Screened Plays

Column 36: The Performance of Pablo

February 18, 2016

In Screened Plays I normally write about the relationship of film/television and music, that’s exactly what today’s article was originally intended to be, before this all got a bit bigger. Last week I had the pleasure of being part of the Yeezy Season 3 theater experience which was beamed into theaters in eighty cities across the world (including our very own Regal Elmwood) which would debut Kanye West’s new album and fashion line. While the show itself was rather unspectacular, essentially a glorified listening party with Kanye passing the aux cable around like a 2am Curb ride. The album itself and it’s rollout however, have been far more fascinating. To the point where this week’s Screened Play will be looking at a far different performance, the one of Kanye’s release. Which is to say, do we now think there’s a chance this entire release has been performance art? Kanye has[...]

Column 35: Ranking the Beats of Bond

November 13, 2015

James Bond is inarguably one of the most famous characters in the history of cinema. And while each entry into the well-known franchise has given us a new tale in the classic spy series, it’s also provided us with a new definitive pop theme. It’s interesting to look at the change over the years as the themes not only reflect the changes in the series but the evolution of pop music. From Louis Armstrong to Madonna, Paul McCartney to Sheryl Crow, and A-ha to Sam Smith, singer of Bond’s most recent theme from Spectre, the series themes almost read as interesting timeline of pop culture itself. But which theme is the absolute best? 5. “A View to Kill” – Duran Duran (1985) Over the years, there have been many attempts to create a more modern or original Bond theme, one less classical and more in fitting with the times, and of all those[...]

Column 34: Shaun of the Dead‘s Harmonious Relationship with Pop Music

October 29, 2015

Annnnd we’re back. After a long hiatus, we’ve returned with the latest installment of Screened Plays, the place where cinema and pop music collide. And just in time for Halloween, our good friends at North Park Theatre are showing one of my all-time favorite comedies: Shaun of the Dead. While many directors (Quentin Tarantino, Danny Boyle, Martin Scorsese) have a famously close relationship with pop music, I would argue perhaps no filmmaker has ever had quite as harmonious a relationship as Edgar Wright. Even going back to his early days with Spaced, his comedies looked different, moved different, and definitely sounded different from anything else on television. This is because Wright’s approach to filmmaking much more unique than that of most comedy directors. While many comedy films rest on the strength of either their writing or lead stars, Wright’s comedies are notably more visual. Perhaps the greatest weapon in his comedic arsenal is[...]

Column 33: Asif Kapadia’s Amy Brings an Artist’s Work to Life

July 16, 2015

When the news came of the death of Amy Winehouse on July 23rd, 2012, it should have come as a shock, but sadly, it felt expected. The young soul singer’s life had long been the subject for tabloid headlines, her well-known addictions and downward spiral a punchline for late-night comedians. So for any film to try and tell the real story of one of the most iconic artists of this generation is a delicate proposition. Thankfully the story of Amy Winehouse is in the hands of London-born filmmaker Asif Kapadia, the man responsible for the acclaimed bio-doc, Senna. One of the startling things about Amy is the sheer amount of home video footage, with contributions from friends and family, almost every period of Winehouse’s life is documented. What this allows is a more intimate look at who the late musician actually was as a person. Early footage of Amy and[...]

Column 32: Brian Wilson’s Survival and Love & Mercy

July 1, 2015

Simply put, Love & Mercy,  Bill Pohlad’s loving tribute to the genius and struggles of Brian Wilson, is an effecting film and a rousing victory. Featuring two different actors in the role and chronicling the former Beach Boys mastermind’s life at two crucial junctures in his life: – his creative apex and fall during the mid and late 60’s (Paul Dano) and his lowest point in the 80’s (John Cusack) in the thrall of scumbag and now discredited doctor Eugene Landy – Love & Mercy is also a film about tremendous heroism. Not just Wilson’s artistic heroism after he stopped touring with the Beach Boys to stay home to create masterpieces and battle mental health issues, but also the heroism of Brian’s future wife Melinda (Elizabeth Banks) who’d eventually save him from Landy, and get him back out into the world where he is now. In terms of cinematic virtue, Love[...]

Column 31: It Follows, Unfriended, and Fresh Take on Horror Music

May 13, 2015

While the summer movie season has just begun with the box office wrecking ball of The Avengers, I thought it was worth taking one last look back at the spring. Spring is often the dump season, where studios get rid of whatever excess cargo they deemed not prestigious enough for awards season or not bankable enough for the upcoming summer. This spring, however, featured some surprise success in what is one of film’s most frequently uninspired genres, horror. Over the last couple months, movie goers were treated to the release of two brilliant micro-budget horror films, which not only found clever ways to rethink the supernatural slasher genre, but to also rethink the music of the genre. Let’s start with It Follows, a film built in the vein of 80’s John Carpenter horror films along with the nostalgic beauty and quiet melancholy of The Virgin Suicides. The film’s central conceit –[...]

Column 30: Rick Masi’s On the Level: A Love Letter to Buffalo and the Sounds of the City

April 24, 2015

Tomorrow at the Amherst Theatre, will be the grand cinematic debut of one of Buffalo’s most exciting new voices, Rick Masi. His first feature-length film, On the Level, is a thrilling neo-noir about a teenage boy investigating the death of his brother and those he meets on the quest for answers. Masi’s  independently-funded feature debut was conceived as a love letter to the city he calls home and is chalk full of local talent. The film also rather excitingly features a whole soundtrack produced by some of Buffalo’s most talented up-and-coming artists. Earlier this week, I sat down with the film maker and some of the film’s featured artists to talk about the project. buffaBLOG: So tell me about On the Level? Rick Masi: Well, its a neo-noir drama about a teenager named CJ and his journey to find his brother’s killer. As he starts pealing away the layers, he realizes[...]

Column 29: The Influence and Legacy of The Breakfast Club

April 3, 2015

As the 1970s came to a close, pop music found itself at a crossroads, Power rock bands like AC/DC and Led Zeppelin had ruled the back end of the decade, inspiring a generation of cartoon-ish imitators that would produce the Hair Metal of the 80s. But meanwhile, the start of a new movement was bubbling under the end of the late 70s, a generation was growing up on the angst and melancholy romanticism of bands like Joy Division and The Cure. This new sound would set the template for what would become the New Wave music of the 80s. This new musical movement would come to envelop and define the youth culture of the era. It should perhaps then be no surprise that young audiences were rejecting the simplistic archetypes and false emotion of the bubblegum high school movies of the time. This was until John Hughes. Drawing upon inspiration[...]

Column 28: Die Antwoord Teaches a Robot How to “Enter the Ninja” in Chappie

March 18, 2015

For anyone who’s seen Neill Blomkamp’s previous films, it’s no secret that he has a strong affection for his home country of South Africa. While other directors after achieving blockbuster success with a film like District 9 might see it as their ticket out of such an impoverished nation, Blomkamp has displayed a commitment to showing the world his home rarely seen on film. In his latest, Chappie, Blomkamp once again continues his embrace of South Africa, this time with the risky casting of unique South African rap duo, Die Antwoord, in lead roles. I say with some degree of surprise, the risk kind of pays off, the duo that makes up Die Antwoord both deliver fairly solid performances. Lead rapper Ninja gives a complex performance as a gangster who’s often as funny as he is brutishly violent and intimidating. While female vocalist Yolandi delivers a charmingly unique twist on[...]

Column 27: 50 Shades of Problems and a Grey is One

March 4, 2015

Over the past month, 50 Shades of Grey has been a near inescapable pop culture phenomenon. The film broke all kinds of box office records, its cast has been everywhere in the media, and has been the subject of all kinds of controversy. The film also banked a lot of its marketing on the strength of its soundtrack. Each 50 Shades of Grey trailer teased that the film would feature a reworked version of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love,” and it seemed as if a single from the soundtrack was released every week leading up to the film’s release. So for a movie that promoted its soundtrack that heavily, does it live up to the hype? The answer to that question is a bit complicated. The soundtrack itself features a host of really beautiful songs from some of best upcoming names in contemporary pop music. British R&B singer, Laura Welsh, provides one[...]

Column 26: Kingsman: The Secret Service and the Changing British Identity

February 26, 2015

If you’ve seen early trailers for Kingsman: The Secret Service, you’ve no doubt seen what appears to be the most stereotypical British movie ever made. The film riffs on British cinema’s history of the gentlemen spy with Colin Firth, an actor who’s made a career out of playing characters of class and high society. The trailers project the idea of a film that will play note for note into the American image of British culture. Which is why the film’s soundtrack is a part of the larger surprise that Kingsman turns out to be. Contrary to the film advertised, the movie’s embrace of British culture is wholly contemporary. Our protagonist, Eggsy, comes not as the product of some prestigious university, but the council estates of Millwall, a character who spends his days rooting for his local football club and getting pissed up at the pub. While this doesn’t sound radically different,[...]

Column 25: Chris Rock asks “What’s your Top Five ?”

February 11, 2015

With the last few months being the Oscar-obsessed prestige movie season, it’s easy for a lot of films to get lost in the shuffle. And sadly. perhaps no film seemed to get more overlooked than Chris Rock’s Top Five. While other filmmakers were releasing their maudlin war dramas and period-era biopics, Chris Rock quietly released the best comedy of 2014. More than that though, Top Five is a film that passionately embraces music, in a way unseen since John Cusack looked a camera dead-on and channeled the words of Nick Hornby in High Fidelity. The film takes it’s name from a point of discussion that reappears throughout the film, “Who are your top five rappers of all-time?” There’s a sharpness and candor to the dialogue in these scenes that’s rare when music is discussed in film. As characters take shots at each others’ picks and passionately defend their own, I[...]

Column 24: The Oscars, Best Original Song, and Dreams of What Could’ve Been

January 21, 2015

And so Oscar season officially begins. With the announcement of last Thursday’s nominations, the annual awards campaign has kicked off. While there were notable surprises and snubs in every category, let’s get to the one that matters to readers of this blog though, Best Original Song. Lost Stars – Adam Levine (Begin Again) Grateful – Rita Ora (Beyond the Lights) Glory – Common & John Legend (Selma) I’m Not Gonna Miss You – Glen Campbell (Glen Campbell : I’ll Be Me) Everything is AWESOME!!! – Tegan & Sara and The Lonely Island (The LEGO Movie) That is the field for this year’s Best Original Song winner, which to me, could not be more depressing. In a year that was so uncommonly great for music in movie, to look at that crop as the “best” of the year seems so falsely representative of what the year was. There’s been a lot of[...]

Column 23: Jonny Greenwood and the Not So Groovy Tunes of Inherent Vice

January 15, 2015

Over the past few years, it seems filmmakers are increasingly turning to pop artists to score their films, leading to successful partnerships like that of David Fincher & Trent Reznor. Another fruitful collaboration that deserves mention is that of Paul Thomas Anderson and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. The two first teamed for Anderson’s 2007 film, There Will Be Blood, and created not only a masterwork of a film, but also one of the most original and powerful scores of the last decade. On Inherent Vice, Greenwood returns again for his third collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson. The film recalls an era of the past, the early 70s’, when the free-loving groovy hippie subculture was reaching it’s end in the shadow of the violent Manson family murders. The period also defined by the Nixon years when public officials came to be seen as paragons of corruption. This lead to a new time[...]

Column 22: The Cotton-Candy Cultural Critique of Spring Breakers

January 8, 2015

(Warning: This article contains some spoilers) As I look through my Facebook feed, there’s two articles that seem to repeatedly pop up in my feed over the past month, the Vice article “This Sad Generation Doesn’t Know When the Party Stops” and articles about Iggy Azalea’s appropriation of black culture. And while one wouldn’t think the two could be related, the two keep bringing me back to perhaps the most divisive film in recent memory, Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers. To say that Harmony Korine’s film speaks the language of music is an understatement. Korine’s film not only understands the music it features, but also the culture that surround it. Music is intrinsic to the film’s very existence; and while there are moments of pop or rock music, there are two genres that provide the focal point for the film’s sonic soundscape: EDM and Trap Rap. In recent years, EDM music[...]