Cast This! 25th Anniversary of Live-Aid

As you know I like to track anniversary dates but somehow it had slipped me by that today it's been 25 years since Bob Geldof (pictured left) convinced a gajillion rock stars to sing for free to feed Ethiopia. Everyone showed. I don't really know the history of the benefit concert in general but this felt like the first one to me. Ah, the naivete of youth!

MTV, who would know such things, recalls the numbers. Here's a list of everyone who took the stage. Insanity. Imagine if you were making a biopic about this event, who you'd have to cast? I guess biopic isn't the right term. Historical epic! But whatever.

It was epic. I mean Queen, Mick Jagger & Tina Turner, Madonna





Whew...

Icons.

So, let's play Cast This!

Here's a visual chart of a some people pulled semi-randomly from the event that I thought might be fun to cast. If you're too young to recall these people -- not everyone can be Madonna and maintain ubiquity for centuries -- cast by their faces.


From left to right that's: Bob Geldof (your star!), Adam Ant, Madonna, Freddie Mercury of Queen (whatever happened to his biopic? There was one in development). Second row: Joan Baez (played by Julianne Moore sort of in I'm Not There), Sade, Bryan Ferry and Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. Go!
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Friday's Ways... To Musicalize, My Way

Howdy everybody, JA from MNPP here! It's well-documented - even here at The Film Experience - my troublesome relationship to the musical genre. I hem and haw, but there are plenty of musicals I do like... I just tend to be drawn in by the less straight-forward takes on the genre - the self-conscious attempts to deconstruct always seem to draw me in.

Hence my like of Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, a film which I paid some death-scene mind to yesterday with my Thursday's Ways Not To Die series (as noted by a commenter there, I suppose the post is spoilery if you haven't seen the film... but honestly, I take eight years as being well past the spoiler-expiration-date, and the series is really a celebration of spoilers in itself... I digress). Put together one the most talented, weirdest musicians out there (well two of the most talented musicians, although we're getting ahead of ourselves there) with a fearless button-pusher like Lars von Trier and something interesting is bound to spark, right?

Well it did. And down the You-Tube'd rabbit-hole we go. The inspiration for Dancer was, of course, Bjork's video for her song "It's Oh So Quiet," which was directed by Spike Jonze, off of her 1995 album Post,

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Genius, that. So Lars sees that, and wants to make the movie, or so the story goes. Five years later, ta-dah, movie. The stand-out song, the one that gets nominated for an Oscar, is called "I've Seen It All," which comes in two flavors. There's the movie version, where actor Peter Stormare sings the male part:

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And then there's the album version, where my personal God, Radiohead front-man Thom Yorke, sings the part:

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I don't know the exact politics of why Bjork got Thom to sing on Selmasongs besides the fact that it resulted in a track I've listened to more times than any other single song she's ever produced, but good on her. As a semi-connected, sorta-random side-note, Radiohead recently did a live cover of a Bjork song, "Unravel":

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Loveliness. Anyway, one thing that's always bugged me was Thom's absence at Bjork's swan-dress-clad rendition of the song at the Oscars in 2001. I would've melted into a puddle of happy goo if the two of them had taken to the stage... but no:

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Not that Bjork didn't give a terrific performance on her own. She most certainly did, and as much as I love the movie Wonder Boys, Bjork deserved the damn Oscar here too. Bob Dylan couldn't even be bothered to show up! Touring in Australia my ass. Priorities, Mr. Dylan.

Of course, that was hardly the largest injustice that evening... that was busy going down over in the Best Actress category...
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How I Spent My Summer Five Day Vacation

I want to thank my guests JA, Robert and mB for keeping the place warm and sweaty in my absence. Speaking of warm and sweaty, can summer be over now? I'm not a summer person. I spent my short break sweating. A lot. Summer is hateful. Anyway, here's the parts from my break worth sharing with you, my hundred thousand closest friends strangers... "frangers?"... "striends"?

Where I've been...


@ the Met's Superheroes: Fashion & Fantasy exhibit.
Among the many delicious sections was one on Catwoman (pictured above, La Pfeiffer's actual costume stitched seductively over a mannequin) and the "paradoxical body" I love this bit

Superhero comics have tended to promote an ideology that is both masculinist and driven to mastery. Nowhere are these biases more blatant than in the representation of female superheroes. With unabashed and unapologetic obviousness, women are portrayed as objects of male desire and fantasy with absurdly exaggerated sexual characteristics ... the frisson of fetishistic sexuality presented by female superheroes is adduced with one hand only to be dismissed with the other. This offering and denying of sexuality, which helps to resolve the sexual fears and desires of developing males, is the eternal paradox of the superheroine.

Offering and denying of sexuality, indeed. The same can easily be said of the superhero movie genre. God forbid if women actually got to do anything in the genre outside of being indisputably hot. There was a lot more to this exhibit including costumes for films from Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Batman franchise, and couture inspired by the same ("A Must See!" -The Film Experience) but I spent the most time with Catwoman. It was a bittersweet moment since I knew that as I stood there contemplating the costume, Michelle Pfeiffer's reign over the kingdom of "best performance in a superhero movie. ever" was coming to the end of its 16 year reign. The "now now now" of pop culture demanded that the crown be passed. I have no wish to rain on the Ledger worshipping parade --I too loved his performance-- and quibbling with The Dark Knight this week seems about as smart as strapping an explosive to yourself and handing a convention of fanboys the detonator. Will they think you deserve to live if you only liked the movie? They don't believe in anarchy like The Joker. They don't believe in good citizenry like Harvey Dent. They don't believe in whatever it is Batman believes in. They demand conformity! I am trying valiantly to not let this mass craziness spoil my pleasure in parts of the movie and in the wondrous Heath Ledger. It's too bad that bandwagons get so crowded.

@ the Movies
I saw the thriller Transsiberian (which I've reviewed for Pajiba) and The Dark Knight. I'll try to write that one up here. Perhaps in a few days. Once the villagers have put down their torches or lowered their guard a little. Everybody gets hungry eventually and returns home. Mobs dissipate.

@ the Yazoo reunion tour
Gah. This night was so cool. I've listened to Upstairs at Erics (be suspicious of all 'best album' lists that don't include it) and You and Me Both more times than I can count. They're embedded in my DNA. I was able to listen to both live for the first time ever (they performed every song but two I believe), with Alison Moyet doing her supersized vocals and Vince Clark doing his trademark shy genius keyboardist/computer guy thing "How did I get to be a famous gazillionaire rock star responsible for Depeche Mode, Yaz and Erasure? I hate being on stage. Don't look at me! Why are you here?!?"

Only You Them: Vince Clark & Alison Moyet

That was my week that was. Was yours eventful?
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They Got The Beat

StinkyLulu honors the great Maureen Stapleton (RIP)

I Don't Like You in That Way shares news on a possible rock biopic on "the GO-GOs"? Say it isn't so. At least not with this casting. Otherwise I'm there. Luv me some Belinda, Jane, Charlotte, Gina, and Kathy (and in that order)

The Film Bitch would like to remind you that A History of Violence, winner of 11 medals in our 2005 Awards race is now available on DVD. For those slow moving readers who still haven't seen it, save face now. Watch Viggo turn. See Bello burn.

Sci Fi Wire prints news that's not really news (more like an aside) from Whedon on his upcoming Wonder Woman film. Screw the invisible jet, Joss, I just wanna know if she spins. That's all I wanna know.

Queerty delivers the sad(der than I expected it to be) news that Madonna will no longer be acting in films.