In This Section
TV Guide Spotlight
Also on TVGuide.com
|
« Ask FlickChick
Ask FlickChick: Film vs. Movie, the Song That Makes the Picture and More
The Seventh Seal courtesy The Criterion Collection
Ask FlickChick: The difference between movies and films, songs in movies and more
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
See Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this week's new flicks on the Movie Talk vodcast!
Hear Maitland on the weekly podcast TV Guide Talk!
Question: I was wondering: What's the difference between a movie and a film? I know that if anybody can tell me, it will be you. Thank you for your response. — Jay
FlickChick: Strictly speaking there's no difference. Movie and film are literally synonymous. But nuance and implication are everything, and the word movie — the shortened form of "moving picture" — usually implies an entertainment: Pirates of the Caribbean (2003), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Charade (1963). Film — which, curiously, is the more literal word, coming as it does from the physical material of the medium — has come to suggest art: The Seventh Seal (1957), L'Avventura (1960), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). "Picture" has always carried a hint of bizspeak to me, "motion picture" (almost always preceded by the word "major") smacks of a kind of middlebrow pretension, while "the cinema" is a favorite of the art-house crowd. Flick (short for "flickers") always strikes me as dismissive: A flick isn't just entertainment, it's throwaway entertainment.
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
Question: Hi, love your column and look forward to it every Thursday. This may be a bizarre question, but when I was a young kid, my mom and dad took me to the drive-in. I don't remember the first movie, but the second was about these tough women that went around killing men. All I remember was these women showed up at a farm; the farmer had a big strong son who was mentally slow, and at one point they were digging up a tree stump — the son pushed while a mule pulled. Then one of the women sat on top of the son and I think was having sex with him. He starts to yell that she's making him feel funny and she shoots him in the head while her friends are holding the dad hostage and making him watch. Was there ever such a movie or did I somehow get something mixed up as a kid? If it was a movie, I'm glad it didn't scare me about sex. Anyway, you have answered several of my questions before and I hope you could answer this one. — JR
FlickChick: Your parents took you to see Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966) when you were a child.... I'm not sure whether that's utterly cool or kind of horrifying. Granted, they probably went for the first movie and had no idea what the second was going to be, and maybe they thought you were asleep by the time it came on. In any event, it is indeed about three busty, ass-kicking strippers — Varla (the formidable Tura Satana), Rosie (Haji) and Billie (Lori Williams) — who drift around making trouble, which often includes killing men. And I'm glad it didn't scare you to death about sex, because I can certainly see how it might have!
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
Question: I recently saw Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye on TV. I really enjoyed it and was struck by the very effective use of the single theme song throughout the movie. Are there other movies that use a single song so effectively to help establish atmosphere? — Sue
FlickChick: You're right, Altman's use of John Williams (yes, that John Williams) and Johnny Mercer's "The Long Goodbye" is both unusual and striking (my favorite version of the song is the muzak version Elliott Gould hears in the supermarket). Instrumental leitmotifs are more common in movies: Think of the themes from Star Wars (Williams), Rocky (Bill Conti), the James Bond films (John Barry) or The Pink Panther (Henry Mancini).
But I can think of a few songs that are used repeatedly in films to establish and reinforce atmosphere:
Damien Rice's "The Blower's Daughter" in Mike Nichols' Closer (2004)
Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You" in Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Erroll Garner's "Misty" in Clint Eastwood's Play Misty for Me (1971)
Dave Berry's "The Crying Game" in Neil Jordan's The Crying Game (1992)
Jack Lawrence's "Linda" in Dan Klores' documentary Crazy Love (2007)
Ary Barroso's "Aquarela do Brasil" in Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985)
Kay Starr's "Wheel of Fortune" in Peter Medak's Let Him Have It (1991)
Readers, other suggestions?
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
Question: I thoroughly enjoyed Daniel Handler's novel The Basic Eight and remember hearing recently that the film rights had been picked up. Do you have any more information on this? What is the status of the film version? — Tom
FlickChick: Unfortunately, Handler's The Basic Eight, a satirical high school novel written before he transformed himself into Lemony Snickett, is in turnaround. That means that the producing company — in this case New Regency Productions — has decided not to go ahead with the project. In theory that means the rights holders can go out and find someone else to bankroll the property. But in practice it usually means the project is dead. I don't know why The Basic Eight fell apart. Perhaps you could console yourself with the deeply twisted Rick (2003), a very dark fable inspired by Rigoletto. Handler wrote the original screenplay just after The Basic Eight, in part because his agent thought having an original screenplay to show would make it easier to sell movie rights to Basic Eight. Rick is incredibly mean and clever.
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
|
TVGuide Links:
|
|
|
|
Aug 8, 2007 4:33 PM
|
Maitland - Thank you very much for answering my question, but I believe "the cinema" is the locale where
those in the U. K. view movies, films,
flicks, and "cinema."
|
|
Aug 8, 2007 4:53 PM
|
Suggestions? Blue Velvet, of course.
Also Laura.
|
|
Aug 8, 2007 5:59 PM
|
Would sea of love be one of those movies you were talking about? I'm thinking maybe not, because it was a part of the movie, not in the background. Anyway, it is an example of a song being played multiple times in the same movie.
I've never seen any of the other examples, so I really don't know what you are talking about.
|
|
Aug 8, 2007 6:38 PM
|
|
Hellooooo, Casablanca, anyone?
|
|
Aug 8, 2007 6:57 PM
|
|
Dave Barry did "The Crying Game"? Dave Barry the writer?? I have the song by Cukture Club. It's been years since I saw the movie, but I thought that CC's song was the themesong. The liner notes say Geoff Stephens wrote it.
|
|
Aug 9, 2007 1:42 AM
|
felinefan:
Dave Berry (musician) is not Dave Barry (the writer/humorist). The Crying Game heard in the movie was done by Boy George as a solo artist and it is a cover of Dave Berry's track from the 60's.
|
|
Aug 9, 2007 2:37 AM
|
I can't think of anything as singular as The Long Goodbye. But some things spring to mind:
It's been a while since I've seen it, but I think "Axel F" is used a few times in Beverly Hills Cop.
The Bond theme is used again and again in some 007 films. On Her Majesty's Secret Service has it's own theme that keeps popping up throughout the movie.
The leitmotif is far more prevalent than singular songs. Close Encounters of the Third Kind has it's doo-doo-doo-doo-doo thingie. And of course, Jaws has its infamous tune as does Psycho. I think the usage in these films is more aggressive than in, say, Raiders or Star Wars.
As an aside, there is a chord known as the Hitchcock Cord that Bernard Hermann used in several of Hitch's films. Here is an article in case you are feeling scholarly:
http://hitchcock.tv/essays/herrmann/herrcase2.html
Howzabout Flash Gordon? ("What do you mean, Flash Gordon approaching?")
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly uses one theme with different instruments for each of the three leads.
|
|
Aug 9, 2007 3:02 AM
|
Since I just saw it last weekend, I'd say "So I Married an Ax Murderer" is a movie where one song, The La's "There She Goes," is used really effectively as a theme throughout the whole movie. It's an odd example, but it works.
Maitland, some friends gave me your book "Movie Lust" for my birthday yesterday. I read it on the bus to work today and have already started highlighting movies I need to see. 
|
|
Aug 9, 2007 9:18 AM
|
|
TY Achy. Is Boy's version at all like the original? I thought I was an oldies lover, but I had never heard of Dave. Granted he was before I was born, but that didn't stop me from loving The Beatles, The Byrds, The Turtles, The Monkees, (what was with the 60's and all the animal groups?), and The Beach Boys to name a few.
|
|
Aug 9, 2007 2:13 PM
|
Who was the man - SHAFT! That was the first thing I thought of about theme songs which really went through the movie and represented it forever. Isaac Hays will always make me think of Shaft.
I know they didn't play it all the way through, but Bull Durham will always play in my head to Sixty Minute Man. I also think Misty from Play Misty for Me redefined the song from a romantic ballad to something pretty scary.
|
|
Aug 9, 2007 3:52 PM
|
"Everybody's Talking" in Midnight Cowboy.
"The Pompatus of Love", a little seen movie with Jon Cryer and some others where the song "The Joker" by Steve Miller is covered several times by different artists...
And it didn't involve one song, but "I Am Sam" featured all Beatles songs covered by other artists that I thought was effective....
And I thought the use of "Mr. Sandman" in Halloween II, which was played a couple of times, was almost as creepy as the better known main theme written by John Carpenter.
|
|
Aug 9, 2007 4:07 PM
|
|
First one that came to mind was Radley Metzger's Score!. I don't know the name of the lone song used but it was played several times in the film; one of the (few) lyrics goes something like, Where is the light / Where is the love. Who knows who did it or if it's ever been available commercially but I always dug its hippie/mod vibe.
|
|
Aug 9, 2007 5:36 PM
|
|
|
