Saturday Music for Filmbrain

Today's Saturday Music post is a personal one. Well, these posts are all personal. It is THE FUTURIST!'s own personal neurotic blog. However, this post goes out, meta-personally, to Mr. Andrew Grant, film critic, film blogger, the founder and president of the DVD distribution label BENTEN FILMS, and famed Brooklyn misanthrope. As a blogger and internet acquaintance, he is known as Filmbrain. THE FUTURIST! found a kindred spirit in Andrew Grant in many ways. His love of films and the music of Burt Bacharach. He loves his cocktails. He loves the movie NETWORK. He loves Serge Gainsbourg. He has a knack of channeling his rage through fantastic clips of George C. Scott barking like a rabid dog. He dislikes poseurs and sycophants. He has been very friendly to THE FUTURIST! and likes to gossip in a very humorous manner. But, most of all, he parachutes from the dull airline of everyday existence into the great void of despair. It seems, due to not hearing from him at times, that his chute carries him for long distances ... as he wafts along alone, melancholy and listening to the whoooosh of despondent air envelop him ... until his feet, once again, reach the grounds of The Sedate State of Getting By. THE FUTURIST! can understand ... he lives in Utter Despair, N.J., for Pete's Sake!

Mr. Andrew Grant

aka Filmbrain

seen here in an image that

THE FUTURIST!, himself, sees in a similar manner

each morning in his medicine cabinet mirror.

In a few days, Andrew will be leaving Brooklyn and the United States for a new home in Berlin, Germany. THE FUTURIST! wanted to salute the kindred spirit in Andrew by posting a selection from the 1973 film musical version of James Hilton's LOST HORIZON with music by Burt Bacharach. Awhile back, it came to THE FUTURIST!'s attention that Filmbrain (Andrew) has a warm spot in his heart for this failed enterprise ... he even posted a nostalgic look back to his first time seeing the film as a small boy. Read about it here on his blog. THE FUTURIST! owns an LP of this very score himself. If you love Bacaharach and you are a completest, you should own the recording. Anywho, Andrew will be going to a new place, perhaps one that will be his Shangri-La of sorts ... let's hope so. However THE FUTURIST! knows one thing, if he knows anything at all ... melancholy follows you ... everywhere. He will find it packed securely in his luggage. IT has a devious way of being undetected by airport security.

This is the opening number from the film. The trumpets are quite ... impressive.

Please fasten your seat belts.


LOST HORIZON - INTRO
composed by Burt Bacharach lyrics by Hal David
from the film LOST HORIZON (1973)


Filmbrain loves Serge Gainsbourg. As an added treat, THE FUTURIST! is including this number he found on YouTube. Mr. Gainsbourg, not singing, but playing the piano with cocktail glasses around him, a cigarette smoldering nearby and ... it appears ... that the Maltese Falcon is on the piano top. This is the stuff that dreams are made of.

Listen:


ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE
performed by Serge Gainsbourg


Finally, THE FUTURIST! wishes to include another Bacharach tune in honor of the departing Filmbrain. This inclusion is very metaphysical and full of an odd sense of how THE FUTURIST! feels about Filmbrain's spirit. He has mentioned that he loves the acting of Jack Lemmon, which THE FUTURIST! can understand. AS a child, THE FUTURIST! always wished he was Jack Lemmon. Well, maybe a combination of Mr. Lemmon and George Segal. Two "everyman" type actors whose cinema personalities and problems that a young person, who never had even encountered the very problems he was watching on the screen, seemed to identify with. Strange, yes. Even so, he felt a kinship. THE FUTURIST! loves the following music from the film THE APRIL FOOLS. He has never seen this movie from 1969 which stars Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve, but he has always wanted to ... it's a Lemmon performance he has missed all these years. The music is so beautifully wistful, melancholy and romantic. To THE FUTURIST! it is one of his favorite Bacharach tunes and the music he associates with his sense of Filmbrain.

THE FUTURIST! pictures Filmbrain as a "Jack Lemmon" character. An everyman beset by Life. He is leaving behind the routines and problems of his current existence for foreign shores ... much like the American Lemmon finds solace in the arms of the European Deneuve in the film's storyline. Of course, this is how THE FUTURIST! imagines the "character" of Filmbrain. He could be entirely wrong. But he wants to see him in this manner ... and hopes, in Berlin, Andrew can sport a smile that is akin to the one Lemmon is wearing as he nestles his head against the bosom of the beautiful Deneuve.

Listen and look at that album cover:


THE APRIL FOOLS
composed by Burt Bacharach
from the film THE APRIL FOOLS (1969)

Andrew aka Filmbrain, THE FUTURIST! salutes you today and hopes the best for you in your new environs in Germany. Knowing you as a fine writer and then actually communicating with you via Twitter and emails was a delightful surprise. THE FUTURIST! has learned much from you and has found you to be an intelligent, morose, extremely witty and funny soul. One day, THE FUTURIST! will buy you a cocktail, converse in person and, maybe, as despondent kindred spirits of Utter Despair ... cry together.

Bon Voyage and stay in touch!