Watchmen soundtrack

[schmevil]

I was complaining about the Watchmen soundtrack. Here's what it looks like:

1. Desolation Row - My Chemical Romance
2. Unforgettable - Nat King Cole
3. Times They Are A-Changin' - Bob Dylan
4. Sound of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel
5. Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
6. I'm Your Boogie Man - KC & the Sunshine Band
7. You're My Thrill - Billie Holiday
8. Pruit Igoe & Prophecies - Philip Glass Ensemble
9. Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen
10. All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
11. Ride of the Valkyries - Budapest Symphony Orchestra
12. Pirate Jenny [Live] - Nina Simone

I suppose this is a case of ymmv but to my ears, the soundtrack is like a blow from the balpeen hammer of pop cultural reference, and so hard a blow that stuns, thereby ceasing to have meaning. Breaking out the Simon and Garfunkel (particularly when he did) is like standing at the top of the stairs and yelling THIS IS IMPORTANT! Not only does Watchmen not require that kind of musical support, the musical choices call attention to themselves.

Anyway, I'm too tired to elaborate on this. Cut. Print. I'm about halfway through Kroker and Weinstein's Data Trash and I need to lead a seminar on it in 9 hours. So I'm obvs fried. Best line so far: "What could be more fun than death camps?" Oh Kroker.

Comments

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I'm, like, the only person on the internet who like that soundtrack (except for the Hallelujah track -- Leonard Cohen was a genius at songwriting, but his rendition of that song is awful. Everyone who's ever covered it sang it better).

I kind of thought the sledgehammer blows worked -- it created this slight ironic distance from the film, which works with Watchmen, I think, because Watchmen is supposed to be very self-aware of how Meta it is and also everything by Alan Moore is kind of intended to have the subtlely of a sledgehammer.

All Along Along the Watchtower was perfect for the scene they used it in, IMO. It was like they'd premade a fanvid for your convenience. (And I'll admit, using very well known and even iconic popular music is something milage can vary heavily on. On the one hand, there's the eternal brilliance of Supernatural's soundtrack, which may be the best soundtrack to anything ever, but on the other hand, there's the heavy use of Evanescence music in the Daredevil movie, which just... I was watching it on DVD thinking "Somewhere on the internet this scene has been vidded to Evanescence" and then "Tourniquette" started playing and I quietly died of LOLs).

[schmevil.livejournal.com]

I think Snyder was going for a moderated Tarantino referential cleverness. The trouble is that he's just not that clever. He also seems to have been caught between sincerity and irony.

I suppose part of my problem with his choices is the painful obviousness of them.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

*nods* I was actually very impressed that the film was reasonably good (I honestly expected it to suck -- I didn't think they could successfully translate the comic to the screen in a naratively coherent fashion at all, anymore than you could translate Sandman or Cable & Deadpool to the screen without losing a lot of the beauty/humor/charm), but all in all I think 300 was a better movie as movies go. It was definately a visually gorgeous movie, and the extreme violence worked a little better there. There were places in Watchmen where you could just *hear* someone on the production staff saying "Yay! Look, we're being shocking! I bet the audience flnches real hard at this bit!"

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, there's the eternal brilliance of Supernatural's soundtrack, which may be the best soundtrack to anything ever
Word!
WOOOOOORD!
\m/

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Half my reason for watching that show is the music. The other half is 25% Impalla and 25% Dean's gorgeous manpain.

[stubbleupdate.livejournal.com]

Daredevil's music made little sense. Why is the man with sonar putting on super-loud rock music as he gets dressed?

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

To block out outside noises, I assume, like a kind of hard-core white noise generator. Except that that logic kind of falls down when you consider that Matt uses his sonar/"radar-sense" to "see," and that getting dressed and so forth would be much easier for him without the music.

I did like the bit later on where he taps his cane against a railing and otherwise deliberately creates noise in order to esentially echo-locate. And all the bits where Matt & Foggy interact (the director's cut of the film is a much, much better movie than the theatrical release, and not just because of the higher Foggy content - several, though alas not all, of the plot holes in the theatrical release were apparently created by the editing process, and the director's cut puts the bits of edited out plot back in and fills them again. Alas, it still has Jennifer Gardner in it and still is really obviously not filmed in NYC).

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

What the hell is My Chemical Romance doing there o_O

[schmevil.livejournal.com]

Covering Dylan, no less. O.o

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

They play during the credits. I think they're in there because Gerald Way is a massive comicbook geek and probably got down on his knees to somebody or other and begged for the chance to be involved in this movie in some fashion.

[deralte.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I thought the musical choices added a much needed bit of humour to the whole thing. I groaned when Hallelujah came on but thought of it more as a bad pun (reinforced by choosing the Leonard Cohen version, which is awful compared to, you know, every cover of the song). And I was snickering when All Along the Watchtower started playing. Was the music distracting at times, and obvious? Yes. But it did serve its purpose of keeping me audiobly cued to what time period or mood the movie was going for. I think he should have chosen some less well known songs from those time periods, but I don't think it was a total disaster. *shrugs*

ps. Apparently, the director chose (http://1heckofaguy.com/2009/03/08/leonard-cohens-hallelujah-mood-music-for-watchmen-superheroic-sex-scene/) Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah because using a better version of the song made it too romantic, and he was going for cuing people in on it being a ridiculous scene.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

I felt the director was going for clever, not beautiful (ha! Hawksley Workman reference) but didn't quite get there.

[dlasta.livejournal.com]

Good songs (most of them), crappy, anvil-y execution except for Times They Are A-Changin'. I can live with that. It happens.
However, the score completely rips off Vangelis with the Comedian's theme.
And it's not even subtle!

It's goddamn Blade Runner! Show some respect!