The Film Noir Experience

Especially if it will mean more of the above. Every time I’m reminded of that clip and its “swish it up a bit” I giggle to myself.

In case you didn’t know, its true, I like listening to languages I don’t speak.  Some people like listening to waterfalls or bird calls.  I like listening to languages.  I imagine this is a pretty common thing among people in my field.

And, thank god for Quentin Tarantino for providing me with an opportunity to listen to spoken French and German while also enjoying the funny and violent film Inglorious Basterds. In case you are unaware of this film, it is about a guerilla squad of Jewish American soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine who are terrorizing the German army in France. They become involved with a plot to take out the German high command at a movie premiere. So, the film is amazing. As you’d expect. Its funny and its violent and if only this had actually happened. Right. But, my favorite part of the film is Christoph Waltz’s performance. Waltz plays the SS Colonel Hans Landa who has been given the task of hunting down all the jews left in France. So, you should loathe him. He’s loathsome. Except he’s not. I think he’s funny and kind of charming. And, that’s a pretty big deal turning a character you should hate into someone you could maybe relate to.

So, Pandorum is about a big, fuck-off spaceship (called the Elysium) taking a ton of people and loads of plants and such to an Earth-like planet for colonization. We follow Bower (Ben Foster) as he and his flight team wake up to do their next rotation on the bridge. He wakes up out of hypersleep and can’t remember things like who he is or what the hell is going on. The team before them was supposed to be around to brief them and they are nowhere in sight. Also, it appears that the power on the ship is failing and someone has to go to the reactor and sort that out. Bower wakes up his remaining team member in hypersleep, Lt. Payton (Dennis Quaid) and they decide to venture out into the ship and sort out these problems. This is when they discover the flesh-eating aliens that they have to run and hide from.

Oh, and, of course, waking up out of hypersleep and into space travel sometimes causes “Pandorum”, a disorder that involves shakes and delusions. From here on out, I’m going to call it Space Madness.

Okay, I’m on board (metaphorically). Its not the most original thing, but I enjoy good makeup and a good pop-out-of-the-shadows scare. I put it in my Netflix queue. It wasn’t bad. The makeup was in fact good. There was some choreographed fighting, which was totally a bonus. The flashbacks to things as Bower slowly starts to remember everything from working with his lieutenant to his wife was interesting (Although, cheesily filtered.) The twists, were not so twisty, they were kind of predictable. And, they were predictable mostly because I have seen every episode of Futurama.

It is bad if your Sci-Fi thriller makes me quote Futurama. And, the climactic twist, where we are shown what we guessed happen 45 minutes before, made me think of a certain episode in the second season of Futurama. Don’t read between the brackets if you don’t want the film ruined before you.(“Well, its a spaceship, so I’d say between 0 and 1.”) The other twist, well, they could have done so much more with it. But, that would have made it a completely different film and so I won’t hold it against the filmmakers. But, the Futurama thing, yup. That I’m going to hold against them

So, a soundtrack can really make (or break) a film. Love Actually is one of my favorite films (and, yes, I realize its a Christmas film, but I could watch it at any time in the year). And, I was thinking about it the today; it would be a completely different film without its soundtrack.

I love the film because you are so happy when Sam (played by Thomas Sangster) and Jamie (Colin Firth) triumph in love. You’re touched by Daniel’s (Liam Neeson) devotion to his recently passed spouse. You want to smack Sarah (Laura Linney) for letting Karl’s (Rodrigo Santoro) hot, mostly naked (Brazilian) personage go. You feel a sense of catharsis when Mark (Andrew Lincoln) finally says what he needs to say and moves on. You’re touched when Billy Mac tells his manager, whom he calls Chubs, that he’s come to realize that he’s spent his whole life with his fat employee, and in truth, “The People I love is, in fact, you.” And, you are devastated when Karen (Emma Thompson) is herself devastated after discovering her husband’s possible infidelity. (Oh, and the Prime minister/Natalie stuff is hilarious and wonderful.) But, you feel all of these things because of the soundtrack.

Karen tells Harry near the beginning of the film, after he asks why she still listens to Joni Mitchell, “I love her and true love lasts a lifetime. Joni Mitchell is the woman who taught your cold English wife how to feel.” And, Joni Mitchell sets the tone of their relationship. Her heartbrokenness is set against the background of Mitchell’s hauntingly beautiful “Both Sides Now” (which by the way, if you’re never actually listen to the lyrics, I really recommend it). Her heart breaks and so does yours while Joni Mitchell croons about having looked at love from both sides and after this coming to realize that she really doesn’t know love at all.

Karl and Sarah are set to Eva Cassidy’s “Songbird”. This was apparently the filmmaker’s second choice. He had imagined the scene to Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Come on Come on”. But, this tune really does end up being perfect and fitting in completely with the feel of the scene.

And, the ending of the film gets me every time, calling back to its beginning with the arrivals at Heathrow while “God Only Knows” plays on in the background. “God Only Knows what I’d be without you” the Beach Boys tell us as we see image after image of husbands, wives, daughters, sons, brothers, mothers, sisters fathers, friends reunite. Its such a powerful and all encompassing sentiment, What would we be without the people in our lives who love us? What would we be without the people in our lives that we love?

Its a good film, but how the music plays into the action really makes it remarkable.

Song: Both Sides Now
Performer: Joni Mitchell
Album: Both Sides Now

Song: Songbird
Performer: Eva Cassidy
Album: Songbird

Song: God Only Knows
Performer: The Beach Boys
Album: Love to Love