Hotel Chevalier

I am anxiously waiting for the release of Wes Anderson's next flick The Darjeeling Limited. To wet our appetites, Anderson has released a short that acts as a prequel to the movie.

Hotel Chevalier is a 12-minute “prequel” to The Darjeeling Limited, starring Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman. It takes place in Paris two-weeks before The Darjeeling Limited. I believe it was originally part of the movie but trimmed out in the editing room to keep the movie an average length.

The film is available for free download from iTunes. You’ll have to have iTunes installed and a registered iTunes account in order to get the free download.

Click here to go automatically to the Hotel Chevalier download page. It should launch iTunes if you have it installed. Or you can just search for it in the iTunes store.

The Housing Market Bubble

Pop!

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses all went to the university
Where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and there's lawyers, and business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

Everybody knows the show. Everybody knows the song. It is interesting to see so many varied artists tackle the song since season 2 when contemporary artists replaced Malvina Reynold's original version from season 1.

It was a protest song from the 60's against the urban move out to a conformist suburbia. It is thought to be inspired visually by the houses of Daly City, California, as Reynolds lived in nearby Berkeley. (Many of the houses in Daly City were designed by Henry Doelger after World War II, resulting in the similar architecture of many houses there and in the surrounding areas. They feature flat roofs and predominantly right angles, giving them their famed box-like shape. -courtesty of good ol' Wikipedia)

The song fits perfectly with the show's plot.

MP3: Malvina Reynolds (YSI)
MP3: Regina Spektor (Season 2) (YSI)
MP3: The Shins (YSI)
MP3: The Decemberists (YSI)

Best That You Can Do...

Me and my girlfriend are out renting movies the other night and she had never seen the Dudley Moore 80's movie Arthur and wanted to see it. I love that movie so we rent it and check it out. As the movie is winding down, it ends with the Arthur Theme song called 'Best That You Can Do' by Christopher Cross. Such a great song! Makes you feel like your on an island vacation somewhere on the white sand beaches of the Bahamas. Away from your problems and just relaxing away with an ice cold Bahama Mama or Corona.

Anyways that song inspired me to do a post on movie theme songs written specifically for movies that I dig. It's funny how some of the real good ones get intrinsically tied with the movie in your head. You hear the song and bang you think of the movie.

Anyways as I'm looking for other tracks to put for the post one of the finalists is 'Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head' which originally was written for the 1969 movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It's a song by Burt Bacharach and was his biggest world wide hit and even won the Oscar that year! You've probably also heard it recently in movies like Spider-Man in that scene were Peter Parker is all happy walking down the street.

Anyways as I go to Wikipedia to read up on Burt I see that he also wrote the music for the Arthur Theme song! What a coincidence.... So instead of putting up cheesy movie tracks that I like I decided to make this a Burt Bacharach post instead and pay tribute to some of his great songs.

Another track of Burts that helped him reach a newer/younger audience was his song 'What the World Needs Now is Love' off of the Austin Powers movie were he's playing the piano on the bus with Austin Powers introducing him while he's on his date. Love that! I hear he uses that Austin Powers intro to start off his shows.

Anyways check out these 3 great tracks by this talented fellow...

MP3: Arthur Theme (Best That You Can Do) - Christopher Cross/Burt Bacharach

MP3: Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head - B.J Thomas/Burt Bacharach

MP3: What the World Needs Now is Love - Burt Bacharach w/Elvis Costello

Ha just for fun here was one of the cheesy movie songs I was gonna put up! It's the Bee Gee's Grease Theme song that starts off and ends the movie Grease. Love this track and the movie! It takes me back to when I was a kid. They keep playing it on TV lately. Love the cartoon drawings that go along with the song intro too!

MP3: Grease Theme - Bee Gee's