The Top 20 Movie Songs of 2012!

This is one of those instances where I love to be proven wrong. 

Last year, when the Oscar nominations dropped and only two songs were listed as nominees, I posited on MOVIE GEEKS UNITED that the entire category should be scrapped, because obviously songs in movies had become irrelevant.  The fact is, it seemed as if few musical artists and filmmakers were trying anymore--we are, after all, no longer in the era of Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer.  I have to admit, this development made me both seethingly angry and pouty sad, because I love music nearly as much as I do movies, and when the two are combined, the best results can be explosive.  So, on the show, I just said, in frustration "Can the category."  And here I point out the Academy's culpability, because of their needlessly complex rules for judging movie songs (which, apparently, they have finally remedied).

This year, for the first time, I've taken the effort out to listen to nearly every one of the 75 songs eligible for this year's Oscars, and....well....wow.   There are some real gems in the mix.   Finally, some hits are among the competitors (I think Adele's "Skyfall" is the first movie song to hit #1 in over a decade; ditto Katy Perry's "Wide Awake").   And nearly all of these tunes have masterful lyrics and memorable melodies.   So I thought I'd concoct a "Top Twenty" for the year, just to save you movie and music fans the trouble.   I have listed them in order of personal preference, and I judged based on the song alone, and not necessarily how they were used in the movies they hail from.   Anyway, sit back and enjoy a heartening sign that songs from movies are getting an overdue reprieve!

But first: A caveat: the REAL best film song from 2012 was recorded in the early 70s, by Sixto Rodriguez, the subject of Malik Bendjelloul's superb documentary Searching for Sugar Man.  This was, as is said in the doc by one of Rodriguez's verklempt, regretful producers, the last song he recorded before he was dropped by his record company.   This is a masterpiece if ever there was one but, of course, it wasn't written for the film, so it's technically out of the running.  But it's REALLY the most memorable song from the 2012 movie crop; it evokes an UNBELIEVABLY STRONG emotional response in the film, and on its own.   Get this soundtrack and support the memory of Sixto Rodriguez! 



And now, the 2012 contestants...


"Looking for a Sign" from Jeff Who Lives At Home (music and lyrics by Beck, performed by Beck). One of Beck Hansen's most gorgeous songs, and very memorably connected to the body of the Duplass Brothers' smart little indie. The movie song of the year, for sure. 


"Metaphorical Blanket" from Any Day Now (music and lyrics by Rufus Wainwright, performed by Rufus Wainwright).  More dreaminess from songwriting genius Wainwright.   I have yet to see this movie, but this is a intimate, typically beautiful tune from this distinctive troubadour.


"Who Were We?" from Holy Motors (music by Neil Hannon, lyrics by Leos Carax and Neil Hannon, performed by Kylie Minogue).  Possibly the most prominently featured song in any movie this year; it occurs as an unforgettable oasis of lament in a rambunctious sea of chaos.   But this is the only song listed here NOT eligible for the Oscar.  Man...how the hell did THAT happen?


"Who Did That To You? from Django Unchained (music and lyrics by John Legend, performed by John Legend).   Out of the many original tracks recorded for Tarantino's ersatz western is this menacing R&B smoker!  


"Before My Time" from Chasing Ice (music and lyrics by J. Ralph, performed by Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell).  Miss Johansson's slinky voice is put to great use in this haunting plea that plays over the end credits for this environmentally-concious documentary.


"Dull Tool" from This is 40 (music and lyrics by Fiona Apple, performed by Fiona Apple).  Wild and punchy and funny, just like much of Ms. Apple's works, it too is put to good use in the Judd Apatow comedy.   


"Wide Awake" from Katy Perry: Part of Me (music and lyrics by Katy Perry, Lukasz Gottwald, Bonnie McKee, Maz Martin and Henry Walter, performed by Katy Perry).   I really love this song; like any great hit, it put its hooks into me and refused to let go.   I resisted at first, but now I find it extremely moving.


"Anything Made of Paper" from West of Memphis (music and lyrics by Bill Carter and Ruth Ellsworth, performed by Bill Carter and The Blame).   Achingly beautiful lyrics here from the Texas music legend; a perfect song to cap this doc about the wronged West Memphis Three.  


"Still Alive" from Paul Williams Still Alive (music and lyrics by Paul Williams, performed by Paul Williams).   Williams, a former Oscar winner and many-time nominee, will cap his career with yet another nod for this nakedly autobiographical piece.


"La Casa de Mi Padre" from Casa de Mi Padre (music and lyrics by Andrew Steele and Patrick C. Pérez, performed by Christina Aguilera).  Wonderful, spaghetti-western production backs this huge track, sung entirely in Spanish by Ms. Aguilera.   This Will Farrell comedy has a number of great songs, but I thought it fair to keep this list down to one song per film. 


"The Sambola! International Dance Craze" from Damsels in Distress (music and lyrics by Mike Suozzo and Adam Schlesinger).   The Sambola is one of two original songs in Whit Stillman's superb comedy of manners, but this is the one you go out of the theater humming!  


"Skyfall" from Skyfall (music and lyrics by Adele and Paul Epworth, performed by Adele).  Simply one of the best in a long series of Bond songs.   It deserves to be in the running.


"Big Machine" from Safety Not Guaranteed (music and lyrics by Ryan Miller, performed by Ryan Miller).  Not a movie I liked, but I sure have to give it to Miller for crafting a catchy tune --one of a few in a pretty good soundtrack. 


"From Here to the Moon and Back" from Joyful Noise (music and lyrics by Dolly Parton, performed by Dolly Parton, Jeremy Jordan and Kris Kristofferson).   Pure and superb schmaltz, but nobody does this kind of song better than Dolly Parton; it feels like an instant standard.


"Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from Ted (music by Walter Murphy, lyrics by Seth McFarland, performed by Norah Jones).  I'm a bigger fan of Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven" than I am of McFarland's TV work, but I do recognize the worth of this Gershwin-influenced big band number.   Not a trace of irony here, either.


"Cosmonaut" from Lawless (music and lyrics by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, performed by Emmylou Harris and The Bootleggers).   An evocative country song from the brilliant writing team who gave us the unforgettable score to The Assassination of Jesse James.   Oh, and Nick Cave has his fans for all that other music he's done, too.  


"Dotted Line" from People Like Us (music and lyrics by Liz Phair, performed by Liz Phair).  This is a personal choice; I love me some Liz Phair.    Never heard of the movie, but if Liz is eligible, as far as I'm concerned, she's in.


"Breath of Life" from Snow White and the Huntsman (music and lyrics by Florence Welch and Isabella Summers, performed by Florence + The Machine).  Big and brash and completely different from anything else on this list.   I dig it.


"Strange Love" from Frankenweenie (music and lyrics by Karen O, performed by Karen O).  Wonderfully precious and rambunctious---just what we might expect from Karen O, who also gave us the great, unrecognized songs from Spike Jonez' Where The Wild Things Are a couple of years ago.  


"Song of the Lonely Mountain" from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (music by Neil Finn and Howard Shore, lyrics by Neil Finn, performed by Neil Finn).   Always been a big Neil Finn fan, from Crowded House til now, with this perfectly majestic ballad dedicated to Middle Earth.

I know, I know...I left off that song from Les Miserables.   That's because it irritates me, like most of that entire score.  

Forgotten Movie Songs #26: "Where Do I Go From Here" from THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT

The other night, I took another look at Michael Cimino's directorial debut Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. I was as astonished at its easygoing but still action-packed pace as I was when I first saw it at a Georgia drive-in circa 1974. The quirky fellowship between the lead, Clint Eastwood (the titular Thunderbolt) and Jeff Bridges (Oscar-nominated as the extremely lovable Lightfoot, who says "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot! That sounds like something, doesn't it?") is radically palpable. The supporting performances from nominal villains George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis (who are actually our heros' duplicitous cohorts) are slimy and superb. And the film moves along at a quick and always clever clip (it was cut by Manchurian Candidate editor Ferris Webster). It's a tautly simple heist yarn, but its more lasting effect is as a story of a short but powerful friendship. And I love movies about friendship; to me, this is the most important element in life. If you have friends, you have everything.


The song from Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, "Where Do I Go From Here" is well-used, popping up at the beginning, middle, and end of Cimino's movie as its theme of wanderlust (it matches so well with the film's open-skyed, road-trippy feel). Beautifully orchestrated, it's an unjustly overlooked tune by the great Paul Williams who, in 1974, was reveling in his heyday (that same year, he produced the soundtrack for and co-starred in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise--a movie which will, despite its cult status, surely make an appearance in this Forgotten Movie Songs series). "Where Do I Go From Here," performed by Williams, hails from a movie that itself deserves much more love and friendship.



If I knew the way, I'd go back home
But the countryside has changed so much
I'd surely end up lost
Half-remembered names and faces
So far in the past
On the other side of bridges
That were burned once they were crossed

Tell me where
Where does a fool go
When there's no one left to listen?
To a story without meaning
That nobody wants to hear
Tell me where
Where does a fool go
When he knows there's something missing?
Tell me where
Where do I go from here?
Where do I go from here?

To get back home
Where my childhood dreams and wishes
Still out number my regrets
Get back to a place where I can figure on the odds
Have a fighting chance to lose the blues
And win my share of bets

Tell me where
Where does a fool go
When there's no one left to listen?
To a story without meaning
That nobody wants to hear
Tell me where
Where does a fool go
When he knows there's something missing?
Tell me where
Where do I go from here?
Where do I go from here?

Tell me where
Where does a fool go
When there's none left to listen?
To a story without meaning
That nobody wants to hear
Tell me where
Where does a fool go
When he knows there's something missing?
Tell me where
Where do I go from here?
Where do I go from here?

Forgotten Movie Songs #17: "My Name is Tallulah" from BUGSY MALONE

Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone is one of the few films from my childhood that I still look at with the same adoration I first felt for it. Its melding of the adult and juvenile worlds seems now seamless. It stands as perfection, in its own odd way. When, as children, we all play at the grown-up games of rampant violence--whether it be cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, superheroes and villains--I think Parker's clear, humane vision is exactly what we have in our heads. And I really like that Bugsy Malone doesn't short-shrift the loftier sexual aspects of all this rigamarole. Of course, we have Jodie Foster as the moll at the center of this very post. But we also have the now forgotten Florie Dugger (GREAT NAME!) as Blousie Brown, whom we root for as the eventual match for the title character, played by Scott Baio (surely the actor's finest showing--talk about peaking early!). Scott Baio's Bugsy is a playa, for certain, and he has his pick of the litter. I find that fascinating. Should it be shocking to note that kids have sexual lives, too? This movie seems to be one of the two or three I can name that has no problem in admitting that.

Bugsy Malone follows the title character as he tries to bounce between two gangster families who're aiming their pie-thrusting guns at each other (the "deaths" in this film are, for me, as stunning as anything I later experienced in, say, GoodFellas). Parker has the character buffeting between show biz, the boxing gym, the indigent and the well-fed realms in equal measures. It's an incredibly smart film. Bugsy Malone was largely ignored in the US, even though its score and songwriter, Paul Williams, garnered an Oscar nomination for his song score in 1976. In Britain--its country of origin (even though none of its cast members were British)--the film won five BAFTA awards, including two for Jodie Foster (Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer), Best Art Direction, Best Sound, and Best Screenplay (it lost the award for costume design, direction, and Best Film). I seriously think it should have been in the running stateside for almost all of these awards (but it WAS an especially competitive year that year--Foster got a Supporting Actress nomination, but for her not-so-different role in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver). Maybe Parker's film was ignored because it was literally a diminutation of a uniquely American genre--the gangster film. But that makes no sense, ultimately, because the gangster film genre has never gotten much love from Hollywood. But never mind all that. The fact that a sweet, meaty, well-made movie like Bugsy Malone is now footnote in film history makes me angry even as I write now (there's not even a great DVD out there--and I think The Criterion Collection, if it were as ballsy as it purports to be, should get on this immediately).

The art direction, by Geoffrey Kirkland, is at first outstanding. All the sets had to be built in congress to the size of its all-kid cast (the pie-guns and bicycle-powered cars are a major plus). The film editing, by Alan Parker mainstay Gerry Hambling, is exquisite. And the same goes for Monica Howe's costume design, as well as for the expert makeup and hair styling team. The film gets absolutely nothing wrong in completing the illusion that these are adults in kid costumes. This becomes doubly amazing when you consider that none of the lip-synching is done to kid voices; Parker made the brave decision to have adults do all the singing, and even though it seems like a choice that could have spelled disaster, it works (he makes no effort to hide the fact, either, which makes it an extra-snap). In fact, Bugsy Malone doesn't just WORK, it's compelled into the stratosphere by the very things that must have seemed most risky. It's a strange effect, hearing these adult voices and attitudes behind these kid faces, but it is completely successful, in a variety of bizarre ways. After its all seen, Bugsy Malone is a one-of-a-kind picture. There's nothing out there that resembles it.

The BAFTA got it correct when it awarded then newcomer Alan Parker with the screenplay award. If the dialogue hadn't rung true, then none of this would've carried out. But Parker's writing is convincing, even out of babe's mouths. (It helps that the film is extraordinarily well-cast, down to the most expendable bit players; there are some actors here that you cannot believe are not adults. I especially like the unforgettable John Cassisi as Fat Sam, who's surely one of the greatest gangsters ever committed to film.) And the plot is never uninteresting. In a lot of musical comedies, the plot becomes beside the point. Just get us to the laffs and songs, usually, But not here: here, we actually CARE what happens. Given that, to this day, Parker's movie remains funny, clever, adorable, and threatening at a moment's turn. And when coupled with the exacting film craft and the wise selection of Paul Williams' music and lyrics, Bugsy Malone is unbeatable.

I could choose almost all of Williams' Bugsy Malone compositions as Forgotten Movie Songs entries. And I still might. But the first I will point to is Jodie Foster's introduction, called "My Name is Talullah." For me, this is a stone-cold classic of movie-centric songwriting. The only way I can explain its exclusion from the Academy Awards' Best Song race is that the movie itself seemed so wild (and, perhaps, uncomfortable to watch) for so many male Academy members that it's chances were sunk from the get-go. (This film has gone on to be a popular production on local stages, with "My Name is Tallulah" as a centerpiece; meanwhile, here are three of the Best Song nominees of that year: "Ave Satani" from The Omen, "Come to Me" from The Pink Panther Strikes Again, and "A World That Never Was" from Half a House -- surely you've heard of them). Even the eventual winner, "Evergreen" from A Star is Born (co-written by Paul Williams--coincidence?--with Barbara Streisand) is not as catchy as this tune.

I don't know who sung this song originally. But it's Jodie Foster lip-synching the performance (and I love how she plays it--especially when Parker has her interrupt her performance by taking a drink off a passing waiter's tray). I also have to comment on Parker's direction here; is it me, or has he been heavily influenced by Bob Fosse's Cabaret, in his use of lenses and varying shots? Certainly the sexuality is there for all to see; is this perhaps the thing that's kept this movie from being appreciated? Are we all so afraid of being perverts, after the Reagan era, that we can't enjoy this perfect movie? Well...I say, screw that. The exquisite music and lyrics are by Paul Williams (whom I suspect also arranged the tune). It's impossible not to want to see this movie in full, if you haven't seen it already, after you view this (it's available now on You Tube, in parts). The fun lyrics follow the clip:



My name is Tallulah
My first rule of thumb
I don't say where I'm going
Or where I'm coming from
I try to leave a little reputation behind me
So if you really need to
You'll know how to find me

My name is Tallulah
I live till I die
I'll take what you give me
And I won't ask why
I've made a lot of friends
In some exotic places
I don't remember names
But I remember faces

Lonely
You don't have to be lonely
Come and see Tallulah
We can chase your troubles away, oh
If you're lonely
You don't have to be lonely
When they talk about Tallulah
You know what they say
No one south of Heaven's
Gonna treat you finer
Tallulah had her training
In North Carolina

My name is Tallulah
And soon I'll be gone
An open invitation
Is the road I'll travel on
I'll never say goodbye
Because the words upset me
You may forgive my goin'
But you won't forget me

Lonely
You don't have to be lonely
Come and see Tallulah
We can chase your troubles away
If you're lonely
You don't have to be lonely
When they talk about Tallulah
You know what they say
No one south of Heaven's
Gonna treat you finer
Tallulah had her training
In North Carolina