A surreal combination

New today is a review of the Dixie Chicks behind-the-scenes concert doc, Shut Up & Sing, which is surprisingly less inflammatory than expected, but has some choice moments of right wing lunacy and wonky logic.

There’s some weird similarities in this doc to the recently released U.S. vs. John Lennon: with Lennon and the Beatles, you had the smashing of vinyl and burning of memorabilia; in Shut Up & Sing, it’s former and conflicted fans dumping CDs into trash bins, plus an excited steamroller driver (though given the flexibility of plastic, I’m sure a few would still play a track or two) - all of it egged on by radio DJs and their publicity-hungry station owners, proving how often history repeats itself.

In the Film Music Dept., we’ve got reviews for two new Victor Young CDs from newcomer Hit Parade Records: a beautifully mastered & expanded edition of Around the World in 80 Days (1956) with its hummable theme, and Cinema Rhapsodies: The Musical Genius of Victor Young, which compiles many of Young’s best-known hits from the forties and fifties from original soundtrack recordings and the composer’s own fifties compilation platters.

Lastly, we’ve a detailed interview with Dante Tomaselli, conducted as production is beginning on his fourth feature film, The Ocean. Best known for the sometimes impenetrable plots of Desecration, Horror, and Satan’s Playground, our interview covers some of the realistic conflicts between maintaining an experimental and surrealist style and the practical and commercial realities of movie making.


- MRH


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