Lost in Soundtrack Translation

Music has always played a huge part in movies, or the cinema, or “the pictures” as some people would call them. Whether it’s Quincy Jones laying down a track from They Call Me Mister Tibbs, Oliver Stone throwing in “Drums of A-Go-Go” on the Natural Born Killers Soundtrack, Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul getting together to do “Fallin'” off of Judgement Night, or James and my personal favorite over here at TFM: Johnny Pate’s “Shaft In Africa”, music can make or break a movie in my opinion. James touched upon this a bit with Smog and Dead Man’s Shoes. I wanted to go a little further, and speak on some movie soundtracks that I love. There are certain directors that you know have a firm grasp on music. John Waters does. Quentin Tarantino, as annoying as he is, knows how to pick music. Sergio Leone could make a quality Spaghetti Western and let Ennio Morricone score the thing lovely. More than once. Zack Braff put together an Grammy winning soundtrack to Garden State. Here’s a soundtrack, that I have grown fond of, and while not as mainstream as a the aforementioned soundtracks, ranks up there as a diverse piece of movie music.

Take Scarlett Johannsen and Bill Murray, drop them in the middle of Tokyo, and who knows what can happen. Sofia Coppola did, and produced a banger of a movie. It’s one of my favorites, and it’s black comedic dark theme of two lonely people in a country they don’t want to be in, trying to make the best of it has seen my DVD player many, many times. Set in Tokyo, Coppola picked a variety of music, from Death in Vegas to Phoenix to My Bloody Valentine to Air, to this track: The Jesus and Mary Chain: “Just Like Honey”. Brilliant song and a perfect selection for a brilliant movie. On a side note, the Pixies do this song justice as well, even though it’s not on this soundtrack. This particular song is really a great example of just plain, old, good music. The song itself is from 1985 people, 25 years old and still as fresh as it was when the Scots released it it then. Listen to this song about a hundred times with your eyes closed. Cheers.