I have created my own with the direction to do so, by professor, Dwight Garner.
My Top Ten
List from the past 4 decades
1.
Boys Don’t Cry (Movie) 1999 Written and directed by Kimberly
Peirce and produced by Christine Vachon
(Killer Films) includes a stellar cast such as then start-ups: Peter Sarsgaard
and Brendan Sexton. Chloe Sevigny play’s the character of Teena’s (Hillary
Swank) love interest and who was already an indie heartthrob and Harmony
Korine’s muse, prior to Boys Don’t Cry.
Lynard Skynard’s Tuesday’s Gone is
truly a musical pairing masterpiece. It comes on while the gang are all in the
car driving in the middle of nowhere drinking and smoking you can feel their
youthful and wild high. It grows darker when they found out one of the friends
is a pyromaniac, and maniacal. In all, am in pure amazement of the acting capabilities of the then unknown, Hillary
Swank. Her raw talent in taking on such an intriguing and challenging and role moved
me like no other, with the close exception of Deer Hunter viewed much earlier.
Based on a true story, Swank plays the character of Teena, a transgender girl
who lives as a male in a small town in North Dakota. We walk on eggshells with
her praying she doesn’t get ‘found out’ because when she does, it will be
violent and deadly. With my the tendency to gravitate towards dark stories with
charged writing and performance, this film is one of the best films ever made because
of Hillary Swank’s unmatched acting ability. Which leads me to a later, darker,
and aligned film, Monster.
2.
Monster (Movie) 2003 Written and directed by Patty Jenkins. Based on a true story of
the first female, American serial killer, Aileen Wuornos. Aileen is played by
the truly talented Charlize Theron and Selby her girlfriend, played by
Christina Ricci. Deep sympathy is felt for Theron’s character who has endured such
an unfortunate life without options, but when she begins tormenting and killing
her john’s it becomes a horror movie. Taking of one of Hollywood’s most
beautiful women and transforming her into an Aileen Wuornos look-alike that includes
implementing a protruding mouth piece and chin, marking up her skin’s texture,
and adding the brown contacts lenses is impressive. But its not the physical
alteration that astounded me rather Charlie’s uncanny mimicking of Aileen
herself: her mannerisms, voice, accent, intensity, and crazed eyes. It is an
out of body experience to watch Charlize embody and own this character. I will
speak little of the rest of the crew or cast, because this movie is all about
the acting and portrayal of a hurt, damaged vengeful woman whose only option to
make money is though prostitution. The best scene is when Aileen goes to the
local roller skating rink and asks Christine’s character to dance, and
Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing comes
on. The timing and excitement is impeccable. She is so intense she makes you
uncomfortable. She has the ability to take it far, and really make you join her
on this rode to her inner turmoil and path to destruction.
3.
Boys Don’t Cry, Album by The Cure, 1979 And like the title of the film as aforementioned, another
favorite worth mentioning is Boys Don’t Cry, the album by The Cure.
One of my favorite bands growing up, this post-punk, new wave band’s album was
recorded and released in 1979. Their next album would be even more magnificent,
Standing on the Beach. But Boys Don’t
Cry was my gateway to the rest of The Cure and similar bands. My cassette tape had
been played to obsession that the tape frayed and eventually dissipated in the
tape player of my 1970 VW bug. The B Sides to Standing on the Beach will always be in my top ten favorite albums
because the sound is wonderful: beautiful, trippy, ethereal guitars and somber
voice and (silly, love struck) lyrics of Robert Smith. It was the beginning of
the black eyeliner and teased hair sensation as also seen with Echo and The
Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Love + Rockets. The Cure’s beauty was more
about the sound for me than the lyrics. My favorite band and lyricist was and
still is, Morrissey of The Smiths.
4.
There is a Light That Never Goes Out; The Smiths (Song) 1986
This was the first song I ever heard by The Smiths, which from
that moment on, no other would ever compare after. This song is on The Queen is Dead album (1986). I
remember as a solemn, skate-punk, Goth in 1987, MTV was playing on the
background while doing homework and the kitchen table, and the sound overcame
me. I stared at the green and pink video keeping my eyes glued, not to miss a
second of the last four seconds to the bottom right and corner screen which
displayed the song’s title, band’s name and name of album. The next day I went
to Tower records in Philadelphia (not trusting our suburban mall’s music store
to carry this album) I ended up buying that and another one of The Smiths’
album’s, Meat is Murder (1985) as
well. By the end of that month I had collected every album they had made and
became obsessed, a Smith-ophile. They were unbelievably talented for such young,
smart, tainted, moody, snarky Brits. From Manchester like Joy Division and
later, The Stone Roses and Oasis they come out of the lower/middle class. Johnny
Mars’s 12-string guitar strums is so suited to his partner, singer, Steven
Morrissey whose lyrics for a young lad of 19 years of age are truly impressive,
so intelligent. He sings referencing poets, “Keats and Yeats are on your side, wile the love of Wilde is on mine.” He
was a literature junky, making him a wonderful lyricist. The Smiths pull on
your conscience as if you want to die, right there with him.
5. Over the
Edge (Movie) 1979- Laden with Cheap Trip songs, this
coming of age nostalgia, how can a suburban kid not love this B-grade film? The best musical part is when the song “Ooh
Child” plays at the end when Carl, the protagonist good boy, turned bad, is
hauled away in a bus with the rest of the juvenile delinquents, and his friends
are running after him and waving. Oddly, the worst of the kids stay behind and
the one with a pretty decent head on his shoulders gets sent away. In that moment
you can see that pivotal point where he becomes a man, so to speak. He
understands the weigh of the world and it’s consequences. I bask in its 70s/early
80s depiction of newly developed housing developments being built on dirt piles
in the middle of nothing states in nothing places. It depicts American
suburbia: the music, pre teens, danger, drugs and crushes the feathered hair,
bobbed hair on the boys. They even show two of the kids, tripping on too much
acid, and a drug deal along with a gun that is handled carelessly by the kids
foreshadowing a death by gunshot. They were the kids I wanted so much to be
like; bad kids with a chip on their shoulder about nothing, really. A typical
revenge on parents for living in a safe, boring suburban environment. (Ah white
people problems). This is a low-budget, no-name cast. Even to this day with the
exception of Matt Dillon who was fourteen and his first role after being
discovered at a Westchester, NY mall.
6.
Psychedelic Furs, The Ghost in You (Song) 1984 From their fourth album, Mirror Moves (1984). I fell in love with
the lead singer Richard Butler’s raspy, cigarette voice and tall, thin emaciated
British frame. I was in love with British new wave: The Smiths, The Cure,
Psychedelic Furs, Joy Division, Bauhaus. I couldn’t help but feel incredibly
detached from America’s bland, vapid musical landscape. I remember sitting in
the back of my best friend’s sister’s car when this song came on. Bing bing
bing, bing ….bing bing… the tickling keys of a synth, then enters Richard,
“ A man in my shoes runs alight,
And all the papers lied tonight,
But falling over you,
Is the news of the day”
I couldn’t understand a lick of what he was saying through his
thick brogue, and still don’t understand its meaning. What I did understand was
that it moved me unlike the poppy, hoppy keyboards of Howard Jones or Boy
George. For those three minutes in the back seat I welcomed it’s soulful,
echoing, dark, sinister sound to wash over me. I was only fourteen at the time,
so I couldn’t compare the feeling to codeine or pot, but I knew I was under the
influence.
7. Valley Girl,
(Movie) 1983
Nick Cage is so dreamy in this 80’s movie
that parallels to the likeness of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and all of the
John Hughes films. The soundtrack alone is awesome which includes: Psychedelic
Furs, The Sparks and Modern English. A very adorable valley girl, Julie (Deborah Foreman) totally, like, ya know, falls for a sexy, punk rock, bad boy Randy
(Nick Cage). Their combined chemistry and innocence is palpable. Its funny,
fun, sweet, and demonstrating the typical love story a preppy girl influenced
by her friends and the bad boy, the anti-social mysterious guy, like blue
collar, punk girl Molly Ringwald, and rich, preppy Andrew McCarthy in Pretty in
Pink. Valley Girl is the valley, the mall, and bad eighties dancing in
upper-middle income house parties. It’s everything you want in one.
8. Harold and
Maude (Movie) (1971) Directed by Hal Ashby, it stars
Bud Court (Harold) and the lively, spritely, honest and alive; Ruth Gordon as
Maude. The dichotomy between the young (and death obsessed) and the older (life
obsessed) makes this a truly warming, funny, odd movie. But the sadness is
amplified by the music accompaniment of Cat Stevens. The entire soundtrack is
Cat. The upbeat ballads that seems to honor Maude’s inner motto of (life is
good) with “If you want to Sing Out Sing out”,
praising individualism. The gut-wrenching scene where Maude commits suicide, or
rather, welcomes her death, (a goal of hers that on her 80th
birthday she will sleep forever) Harold, her biggest, adorning fan rides his
manmade hearse to the hospital to prevent her from dying. We hear Stevens growling,
“Trouble”.
Trouble move away
I have seen your face
and it's too much for me today with each line getting heightened to the next, when he really become audible,
I have seen your face
and it's too much for me today with each line getting heightened to the next, when he really become audible,
I've seen your eyes
and I can see death's disguise
Hangin' on me
Hangin' on me
and I can see death's disguise
Hangin' on me
Hangin' on me
The
song is so strong a lump hardens in the back of my throat. We see Harold’s
hearse fly over a cliff. We think, he did it, the morbid kid commit suicide. The
very next second he playing Sing Out on a ukulele. We see Maude’s influence on
him and he wants to live.
9. Cat Stevens
(compilation of Songs) Trouble,
Sing Out, Where do the Children Play, Father and Son, Oh Very Young.
His musical career lasted from
1966-1970 before her converted to Islamism. Raised in London, by his
Greek-orthodox Father and Swedish Baptist mother. He’d go on the roof of Dylan,
Nina Simon, Lead Belly and Muddy Waters, were his major influences. I’m less
interested in his past and more of his music and how he seems to have always
been a peaceful sole and only sought happiness, and its rare to find someone
that really owns and feels that enlightenment. He once was the music on my
parents ‘ car radio with Moonshadow
and Morning has Broken, and became
something so much more to me later in life after I watched Harold and Maude,
moving from the comforts of easy listening to a powerful singer/songwriter.
10. Ethyl
Methyl (band) 2016
I just heard this band this weekend
when they opened for The Preoccupations (formally Viet Cong) at The Warsaw in
Greenpoint, Brooklyn last night. They are on the 4AD label, so that speaks for
itself. Their album, Oh Inhuman Spectacle
is great, if you are seeking some somber, fall music. As soon as I heard the
band begin and the heavy, dreamy guitars begin fill to the room, it was if
these seemingly adolescent, pubescent band members were channeling The Cure's B
Sides or the later days of the 90’s shoegaze, synth, Slowdive sound. The lead,
small, hydrogenous male singer sounds like the Cocteau Twins, circa 1989. The
Warsaw is an old polish entertainment venue with a bar and kitchen the size of
a high school gym, decked out for prom. Albeit now it is a venue that is
committed to hosting, obscure punk bands it continues to nourish the young millennials
with homemade, pierogies, potatoes and slaw.
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