How To Make A Soundtrack To Your Life

Renee had to make a "Soundtrack To My Life" list for one of her communication classes, and it go me thinking. I've made more than a few "Soundtrack To My Life" compilations for various reasons - girls, essays, CDs to give away as presents, etc. Having heard and winced over other people's soundtracks throughout my life, I thought it might be wise to stop for a moment and explain the ground rules, just so everyone's clear.

11 Rules for making a "Soundtrack To Your Life"

1. Unless the number of songs exceeds 10, you cannot repeat an artist, no matter how influential. Period. If one artist is truly dominant in your soundtrack, you are allowed to pick an entire album as one entry, but you can only pull the stunt once, and it has to be your most important entry.

2. You are not allowed to pick a song from any movie that does not mimic your life fairly exactly. Therefore, songs from High Fidelity, Garden State, Love Actually, and The Graduate are all acceptable - and maybe Almost Famous or Big Fish if we really want to stretch things. It is not, however, acceptable to pick the theme song from any epic movie. This includes: Braveheart, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Princess Bride, The Godfather, and above all, Rocky.

3. Choosing classical music is acceptable, but only in moderation. You are allowed one classical piece out of every five regular songs. This piece should be filled with grace, longing, and beauty. It should not be something that has been played behind a commercial, or generally used at a wedding. It is not allowed to be "The 1812 Overture" or "The Hallejah Chorus" except for very, very good reason. On the flip side, it should also be from a composer that at least one person in the room has heard of. Everyone is given one Mulligan on this rule, in case "Fur Elise" or "Heart and Soul" is a must for your list because you always played it with your mother on cold winter evenings.

4. The list should, in all ways, be balanced. People who chose all classical, all emo, all 80's metal, or all folk are justly perceived as thinking simplistically. For someone in their early twenties, a list should incorporate at least one song from your childhood, one from your middle school depressive years, one song that reminds you of good times in high school, one song that changed you during a tough, introspective stage in your life, and one song you'd like played at either your wedding/funeral, depending on whether you want something sweeter or sadder at this point.

5. Not all of these songs can currently be on your iPod. If you have all of these songs playing currently, it's become the "Soundtrack to your Right Now." Stretch back further.

6. Some people will pick all songs that no one in the room has heard of. Some people will pick all songs that are played on the radio, or would be known by everyone in room. Both styles are wrong. Allow for your own uniqueness without rejoicing in your musical superiority.

7. "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" is not allowed in your soundtrack, for any reason.

8. If at any point in your list you pick a song because it sounds more impressive, less embarassing, or you know someone else who might read the list likes it, start over. You're doing it wrong.

9. Christmas songs are not to be snickered at. Christmas is an important time in families and relationships, and is usually some of the coziest memories you have come from this time. If you weep when you hear Judy Garland sing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," then put it on that list and don't let anyone take it off.

10. This is not a time to show what your current musical taste is. If you only listen to rap these days, that's fine, but don't pick all rap songs if you grew up loving country. It doesn't matter if it's embarrassing now. We're not passing judgment on who we were.

11. Finally, don't defend the songs on your list, only give your reasons for picking them. It doesn't matter that you've got a soppy Backstreet Boys song on that list - if that was the song being played when your dad drove you home from that seventh grade party where you got dumped hard for the first time, then say that. It doesn't have to be a good song. It just doesn't.

Leaving

Well, the big news is, of course, that I'm moving to Houston. I was offered the job on Wednesday, accepted it on Thursday (was it really that recently?), and I'll be leaving for unfamiliar parts a week from Saturday.

I expected a bigger fanfare from all of this, but instead life has continued at it's normal pace. I called a few friends and let them know the news. I put in two weeks notice at work. I started working out credit card details and cell phone plans. And then life has continued as normal. I go to work every day and take pictures of toddlers. I mow the lawn. I bring back library books and take a few more out. I walk our skittish dog every few hours (a stomach bug has given him the habit of leaving particularly... unsavory deposits in the house, on some of our best carpeting, so it's good to keep him outside as much as possible). And since an equally nasty stomach bug has also given me the habit of depositing equally... well, enough about that. Suffice to say, I've been drinking fluids and trying to sleep it all off. And so my last days around the house are passing in somewhat of a blur.

I guess it'll all be sudden anyway. I'll go into work one day, close down the store, take off my nametag, and never come back. The next morning I'll load up a truck or RV with what hand-me-down furniture my parents have seen fit to pass on to me, hop in the cab, and I'll be gone. I don't know how that'll feel. It'll be the first time that I'll be leaving this house and no longer considering it "home." It's the first time that whatever trip I'm on won't finish up back in this big brown house. Hopefully.

But strangely, it's not rushing towards me at a frantic, unstoppable pace. Nor am I counting down the days until I finally get out of here and out on my own. Instead - it's just coming.

And then it'll be here.

And then I'll be gone.

A new drifter just blew into town.

I added Caitlin's blog, Huruma, to the sidebar, I've been poking through it the past week or so and found of the sort of quality to merit a sidebar link. Her tagline goes like this:

22. Vociferous. Opinionated. Political. Female. Bubbly. Obsessive. Dreamy. The realistic optimist. Traveled. Hopeful.

It sounds sort of like an extremely specific personal ad to me ("okay, let's type in the word 'vociferous' and see who comes up. Okay, 'vociferous' and 'obsessive.' Ah, bingo!"), but if you've endlessly scoured True and eHarmony in such a fashion and found nothing quite like this, well, then you are welcome.

I'm actually not sure of her relationship status one way or another, so I may have given her unwont publicity. But fortunately, the readership numbers are low enough we can be sure I didn't send unwelcome hordes of greasy men in her direction. Well, I don't actually have a site counter, so I guess we can only be pretty sure.

Review: Whale Rider (2002)

A Three-Dollar Review.

I finally snagged a copy of Whale Rider from our local library, which, like most libraries, has chosen to confront a DVD culture by purchasing a bunch of semi-artistic/literary films and hoping people will be won back from Movie Gallery. It doesn't seem to work on anyone but me. I'm in the process of checking out every single film in the library, even the overly ponderous or barely literary ones (I watched Equilibrium the other day - clearly, some librarian somewhere okayed the purchase with a "well, it's sort of like 1984, except with Taye Diggs instead of Richard Burton. Plus, it's a knock-off of The Matrix, so that should bring in the kids."). And that's how I found Whale Rider.

I thought there was a reasonable chance that I might like it - a friend of mine mentioned that he'd seen it and thought it a "f***ing awesome movie" when we saw Keisha Castle-Hughes promoting it on Conan one night. And that was the last I ever heard of it, or Castle-Hughes - she's since only appeared in one movie, Revenge Of The Sith, and that was a covered-in-white-make-up-and-headress, non-speaking role. And I guess that she's the closest thing this film has to a star. So, no, this isn't a star-studded film by any means.

It's also not an expensive one. Whenever the film cuts out to the whales during the first 90% of the film, it's always the same whale in the same place, with just different shots of it. I have a suspicion that all of these whale shots were quietly shot in a holding tank of a Sea World in Texas on the manager's day off.. It's the sort of thing that the Mystery Science guys could lampoon without too much difficulty, except that
a) that show doesn't run anymore, and
b) Whale Rider is, in all other ways, an absolutely excellent movie.

Really. I'm usually not a family-flick guy, I'm certainly not a girl-power guy, and I'm rarely a little-kid-triumphs-despite-doubting-parent-figures guy. But this one's just so carefully woven, so cleanly assembled, so good, that I have to recommend it. And here are my main two reasons why:

1. Keisha Castle-Hughes is the real deal. I mean it. You'll see her around Christmas in The Nativity Story playing, no kidding, the Virgin Mary. They don't just pass the role out to any passing floozy dame (picture with me, just for a second, Jessica Alba playing Mary. Okay, now picture Jessica Simpson. Hang in there. Okay, now Paris Hilton. See? We got throught that. Easy now, you flinched pretty hard there. Tilt your head back a little, I think your nose is bleeding. Ooh, that looks nasty. Breathe slowly. The queasiness should pass in a second or two.)

Back to Whale Rider. Castle-Hughes was only 11 or 12 when she shot the film, and she's got that sweet, unpretentious innocence that good child actors always have. But she's also got that riveting, can't-look-away-from-me type of momentum that ties you to your seat throughout a whole movie, and then leaves you with a "geez, who was that kid?" moment when the flick finishes. Haley Joel Osment had it in The Sixth Sense. Natalie Portman had it in The Professional. Jodie Foster had it in Taxi Driver. We still remember these people. Mark this name down: Keisha Castle-Hughes. You're gonna want to know it later.

2. Writer-director Niki Caro is clearly a details guy*, which is what makes this film, and all good films, go. He's made a film about an ancient tribe of people struggling in a modern world. But no one ever mentions that they're an ancient tribe of people struggling in a modern world. This is a new concept in modern filmmaking.

Instead, everything is conveyed in details. The way the fathers never seem to stick around for any of their sons' training. The slightly untrusting looks in the eyes of all the boys. Everyone's slightly too-dated clothes. The way Castle-Hughes' unwavering faith stands out so sharply amidst a sea of people who seem to be barely avoiding rolling their eyes at every major event the movie throws at us.

Caro never says anything too strongly. He just focuses in on Castle-Hughes, and lets all the other details swirl around her as she struggles to quietly grow up while being forcefully pushed down.

Look, Whale Rider is nothing new. It's nothing you haven't seen, really. It's a little on the cheap side - until the big finale, during which the crew either made some extremely life-like baby whale mock-ups, or killed a whole pack of baby whales. This is one of those productions that you can't really tell. I've digressed. Let me start over.

Look, Whale Rider is nothing new. It's nothing you haven't seen, really. But it's sweet and unpretentious and you feel better after having watched it. It's everything these sorts of films should be and never are.

Total Value: $2.45

* After I finished this, someone pointed out on the Xanga version that Niki Caro is actually a woman. Whoops. Probably shoulda seen that. Mentally change all the "he's" to "she's" as you read. And keep in mind, this slip in no way determines my opinion of women as directors. There are some excellent female directors out there right now. Some of them are among my favorites, in fact:

Lessee here, Sophia Coppolla (Lost In Translation, Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette). Nora Ephron (Sleepless In Seattle, You've Got Mail). Penny Marshall (A League Of Their Own, Big). Uh... Jane Campion (The Piano). Mary Harron (American Psycho). Lemme think. Okay, Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice), and that grad student who made Girlfight and then Aeon Flux... Karyn Kusama. Monsoon Wedding, too, uh - Mira Nair. Valerie Faris, who just co-directed Little Miss Sunshine. Hang on, let me get at least one more, I can get to ten... Nancy Myers, who made Something's Gotta Give. There, so, really, there's lots of great female directors, even though I know that women can have a lot of trouble getting films made in Hollywood. Nobody send nasty comments.

By the by, while women directors have some troubles, there's a fairly high percentage of women producers in Hollywood these days, and the number rises each year. 4 out of the 5 films nominated for Best Picture in 2006 were at least partially helmed by women. Six of the major studios in Hollywood are headed by women. When I worked at Scott Free, all of our producers were women, and Scott Free's not a small company - that fall we were premiering Cameron Diaz's In Her Shoes, Keira Knightley's Domino, and James Franco's Tristan & Isolde. Plus we were working on Ridley and Tony's new films - A Good Year, starring Russell Crowe, and Deja Vu, starring Denzel Washington, both of which'll be out this year. So even if there aren't that many opportunities, at least things are looking at a little bit brighter.