With kickass music flick Whiplash about to hit screens and picking up plenty of critical praise (including a five-star review here on Flicks), we got thinking about other films’ depictions of fictitious musos. No biopics here folks, just a bunch of movies doing their best to create a musical world for your viewing/listening pleasure.
10. The Stains
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982)
Three teenage girls – Diane Lane, Laura Dern and Marin Kanter – form a band in this 1982 film by Lou Adler, director of Cheech & Chong’s Up In Smoke and producer of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, (but best known as a Grammy Award-winning record producer). The gals’ band can’t play, but embrace the punk ethos, and do a great job of courting press notoriety and causing trouble with other bands, including The Looters, played by Sex Pistols Paul Cook and Steve Jones, Paul Simonon of the Clash and fronted by Ray Winstone. Is the music great? Maybe not, but they secure a place on this list with their look, realistically low skill level and stage banter like “I’m perfect, but no-one in this shithole gets me, ‘cos I don’t put out”.
The Stains – Waste of Time:
BONUS TRACK – a cover of Waste My Time by YACHT:
9. Josie and the Pussycats
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
The film may have flopped (even if it is a bit of a secret shame of mine, largely thanks to Parker Posey’s unhinged record company villain Wyatt Frame), but the soundtrack sold over half a million copies, thanks to its pop-punk confection. Rachel Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson and Tara Reid play the band on screen, though Kay Hanley from Letters to Cleo provides vocals rather than Cook – something that tells you all you really need to know about the musical abilities of the performers and the overall sound to expect. Signed to MegaRecords (lol) by Frame, the Pussycats find themselves the latest band to be pushing subliminal messages on the teens of America, replacing boy band Du Jour, the members of whom were victims of a plane crash when they discovered her plot. Plot? Not a word you should really associate with this film.
Josie and the Pussycats – 3 Small Words:
BONUS TRACK: Du Jour – Backdoor Lover:
8. CB4
CB4 (1993)
Tamra Davis, director of Billy Madison, Half-Baked and most recently the Kathleen Hanna doco The Punk Singer, helmed this Chris Rock-starring comedy parodying gangsta rap. The group of the title claim to take their name from the prison block in which they met, but in actuality are feeding the public the sort of controversy they’re really yearning for, based on the criminal background of a local crime kingpin played by Charlie Murphy. MC Gusto (Rock) rides this identity theft up the charts, thanks to delightful ditties like Sweat From My Balls and Straight Outta Locash – getting the attention of a documentary maker (Chris Elliot) on the one hand, and a morally crusading politician (Phil Hartman) on the other.
CB4 – Sweat From My Balls:
7. The Weird Sisters
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
As supergroups go, The Weird Sisters were pretty up there, though this was likely lost on most kids wanting their music to stop and Harry Potter to get back to his bloody wizarding already. Unnamed in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire due to a tedious legal dispute with Canadian folksters Wyrd Sisters, they nevertheless rocked a Hogwarts school ball, perhaps sparking a bit of parental recognition in the process. Jarvis Cocker fronts the band and wrote their songs while Radiohead’s pouty Jonny Greenwood and not-so-pouty Phil Selway made up the band alongside members of All Seeing I, Add N to (X) and Cocker’s Pulp cohort Steve Mackey.
The Weird Sisters – Do the Hippogriff:
6. Adam
Fetishising retro recording gear, effects pedals, rare guitars and vinyl, the musical thread that runs through Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive provides almost as much lifeblood to the film as the, er, blood that satiates the vampires inhabiting it. By the time we meet Tom Hiddleston’s Adam, he’s given up influencing humanity’s musical greats and is holed up in an old Detroit home where he concentrates on drony compositions, though fears the consequences of discovery. With music provided for the most part by Jarmusch’s own band SQÜRL, the soundtrack’s a cracker, and the director’s enthusiasm for the musical creative process permeates his depiction of Adam’s existence – down to the obsessive collectors seeking out Adam’s music thanks to his untrustworthy assistant.
Adam’s music:
Adam’s guitars:
5. The Commitments
The Commitments (1991)
Alan Parker’s smash adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s novel sold a ton of soundtracks (peaking at #1 in NZ and #2 in Australia) thanks to the working class Dublin soul band who were the subject of the film. Led by the big-lunged Deco (Andrew Strong), the band are whipped into shape by manager Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins), who harbours aspirations to send them hurtling along in the footsteps of Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin. A huge soul fan, Rabbitte also reckons there aren’t any good bands in Ireland – which must have made this film super-popular among Irish musos at the time…
The Commitments – Mustang Sally:
4. Otis “Bad” Blake
While most of these other films depict bands on their way up, or in early flourishes of creativity, Crazy Heart has a different reality to bring to the screen – that of a washed-up country singer-songwriter, played by Jeff Bridges in an Oscar-winning performance. A former star, Otis Blake barely makes ends meet playing tiny bars in small towns, fueled by booze and unhappiness. Rekindling a relationship with a huge star (Colin Farrell) whom he once mentored, Blake attempts to get his career back on track – a luxury that country music affords its fifty-something stars, unlike other genres. Bridges performs a good chunk of Crazy Heart‘s soundtrack, with Farrell appearing on some tracks and songs written by the likes of Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett.
Jeff Bridges (out of character) – The Weary Kind:
3. Sex Bob-Omb
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World didn’t set the box office alight, a bummer given how much effort he invested into the film. Working alongside producer Nigel Godrich, Wright’s take on the musical elements was crucial to making the film tick, both in casting the onscreen bands and teaming them with songwriters. Scott Pilgrim’s band Sex Bob-Omb blast their way through a battle of the bands competition, with more literal battle elements than that phrase typically implies. Luckily the songs stack up as they need to, written for the film by Beck, who recorded them alongside the cast (Michael Cera, Alison Pill, Mark Webber, Johnny Simmons). Capturing the spirit and skill level of a garage band, it’s no surprise that Sex Bob-Omb’s songs spurred a bunch of interest in the soundtrack.
Sex Bob-omb – Threshold:
2. Dogs in Space
Dogs in Space (1986)
Based on his experiences living in a notorious Melbourne flat in the late 70s, director Richard Lowenstein made one of the best movies about bands and the lifestyle around them. Capturing the chaos and creativity of post-punk, Dogs in Space also boasts a perfectly-cast Michael Hutchence (of INXS fame) who predictably nails the performances and charisma required by his role as Dogs in Space frontman Sam. Hutchence is note-perfect, modelling himself on the mannerisms of Lowenstein’s former flatmate Sam Sejavka and wrote many of the songs in the film, sharing soundtrack space with Iggy Pop, Boys Next Door, and expat Kiwis Marching Girls, better known in NZ as punk icons The Scavengers.
Here Dogs in Space annoy flatmates with the song Dogs in Space. From the film Dogs in Space:
1. The Blues Brothers
Longtime blues fan Dan Aykroyd and more recent convert John Belushi debuted their iconic duo on Saturday Night Live in 1976. Soon it became a legitimate band, with the pair backed by an all-star ensemble of players, and recording an album of covers that went to number one in the U.S. Billboard charts. Famously “getting the band back together” in this 1980 John Landis-directed feature film, Jake and Elwood Blues hustle their way around Illinois in their Bluesmobile, trying to reunite a lineup of classic blues musos in order to save the orphanage they grew up in. Best to forget the sequel (not to mention Steinlager Blue’s ad campaign of the 80s), and focus on this pic’s anti-authority awesomeness and kickass musical numbers – like the all-time classic performance of the decidedly non-blues number Rawhide.
The Blues Brothers – Rawhide:
BONUS #11 – Spinal Tap
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
You thought we’d forgotten. We hadn’t.
Spinal Tap – Hell Hole:
Spinal Tap – Stonehenge:
Spinal Tap and every bass player in the world – Big Bottom:
