A Quinn Martin Production
Starring Captain
Spaulding
I PICK THE
SONGS
If you catch the
very funny new Coen Bros. movie The Big
Lebowski, be sure to note the "musical
archivist" responsible for the movie's
excellent soundtrack, one T-Bone Burnett.
Former Clash
frontman Joe Strummer performed similar yeoman
archivist service on last year's Grosse
Pointe Blank by selecting a passel of
eighties songs which he felt best fit the mood of
the movie. Neither he nor Burnett recorded a
single note for their respective movies...all
that they did was, in effect, act as the disc
jockeys for their films.
The light bulb
entitled "career move" went off over my
head.
What better way to
cash in on my underutilized talents as the
curator of the True Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame here
in a dank basement somewhere on the north side of
Chicago? Why not bring Tinseltown producers and
conceptistas scurrying to my door like rats to
peanut butter by promising them dynamo
soundtracks for their stupid flicks? Let the
lawyers and the accountants worry about acquiring
the rights. I'm the ideas guy.
And my first idea
is--niche market. Let the high-profile names like
Burnett and Strummer do the upscale theatre
releases. I'm more than willing to handle one
specific sector of the industry which is just
crying out for taste. By that I mean the TV movie
of the week. Enough with Valerie Bertinelli and
Brian Dennehy in My Daughter, The Junkie.
No more battered wives and diseases du jour.
Please. Time for some cultural relevance and a
dash of hip in network movie programming.
How will I play
this game? The first part's easy. Pick out
"a shocking but true story, torn from
today's headlines". If nothing's there, take
whatever daily newsbit seems the most interesting
(i.e., prurient, violent, and/or deviant) and
make up the rest.
Then comes the
hard part. Find the songs that best fit the plot.
Shop it around Hollywood. Let the broadcast
moguls throw it against the wall and see if it
sticks.
Example number one
is easy. Now that the thrashing around the
presidential chum in the water has died down a
bit and the current White House scandal has
joined the background noise of irritainment, it's
time to assess the TV-movie capability of
Clinterngate. Let's face it--this TV movie will
happen anyway, like it or not. Hell, Wag The
Dog and Primary Colors are bringing
the theme to your local multiplex anyway.
Whether Monica
Lewinsky has brought about the Clinton
Administration's cheesy gotterdammerung or merely
sounded the death knell for media credibility in
this country, Bill Clinton: A President In
Flagrante Delicto is bound to secure boffo
overnights in the Nielsens. With the right music,
that is.
I envision a
soundtrack that includes "Rose Colored
Glasses" by John Conlee; "Young
Girl" by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap;
"Yesterday's Papers" by the Rolling
Stones; "Addicted To Love" by Robert
Palmer; "Young Lust" by Aerosmith;
"After School" by Randy Starr; and the
same song that was used in Wag The Dog,
"Thank Heaven For Little Girls" by
Maurice Chevalier (over the closing credits).
Some of the songs
will fit specific moments in the movie:
"Afternoon Delight" by Starland Vocal
Band during the outside-the-Oval-Office
not-really-love scene; "Your Cheatin'
Heart" by Hank Williams when Hillary finds
out; "Stand By Your Man" by Tammi
Wynette when she goes before the press to lauch
her "right-wing conspiracy" theory;
play a bit of "Star Star" by the
Rolling Stones every time Kenneth Starr steps in
front of the camera; "Does Your Mama Know
About Me" by Bobby Taylor when Frau Lewis
comes before Prosecutor Starr to testify about
her baby girl; "The Hunter Gets Captured By
the Game" by the Marvelettes when Linda
Tripp first appears; "I'm a Fool To Want
You" by Frank Sinatra during Clinton's
triumphant crowd scene where the beret-clad
Monica suddenly appears at his side; "Lyin'
Eyes" by the Eagles as the reclusive Monica
holes up in the Watergate.
In other words, a
little musical something for everybody.
The beauty of this
is that every hullabaloo or weird goings-on in
American life has its musical trope buried
somewhere in the card catalog of pop music. When
the movie-of-the-week people come to call, I want
to be able to proffer them the right song for the
right scandal.
For instance, the
WB series Dawson's Creek has already
picked up on, in an unsatisfying way, the
December-May theme of unfulfilled thirtysomething
female teachers doing the rickey-chow with their
pubescent boy students. Now that Washington
State's Mary LeTourneau and Minnesota's Janice
Heil have brought every lad's sniggering fantasy
to real-life fruition, can the networks be far
behind? And if they are, I want to be the first
to say six simple words: "Hot For
Teacher" by Van Halen.
And in the world
of sports, there's the Casey Martin saga.
Recently he won a court battle with the
Professional Golfers Association over his right
to use a golf cart during PGA competition rather
than walk the links, in order to compensate for a
circulatory problem that causes leg fatigue after
prolonged self-ambulation.
I picture this
opening shot: The actor playing Casey motoring
his cart over the crest of a hill on a fairway
somewhere as Foghat's "Slow Ride" rocks
the opening credits.
It can't miss.
Captain Spaulding
(For more film discussion,
see Pandomag.com's, Film Comment)
E-Mail CaptainSpaulding
Previous
Mountaintop Experiences with Captain
Spaulding:
Hooray
For Me #1-- One Margarita Too Many?
Hooray
For Me #2-- Spitting at the Generations
Hooray
For Me #3-- The One-Eyed Spokesmodel
Hooray
For Me #4-- Semisardonic Over Semisonic
Hooray
For Me #5-- Bury My Brain at Wounded Knee
Hooray
For Me #6-- Tempest in a B-Cup
Hooray
For Me #7-- Princess Diana
Hooray
For Me #8-- Get Back, Honky Cat
Hooray
For Me #9-- Mother Teresa
Hooray
For Me #10-- Selling Johnny Cash
Hooray
For Me #11-- Is the Male Ego a Hairy Beast?
Hooray
For Me #12-- Why America Gets No Kicks from
Soccer
Hooray
For Me #13-- O Canada! Who Stands on Guard For
Thee?
Hooray
For Me #14-- Suicide is Painless, but Loss of
Creative...
Hooray
For Me #15-- Synergy for the Devil
Hooray
For Me #16-- Of Hissy Fits and Human Freedoms
Hooray
For Me #17-- Naked Raygun's Hook Back in Anger
Hooray
For Me #18-- Trees 2, Celebrities 0
Hooray
For Me #19-- What Grad Students Need to Know
About Sex
Hooray
For Me #20-- Just Another Yellow Brick in the
Road
Hooray
For Me #21-- Can "Soy Bomb" Save the
Oscars
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