The Visitor is this year’s little film that could. It's based on a true story in which two very unlikely paths cross in the megalopolis that is NYC. A middle aged and bored Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins/Six Feet Under) comes home one day to find two new residents in his apartment: Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian man, and Zainab (Danai Gurira), his Senegalese girlfriend. Learning that they're victims of a real estate scam, he befriends them and allows them to stay.
Moved by this, Tarek, a drummer, insists on teaching Walter to play the African drum. The instrument captures Walter's spirit and so begins a friendship between the two men. The differences in culture, age and temperament disappear.
In what can only be described as a dark twist, Tarek is pulled up by the NYPD on the Metro after returning with Walter from a lunchtime drum circle practice. Tarek is arrested as an undocumented citizen and held for deportation. As the situation moves from bad to worse Walter departs his sedentiary existence and enters the brutal world of immigration deportation policy and detention centers.
What's interesting in this film, apart from the inside look at immigration policy and it's systemic deployment after 9/11, is the film's sophisticated and special use of music. As the central characters get to know each other through playing music, both of the characters undertake a transformation. Music is used as a method to communicate and as a way to cross language and emotional barriers. The score to the film is created by Polish born Jan A.P. Kaczmarek and lends the film a soft and gentle side to the harsh realities undergoing Tarek. But the director Tom McCarthy (Station Agent/The Wire) doesn't stop there, in using “Je'Nwi Teni” (Don't Gag Me) by Fela Kuti as their drum practice song and as the only song in the film, the director is more than judicious with his use of music and therefore makes its use all the more powerful. Somehow the use of this song reminds us of why we all share the same planet.
A couple years back we discovered a great site called ccMixter, a legal remix-sharing community where great artists a la the Beastie Boys, Christopher Willits, DJ Vadim, etc. serve up stems of their music for up and coming producers to mess around with, then post for the community to download for free. By far the best remixes were courtesy of Trifonic, a production team of two brothers (Laurence & Brian Trifon) up in the bay area whose passion for hip hop, drum n bass, and Dust Brothers-esque sampling informed some nasty remixes with a sound all their own. Check this to download "The Next Step" from cc Mixter for a taste.
Upon reaching out to them we found out they wrote with BT, were composing great ads for Nike and placing their music in CSI. Very recently Trifonic completed their debut artist album called "Emergence" which is available in all digital stores including iTunes and amazon. It's vicious, yet still carries their signature cinematic sound which makes them so ripe for licensing. They've also added the welcome element of vocals on the new album. The brothers Trifon have graciously allowed SEEN readers to download "Vacuum Tree" here, a drum n bass anthem for the next generation. Listen through headphones.
The internets are abuzz with talk of Michel Gondry’s latest film offering Be Kind Rewind (opens tomorrow, Feb 22), and why shouldn’t they be? With a totally unique style that might be called surrealist-fantasy-science-fiction with a humanist bent, Gondry’s music videos, and more recently his films, have made him something of an icon amongst the MTV generation. For most of us, the first time we ever consciously saw Michel Gondry’s work was his video for Bjork’s tune, Human Behavior, in which a menacing teddy bear stalks a flannel clad hunter through a fairy-tale like forest world, while Bjork subsequently frolics, dances, and flies through said world. Gondry’s stunning visual imagery, although whimsical and somewhat arcane, conveys a level of complexity that highlights his ability to take seemingly childlike visions and turn them into sophisticated works of art. The DVD with his music videos from 1995-2003 is a must have for anyone reading this blog. Check out this sick video of Gondry making the classic White Stripes video for "Fell In Love With A Girl".
But we digress…
Following The Science of Sleep (2006), Be Kind Rewind is the third film written and directed by Michel Gondry. Mos Def stars as a hapless clerk in a mom-and-pop video store owned by Danny Glover. When his “lovable loser” best friend (played by Jack Black) decides to sabotage the local power station (it is after all, melting his brain) all of videos in the store become demagnetized and turn to static. When Black’s character realizes that his friend’s job could be at stake, he comes up with a plan to remake (or Swede) all of the videos in the store (including Ghostbusters and Robocop to name a few). Hilarity and Gondry’s trademark heartwarming sentiments ensue.
As in all Gondry’s films, the score plays prominently in Be Kind. All of the Sweded films have their own theme songs that pay homage to, or as is the case in the Rush Hour 2 knockoff “Chinese Bamboo”, parody the original tunes that they are based on. Gondry tapped frequent collaborator Jean-Michel Bernand, who first worked with Michel Gondry on the Charlie Kaufman penned film Human Nature and then again on The Science of Sleep, to write and conduct the score. His work on Be Kind fits amazingly with Gondry’s visual aesthetic and slightly off-kilter storyline.
In addition to the score, the soundtrack features music from Fats Waller, Booker T. Jones, and Billy Preston. Because Waller plays a major part in the storyline (we’ll let you find out why), his songs are featured, including a Mos Def cover of “Your Feets Too Big”. Sadly, the only Jack Black number on the soundtrack is a 9 second track called “Jerry’s Sweded Ghost Song”, but to be fair, it’s 9 seconds of awesome.
And as an extra bonus, here’s a video of Michel Gondry, Mos Def, and Jean-Michel Bernard performing “Your Feets Too Big” at this year’s Sundance awards...
Not the original graphic novel author Alan Moore apparently. But that doesn’t mean we won’t check it out when it’s released (ages away), March 6th, 2009. But as Moore’s pedigree includes League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V For Vendetta (both with equal prior beefs with Hollywood), there is much soon-to-be had hype for the project. The Watchmen was originally published by DC comics as a 12-comic book series between 1986 and 1987, before it was culled into a trade paperback. Remarkably for a graphic novel, it won a prestigious Hugo Award in 1998. Straight off the helming duties of “300”, Zack Snyder is directing this adaptation and is turning himself into something of a pedigree also. He really tore it up on Frank Miller’s graphic novel.
We’re really wondering what music lushness could be created from such a fantastic story. Just announced today, director Zack Snyder is signing on his "300" composer Tyler Bates to create the dark soundscapes for this one.
Synopsis: Watchmen, based on the award winning graphic novel by Alan Moore, is set in an alternate 1985 America where costumed heroes are a part of the world's history, and the "Doomsday Clock", which measures the tension between the USA and the U.S.S.R. is constantly at five minutes to midnight. Rorschach, a vigilante who refused to retire when his teammates did, is drawn out by the murder of one of his colleagues, and pulled into a world-wide conspiracy with terrifying implications for the future of mankind.
Watchmen stars Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Matthew Goode, Stephen McHattie, Carla Gugino and Matt Frewer. Watchmen opens across America on March 6th, 2009.
A smiley pin never looked so good.
Check out this great interiew with Zack Snyder on the upcoming epic:
Our brothers at Ghostly tipped us to one of our favorite electronic artists, Lusine, scoring the new Sam Rockwell/Kate Beckinsale film called “Snow Angels” (theatrical release March ‘08) with longtime collaborator David Wingo. If you’ve read our “Radiohead vs. Hans Zimmer” post, you know we drool at the thought of dope artists scoring dope films, so we had to hear more about it. Lusine, aka Jeff McIlwain, took some time on the phone to chat about his creative process, the difference between scoring films and making albums, and what’s next for Lusine. He and Ghostly were also kind enough to offer up a free download of the track “Locks” that he wrote with David Ringo, so click here to download the mp3 and CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW AND FILM TRAILER.
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