Expanding the entertainment conversation beyond movies (though obviously you can pick a film score or compilation soundtrack if you like):
What’s a music album that you fear not enough people realize is perfect?
I absolute adore Lyle Lovett’s 1996 album The Road to Ensenada, and while I can’t say that its genius is unacknowledged — it won the Grammy in 1997 for Best Country Album — it does feel like this one has slipped below the pop-culture radar since. Lovett’s smoky voice and his evocative, intelligent, storytelling lyrics work beautifully with enormously danceable tunes that cross all sorts of musical lines: bluesy, jazzy, folky, swingy. The slyly humorous “Don’t Touch My Hat” and “That’s Right (You’re Not from Texas),” the bouncy and romantic “Private Conversation,” The bittersweet “Who Loves You Better” and “It Ought to Be Easier” (actually, there are a lot of bittersweet songs here)… I had to stop writing this post to listen to the whole album. There isn’t a weak song here.
(Of course, Lovett has appeared as an actor on TV and in film, and has composed music for the screen, but this album has no movie connection.)
I don't really have an album to mention but I will say this. I'm a classical music fanatic and there simply aren't enough movies that satisfy this need. Maybe I'm strange, but I want to see movies about classical musicians. I watch Tar for the music. The best bits are when she conducts. I watch the beginning and end of Jane Campion's Power of the Dog for the banjo-like bit played on the cello. I wept buckets at the end of Leave No Trace. And The Quiet Girl. Of course there's Amadeus. And a Clockwork Orange. But I want more.
I don't really have an album to mention but I will say this. I'm a classical music fanatic and there simply aren't enough movies that satisfy this need. Maybe I'm strange, but I want to see movies about classical musicians. I watch Tar for the music. The best bits are when she conducts. I watch the beginning and end of Jane Campion's Power of the Dog for the banjo-like bit played on the cello. I wept buckets at the end of Leave No Trace. And The Quiet Girl. Of course there's Amadeus. And a Clockwork Orange. But I want more.