Oscar-winning Room star Brie Larson has had a killer year as a dramatic performer, so it's time to revisit my March 5, 2015 discussion of an offbeat cult movie in which Larson got to revisit her little-known past as a teenage pop singer, as well as experience a taste of her future. In this 2010 movie, Larson briefly dabbled in the same kind of pulpy material she'll be tackling soon as the star of the forthcoming tentpole blockbusters Kong: Skull Island and Captain Marvel. This 2010 movie has also been on its director's mind lately. When it aired on Channel 4 in the U.K. last month, the director live-tweeted a bunch of crazy behind-the-scenes details about the movie.
The 2010 coming-of-age flick Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is an interesting anomaly in the work of Edgar Wright, the great British director behind the innovative sitcom Spaced and the irreverent Cornetto trilogy with Spaced stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End). It's his only adaptation of someone else's creation so far, it doesn't take place in England, neither Pegg nor Frost are in the cast and it was his first studio movie, so that meant he had to deal with the often absurd American test screening process.
I recently listened to Wright discuss gauging audience reactions in his Blu-ray audio commentary for Scott Pilgrim's deleted scenes, which include the film's original ending before it was reshot (should Scott have ended up with Knives Chau or Ramona Flowers?: I think the film should have ended either with Scott being single or Scott, Knives and Ramona becoming a threesome because a fight like the ones they had versus Gideon Graves is bound to make everyone horny). Something during that commentary didn't sit right with me. A brilliant and unique comedic filmmaker like Wright should not have to make decisions based on test screenings, even though he has said he considers it "a good thing to do because you see where the laughs are and where you can change things by half a second to get a bigger laugh."
Aside from comments from test screening audience members to DreamWorks Animation that Hiccup should be left disabled at the end of the first How to Train Your Dragon movie, have those test screenings ever been really useful? If Martin Scorsese tried to win back the 40 GoodFellas test screening audience members who walked out after the movie's first 10 minutes, GoodFellas wouldn't have been the GoodFellas we know and love. Unless I'm mistaken, neither of Wright's Cornetto flicks were tweaked due to test screening reactions (in fact, when Hot Fuzzdid go through the test screening process in America, Wright defied a suggestion to change Hot Fuzz's title). I hear those movies turned out okay.
While Wright has said he's proud of Scott Pilgrim's final cut, that first experience of trying to please studio execs during the making of that movie had to have colored his heartbreaking decision to quit directing his longtime pet project, this summer's adaptation of Marvel's Ant-Man, where Wright was replaced by Bring It On director Peyton Reed. While squabbling with Marvel Studios execs over the direction of Ant-Man, I'm sure Wright was thinking, "How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?"
Every Throwback Thursday, I randomly pull out from my desk cabinet--with my eyes closed--a movie ticket I saved. Then I discuss the movie on the ticket and maybe a little bit of its score, which might be now streaming on AFOS.
The 2010 coming-of-age flick Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is an interesting anomaly in the work of Edgar Wright, the great British director behind the innovative sitcom Spaced and the irreverent Cornetto trilogy with Spaced stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End). It's his only adaptation of someone else's creation so far, it doesn't take place in England, neither Pegg nor Frost are in the cast and it was his first studio movie, so that meant he had to deal with the often absurd American test screening process.
I recently listened to Wright discuss gauging audience reactions in his Blu-ray audio commentary for Scott Pilgrim's deleted scenes, which include the film's original ending before it was reshot (should Scott have ended up with Knives Chau or Ramona Flowers?: I think the film should have ended either with Scott being single or Scott, Knives and Ramona becoming a threesome because a fight like the ones they had versus Gideon Graves is bound to make everyone horny). Something during that commentary didn't sit right with me. A brilliant and unique comedic filmmaker like Wright should not have to make decisions based on test screenings, even though he has said he considers it "a good thing to do because you see where the laughs are and where you can change things by half a second to get a bigger laugh."
Aside from comments from test screening audience members to DreamWorks Animation that Hiccup should be left disabled at the end of the first How to Train Your Dragon movie, have those test screenings ever been really useful? If Martin Scorsese tried to win back the 40 GoodFellas test screening audience members who walked out after the movie's first 10 minutes, GoodFellas wouldn't have been the GoodFellas we know and love. Unless I'm mistaken, neither of Wright's Cornetto flicks were tweaked due to test screening reactions (in fact, when Hot Fuzzdid go through the test screening process in America, Wright defied a suggestion to change Hot Fuzz's title). I hear those movies turned out okay.
While Wright has said he's proud of Scott Pilgrim's final cut, that first experience of trying to please studio execs during the making of that movie had to have colored his heartbreaking decision to quit directing his longtime pet project, this summer's adaptation of Marvel's Ant-Man, where Wright was replaced by Bring It On director Peyton Reed. While squabbling with Marvel Studios execs over the direction of Ant-Man, I'm sure Wright was thinking, "How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?"
It's remarkable that a movie as inventive as Scott Pilgrim survived such a maddening process where the comments from test audiences and studio execs often win out over what the filmmakers want--and did so with all its inventiveness intact. Scott Pilgrim is such a perfect marriage of source material and filmmaker. Bryan Lee O'Malley's original Scott Pilgrim graphic novels feel like a Toronto indie rock scene version of Spaced. Scott and his roommate Wallace are basically Tim and Mike, except Wallace isn't obsessed with joining the military and is aware he's gay. While Spaced imagines that time when you're trying to navigate yourself both professionally and romantically through your 20s as silly fan film-ish versions of either Star Wars, Hong Kong gun fu, a George Romero flick or The A-Team, Scott Pilgrim cleverly envisions relationship drama as both Kung Fu Hustle and an 8-bit Nintendo game. Wright's film really gets video games like the 8-bit ones I grew up playing. (Speaking of 8-bit, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich's original score for the film, which can be heard during both "Hall H" on AFOS and "AFOS Prime," effectively combines 8-bit with orchestra, especially during the "Boss Battle" cue for the climactic moment when Gideon is handed his ass, and it goes completely 8-bit at times, like during that amusing cover of Jerry Goldsmith's Universal logo music at the start of the movie or the source cue Dan the Automator created for Scott and Knives' Ninja Ninja Revolution video game.) Along with Run Lola Run, The Raid: Redemption, Edge of Tomorrow and maybe Dredd, Scott Pilgrim is one of the best video game-style movies not based on an actual game.
Wright's understanding of another kind of visual language, that of comic books like O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim novels--and his ability to figure out which parts of that visual language work on screen and which ones don't--fortunately turn the Scott Pilgrim film into the opposite of Ang Lee's lead-footed overstuffing of 2003's Hulk with screen panels and visible page breaks, or as Stop Smiling magazine's Justin Stewart described the screen panels and page breaks in my favorite takedown of Lee's Hulk, "the cinematic equivalent of Karl Rove dancing." Also, thanks to action filmmaking skills he previously demonstrated in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and even a few Spaced episodes, Wright makes convincing fight scene combatants out of the least likely actors you'd ever imagine to be in a fight scene, whether it's Michael Cera as Scott, Mae Whitman as Roxy Richter or Jason Schwartzman as Gideon the girlfriend-beating music producer douche (Wright went on to do the same with Nick Frost during his fight scenes in The World's End, transforming him into the most agile rotund action star who's not Sammo Hung).
As believable as Cera is in his fight scenes, he's overshadowed in his own movie (it was supposed to turn the gawky and conservatively dressed teen from Arrested Development and Superbad into a bigger movie star, but nobody outside of Scott Pilgrim novel fans flocked to the movie in the summer of 2010) by funny turns by Ellen Wong as Knives, Kieran Culkin as Wallace and Brandon Routh as dim-witted vegan bassist Todd Ingram, one of the Evil Exes who used to date Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and are now challenging Scott to a duel. Scott Pilgrim proves that Routh, who brooded through all of his passable impression of Christopher Reeve in Superman Returns, is at his best as a light comedic actor, which is why I'm glad Arrow's current season is having him tap into those comedic gifts again as the Atom (it's refreshing to see a revenge-minded superhero--Ray Palmer's in the game to avenge his wife's murder--who's not brooding all the time).
As Knives, the clingy, too-young-for-Scott schoolgirl who doesn't take being dumped by Scott very well, Wong is a real find, and she deserves to go on to bigger and better things (since Scott Pilgrim, she's been a cast member on both the Canadian-made 2011 Afghanistan medical drama Combat Hospital and The Carrie Diaries). Part of me wishes the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels and movie version were mainly about Knives instead of Scott. It's interesting to read Asian moviegoers' varied reactions to Wong's performance as Knives five years after the movie's release. They were as divided about the Knives character as black moviegoers were divided about Denzel Washington's heel turn in Flight in 2012.
Writers from YOMYOMF would say things like "Ellen Wong alone was worth watching the film. She was freakin' ADORABLE. Dolls should be made of her," and Asian American Scott Pilgrim fans dug Knives so much that they've cosplayed as her. Meanwhile, a discontinued Asian Canadian collective of bloggers that called itself "the invazn" felt that "It's kind of sad to see Asian women be the 'exotic in-between' girlfriends who aren't even real girlfriends, but pure ego boosters for the main character's lack of masculinity" (someone should have told them O'Malley himself is half-Asian and not some white graphic novelist writing from the outside about people of color he's never interacted with), although the blog's reviewer enjoyed seeing Knives take charge towards the end of the movie and battle both Ramona and Gideon.
"I was just super-proud that I had created a plum role for someone like Ellen Wong, who otherwise may never have been in a major movie, just by being born Asian and Canadian," wrote O'Malley in a fascinating 2013 Tumblr post. He admitted in that post that the cast of mostly white characters and a few Asian characters in the original novels reflected an unenlightened attitude towards race he had for the first 20 years of his life, and he ended up being appalled by how white the movie looked. His willingness to admit those things must have taken as much guts as it does for Scott to admit to his exes Knives and Kim Pine (Alison Pill), the snarky and sullen drummer in Scott's band Sex Bob-omb (notice how all the drummers in the movie are female), that he shouldn't have been so careless about how he treated them when he dated them. Scott Pilgrim gets some flack for being an overly noisy and hyperactive movie that doesn't take enough time to breathe and be more naturalistic, but that scene where Kim briefly sets aside her snarky and sullen demeanor and wordlessly accepts Scott's apology is one of several human touches in the movie that make Scott Pilgrim more human than the average video game-inspired movie. It's also an example of how great an actor Pill is (watch her also command the screen in a much more broadly played way during her one scene as a fascist schoolteacher in Snowpiercer).
Scott Pilgrim does so many things well as a video game movie, a comic book adaptation and a coming-of-age farce that it's easy to forget what it also accomplishes as a movie about small-time rock bands. I knew Scott Pilgrim would be a solid battle-of-the-bands movie right when it had characters attempting to talk to each other inside a club, and they couldn't hear each other, a typical aspect of modern-day nightlife Hollywood rarely gets right. The running joke of the unenthusiastic MC who's as excited about introducing musical acts as Robert De Niro is about sitting through a press junket is another funny, straight-out-of-real-life touch during the movie's band scenes, as is the way that Beck, who wrote and recorded Sex Bob-omb's material, purposely downgraded the quality of his own sound to capture what a not-so-great band in the Toronto indie scene would sound like. Scott and his bandmates view the glitzy Clash at Demonhead--led by Scott's hot ex-girlfriend Envy Adams (Brie Larson)--to be evil corporate sellouts, but the ironic truth is Envy and her band don't sound as mediocre as Sex Bob-omb do, as we discover during "Black Sheep," sung quite nicely by Larson very briefly in the film (while it's sung on the Scott Pilgrim ABKCO song album by Metric frontwoman Emily Haines, whose Toronto-based band provided material for The Clash at Demonhead and whose fashions O'Malley used as the basis for Envy's in the novels). I wish the regular release of the ABKCO song album included the Larson version of "Black Sheep" as a bonus track, but fortunately, it can be heard in its entirety as a Blu-ray extra or right below.
You also have to be in lesbians with a movie that riffs on Goldsmith's Universal logo music not once but twice. While rewatching Scott Pilgrim in preparation for today's edition of Throwback Thursday, I completely forgot about Chris Evans cracking his neck to the pounding drums of the Universal logo music and laughed my ass off. What other movie has done a sight gag like that? It's also a moment where you're so relieved that those meddling kids from the test screening audiences who have attempted to ruin so many perfectly decent movies didn't get to intervene.
Selections from the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World score can be heard during the AFOS blocks "AFOS Prime" and "Hall H."
Every Monday and Wednesday this month, I'll be spotlighting a really good article about a Universal film or TV series that has original music featured in the "Ask for Babs" mix, my first DJ mix. I put together the "Ask for Babs" mix after finding out that Universal is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
There’s something that feels so fresh about the way that the movie uses every trick up its sleeve in service of the entire experience, in a way that other comic book movies tend to shy away from; when was the last comic book movie that was as enjoyable from an audible perspective as it was visual, you know? I don’t just mean sound effects or soundtrack – although, come on: Tim Burton’s Batman soundtrack aside, comic book movie soundtracks are almost all embarrassingly bad, especially in comparison to how strong Scott Pilgrim‘s is, and how important it is to the movie – but dialogue and performances, as well...
Comic book movies – and by that, I mostly mean superhero movies, because that’s the majority of the genre – end up leaning towards the stereotype of comic book writing, with epic themes expressed in fights and stilted dialogue. Maybe one of the reasons I liked Scott Pilgrim so much was that it had the fights – and what amazing, visually impressive fights they are – but they’re not so overpowering that everything else becomes filler, a generic “what happens in between”...
I mean, if I were being entirely honest, I’d love for it to make filmmakers think, “How can I make a movie that’s as exciting and funny and in love with movies and comics and wants to remind the audience to love them as well,” but I’m trying to rein in my hyperbole slightly here. But. But one of the reasons that I love Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World so much is that it transcends the notion of a comic book movie, and becomes a movie that just so happened to be a comic book first. If there’s anything that Marvel Studios, DC Entertainment and everyone else making comic book adaptations should be aiming for, it’s that.
Thanks to beyond, deux for mentioning my "Ask for Babs" mix. What do I gotta do to spread the word about this mix? I'm new at this. I'm often not comfortable promoting myself. I'll be satisfied if at least one another blog or Twitter feed besides beyond, deux mentions the mix.
Here are the connections between each "Ask for Babs" track (besides the Universal connection, of course).
1. Nigel Godrich, "Universal Theme," Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Score, ABKCO
2. Alan Silvestri, "End Credits" (from Back to the Future Part III), Hollywood Soundstage: Big Movie Hits Volume I, Varèse Sarabande
Scott Pilgrim/Back to the Future connections:Scott Pilgrim and the Back to the Future trilogy are FX-heavy flicks with constantly bullied loser musicians as heroes; the Pilgrim film is nostalgic for '80s and '90s 8-bit video games like the BTTF game for the NES.
2. Alan Silvestri, "End Credits" (from Back to the Future Part III), Hollywood Soundstage: Big Movie Hits Volume I, Varèse Sarabande
3. Rose Royce, "Car Wash," Car Wash, Motown
BTTF/Car Wash connections: Fancy-car porn; pop star cameos; the BTTF fanfare is in the same key as the Car Wash theme.
3. Rose Royce, "Car Wash," Car Wash, Motown
4. Public Enemy, "Fight the Power," Music from Do the Right Thing, Motown
Car Wash/Do the Right Thing connection: Both films have multiracial ensemble casts and wall-to-wall soundtracks and are set over the course of one day.
4. Public Enemy, "Fight the Power," Music from Do the Right Thing, Motown
5. J.J. Johnson, "Willie Chase," Willie Dynamite, Hip-O Select/Geffen
Do the Right Thing/Willie Dynamite connection:Willie Dynamite star Diana Sands appeared with Do the Right Thing star Ruby Dee in the stage and film versions of A Raisin in the Sun.
Willie Dynamite/Scarface connection: Both films are crime flicks with huge followings in the hip-hop community.
6. Giorgio Moroder, "Tony's Theme," Scarface, Geffen
7. Jan Hammer, "Chase," Miami Vice: The Complete Collection, One Way
Scarface/Miami Vice connections: '80s; Miami; gangsters; synth-pop; drugs (speaking of which, the second soundbite during "Tony's Theme" is from Jon Stewart's cameo in the Universal cult favorite Half Baked, in which a blazed Stewart mentions Scarface and another Universal film starring Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman).
7. Jan Hammer, "Chase," Miami Vice: The Complete Collection, One Way
8. Stu Phillips, "Knight Rider," NBC: A Soundtrack of Must See TV, Tee Vee Toons
9. Timbaland and Magoo, "Clock Strikes (Remix)," Blackground
10. Busta Rhymes, "Turn It Up (Remix)/Fire It Up," Elektra
11. Punjabi MC, "Mundian To Bach Ke," Sequence
Miami Vice/Knight Rider connection: Both shows were NBC hits that aired at about the same time (and for one season, on the same night).
11. Punjabi MC, "Mundian To Bach Ke," Sequence
12. Johnny Harris, "Odyssey (Pt. 1)" (from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), Sunshine Sound Disco
Knight Rider/Buck Rogers connection: Glen A. Larson produced both shows.
12. Johnny Harris, "Odyssey (Pt. 1)" (from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), Sunshine Sound Disco
13. Danny Elfman, "Main Titles," Midnight Run, MCA
Buck Rogers/Midnight Run connections:Buck Rogers is set in New Chicago and Midnight Run anti-hero Jack Walsh used to be a cop in the old Chicago; "Odyssey" and the Midnight Run theme are both heavy on the bass.
13. Danny Elfman, "Main Titles," Midnight Run, MCA
14. Oingo Boingo, "Weird Science," Best O' Boingo, MCA
Midnight Run/Weird Science connection: Danny Elfman.
14. Oingo Boingo, "Weird Science," Best O' Boingo, MCA
15. Nigel Godrich, "Chau Down," Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Score, ABKCO
16. Dan the Automator, "Ninja Ninja Revolution," Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Score, ABKCO
Weird Science/Scott Pilgrim connections:Weird Science and Scott Pilgrim are FX-heavy fantasy films with dorky youngster heroes; Pilgrim is nostalgic for the era when the Weird Science movie and TV series were made.
16. Dan the Automator, "Ninja Ninja Revolution," Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Score, ABKCO
17. Randy Edelman, "Dragon Theme," Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, MCA
Scott Pilgrim/Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story connections: Scott's temporary girlfriend Knives Chau is like the Bruce Lee of blades; scenes of action movie stars kicking the shit out of non-celebrities on movie sets; Asians who kick ass.
17. Randy Edelman, "Dragon Theme," Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, MCA
18. Henry Mancini, "The Boss," Touch of Evil, Varèse Sarabande
Dragon/Touch of Evil connections:Dragon was about Lee having to put up with yellowface/brownface, and Touch of Evil had Charlton Heston in brownface; Lee starred in The Big Boss, and the Touch of Evil cue is called "The Boss."
18. Henry Mancini, "The Boss," Touch of Evil, Varèse Sarabande
19. Henry Mancini, "Main Title" (from Charade), Music from the Films of Audrey Hepburn, Big Screen
To mark its 100th anniversary, Universal unveiled a revamped version of its globe logo (The Lorax is the first Universal release to open with it) and got frequent Fast and the Furious sequel composer Brian Tyler to update Jerry Goldsmith's rousing 1997 Universal logo fanfare with a choir and additional percussion.
What was originally supposed to be just a blog post I was going to do about Tyler's spiffy arrangement of the Goldsmith fanfare evolved into the mix below. Because of Universal's centennial, I've put together a mix--my very first one, in fact. It consists of favorite tunes that were written for Universal films or TV shows.
It's hard to find original score material from Universal films or shows that's as dance floor-friendly (or full of rhythm that makes my head nod) as J.J. Johnson's "Willie Chase" from Willie Dynamite or David Holmes' "Rip Rip" from Out of Sight, so I had to really dig deep into my station library.
Universal smash hits like the Bourne franchise and 8 Mile are represented on the "Ask for Babs" mix, as well as Universal releases that didn't exactly set the box office on fire but are great or good films and have gained--and I hate this term because cults are creepy--cult followings (Midnight Run[*], Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). The mix also includes material from some Universal films I've never seen (like the not-on-DVD 1969 curio The Lost Man, which has a couple of problems that bother the African American cinema blog Shadow and Act: "It's not good" and as a black militant, Sidney Poitier "is simply miscast in the role, and clearly looks uncomfortable"), but I love the music that was written for those films.
Determining the ways each track would transition into another and basing the order of the tracks on certain connections between them were particularly fun. I blended Vic Mizzy's Ghost and Mr. Chicken main title theme with 30 Rock's fake novelty song "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" to show how much 30 Rock composer Jeff Richmond must have been inspired by Mizzy's Ghost and Mr. Chicken score. Tracy Morgan is followed by The Roots' original track for the Best Man opening titles because both Morgan and The Roots are employees of Lorne Michaels. I had a Touch of Evil score cue follow the Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story main title theme because Dragon was about Lee having to put up with yellowface/brownface, and Touch of Evil was full of brownface. Plus, Lee starred in The Big Boss, and the Touch of Evil cue is called "The Boss." "Lose Yourself" from 8 Mile segues into the best original theme from Out of Sight (the theme for Don Cheadle's Snoopy character) because both movies involve Detroit. Fast Five, the best of the Fast and the Furious films, was placed next to The Rockford Files because, uh, car chases.
Except for Quincy Jones' cowbell-licious re-recording of his own Ironside theme (a staple of vintage kung fu movie soundtracks that Kill Bill introduced to a new generation of moviegoers), the excerpts of beatmakers sampling Knight Rider and Public Enemy's classic sample of Queen's Flash Gordon theme, I didn't want this mix to contain covers of Universal film or show themes like the Lalo Schifrin disco version of the Jaws theme. I wanted it to be all-original music, but edgy, propulsive or funky original material instead of strictly symphonic material. So that meant crime-jazz-era Henry Mancini (Touch of Evil, Charade) instead of NBC Sunday Mystery Movie theme/A Warm Shade of Ivory-era Mancini, and no Jaws, Jurassic Park, E.T., To Kill a Mockingbird, Spartacus or--*yawn*--Out of Africa (although some of Alan Silvestri's Back to the Future theme turns up at the beginning). Yeah, Jaws was Universal's biggest cash cow shark for a while, and the Jaws theme was a great achievement in John Williams' career, but it doesn't make my head nod (there is, however, a brief soundbite of Jaws, which like all the other soundbites during the mix, comes from a Universal film or show).
My only disappointment with the "Ask for Babs" mix is that I so wanted John Barry's Ipcress File main title theme and Iggy Pop's Repo Man theme to be part of the mix, so I tried editing them into the mix, but all my editing trickery just couldn't get either of them to fit in well. Sorry, Harry Palmer and Harry Dean Stanton.
[*] Director Martin Brest's last enjoyable film is neck and neck withDo the Right Thingfor my favorite film that was released by Universal. It features my favorite Danny Elfman film score. And years before lengthy bits of improv were an integral part of Judd Apatow-produced Universal comedies like Bridesmaids, there was the duo of Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin, ad-libbing most of their interplay and most of the brilliantly underplayed Red's Corner Bar sequence.
1. Nigel Godrich, "Universal Theme," Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Score, ABKCO
2. Alan Silvestri, "End Credits" (from Back to the Future Part III), Hollywood Soundstage: Big Movie Hits Volume I, Varèse Sarabande
3. Rose Royce, "Car Wash," Car Wash, Motown
4. Public Enemy, "Fight the Power," Music from Do the Right Thing, Motown
5. J.J. Johnson, "Willie Chase," Willie Dynamite, Hip-O Select/Geffen
6. Giorgio Moroder, "Tony's Theme," Scarface, Geffen
7. Jan Hammer, "Chase," Miami Vice: The Complete Collection, One Way
8. Stu Phillips, "Knight Rider," NBC: A Soundtrack of Must See TV, Tee Vee Toons
9. Timbaland and Magoo, "Clock Strikes (Remix)," Blackground
10. Busta Rhymes, "Turn It Up (Remix)/Fire It Up," Elektra
11. Punjabi MC, "Mundian To Bach Ke," Sequence
12. Johnny Harris, "Odyssey (Pt. 1)" (from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), Sunshine Sound Disco
13. Danny Elfman, "Main Titles," Midnight Run, MCA
14. Oingo Boingo, "Weird Science," Best O' Boingo, MCA
15. Nigel Godrich, "Chau Down," Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Score, ABKCO
16. Dan the Automator, "Ninja Ninja Revolution," Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Score, ABKCO
17. Randy Edelman, "Dragon Theme," Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, MCA
18. Henry Mancini, "The Boss," Touch of Evil, Varèse Sarabande
19. Henry Mancini, "Main Title" (from Charade), Music from the Films of Audrey Hepburn, Big Screen
20. Vic Mizzy, "Gaseous Globe," The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, Percepto
21. Vic Mizzy, "Main Title," The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, Percepto
22. Tracy Morgan & Donald Glover, "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah," 30 Rock, Relativity Music Group
23. The Roots feat. Jaguar Wright, "What You Want" (from The Best Man), Home Grown! The Beginner's Guide to Understanding The Roots Volume One, Geffen
24. Quincy Jones, "Main Squeeze" (from The Lost Man), The Reel Quincy Jones, Hip-O
25. Quincy Jones, "Ironside," TV Land Crimestoppers: TV's Greatest Cop Themes, Rhino
26. John Powell, "Jason's Theme," The Bourne Identity, Varèse Sarabande
27. Brian Tyler, "Tego and Rico," Fast Five: Original Motion Picture Score, Varèse Sarabande
28. Mike Post, "The Rockford Files," Synth Me Up: 14 Classic Electronic Hits, Hip-O
29. Richard Gibbs, "Main Title (UK Version)," Battlestar Galactica: Season One, La-La Land
30. Queen, "Flash's Theme," Flash Gordon, Hollywood
31. Public Enemy, "Terminator X to the Edge of Panic," It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Def Jam/Columbia
32. Stevie Wonder, "Jungle Fever," Jungle Fever, Motown
33. Eminem, "Lose Yourself," 8 Mile, Interscope
34. David Holmes, "Rip Rip," Out of Sight, Jersey/MCA
35. Brian Tyler, "The Perfect Crew," Fast Five: Original Motion Picture Score, Varèse Sarabande
36. Oingo Boingo, "Goodbye Goodbye," Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Full Moon/Elektra
It's unfortunate because Scott Pilgrim, a perfect marriage of source material and director, is in no way a two-hour piece of fecal matter like most of those other flops, due to Wright's respect for--and enhancement of--Bryan Lee O'Malley's material and inventive gags like what has to be the most amusing cover of the Universal logo music to ever open a Universal picture.
O'Malley's creation is partly influenced by 8-bit video games, so legendary Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich redid Jerry Goldsmith's Universal fanfare in 8-bit form. It accompanies an NES-style version of the Universal globe that's as charmingly pixelly as all those title screen graphics that would open NES games I used to play as a kid. The enthusiastic audience that was treated to an advance Scott Pilgrim screening at Comic-Con went so wild over this opening gag that a Wired blogger couldn't even hear the drowned-out 8-bit logo music and wondered in his post if the opening piece was the Legend of Zelda theme. The redone fanfare also opens Godrich's digital-only Scott Pilgrim score album.
Another studio logo music parody I like is the J.B.'s-style cover of the 20th Century Fox fanfare at the start of White Men Can't Jump (one of many instances where a Fox release spoofed the fanfare--another example was Alien³). Alfred Newman never sounded so funky.
