The Rough Week That Was: David Carradine & KoKo Taylor

Though neither was particularly young, both were sharply talented, and so a week that takes both actor David Carradine and “Queen of the Blues” KoKo Taylor seems especially ugly.

When I heard Taylor had died, my mind went to a single song, though she performed many. Still, “Wang Dang Doodle” was somewhat anthemic in Taylor’s hands, a call to good times and living well and the sexual overtones never seemed accidental.

Born Cora Walton in 1928, Taylor was a sharecropper’s daughter from Shelby County, Tennessee. Her final public performance was just days ago at the Blues Music Awards on May 7th.

The Daily Telegraph offers up a royal obituary:

Famously capable of standing up for herself, and tolerating no nonsense from any of her male colleagues, she recently declared: "It's tough being out there doing what I'm doing in what they call a man's world." With her big, raw "blues shouter" of a voice, she took her cues from the likes of Bessie Smith, Big Mamma Thornton and Memphis Minnie, later influencing an entire generation of younger female blues artists.

We bow our heads. And listen.

The Return of Film Music

By Tony Buchsbaum

I was afraid film scores were dying. Movie after movie, I craved robust, thoughtful, melodic scores—and instead ended up with blood pouring from my ears. Even old standbys, the James Bond film scores, have under-delivered. The series' current composer, David Arnold, who held such promise early on, now creates scores that are utterly forgettable, devoid of any real coherence, save for the occasional melodic tease or muscular chase set-piece. Even if they work in the film—and I'm not at all sure they do—they certainly don't work as independent listening experiences. And say what you will, I like to listen to film scores afterward.

So when I heard that Hans Zimmer was composing the score for the new Angels & Demons movie, I tried to temper my anticipation. He did a pretty great job with his work on The Da Vinci Code, and I was, to be frank, afraid he'd muck this up but good, or simply retread his old work to the point of being, well, pointless.

But all my fears were for naught. Zimmer's score for Angels & Demons is nothing short of brilliant. It builds on the melodies he introduced in his Da Vinci Code score, bringing them a new sense of foreboding, a fresh humanity, and a manic propulsion. It's a combination I just adore.

The CD's opening track, titled "160 BPM," starts the experience off with a bang, forcing you to hold on for dear life. This piece for orchestra and choir is like the bastard child of "Tubular Bells," used to such great effect in The Exorcist. But there's far more color here, and a fearlessness that brings the music to life. Zimmer—with stunning confidence—juxtaposes unrelenting power with memorable melody in a perfect six minutes. As excited as I was to see the film, this managed to up my excitement into the stratosphere.

From here, Zimmer upgrades his themes from Da Vinci, layering on new ideas and weaving things together in beautiful ways. What I call his realization theme, heard so beautifully when Robert Langdon assembles the symbological pieces of the puzzle, is given exquisite new life here, especially in the last track, titled "503." At a point in history when film composing seems to be little more than an afterthought, here is a score than wakes the whole room up again. This is film music that does what it's supposed to do: It both grounds and enhances the film...and makes for a fantastic listen on its own.

I hope Angels & Demons is only the start of a summer bursting with great film music—and that when the chill of fall comes, the art isn't just alive again, but truly thriving.

2009 Junos Turn Up Some Surprises

After an all-party weekend, the awards program that some people insist on calling “the Canadian Grammys” are done for another year. The Georgia Straight has that story:

The Junos have now come and gone through Vancouver. After a four-day party, much of it on Granville Street, the major winners of Canada’s national music awards were announced tonight at a glitzy ceremony at General Motors Place hosted by comedian Russell Peters.

The Straight shares the winners here.

Wild Things Trailer

The film version of Maurice Sendak’s children’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are, will fill a screen near you this fall.

The screenplay was written by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers, with Jonze directing Forest Whitaker, Katherine Keener, Paul Dano and James Gandolfini.

Viewers who just can’t wait for the film to open can get a real solid tease from the film’s trailer, released today.



Where the Wild Things Are was published in 1963 and won the Caldecott Medal in 1964. According to Wikipedia, adaptations of the book have been numerous and have taken many forms, including an animated adaptation in 1973, a children’s opera, a failed Disney CGI project in 1983, a ballet and a stage musical.

Sendak, who will be 81 in June, is also the writer/illustrator of In the Night Kitchen, often listed among the most frequently banned books of the 20th century. At the time of his birthday last year, The New York Times’ Patricia Cohen offered up a dark portrait of Sendak:

That Mr. Sendak fears that his work is inadequate, that he is racked with insecurity and anxiety, is no surprise. For more than 50 years that has been the hallmark of his art. The extermination of most of his relatives and millions of other Jews by the Nazis; the intrusive, unemployed immigrants who survived and crowded his parents’ small apartment; his sickly childhood; his mother’s dark moods; his own ever-present depression — all lurk below the surface of his work, frequently breaking through in meticulously drawn, fantastical ways.

He is not, as children’s book writers are often supposed, an everyman’s grandpapa. His hatreds are fierce and grand, as if produced by Cecil B. DeMille. He hates his uncle (who made a cruel comment about him when he was a boy); he hates anything to do with God or religion, and Judaism in particular (“We were the ‘chosen people,’ chosen to be killed?”); he hates Salman Rushdie (for writing an excoriating review of one of his books); he hates syrupy animation, which is why he is thrilled with Mr. Jonze’s coming film of his book “Where the Wild Things Are,” despite rumors of studio discontent.

“I hate people,” he said at one point, extolling the superior company of dogs, like his sweet-tempered German shepherd, Herman (after Melville).

He is, at heart, a curmudgeon, but a delightful one, with a vast range of knowledge, a wicked sense of humor and a talent for storytelling and mimicry.

The New York Times piece is here.

Jonez’ film will open October 16th.

SXSW is Here!

After a whole lot of waiting, SXSW in Austin runs from today until the 22nd at the Austin Convention Center as well as various venues throughout the downtown core. Simply too much going on to run it all down for you, but links to absolutely everything are at the official SXSW site here.

Jericho Will See New Life As Comic

Are you still sad about the cancellation of Jericho, the nuclear disaster-themed nighttime soap? If so, help is definitely on the way. You might have already heard about the feature film version that is planned but there’s even better news yet: your favorite characters are headed for a comic book near you. From the MTV Movies blog:

Nothing can keep the folks of “Jericho” down. Not a nuclear holocaust. Not living in a violent police state. Not even being canceled — twice. In the spirit of Joss Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series (which continues at Dark Horse Comics), the CBS television series “Jericho” will relocate to comics, courtesy of Devil’s Due Publishing.

Apparently, a good portion of the original creative team will have a hand in the creation of the comic version. The full story is here.

Nothing about the movie version of Jericho has been finalized yet, though around the middle of January, series executive producer Jon Turteltaub told iFMagazine he was working on putting a film deal together:

“We’re developing a feature for JERICHO,” says Turteltaub. “It would not require you to have seen the TV show, but it [would] get into life after an event like this on a national scale. It would be the bigger, full on American version of what’s going on beyond the town in Jericho.”

That story is here.

And, of course, for those who need their Jericho fix right now, the entire series is available on DVD.

Novel Approaches

The two new Kate Winslet movies—both of them based on successful novels—couldn't be more different, and yet there's also something intriguingly the same about them. Both are about relationships based on desire...and that leave something to be desired. The marriage in Revolutionary Road seems, for a while, idyllic, then veers into very dangerous territory before falling to pieces. The affair in The Reader is wrong from the start, yet is built on the kind of longing, desperate tenderness that can (and often does) last a lifetime, even though the lovers are separated by age, geography, and, in the end, courage. Both relationships are doomed, but of course neither set of partners can see that from the start, and I'm not sure either man—Leonardo DiCaprio's suburban husband or Ralph Fiennes' studied lawyer—can see it any more clearly from the end.

Unfortunately, while The Reader succeeds wildly, even disturbingly, tickling our voyeuristic sensibilities with the idea of forbidden love—and this love is forbidden for lots of reasons—Revolutionary Road sinks faster than the ship in Leo and Kate's last movie, leaving you gasping at the utter waste of it all: the people, the relationship, and the two hours you spend hoping it will go a different way. (Throughout the film, I kept wondering where their children were. The couple has children, but they're never around, as if the filmmakers simply forgot them altogether.)

Both films feature high-level scores that are now available on CD: The Reader's, by classical composer Nico Muhly, far outpaces veteran Thomas Newman's work for Revolutionary Road. This surprised me, to tell the truth. I am a huge fan of Newman's film music, particularly for The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, Angels in America, Meet Joe Black, and The Horse Whisperer. Here, though, his work is cold. I know what you're thinking: "It's supposed to be cold, even unfeeling. Look at the movie he wrote it for." Yes. Of course. I just wish he'd taken the opposite approach, crafting a score of lush melody and warm tones that offset the film's bleakness even more. The effect would have been much greater—and would have served the film better. There's promise of this in the early sections, when the marriage is just starting out—but then it vanishes. Somehow, the tone of this score makes it sound too much like that for Road to Perdition. But in that film it worked.

The score for Revolutionary Road should have been woven from strings of anticipation, fulfillment, longing, regret, and irony—and the only moment where all of those things arise from the chill is in the CD's tenth cue, "April," a stunning elegy to loss and tragedy. I wish the score had more of exactly this kind of development, but it's mostly just depressing desolation.

Muhly's work on The Reader, by contrast, is a symphony of complexities. One moment it's all innocent discovery as the boy finds the woman, and as they find each other. The next, it's all lush strings as they ride bikes through the countryside, almost oblivious of what they're doing...and certainly oblivious of what's to come. In so many spots, the music sounds like springtime, leaves floating on a stream, as both characters flower in unexpected ways. Even the emotionally violent moments that threaten to blow it all are scored gently, ironically, bringing out the couples' missteps in subtle, welcome, and powerful ways.

Later, once the affair is over and the two have gone on with their lives, the music brilliantly weaves the early themes back into the story. The music helps us remember the past as vividly as the characters do, and the action is made more poignant because of it. There's a dark turn when the boy tries to visit the woman in prison, then a period of tentative longing when they begin a correspondence many years later. Time has passed visually, but the music tells us time hasn't even begun to pass emotionally—and this makes the film so much more tragic, so much more devastating. It's not about lost chances, wrong turns, or even dishonesty; it's simply about loss.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

We interrupt your musical programming for something that has no business being here: a mention of my latest novel, Death Was in the Picture, published today by St. Martin’s Minotaur/Thomas Dunne Books. Word from Publishers Weekly:

“Richards’s swell follow-up to Death Was the Other Woman … handles the slang and patois of the period neatly. Likewise, she paints a vivid picture of the contrast between those just scraping by during the Depression and those living high on the hog. Kitty has plenty of moxie, and while Dex gets top billing on the office door, she’s no second banana in this class act.”

January Magazine ran an excerpt today and it’s here.

Curious, indeed

By Tony Buchsbaum

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one of the year's best films...and maybe its best film. Beyond all the special effects, which transform Brad Pitt from an aging infant to a young octegenarian, the film is an elegy to all the things that make New Orleans New Orleans. Filmed primarily in the city, the film is rich with its colors and smells and its lingering sense of ghosts lurking around every corner. The people Benjamin meets throughout the film, at least those who pass away during its 2-hour, 45-minute running time, aren't ever really gone. They remain with Benjamin and provide his life's frame, a base he never quite takes his foot from. I can tell you, as a native of that city, that this is precisely what's so alluring about it. Death and history and ghosts do lurk; they're a lush background to everything, from jazz to food to Mardi Gras. Death makes the city--and the film--undeniably, even enviably, rich.

The film brings this to life as no other film I can remember. It is a stunningly aware film: aware of its surroundings, its import, and its theme. Yet given all its effects, it's somehow, miraculously, not aware of itself. It's a story well told, with actors who know they're serving the material and vice versa.

One of the elements that hold the film together is the wonderful, gentle score by Alexandre Desplat. The 2-CDset includes much of the score itself, along with many of the songs used in the film. The second CD features a collection of jazz and blues and even snippets of dialogue. But here, the score's the thing. Building slowly, delicately, it comes across as something almost out of a dream. One of Desplat's other notable scores, for Birth, is echoed here, particularly the innocence that seems to be woven through that score. Makes sense, since Benjamin Button is a film about innocence and its lasting effects on life. How wonderful, to remain innocent even as life itself conspires to rob you of it. In many ways, this is what the film and the score are saying. I recently heard someone say we begin in diapers and end in diapers, and years ago someone I know asked how we can ever be ready for anything. After all, how can one know what it is to be 13 when one is only 12? But even more than diapers, we begin and end in innocence, with everything we experience new and shiny and fascinating.

Desplat accomplishes this with themes tied together with a time-counting motif, which helps to move Benjamin's life forward/backward. Childlike music follows Benjamin's discovery of life as a young boy and intertwines with lush, tender themes for his discovery of life through both death and his abiding love for Daisy (the luminous Cate Blanchette). The result is a mature, highly effective musical work that enhances the film and stands alone. The sections in which Benjamin and Daisy finally find themselves as the center of their lives (and, at last, truly compatible) are breathtaking, all the more so since we know that soon enough she will be older and he younger. In the worst sense, they are ships passing in an all-too-brief night. Though their love can never die, their relationship must, and the ends of their lives are twisted with ironies as painful as the worst arthritis.

Eartha Kitt Dead at 81

I can’t help but think that legendary chanteuse Eartha Kitt would be at least a little pleased at the timing of her final exit. The singer best known for her 1953 recording of “Santa Baby” died on Christmas Day. J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet points out the irony:

This is both sad and ironic news for Christmas Day: Singer and actress Eartha Kitt, whose renditions of the song “Santa Baby” were likely heard millions of times today, has died of colon cancer. She was 81 years old.

Kitt had a long and lustrous career that included replacing Julie Newmar as Catwoman in the final season of Batman. Though it was mere television -- and silly television at that --- and Kitt was by then already a significant star, that role seems to symbolize the real power she held. At a time when the United States was reeling under civil rights issues, Kitt was beyond race. Above it, somehow. Was she a black woman? Well, of course she was. But she was a woman first. All woman. It was an aspect of her persona that was clear in every one of her roles. Orson Welles, who gave Kitt her first staring role -- as Helen of Troy -- called her “the most exciting woman in the world.”

Kitt would have been 82 next month.