Close Shave do. I have yet to see The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, but I would be sorely disappointed if it was cheese-free.)
  9. You know, there just aren’t enough movies featuring cheese. Paul Davidson, whose blog I found while doing my takehome final, offers a solution to this perennial problem by suggesting “ten movies whose plotlines would change by simply adding the word cheese to their titles.” An excellent proposition. (cf. “A Touch of Evil Cheese” and “Stand by Me Cheese”)
  10. The Cheese Shop sketch. In the land of the cheese, this sketch reigns supreme. John Cheese, I mean, Cleese and Michael Palin perform this legendary Monty Python gem. Hey, I was just making a joke about the John Cheese thing, but check out this slice of trivia from the John Cleese Wikipedia entry:

    John Cleese was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England to Reginald Francis Cleese and Muriel Cross. His family’s surname was previously “Cheese”, but his father, an insurance salesman, changed his surname to “Cleese” upon joining the army in 1915.

    Anyhow, the Cheese Shop Sketch features 43 kinds of cheeses. Well, the names of 43 kinds of cheeses. Whether you’re looking for Cheddar, Brie, Wensleydale or Venezuelan Beaver Cheese, you will find no better place not to buy it.

final countdown

Damn. I can’t even write that, even think that, without getting that song running through my head. (da da doo doo, da da doo doo doo, da da doo doo, da da doo doo doo…) (By the way, Wikipedia seems to let you play snippets of songs now. But I must warn you, this song is insidious. There is also no pause or stop button on the Wikipedia player.)

What was I saying? Oh yeah. My class is almost over. The takehome final is due tomorrow. I’m in decent shape timewise, I think. Also not in such bad shape gradewise, in spite of my previous stressings. (Have I ever mentioned that if there is extra credit available, I feel compelled to go for it? Even if I don’t need it? I’m trying to resist the urge to do the extra credit question on the final, since I’ll get more sleep if I don’t do it. And unless I seriously screwed up on the last assignment, I don’t need it.)

Ah, sleep. If only I could get some sort of credit for that. Screw the credit, if only I could just get more of it. Have I mentioned that I love sleep? Oh, right. I have.

5 5th things

Here’s a list of 5 things of the 5th persuasion. Want to know more than that? I take the fifth.

Five fifths

    5. Fifth Business, a novel by Canadian author Robertson Davies. Part of the Deptford Trilogy.

    5. The Fifth Dimension. An American band from the 60s known for songs such as “One Less Bell to Answer” and “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”. (Also amathematical abstraction.)

    5. a fifth interval. A musical abstraction. A difference between two notes in (Western) music theory. A perfect fifth is 7 semitones.

    5. The Fifth Element. A movie by director Luc Besson.

    5. The Fifth Elephant. A book by Terry Pratchett.

(Note: I was going to submit this as part of the //engtech 5 things contest, but noticed that I missed the deadline. I have trouble with deadlines. But what the hell, I’ll post away anyhow. I like lists, I like things, and 5 is as good a number as any. And way better a number than 4.)

a song about pants

I have a lot of work to do tonight, so I should get back to it. But I thought I’d share this little bit of pants that I came across recently in the course of my ongoing pants research: The pants song.

Let there be pants!

watching my language

another_banana.jpgIt’s a strange expression for me to use, “watching my language.” Especially since I am a linguist, and study language professionally. And actually spend time looking at visual representations of speech. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

(Warning: this post contains “language.” And by that, I mean l*ng*ag*. You know, %$*#! words. So if you are my mother-in-law, or someone else offended by such words, please read no further. Actually, if you are my mother-in-law, it’s not really me at all who’s writing this. I have no idea how this post got here. In fact, this whole blog must have been written by someone else who coincidentally has my name.)

I was reading a message board message a little while back, and came across a message where someone had written “cr*p”. Yes, c-r-*-p. And all I could think in response was “holy fucking shit, crap is a bad word??”

Crap is a word I use fairly often. As in Oh, crap, I forgot something. Or I have a lot of crap to deal with. I mean, I realize that it more-or-less means shit. But I thought it was way less of a swear-word. Stronger than doodoo, certainly, but really quite mild. I may even have said crap in front of my mother-in-law. And my mother-in-law feels quite strongly about swearing. As in it upsets her. She didn’t like the movie “Titanic” because someone uttered the word shit in it. (There are plenty of reasons not to like that movie, but quite honestly, shit wasn’t even on the radar for me.) And I really don’t want her to find out about this blog of mine, as I’m sure it would upset her. Mostly because of my language. I mean, hell, I write the word ass often enough.

And while, as my sister put it, I am unlikely to be considered the Kevin Smith of the blogosphere, I do want to reserve the right to swear on my blog. Sometimes I just feel the need. I’m not trying to offend (I spend my whole life trying not to offend), but I find it liberating to have this uncensored aspect of writing.

But then there’s this whole parenting business. I caught myself saying to Phoebe, “you are so damn cute!” (She is really damn cute, you know.) And I ask myself, is this appropriate child-directed speech?

Anyhow, at some point, like so many before us, we’re going to have to face this issue. It’s obvious that Phoebe now understands many words, and can even produce a few. And it’s only a matter of time before Phoebe starts demanding her damn lunch when she’s at daycare, exclaiming “crap, my blocks fell over,” or telling another small child to hand over the fucking dolly.

It’s not that we swear a whole lot. I mean, it’s not like every other word that comes out of our mouths would need to be bleeped on prime-time TV. But, well, swearing happens. Shit happens. And other terms. In our speech, and in the movies we watch, and the music we listen to. For example, I may want to reconsider singing along to “Don’t fuck me up (with peace and love)” by Cracker lest Phoebe picks up on the words…

One option we have considered is to go the Battlestar Galactica route. They have cleverly and subtly substituted frak for another term. As in Frak off, frak me, frak you, go frak yourself. No frakking way.

So, please excuse me. It’s time for me to prepare Phoebe’s frakking breakfast.

still mad as hell

We watched Shut Up and Sing (2006) a couple of nights ago. It’s the documentary about the Dixie Chicks, and their experiences following the “controversial” comment made by Natalie Maines.

Just in case you don’t know (or remember) the story, the incident in question was during a concert where the Dixie Chicks were preforming in London in 2003. At some point during the show, lead singer Natalie Maines made some comments about her objections to the impending war in Iraq, including a fairly offhand remark about the president:

Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas

Uproar ensued, fueled by right-wing activists, and involved the banning of Dixie Chicks’ music from radio stations, public denouncements and CD trashings, and even death threats. (Check out the Wikipedia article on the Dixie Chicks for details on the controversy. See also Alice from And She Wrote‘s recent post concerning free speech.)

Those were darker times, all too recently, when public expression of dissent was equated with treason. It was chilling to see how violently people reacted to a few fairly innocuous words. It was a time when many people, including me, were uncomfortable about speaking out in public about political issues, especially criticism of the president and objection to the war.

The band instantly earned my respect. I hadn’t known their music before, not being a fan of country music, and still wasn’t interested in hearing their songs. But soon after news of the comment and the backlash reached us, I remember going to a local record store and buying their CD, and a refrigerator magnet that said “he’s not my president.”

The movie “Shut Up and Sing” shows how these events affected the lives and careers of the three women of the band, and how they bravely stood up for free speech. I love it that their song “Not Ready to Make Nice,” from which the title of the movie is taken, expresses continued anger over the events:

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell…

They’re right to be angry. And we shouldn’t forget what happened. We shouldn’t allow freedom of expression to be trampled.

Anyhow, the movie paints an interesting picture of recent history. It’s well worth watching. Plus it has a really great trailer:

oink

Happy New Year! As you may well already know, it’s Chinese New Year. It’s year 4705 (For some fun information and descriptions of traditional Chinese New Year’s traditions, check out these couple of cool posts on the topic by YTSL.)
piggybank.jpg
Anyhow, this year is year of the pig. (Also called year of the boar. But I prefer pig.) And while I may not be able to manage much in the way of festivities for the day (I’m away from home and forgot to pack any festive red clothing), I offer this post as a small token of celebration. To welcome in the new Year of the Pig, I’ve put together a small list of some of my own favorite pigs. (These are a few of my favorite pigs…)

  1. Piggy. Nine Inch Nails. This song has these great opening words:

    hey pig
    yeah you
    hey pig piggy pig pig pig

    2. pigs.jpg

  2. Piggies. The Beatles. A classic song. “Have you seen the little piggies, living piggy lives”
  3. Small Pig, by Arnold Lobel. This was one of the first books I ever read. It’s about a little pig (a small pig, if you will), who liked to lounge around in a mud puddle. When he gets kicked out of his puddle and forcibly cleaned up, he runs off to find a new mud puddle.( Acceptable neatness standards be damned!)
  4. Charlotte’s Web. E.B. White. That Wilbur is “some pig.” This is one of my all-time favorite books of childhood. (I haven’t seen the recent movie, by the way, and not sure I can bear to.)charlotteweb.png
  5. Piglet. From the books by A. A. Milne. In the world of Winnie-the-Pooh, I identify most with Piglet. I’m a worrier. (Strangely enough, I couldn’t score a Piglet on the 100 Acre Personality Test. I got Pooh, and when I tried to adjust my answers to be what I thought was more Piglet-like, I got Owl, and then Kanga…)
  6. The Flying Pig sketches from The Kids in the Hall. Bruce McCulloch plays Flying Pig, a flying pig who appears on the scene to rescue people from boredom while they are standing in line. (By the way, I once bought a “flying pig” mug in the airport Cincinatti, Ohio, while waiting for a connecting flight. That city seems to have adapted the slogan “where pigs fly,” based on the “when pigs fly” idiom. And developed a lot of merchandising to go along with it. I bought the mug because of my affinity for the Kids in the Hall, and their flying pig. And my affinity for coffee mugs. And I suppose somewhat for my affinity for pigs.) Anyhow, back to the Kids in the Hall flying pig. I found some of the sketches on YouTube. Here’s one. Enjoy.


[update 4/28/09: the old video was taken down, so I replaced it.]