Favorite Use of Music in Movies

Further pursuant to ideas about musical lists from Music Listography by Lisa Nola of www.listography.com, here's some now!

MY EIGHT FAVORIT-EST MOVIE MUSIC MOMENTS:

8. The final shot of 'High Fidelity' is punctuated forever in my memory as Rob Gordon begins making a 'perfect playlist mixtape' and the end credits run with Stevie Wonder's '(I Believe) When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever'. It's listy genius for people who love and people who list.

7. Enya adds the right dreamlike, magic quility to the movie 'L.A. Story'.

6. Danny Elfman has scored basically every movie I have ever liked, probably. At random I choose the opening credits to 'Mars Attacks!' because I just love it, damnit. Box office failure, indeed. Retro saucers whirl and theremin wails, it's visually and musically awesome. Thanks, Danny, for this and about 80 billion other songs.

5. James Horner probably needs his own list, too. I've given a tie to the soundtrack for Bicentennial Man and the Klingon battle theme from Star Trek III, apparently because marauding aliens make for great percussive music. I like me my drums!

4. I can't begin to defend my affection for 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension'. That movie is a wonderful, glorious, splendid mess. And the end credits with the cast striding purposefully over Michael Boddicker's synths is firmly 1980's rad.

3. Star Trek (2009)- It's all terrific, thrilling, and tantalizing. Specifically, when George Kirk is just about to die saving his wife, child, and crew, Michael Giacchino's musical strains add the Cry Frosting on that little Moment Cake. Every time!

2. WALL-E- Thomas Newman's score brings the characters to life, providing their 'voices' like an old timey silent film. Michael Crawford's 'Put On Your Sunday Clothes' from the musical "Hello, Dolly" has excellent, appropriate lyrics for WALL-E's pursuit of 'the world out there' as well. Peter Gabriel's end credits 'Down To Earth' should be a hymn for the new millennium. I just keep on harping, but this movie keeps being SO good!

1. The Fifth Element- I may have say the whole frelling thing. Beginning to end. The soundtrack is sweet, melodious, and ass-kicking. Eric Serra rocks. The pulse-pounding taxicab chase music is not on the soundtrack and it's called 'Alech Taadi' by Khaled from his album N'ssi N'ssi. Apparently. The Diva Plavalaguna's pop-opera or "Pop'ra" as the kids will surely call it in The Future is sublime. 'Little Light of Love' is end credit heaven. Also, perhaps especially, my wife loves it, too. She may not be an alien, but the way she sings makes my heart soar.
Yeah, yeah. I'm sappy. Get over it.

Lyrics I Live By

At the bookstore where I work we're gearing up for Christmas, and many of us are bracing for the arrival of Christmas MUSIC, which has a 50/50 chance of driving somebody into a clock tower before the season is through. Be that as it may, I am VERY grateful for the ipod my lovely wife gave me, and the 361 songs I have loaded into it. Nothing makes the hours go faster than a personalized list of my favorite stuff, screwball novelty songs being a personal preference.
So, tangentially related, at my work, I spotted a cool book called Music Listography by Lisa Nola of www.listography.com .
It contains many ways to make short playlists of songs you enjoy, more off the beaten path ideas, not simply a rote list of best to worst, or what-have-you.
Thanks to Ms. Nola, I present a topic I enjoyed thinking about, and a list by no means complete:

TOP 8 PIECES OF LYRICAL ADVICE I TRY TO FOLLOW:

8. 'Take on the situation but not the torment. You know it's not as bad as it seems.'
- Fleetwood Mac, 'Think About It'

7. 'Here's hoping all the days ahead won't be as bitter as the ones behind you. Be an optimist instead, and somehow happiness will find you.'
- The Kinks, 'Better Things'

6. 'Baby, you should know I am really quite a sweet guy: When I buy you bathroom tissue I always get the two-ply.'
- Weird Al Yankovic, 'Whatever You Like'

5. 'Say what you Mean, Mean what you Think, and Think Anything. WHY NOT?'
- Cat Stevens, 'Can't Keep It In'

4. 'It's time to create. Time to grow if you feel right. The world, yea, she's changing, don't it make you feel alive?'
-The All-American Rejects, 'The Future Has Arrived'

3. 'Three Hams will kill him. Three Hams will kill him. You must not feed him three hams.'
-Thundercles to Brak (instructions on goldfish feeding Brak fails to heed.) 'The Brak Show'

2. 'I'm a little lost, let me find my way. I'm a little dead, let me live. I've been living in the past, let me rise today. Led a selfish life, let me give.'
-Lindsay Buckingham, 'The Right Place To Fade'

1. 'When push comes to shove, you gotta do what you love; even if it's not a good idea.'
- Hermes Conrad, 'How Hermes Got His Groove Back', Futurama