Not Particularly Bloggy.

I watched Rushmore last night. It's such an amazing movie. It has inspired me to do two things. Write down my idea for a shortfilm and make a list of some of my favorite uses of pop music in movies. The former is pretty much for my eyes only, but the latter will be today's blog post, so without further ado:

Matt Essner's Top Five Pop Music in Movie Moments:

First I feel like I must explain what I mean by "Pop Music in Movie Moments". What I mean is this, scenes in movies that are underscored by pop music instead of music composed for the movie. So although the appearence of the Executor accompanied by the Imperial March is an amazing bit of music and film, it doesn't count because it was composed for the film. This list will represent what I think to the finest marriages pop music and filmaking (at least as many as I can remember).

1. Rushmore Finale
This is what inspired me to make. Although there are some great musical moments in this movie (and pretty much all of Wes Anderson's movies) this one tops the list. It is a great ending to a great film.

2. A Knight's Tale: Golden Years
This movie is awesome and if you don't like it (like the movie or like the fact that it is an awesome movie) you deserve to go to prison. The same prison where all the people that shout "FREE BIRD" at concerts deserve to go. The kind of prison where they show reruns of Friends all day every day. Anyway this scene is great because of the way it seamlessly blends the chamber music into a David Bowie song. The best part is at about 1:46, when you hear Mr. Bowie sing "Angel". It's at that point you know that some seriously funk rock is about to be dropped on this here madrigal society.

3. Donnie Darko: Head Over Heels
I don't think this movie is as good as I remember it being when I watched the summer after my senior year of high school, but this scene still does it for me. The first shot of the school bus is still pretty cool. Also the in frame camera speed changes are pretty nifty, even though they've been done to death at this point (300, anyone?). Also Tears for Fears rocks your mom's face. My favorite part is when the girls are doing the celebration after they finish their dance and they're all trying to high five and miss and be like "this is totally normal, we are very self congratulatory people"

4. American Beauty: Baba O'Reilly
This one is kind of cheating but I'm going to allow it because I'm running out of ideas. This is technically the trailer, but it's still pretty awesome use of music. There's actually some pretty good songs elsewhere in the film, like the cover of "Because" at the end.

5. Big Fish: Let's Work Together
I couldn't find a clip of this one, but you'll just have to believe that if I had it would be pretty much just as awesome as the video I did link. It's been a while since I've seen this movie, but as I remember it Ewan MacGregor's character, Edward Bloom, is at a bank and he notices the man in front of him, Steve Buscemi playing himself, is an old friend of his. They start up a conversation then when Steve gets to the front of the line he pulls out a gun and robs the bank. Steve and Edward high tail it out of their in Ed's suped up Camero. The cops give chase and they end up evading them till dusk, at which point a full moon comes out and Steve Buscemi and all the cops turn into werewolves and fight a bloody, lupine battle all over the state of New Mexico. Ewan MacGregor enters the fray only when it looks like the cops might get the upper hand. He pulls out his silver broadsword and goes to town on the werewolf cops like a wombat (I'm not going to qualify this simile). Anyway, at some point during all that Canned Heat's "Let's Work Together" plays and it's pretty nifty.

This list is in no way exhaustive nor is it necessarily in any sort of order as far as quality goes. It seems like there should probably be something from a Scorcese movie on here (probably Goodfellas) , but there isn't. That's mostly my fault, but I think Marty is not without some blame blame. I could've also put about 10 more Wes Anderson scenes on here, but I didn't because I'm too lazy. You'll also notice a complete lack of scenes from Almost Famous. In your face Cameron Crowe. Even though I love the movie, it's a bit pretentious at times and it was trying a bit too hard at times to get on this list, especially the "Tiny Dancer" scene. The same goes for School of Rock (although I don't really love that movie).

Honorable mention goes to:
1. Shanghai Noon: The training montage that uses the Kid Rock song. (Kept off the list for obvious, Kid Rock related reason)
2. The entire movie Stranger than Fiction (Even though the soundtrack is pretty much all Spoon songs, I think some of them might have been written for the movie, or maybe not, either way no dice Stranger than Fiction)
3. Any movie before the 1998. Nice try older movies, but I couldn't remember any of you when I was making this list.

So yeah. That was fun.