Van Sants Paranoid Park features two Elliott songs

[lisa]

the white lady loves you more and angeles, full versions.

just an fyi. i had no clue so it was awesome when i heard the first notes...

its a beautiful film, you should all see it.

[TheKeenGuy]

just an fyi. i had no clue so it was awesome when i heard the first notes...
Thanks so much for robbing us of the same experience!

[blunar/2^k]

Jeeper, "Angeles" again, Gus?? How many songs of Elliott's has he even heard? And the movie must just be filming a blank wall by now for ol' Gus... maybe not that extreme yet, perhaps a colored wall. Sorry, that's offensive -- a "wall of color".

[pootiebigwang]

meh van sant bothers me.

of course good will hunting is still awesome but if i was ever forced to sit through elephant or last days ever again i would probably gouge my eyes out.

its awesome that he used two elliott songs tho. :yes:

[Obstinate]

If any movie ever had Satellite in it, I'd sit through it at least three times, no matter how lame.

[rob87]

If any movie ever had Satellite in it, I'd sit through it at least three times, no matter how lame.
Even if it was a Lindsey Lohan movie?

[donnyidk]

Even if it was a Lindsey Lohan movie?

it'd probably be a scene where she's thinking of her boy and the camera goes up to the moon, and then goes back down and you're now looking at him looking at the moon. awww.


meanwhile in the background, "...who finds it strange when they call it a lover's moon..."

awww.





pfft.

[XXX]

in other news,
van sant's new film shown to induce rem sleep and rage.

[Obstinate]

Even if it was a Lindsey Lohan movie?

Thats a stretch....but I'd do it!

[lisa]

it'd probably be a scene where she's thinking of her boy and the camera goes up to the moon, and then goes back down and you're now looking at him looking at the moon. awww.


meanwhile in the background, "...who finds it strange when they call it a lover's moon..."

awww.





pfft.
no actually, its a scene where shes just confessed to her mom that her stepdad raped her, and they play "i dont think im ever gonna figure it out"

and im sorry youre all lame gus haters!!!

BUT, this film is not like last days and elephant, its a lot more like his older (my favorite) stuff ie. my own private idaho, even cowgirls get the blues... so what im saying is its still a little trippy the way its edited, but it does have an actual plot going on, and it goes somewhere. there is actual dialogue.. i think the audience liked it. there was one particularly brutal scene that a few ppl left at, but its the most heartbreaking thing ive ever seen on film, so fuckem and their weak stomachs.

blunar i agree, the use of angeles was kinda odd, i mean its a film about portland, so many other songs to choose from that would have fit perfectly, but one about how fucked hollywood is?? didnt really fit the scene, but it sounded so pretty over what was happening that it didnt really matter.

patrick i only posted cause i know ppl will go see the film if it has elliotts music in it, and van sant is highly underrated and deserves a chance.

it is a about a skateboard park, and the white lady is used over really pretty footage of kids at the park doing tricks and things, he slows it down and uses maybe 8mm film for this part? not sure. but its beautiful.

i could argue for elephant and last days right now but i wont.

gerry is the only thing hes done that has truly reeked of shit.

[rob87]

it is a about a skateboard park, and the white lady is used over really pretty footage of kids at the park doing tricks and things, he slows it down and uses maybe 8mm film for this part? not sure. but its beautiful.
Ok, I'm seeing this film!

[candylion]

i've been sleeping in a well, apparently...

well admittedly i really don't post like i used to, and i don't pay attention to much that is considered popular culture, hence i just learned about this today from a friend who i recently got into elliott's music.
he called me and said he read about it in a paper this morning...

i hope i get to see it...

how cool...

[recordrunning]

I saw this movie recently and... wasn't impressed. :\ I also found the music placement a bit odd. That's just me though...

[chemicalromance]

the white lady loves you more and angeles, full versions.

just an fyi. i had no clue so it was awesome when i heard the first notes...

its a beautiful film, you should all see it.

Elliott :yes: :heart:

Van Sant :yes:

[El Scorcho]

ok, so I'm watching it right now and the kids are calling it paranoid park. it's obviously burnside.

this will only annoy someone who's seen the park in tons of skateboarding videos.

[El Scorcho]

or y'know... a portland local who skates there or something like that.

[kara lee]

i think it takes a person of a particular persuasion, age (?), life experience (or something?) to appreciate van sant.
aside from gerry ( http://www.wtfdetroit.com/forums/images/smilies/puke.gif ) i almost always find myself emotionally connected to the characters, music, and/or setting.
that being said, i understand that others do not.
he, arguably, is not the most accessible of directors, but i probably wouldnt enjoy his films quite so much if her were.

[positively4thstreet]

totally agree with kara, if everyone was all over his shit all the time it would kinda take away the beauty of it for me almost, its a great feeling to relate to something so uniquely ugly/beautiful that a lot of people cant/dont appreciate.

and jim, i could be wrong but i think they mention how its called paranoid park as a nickname because of the types that hang out under burnside. any portlanders know if this is true?

[kara lee]

ive never heard of paranoid park being a knick name - it seems likely its part of the plot.

i thought about it after i posted. . . .i dont necessarily like him because hes less conventional, rather i like the sort of strange, complicated things that seem to be part of his films. the things that tend to make them less mainstream.

[kara lee]

i think the skate park is just called 'burnside'. or at least tony hawk pro skater 3 tells me so.

[El Scorcho]

yeah, it's just called burnside in the video games and in every magazine article or skateboarding video that I've seen.

[sixers]

Hmmm, I'm not exactly sure how to do the window of the youtube video, but here is a link to one of the songs from the movie ( i'm guessing. )

http://youtube.com/watch?v=smZerDXHdLI - white lady
http://youtube.com/watch?v=McmgHiJg4Eg - angeles

It may not be the actual scene because I haven't seen it, I just looked it up on youtube.

It looks alright I guess.

[positively4thstreet]

yeah those are the scenes in the film. i absolutely adore the kids skateboarding around portland, i think it works perfectly with that song.

those scenes definitely wouldnt make me excited to see a film though, they work well within the film but i can see how on their own its a little boring.

also i love how he used local non actor kids again in this one...

watching it brought me back to the first time my 12 yr old self saw good will hunting and heard elliott and that feeling that someone somewhere was gonna see this and hear these songs and find something thatll probably change their life.

[kara lee]

mmmmm. . . .i still havent seen it.
darned work, getting in the way of my social life again. pffft!

[sombre winds]

Where is the park located. It doesn't look familiar.

[armada]

is angeles slightly sped up in that scene? it seems too fast. :\

i don't know why anyone would ever want that song to go by faster than it already does.

[robot hand]

is angeles slightly sped up in that scene? it seems too fast. :\

i don't know why anyone would ever want that song to go by faster than it already does.

the white lady is sped up by my ears...i didn't look at the angeles scene but yeah, they're always doing that shit for movies.

[armada]

also, i have to say (disclaimer: i'm not much of a movie critic and have little knowledge of the art) that i am very wary of directors borrowing too much emotion from the music that they choose for their films. it's like an artist saying "well, i don't know how to express this within the medium that i've chosen, so i'll just take someone else's work that expresses it and use that instead."

seems kinda lazy to me. i feel like i could make a kick ass movie if i put the most powerful songs i can think of in with some nice shots of fire and nature and beautiful people and stuff, but that would be really a collection of kick ass songs with some things to look at, not a movie.

would we understand what the emotion was behind that scene if angeles hadn't been playing?

[recordrunning]

I didn't really think "Angeles" fit with the emotion of that scene anyhow, so I'm going with... yes, we would.

[armada]

i haven't even seen the movie so i really have no idea, it's just something i think about. *shrug*

[recordrunning]

I'm no film expert either, but I had a few problems with the movie. I mean, there were a few really good scenes... for example, when Alex breaks down in the shower and the noise just keeps getting louder and louder. I thought that was nicely executed, but I was bored for most of the movie. Pointless long shots, repeated scenes, conversations that have nothing to do with the story... if these had been removed, the movie would have been less than an hour. It was an interesting enough story, but I didn't really like what he did with it. I just felt like he was trying too hard to make it artsy. :\
And one scene, which was particularly gory and awkward... :wtf:

[positively4thstreet]

Where is the park located. It doesn't look familiar.
its right by the burnside bridge (hence the name), i made sure we drove by it when i visited. i recognized some graffiti/sign? (i saw the film a while back now so i dont remember what exactly) that made me remember exactly where it was.

also, aliza, im sad that you feel that way about film. my writing is completely influenced by the music i hear and without it i have a lot of trouble writing anything (script wise). maybe that is lazy? my favorite films have great songtracks so i always appreciate it because i get so much from a great song and so much from a great story/visual that it only adds to the impact of both when theyre connected.

a film with no music can be great (no country for old men) but that is one way a film can be great in my opinion.

what gus does isnt just taking a bunch of songs over a visual for 2 hours like you described aliza, that would be a music video and yea an entirely different art form.

i know when i create something based around a song or many songs that sparked an idea or that connect to the story im telling i need them to help me write and build my ideas, i guess that is lazy, its a crutch, but it definitely helps my writing. I like being able to transfer a feeling i get from a song into the vision i see in my head to go along with it, its not about not being able to express it through film, its about wanting to express it with film, but not abandoning the inspiration (not that gus uses songs as his inspiration, im pretty sure they usually get chosen during the editing process so im rambling and should shut up).

but i love the work of andy warhol and homages and reproductions and heavy influences so i guess it just in my nature to see it in an opposite light.

a great song can completely enlighten the story and to me that is priceless. It's like a highlighter, it gives the moment a little extra punch. definitely doesnt replace the medium.

god imagine Goodfellas without Layla!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrVG92142QM

reservoir dogs without stuck in the middle!?!??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awMQC0-6RTM

the best directors know how to use songs to the films benefit without taking away from the story.

[TheKeenGuy]

also, i have to say (disclaimer: i'm not much of a movie critic and have little knowledge of the art) that i am very wary of directors borrowing too much emotion from the music that they choose for their films. it's like an artist saying "well, i don't know how to express this within the medium that i've chosen, so i'll just take someone else's work that expresses it and use that instead."

seems kinda lazy to me. i feel like i could make a kick ass movie if i put the most powerful songs i can think of in with some nice shots of fire and nature and beautiful people and stuff, but that would be really a collection of kick ass songs with some things to look at, not a movie.

would we understand what the emotion was behind that scene if angeles hadn't been playing?
Yeah, it all depends on the quality of the film itself, but there's nothing more embarrassing than a really emotional song being played over something mind-numbingly stupid to try to give it a false sense of importance.

The first thing that comes to mind is "Bittersweet Symphony" at the end of Cruel Intentions.

[ParentheticalThought]

This is from The Boston Globe's review of the movie:

"The movie's actual subject is Van Sant's ongoing preoccupation with the lives of unmoored young men. His art flirts with indecency (he's 55), but his skill and creative wisdom transcend it. Were they not such tough and fantastical artworks, it'd be tempting to see "Elephant" (about a school shooting), "Last Days" (loosely about Kurt Cobain), and this new movie as part of some queasy fetish."

It was a very positive review overall but, come to think of it, Van Sant does have an ongoing preoccupation with the lives of unmoored young men. Will in GWH was an umoored young man. Elliott was an unmoored young man. Elliott always talked about how he got to working with Gus as something that just happened, based on proximity and shared interests, but maybe it was formost just a thing about Gus.

[kara lee]

i think its safe to say most of his protagonists are 'unmoored' young men.
my own private idaho is filled with them. elephant, last days, drugstore cowboy, finding forrester, mala noche, even his contribution to paris j'taime.

[ParentheticalThought]

I just find it interesting when you can see stuff like that played out in real life. Especially since Elliott's description of their friendship always skated right past it. Not a big deal. Just interesting to me.

[positively4thstreet]

This is from The Boston Globe's review of the movie:
"Were they not such tough and fantastical artworks, it'd be tempting to see "Elephant" (about a school shooting), "Last Days" (loosely about Kurt Cobain), and this new movie as part of some queasy fetish."
i'd be up for this :yes: elephant was significantly better viewed in a theatre.

[placeholder86]

I sat and saw paranoid park last night and I really enjoyed it.

:yes: from me.

[LewdReed]

actually, and i haven't seen the movie yet, but in portland, paranoid park refers to o'bryant square which is sw washington and park, or sw stark on the other side, i guess would be a more appropriate street reference. used to be a spot for the procuring of illegal substances.

[kara lee]

a HA. yes. i forgot. last summer my friend put on a park jam at o'bryant square and everyone thought she was nuts.
it was awesome, cept for a few peeps using (and then nodding off) in the port-o-lets.

[placeholder86]

:O:lol:

[kara lee]

yeahhhh. . . .theyre doing it again this summer, with a few changes. theyre required by the city to have to port-o-lets and its a free event. im not sure how theyll manage that particular problem. :\

off topic. sorry. ;)

[positively4thstreet]

yeah i knew paranoid park had to be an actual place... though im pretty sure gus said that the actual skateboard stuff was shot at burnside.

i think maybe paranoid park is where he takes the trains to when things take a bad turn?

[recordrunning]

No, they definitely referred to the skate park as "Paranoid Park". Like when the detective came to the school to question the skaters, he called it by some other name, and they were all like "nah dude it's Paranoid Park".
It's fictional though... they could call it whatever they want. Or film in any skate park, for that matter.

[positively4thstreet]

yeah they filmed it at burnside is what i mean, they can call it anything.

[recordrunning]

Oh yeah, I gotcha. I just thought it was weird that people were fixating on the place being called Paranoid Park when it's just a movie...

[some dude]

ok, so I'm watching it right now and the kids are calling it paranoid park. it's obviously burnside.

this will only annoy someone who's seen the park in tons of skateboarding videos.

it's a movie... not a documentary

[baz]

shame the movie's so frickin' crappy. no offence, like.

[armada]

also, aliza, im sad that you feel that way about film. my writing is completely influenced by the music i hear and without it i have a lot of trouble writing anything (script wise). maybe that is lazy? my favorite films have great songtracks so i always appreciate it because i get so much from a great song and so much from a great story/visual that it only adds to the impact of both when theyre connected.

a film with no music can be great (no country for old men) but that is one way a film can be great in my opinion.

what gus does isnt just taking a bunch of songs over a visual for 2 hours like you described aliza, that would be a music video and yea an entirely different art form.

i know when i create something based around a song or many songs that sparked an idea or that connect to the story im telling i need them to help me write and build my ideas, i guess that is lazy, its a crutch, but it definitely helps my writing. I like being able to transfer a feeling i get from a song into the vision i see in my head to go along with it, its not about not being able to express it through film, its about wanting to express it with film, but not abandoning the inspiration (not that gus uses songs as his inspiration, im pretty sure they usually get chosen during the editing process so im rambling and should shut up).

but i love the work of andy warhol and homages and reproductions and heavy influences so i guess it just in my nature to see it in an opposite light.

a great song can completely enlighten the story and to me that is priceless. It's like a highlighter, it gives the moment a little extra punch. definitely doesnt replace the medium.

god imagine Goodfellas without Layla!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrVG92142QM

reservoir dogs without stuck in the middle!?!??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awMQC0-6RTM

the best directors know how to use songs to the films benefit without taking away from the story.

i have some things to say about this but i'm WAY too tired to be eloquent right now. the main points are these:

1. are you someone i should know with a new name that i don't know? i'm too lazy to figure it out right now

2. i'm not saying art shouldn't be influenced by other art. of course it is. all art is influenced by other art, all people are influenced by other people, art builds on itself, etc. what i'm objecting to is the use of whole finished pieces of work that are masterpieces in their own right within much weaker work that stands on the foundation of the masterpieces, rather than WITH the masterpieces.

it would be like, for instance, if you wrote a poem that you passed as your poem, in which you write a paragraph, then insert an entire full unchanged ts eliot piece, then added some stuff at the end. is that really YOUR work?

of course, to take concepts used by eliot or his style or even some small phrases is totally different.

another analogy-- say you took the mona lisa and inbedded it in a larger painting that kinda sucked, or was decent but nothing special. it may still be a masterpiece but is that because of your painting? no, it's because it's the fucking mona lisa!

that's how i felt watching that clip with angeles in it. i was like "i love this. but of course i love it, it's angeles. i love these images because i am seeing them while i listen to a masterpiece. the images have no meaning for me. this is all, wholly an experience of a song."

[armada]

also,

3. i know films are different because it's common practice to put whole works of other people's art into them. what i find to be difficult to swallow is the use of songs that i am in love with in conjunction with images that don't mean shit to me, or are shallow, or just don't seem right. another good example is the use of the shins song new slang in the movie garden state (and i know i've talked about this on this board before). it was like an awkward moment in the movie, then a kind of "what am i supposed to be feeling right now?" and then BAM! new slang. it was as if the director sort of scratched his head and said "well, there is no other way for me to show this emotion besides using this song."

the moment WAS the song. and i think that's weak. even though it's a fucking amazing song, so i enjoyed the moment thoroughly but i was really just enjoying the song.

i'll shut up now. :bag:

[llaurens]

I haven't seen the movie, but I have just read an article about it:

"Paranoid Park: The Soundtrack of Their Lives

Skate movie dispenses with the angst, surrounds itself with Nino Rota and Elliott Smith
By RANDALL ROBERTS
Wednesday, April 2, 2008 - 2:35 pm

In the past few weeks, I’m seeing skaters with a new glow in my eyes — a kind of sparkle of the special — as they slalom down Sunset sidewalks, click-clacking over cracks and jumping curbs. It’s the artistry, sure, and the grace with which they roll through space, as if on a puff of clouds. But I’ve always admired that about skating. A specific experience involving Gus Van Sant’s recent film Paranoid Park, though, has nudged my brain in a new direction, has painted the skaters with a fresh patina. It doesn’t happen too often that a film’s music will tweak my visual and sonic filter to such an extent that I actually perceive a whole class of people in a new light, with more depth or empathy or whatever. But it’s springtime, the Paranoid Park soundtrack has been a big iPod hit for the past week, and it’s having an effect. All I can think about is this profoundly beautiful piece of art I’ve seen three times already, which, together with the music chosen to embody it, creates an exquisitely imagined video mix tape, an ode to music, image and the medium that rises from their convergence.

[llaurens]

Let me explain. Usually, skateboarders = punk rock, or metal, and maybe a little emo. See a skate kid careering across rails in film, or on TV or video, and the soundtrack to said feats of airborne glory inevitably consists of hard, aggressive guitar riffs and fast drum fills. Seldom will a director couple ragtime with skaters, because the thread that connects the sound and the vision is thin. Nor, it would seem, would music created for a 1965 Italian new-wave masterpiece be a logical choice for a present-day coming-of-age story set in the Pacific Northwest. But for Paranoid Park, Van Sant draws heavily on music originally composed by soundtrack master Nino Rota for Juliet of the Spirits and Amarcord, tossing in vastly counterintuitive tracks to accompany his narrative. In one beautiful shot, Alex walks down a street blanketed with rich yellow leaves as Rota’s “La Porticina Segreta” chimes along with him. Another Rota melody is reutilized by Van Sant to express the ennui of adolescent confusion between a skater and the soon-to-be-deflowered girlfriend who wants him. Whenever our hero Alex and Jennifer meet at her locker, Rota’s music swells into the frame like a tide, washing the virginal couple with valentine strings.

Grainy Super-8 color sequences move across the screen in slow motion: Skaters at a mystical but ominous hangout called Paranoid Park are celebrated like ballerinas at the Bolshoi. The music that carries them into sk8ter Valhalla isn’t the rebel rock of Rage Against the Machine, or Black Flag, but gentle electro-acoustic pings created by Portland’s Ethan Rose, washes of digital tones and little melodies that whisper like snapshot memories as daredevils float through the air. These soft sonic tings draw the characters not with bold reds but with cool blues, so that what spins from the screen is a magical juxtaposition, an enigmatic woosh of the new, a redefinition. Lesser filmmakers rely on Big Rock to convey “emotion,” even though, anymore, such coupling of youth and noise seems so rote, such a waste of an opportunity that serves only to reinforce cookie-cutter notions of teenage angst; it isn’t just about aggression, even if you live your life on the back of a board. It’s about confusion and disconnection, and sadness and romance that fills your heart like a Nino Rota waltz even as your life descends into fits of Elliott Smith sorrow.

Van Sant stitches the music into his story and surrounds his visual gestures with sonics no less imaginative. Billy Swan’s ditty-bop classic, “I Can Help,” accompanies Alex as he walks through a high school hallway on his way to be questioned by a police detective investigating the death of a security guard. A similar shot of half a dozen boys walking down the same hallway is unadorned by music, the silence of their journey filled only by the solitary sound of a skateboard’s polyurethane wheels humming over waxed linoleum. The absence is a presence. Van Sant couples country-blues singer Cast King moaning in woeful baritone about a gunfighter with “21 notches on his gun” with skaters in slow motion, riding the curves of Paranoid Park. Songs serve as narrators, and it never feels cloying or manipulative. Rather, it feels like Van Sant is striving through sound to convey a rich inner life, to employ audio as a silent rudder guiding the action from below, infusing scenes with unspoken, graceful weight.

The power of a film, and of music, lies in their ability to reshape one’s perception, to fine-tune the way one experiences the world, if only for a moment, or a day, or, ideally, for a lifetime. The hope is that a story, or a song, or some perfect combination thereof, can so dent a consciousness that, for example, a 16-year-old kid drifting on a board through the SuperSaver parking lot can be reimagined as an embodiment of something bigger than himself, can be recast as a soul in the midst of an epic struggle, who travels along his trail with the grace of a knight galloping through a labyrinthine forest. That he’s in fact on a skateboard is merely circumstantial. What matters is the depth of his character, and by filling Paranoid Park and the characters who skate through it with music that captures their complicated world, Van Sant has delivered not only a story but a song."



http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/paranoid-park-the-soundtrack-of-their-lives/18631/

[positively4thstreet]

:yes:

[positively4thstreet]

bump #3

[Summergirllv]

interesting. I've been wanting to see this movie, but I sometimes lack the concentration it takes to get through a van sant film unless watching it in the theater. I suppose I am getting old, I've fallen asleep to the last five or ten dvds I've rented. :zzz: