Monday, December 5, 2011

Drive


Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy - the Brat Pack. Some of my favorite films are Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, St. Elmo's Fire, The Breakfast Club, and all things John Hughes.

When I watched the film Drive, I could only focus on two things: Ryan Gosling, and the soundtrack. The soundtrack brought me back to the summer of 2004. The summer I fell in love with electro-pop and the Brat Pack. I was reading the infamously trashy Remember Me series by Christopher Pike, and at one point the book mentions driving by a theater that was playing Pretty in Pink. I went to the American Club that had a collection of old video cassette movies and rented myself every teen movie from the 80s. Electro-pop was everywhere.

Now Drive is the kind of movie that makes you want to ride in a 1960's Camero and crank New Order's Bizzare Love Triangle while sporting some vintage Persol sunglasses. Most of the film's soundtrack was composed by Cliff Martinez (a former Red Hot Chili Pepper). What the soundtrack ended up as was basically retro European pop; and the prelude to the DJ as a commercial artist.

Disco. Vintage Keyboards. Percussion. Strings.

What makes this movie good is its style. You've got a sexy man in a leather jacket driving at 140 mph, you've got an ethereal Carey Mulligan, and you've got songs like the ones listed below. This movie is pure sex.

Kavinsky - Nightcall


Desire - Under Your Spell



College - A Real Hero


The Chromatics - Tick of the Clock


Cliff Martinez - He Had a Good Time (I wouldn't call this electro-pop, but it's very Tree of Life-ish)


Cliff Martinez Interview


New Order - Bizzare Love Traingle (Not related to Drive, but here because it's a sick song)




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Cruel Intentions


If I hadn't gone to a business school, I would have gone to a French film school. Why? Well, because films encompass every form of art I've ever appreciated. In certain cases, it's a composite of literary adaptations, you've got crazy cinematography/photography, you've got ingenious tracking shots, and perhaps my favorite part - if you're lucky you get some badass soundtracks.

When Cruel Intentions first came out, I was dying to see it. Not because it was a modern adaptation of Les liaisons dangereuses, I didn't figure that out until I had actually watched Dangerous Liasions with Glenn Close and John Malkovich. Mostly because I was determined that I would one day meet and marry Ryan Phillippe. Of course, I was far too young to watch it. Somehow I managed to sneak in a pirated DVD into my room at 13 years old. 90 minutes later, my inevitable marriage to Ryan Phillippe became second to my obsession to one day become a writer for the Rolling Stone.

The prepubescent teenager of the 90's who was dealing with matters of the heart needed that soundtrack like the late 50's needed Presley and Jailhouse Rock. The Beatles, Presley, Led Zeppelin had come and gone. We were stuck with Spears, Aguilera, and NYSNC - for some reason music was becoming stupider and stupider. She's All That's partake on what a thirteen year old needed to croon to undermined my own self respect. Insert Placebo, Blur, Marcy Playground, and delete Sixpence None the Richer's Kiss Me - and the Cruel Intentions Soundtrack was my music bible.

Here's how it goes:

Marcy Playground - Comin' Up from Behind


Placebo - Every you, Every Me


Blur - Coffee and TV


The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony


Counting Crows - Colorblind


The Cardigans - Lovefool


Abra Moore - Trip in Love (my personal favorite)



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In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines ...


I'm 22 years old, bordering on 23, and I have an instinctive feeling that the rest of my life will set itself on auto-drive; and one day before I know it, it'll all be over.

This may sound like some sort of dark premonition or a premature mid-life crisis; but that's not what I think is going on. I'm having flash backs while doing the most mundane things - heating up food in my microwave, walking home from the train station, separating whites from colors while doing laundry; these flashbacks of my childhood are popping in and out of my head, one after another. I remember smells, I remember images, I remember the names of places and people more vividly than I can remember what I did last Friday night.

And there's one place in particular that just wont leave me alone. It's an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, where lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. I spent most of my childhood in the LAPL, and my closest friends went by the names Clifford and Madeline. Clifford being a ridiculously big and red dog, and Madeline being a little red-headed girl that went to a Catholic girl's school in Paris. My favorite children's book is Pat Hutchinson's "The Doorbell Rang" - where "Ma" is also a red-head. This takes me to the first adult novel I ever read, The Shining, by Stephen King - Red Rum anyone? I've just realized the significance of the color RED in my first experiences with learning to read, while doing my laundry.

Now, more about Madeline. I'm also writing this while watching Anthony Bourdain's episode on New York. By pure coincidence Mr. Bourdain is visiting Bemelman's Bar at the Carlyle, named after none other than Ludwig Bemelman. Here's what the hotel's website says about the bar:

Best remembered as the creator of the classic Madeline books for children, Ludwig Bemelmans once joked he'd like his tombstone to read: "Tell Them It Was Wonderful." Well, wonderful it was, and still is, at Bemelmans Bar. Named in honor of the legendary artist, Bemelmans is a timeless New York watering hole that has drawn socialites, politicians, movie stars and moguls for more than five decades.

The Carlyle was the city's premier luxury residential hotel and served as second home to socialites, politicians and movie stars when Ludwig Bemelmans was commissioned to paint large-scale murals in the hotel bar. The creator of the enormously popular Madeline children's book series as well as a successful artist working for The New Yorker, Vogue and Town and Country, Bemelmans transformed the bar with clever, whimsical scenes of Central Park (including picnicking rabbits). Instead of being paid for the art, Bemelmans exchanged his work for a year and a half of accommodations at The Carlyle for himself and his family.


For those of you living in New York, or just passing though, please be sure to check this bar out. Where else are you going to find art as precious and timeless as this.

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