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!

How THE FUTURIST! Makes a Dinner Date

Ah, Peter Sellers ...
such an insane psychotic man,
but how very funny you were!

See You Next Wednesday!

NETWORK (1976)
dir: Sidney Lumet

Cellphone Movies

THE FUTURIST! recently participated in a Twitter exchange
of creating film title puns or such with names of cellphones
or cellphone reference points. The esteemed Vadim Rizov, writer,
musicologist, film critic, and cynic made a good suggestion.
He wrote that THE FUTURIST! should save these to his
blog in a post. Below are THE FUTURIST!'s creations.

LOST VERIZON

RUN MOTOROLA RUN

TEXT ME THAT YOU LOVE ME JUNIE MOON

DR. NO-KIA

THE AT&T TEAM

LG TOPO

WHO'S MINDING THE SPRINT?

I NEVER SAMSUNG FOR MY FATHER

WHITE HUNTER, BLACKBERRY HEART
directed by Sprint Eastwood

WIRELESS IN SEATTLE

THE TAKING OF PELHAM NEC

YOU'VE GOT VOICE MAIL

A CINGULAR MAN

T-MOBILE AND SYMPATHY

SANYOJIMBO

Thank you, Dear Readers, for bearing through all that!
That's called killing time.

Saturday Music with Hope

THE FUTURIST! has been watching Bob Hope movies each weekend since around the end of May. Every Friday, Saturday or Sunday night he tries to make sure he watches one Hope film. He has been watching them in chronological order. He calls it his Weekends with Hope. Of course, he can only watch those available by DVD ... so far he has been successful in keeping this regiment uninterrupted. THE FUTURIST! was never a big Bob Hope fan, but he recently watched an old TONIGHT SHOW rerun with Woody Allen as a guest host and listened to him (as he does in lots of interviews) cite Hope as an early influence on his own early film "character". On this very same rerun, Woody got the chance to have Bob Hope as a guest.

THE FUTURIST! has found these early Bob Hope films to be quite enjoyable. In the very beginning, Hope had not yet formed his definitive movie character ... the Hope we know ... the cowardly, yet full of false bravado, quipster who fancied himself a ladies' man. A conniver with a good heart. You see this character form in THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1939) and even more so in another film he did with Paulette Goddard in 1940 ... THE GHOST BREAKERS. Often, Hope seemed to be ad libbing movie reference metaphors about the action in the story line ... but they were scripted. It was his effortless style that made his lines seem off the cuff. The very early films portray Hope as a greedy opportunist out for himself ... not evil, but an untrustworthy wise ass and usually playing an emcee of sorts.

The song below is from his first film entitled THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938. The movie actually starred W.C. Fields and a bunch of vaudeville spawned guest stars. It is a crazy quilt of a story involving a race between two giant ocean liners. Hope sings this song with co-star Shirley Ross who plays one of ex-wives. This moment is one of the best scenes in the somewhat pleasantly forgettable film. The tune is catchy and later became Hope's signature song. But, THE FUTURIST! just loves the acting in the scene that transpires as they sing. It is performed like a dramatic moment of insight into the past of these characters. Listen to each line ... the phrasing ... the hand gestures and asides. THE FUTURIST! feels this very scene with song shows the great actor that Hope was in film. And Shirley Ross is just as good.

Listen and watch:


THANKS FOR THE MEMORY
music: Ralph Rainger lyrics: Leo Robin
performed by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross
from the film THE BIG BROADCAST of 1938 (1938)

Some Don't Like It Hot

Henry, THE FUTURIST!'s 2010 Summer intern, just can't take the heat anymore in Utter Despair. It has been over 90 degrees for weeks ... sweltering and, at most times, quite humid. Yesterday Henry could just take it anymore and seemingly passed out at his desk. THE FUTURIST! felt sorry for him and bought him a bottle of Glacier Vodka. However, he later wondered if the heat exhaustion was feigned. Earlier, THE FUTURIST! had asked Henry to pick up a sport coat from the dry cleaner on his lunch break. Oh, well ... Henry certainly perked up when he saw that bottle of liquor. Even if he was pulling a fast one, it was good to see him smile. He's a nice boy and can really hold his booze well.

The Future of 1985