Bad Movies, Great Soundtracks…

Being a sucker for both movies and music, I often notice the music in any movie that I am checking out.  I went nuts a couple of years back when I watched Talledega Nights, and noticed the Steve Earle cuts featured during the flick (“Hardcore Troubadour”, “I Feel Alright”).  I think many times the selected music can help make a so-so movie into a pretty good one.  Unfortunately, there have been many examples of crappy movies that have awesome soundtracks over the last few years. The Horse Whisperer, Hope Floats, The Crow, The Cable Guy, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, even The Last Action Herocomes to mind as some of the more shining examples of a horrible movie being complemented by a solid, if not tremendous, soundtrack.

 I sat through the movie, Elizabethtown recently.  Starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst, this vanity project of Writer/Director Cameron Crowe featured not only painful dialogue between the stars, but over-acting the likes of which even Al Pacino would surely be disgusted by. In between annoying and completely contrived lines of conversation, the movie was filled with one of the better song selections that I have heard in quite some time.  In fact, there is so much good stuff being played in the movie, there have been 3 soundtrack volumes released for this amazingly forgettable movie.

The original disc has Tom Petty, My Morning Jacket, and Ryan Adams among the lot.  The use of “Come Pick Me Up” by Adams pleased fans all over the world, as that has been an Adams’ fan favorite since its release on theHeartbreaker disc in 2000.  The second disc has more Adams, more Petty and the Kathleen Edwards track, “Summerlong”, which is one of the better tunes from her outstanding sophomore release, “Back to Me”.  A third disc (an EP actually) has more My Morning Jacket and even Bill Monroe, which is fitting, as the movie is placed in Kentucky.  I tried putting a couple of videos from the movie up, but I am having issues with that, technically speaking…sorry….