Soundtrack:Film Ratio

[Edgy MD]

The Dick Dale-Stevie Ray Vaughn video posted in the NBF made me think of Back to The Beach and how, while the soundtrack is a little bit uneven, it's mission of using contemporary-retro artists to revisit the surf era of the early sixties, it ends up being a delightfully perverse collection, and as much of a time capsule of 1987 as it was of 1962.



The film, on the other hand, is a boring attempt to cash in on a joke the filmmakers themselves don't seem to get. The main appeal outside of the soundtrack is to see young Lori Loughlin make her bikini-clad debut and think, "Wow, there goes a big-time future felon. I wonder if she was already a criminal when she made this film."

2. "Catch a Ride" (Eddie Money)


4. "Pipeline" (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Dick Dale)


6. "Sign of Love" ('Til Tuesday)


8. "Absolute Perfection" (Private Domain)


10. "Surfin' Bird" (Pee-Wee Herman)


12. "Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun" (Marti Jones)


14. "Jamaica Ska" (Annette Funicello & Fishbone)


16. "Wipe Out" (Herbie Hancock, featuring Dweezil Zappa and Terry Bozzio)


18. "California Sun" (Frankie Avalon)


20. "Wooly Bully" (Dave Edmunds)

Yeah, the Avalon Track is neither here nor there, and Annette probably subtracts more from Fishbone than she brings, and the production on the Marti Jones track totally isn't her sound, but still, there's some keepers there in an absolute shit show of a film.



I also want to nominate Empire Records for being the best cinematic collection of 90s power pop this side of So I Married an Axe-Murderer, while (unlike SIMaAM) being an irredeemable abomination of a film.



There's probably a scientific way of measuring this, compare the soundtrack's collective rating with the film's collective rating at two authoritative sites. But this doesn't really work with Back to the Beach as the film inexplicably gets a 5.8 rating at IMDB and a 71% Critics' Score and 63% Audience Score at Rotten Tomatoes, while I remember the film as raw sewage, even by the lowly standards of TBS hangover fare that it ended up being. Folks must be watching with their ears.



What do you think of when you think of Bad Film with a Good Soundtrack? Our phone lines are open. Give us a call.



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[dgwphotography]

Flash Gordon. Awful movie, great Queen soundtrack.

[Edgy MD]

An excellent entry. Isn't really a collection of pop songs, but certainly a few are there among Queen's hard-rock underscoring.



A more difficult call to make is whether it is truly an awful movie. Rather than being a bore, it certainly works despite itself as a goofy farce (the world is saved by a New York Jet, for God's sake), although it's hard to say whether it would even be embraceable as camp without Queen to move things along.

[seawolf17]

No, it's a truly awful movie.



My two entries are Less Than Zero, which I thought was a terrible movie with a fantastic soundtrack (Aerosmith's cover of "Rockin' Pneumonia," which is one of my favorite Aero songs, along with "Going Back To Cali", "Bring the Noise," and the Bangles "Hazy Shade of Winter."), and Last Action Hero, which was even worse, but had Def Leppard, Tesla, AC/DC, Alice In Chains, Aerosmith, and a few others.

[Edgy MD]

Less than Zero is a rare movie whose title is also the rating I would give it.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: An excellent entry. Isn't really a collection of pop songs, but certainly a few are there among Queen's hard-rock underscoring. A more difficult call to make is whether it is truly an awful movie. Rather than being a bore, it certainly works despite itself as a goofy farce (the world is saved by a New York Jet, for God's sake), although it's hard to say whether it would even be embraceable as camp without Queen to move things along.

Yes. A goofy farce. Well played and a lot of fun.

Some memorable lines by the DiLaurentiis Jr.- directed film:

1) The Princess tugging at her pet monkey's leash saying, "Come on Fellini" and

2) "Oh no, not the borer worms" and

3) When asked if she and Flash want to stay on Mongo after they have saved Earth from destruction, Dale Arden replies that she's going back to Earth because,"Things are a little too quiet around here. I'm a New York kind of girl".



And yes, Max von Sydow playing Ming the Merciless? I once asked him about that role, and he said that playing it "was delightful".



Not just camp, but High Camp.



Moving on to answer the question about a sound track better than the movie, I nominate Top Gun.



Later

[Edgy MD]

What does a Beatles farce look like with only one Beatle.



https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTRhNDYwZTYtMzQ5Ni00YTNhLWFjOGUtZjFmMmUyNjQyMDM1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjE5MjUyOTM@._V1_UY1200_CR85,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg>



Most of the remade Beatles and Wings tracks are distinctly lesser versions but some are interesting alternatives. But originals like "Ballroom Dancing" and "Wanderlust" are great additions to the McCanon.



On the other hand, you can get them on the Tug of War album and pass on the rest of this as filler, but it's still filler that eclipses the film.

[LWFS]

Garden State. Soundtrack is the best of 2004-in-a-bottle (The "life-changing" Shins, Frou Frou, Remy Zero, stirring entries from Iron and Wine and Men at Work's Colin Hay), along with lovely selections from Nick Drake and Simon and Garfunkel. The movie was kinda twee and annoying, full of characters that are mere collections of "interesting" quirks... and it's aged even poorer than it played back then.



The music, though... it's an exquisite, lonely little road trip.



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[Willets Point]

These songs will change your life, I swear!

[Guest 41Forever]

Edgy MD wrote: What does a Beatles farce look like with only one Beatle. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTRhNDYwZTYtMzQ5Ni00YTNhLWFjOGUtZjFmMmUyNjQyMDM1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjE5MjUyOTM@._V1_UY1200_CR85,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg> Most of the remade Beatles and Wings tracks are distinctly lesser versions but some are interesting alternatives. But originals like "Ballroom Dancing" and "Wanderlust" are great additions to the McCanon. On the other hand, you can get them on the Tug of War album and pass on the rest of this as filler, but it's still filler that eclipses the film.

Good call!! There's a lot of really good songs on that CD. Heck, the title cut alone with the David Gilmour solo is worth the price of admission. And I'd lift this version of "Long and Winding Road" above the Spectorized version on Let it Be.

[Vic Sage]

Garden State. Soundtrack is the best of 2004-in-a-bottle (The "life-changing" Shins, Frou Frou, Remy Zero, stirring entries from Iron and Wine and Men at Work's Colin Hay), along with lovely selections from Nick Drake and Simon and Garfunkel. The movie was kinda twee and annoying, full of characters that are mere collections of "interesting" quirks... and it's aged even poorer than it played back then. The music, though... it's an exquisite, lonely little road trip. [YOUTUBE]EKGHkBComjM[/YOUTUBE]

This was the first soundtrack that i thought of for this thread.

There's another Zach Braff vanity project with a great soundtrack: https://www.amazon.com/Wish-Here-Music-Motion-Picture/dp/B00L47E4JGhttps://www.amazon.com/Wish-Here-Music-Motion-Picture/dp/B00L47E4JG

[Edgy MD]

I liked the film. It was face-palmingly twee at the start, and it almost failed the eight-minute test with me, but it got better.