Martin Scorsese, Love and Butchering the Beatles

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It has been a hectic two weeks. I started working as an online marketer and copywriter for an advertising agency and have been involved from the outset with an exciting web project (the details of which I will make public in due time). A week after I started working there, another company called asking me to come for an interview. When it rains, it fucking pours.

I went over and talked to my future boss, a woman who instantly reminded me of the person who has had the biggest influence in my life: my 10th grade English Literature teacher. Suffice to say, half an hour after talking to my potential boss, I wanted to work under her. So badly, that I kept calling the company throughout the next day to see if I had indeed been hired. The HR manager, who was at a time my HR manager at my previous place of employment, called and said, “Looks like we’ll be working together again”. Fuck yes.

So after all this excitement and the added pressure of needing to finish my work for my current employer, I made time out to relax over the past two days. First off was the new Martin Scorsese movie. With the death of the late great Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese is pretty much the only director who can get me excited over his new movies. But Scorsese’s movies since Goodfellas haven’t been that great. The kinetic energy that his scripts are well known for was missing in Aviator and Gangs of New York, and I - the idiot that I am - thought Ol’ Marty had lost it. Perish the thought.

The Departed is already in my list of this decade’s top 3 (after Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby). It has everything: a brilliant script that gives almost every character a chance to influence the storyline, fabulous actors, and instantly quotable lines (“I am the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy”).

Leonardo De Caprio, Matt Damon and Mark Walberg are fantastic. I’ll be the first to admit that I never thought they were good actors, but in this movie they come out swinging (But this is Martin Scorses; he could make a thespian out of Tom Green). Leo is angst, despair and vulnerability personified, albeit it with a coating of extreme intelligence and danger. Damon, more cool, calm and collected. And Walberg? Nothing I can say here will be able to communicate how insanely good his lines are. And he deliver it with obvious glee.

To complement the three young pups, you have the three veterans: Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin. Martin Sheen’s character, although essential in the context of the story, is the most straight forward of characters and, thus, doesn’t stand out; Sheen could sleep walk through the role. Alec Baldwin is a smart alec-y version of Sheen’s character. Nicholson, finally, is fucking insane. And only he could have played Frank Costello like this. Costello is an insane maniac for whom the lines between the good and the bad, between cops and criminals had long ago blurred. “Cops or criminals, when you are facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?” Truer words haven’t been uttered by a criminal in a movie.

Welcome back, Marty.

If the Academy doesn’t shower The Departed with at least Oscars for best actor and supporting actor (for Jack Nicholson and Mark Walberg respectively) I will go truely insane. I can not see anyone outdoing Nicholson, especially, this year. He was that good.

This week also marked the release of another Beatles album. 36 years after they broke up, 25 years after the death of Lennon, we can not still get the Fab Four out of our collective conciousness. And listening to their new album, Love, reminds us why. Essentially, the songs are remixes and outtakes of old classics - Hey Jude, Back in the USSR, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Eleanor Rigby, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds among others. Consisting of 26 tracks in total, this is an awesome addition to your Beatles catalogue. While My Guitar Gently Weeps, George Harrison’s timeless song, in particular, sounds amazing. Gone are Eric Clapton’s raging guitar solo in the song. Instead, this is a string arrangement with a cello accompanying George’s acoustic guitar. If there is a complaint, I’d have wanted a better selection of songs; I Me Mine, In My Life, Hey Bulldog and Helter Skelter are sadly missing, and would have been treats to hear.

And continuing on the Beatles theme, I came across this fabulous Beatles tribute album called ‘Butchering the Beatles’. I love the Beatles and seeing a title like that concerned me slightly, but the collaborations on some of the songs were too intriguing to not give it a download; Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteem were playing on it for Christ’s sake.

The album starts out with Hey Bulldog, one of my perennial Beatles favourite. And all trepidation I may have had disappeared. I loved it. Steve Vai on guitar is fantastic. I wonder what George would have thought of Steve’s shredding on the guitar solo though. Magical Mystery Tour features Malmsteem. Another student of the School of Guitar Shredders, when Malmsteem plays guitar the tempo skyrockets. Back in the USSR features a double bass drum intro. I want to be in the room when Ringo hears that.

Do not listen expecting true-to-the-original covers here. Everything is rehashed to suit the style of these performers (especially in the case of Vai and Malmsteem). Hardcore Beatles fans, and I am one, may object to some of the liberties taken in recording some of these songs. But listening to this album a few times since yesterday, I am left with no doubt that this was indeed a labour of love and not some ridiculous slandering of the Beatles legacy (as the title suggests).

With that, I will wind up this long ass blog entry.

Have a good weekend.

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Filed under 2006, Movies, Music, Musing about the mundane