Roger Ebert is getting wistful. He wrote a whole
essay about leaf-blowers, and adds...
...grandparents can remember when leaves
were burned in the street. Their aroma on a crisp autumn night made
you feel happy and sad and lonely and in a hurry to get home to
dinner.
You can see that same melancholy thoughtfulness
when he reviews the new version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Do yourself a favor. There are a lot of good movies playing right now
that can make you feel a little happier, smarter, sexier, funnier, more
excited -- or more scared, if that's what you want. This is not one of
them. Don't let it kill 98 minutes of your life.
That all-girl Japanese punk band in Kill Bill was the 5, 6, 7, 8's. They play raw rock-a-billy songs like "Bomb the Twist" and "Cat Fight Run" -- and they've been recording for the last 16 years!
Hear them now! Click the vinyl-LP icons on their discography page!
Their chaotic sound gave Quentin Tarantino the perfect band playing in the nightclub while the vengeful killer approaches crime lords in the back. The band sings "I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield" and "Woo-Hoo." Here are its lyrics...
On the official Kill Billsite, it says "Destiny had a hand in the casting of the band." [!] Apparently Tarantino heard one of their CDs playing in a clothing store. Since he didn't have time to go to a record store, he bought the CD from the store's clerk!
"If the clerk hadn't sold me the CD, they wouldn't be in the movie!"
The ascending guitar riff from "Day Tripper" turns up under a Michael Jackson vocal. ("The way you make me feel / You knock me off my feet....") The larger song starts with Isaac Hayes' ominous theme from Shaft -- under the eerie Beatles lyrics from "Baby You're a Rich Man." ("You keep all your money in a big brown bag inside a zoo...")
I can't help feeling it's all a commentary on Michael Jackson's bizarre rich lifestyle -- and his ownership of the publishing rights to Beatles songs...
You've never heard "A Day in the Life" like this before. (I think the piano part is from
"Karma Police.") The Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" also plays over the sad descending piano part from the Beatles song "For No One." Its French horns wail under the plaintive "I wanna go home," while the detached Captain's voice shouts, again, that everyone has all they need.
It's the title of a new song that's a "mashup." Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" mixed seamlessly with the Bangles "Walk like an Egyptian" -- and Sly & the Family Stone's "Family Affair. And the Neptune's N.E.R.D. song
"Run to the Sun."
It captures "the ambiance of an empty skate club," one reviewer wrote.