Sparks Brothers - Brilliant!

[Dave Zan]

This is a movie about music, and full of music, so it's perfect for ASR.
If you have never heard Sparks, or never even heard of* them, this is just a fun movie, the director is brilliant (Baby Driver, Shaun of the Dead, etc)
And you probably will be a fan by the finish.
If you are already a fan then this may be the best movie ever.
And to keep in the spirit of ASR, don't take my word for it, check the data! the reviews are exceptional.

*One of the people I invited spent most of the movie convinced it was a comedy mockumentary, like Spinal Tap but more eccentric.
The other just LHAO the whole movie.

David

 

[Jim Matthews]

I must admit to complete ignorance of these two.

They've been at it for nearly 30 years and I can't recall ever hearing them on the radio, in a TV commercial or in a movie soundtrack.

It's as if they exist in an alternate reality.

I gather there is no promotional machine attached to their career?

 

[MCH]

Kimono my House is a great album

 

[Phantomuser]

Hippopotamus album from 2017 ..

 

[Burning Sounds]

I loved this:

In 1974, John Lennon was startled as he was watching Top of the Pops. He rang Ringo Starr. “You won’t believe what’s on television,” he reportedly said. “Marc Bolan is playing a song with Adolf Hitler.”

Good backstory here.

 

[eas]

I must admit to complete ignorance of these two.

They've been at it for nearly 30 years and I can't recall ever hearing them on the radio, in a TV commercial or in a movie soundtrack.

It's as if they exist in an alternate reality.

I gather there is no promotional machine attached to their career?

Closer to 50y. They got a fair amount of airplay on college radio / pre-grunge alternative radio in the US in the early to mid '80s. I'm not familiar with their output before, or since.

 

[Robin L]

I bought a number of their albums as they came out. I remember going to the Vagabond theater in LA to see "Swing Time" and "Singing in the Rain" around 1977. The Vagabond was a revival house that got new prints of old movies, these two classics got their first screening from those newly struck prints that night. Anyway, I saw Ron and Russell Mael in the lobby during intermission that night, wearing their celebrity's cloaks of invisibility. Here's a favorite tune from "Kimono My House" reworked in 1997 with more of a "Techno" sound:

 

[threni]

They got Cyriak to do a video for them too! (All his videos are great).

 

[Freeway]

A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing (1973)

 

[Soniclife]

I must admit to complete ignorance of these two.

In the UK there will be few people who don't know them from the below hit, but I'm not sure if many could name the band, even if they know all the words.

 

[threni]

And while I am too young for this, I would have certainly been wildly amused by all the close ups of Ron Mael's infamous mustache during their Top of the Pops performance.

Exactly. Come for the Hitler/Dali crossover; stay for the catchy tunes.

 

[Robin L]

Sparks cover band:

 

[Robin L]

Well worth watching:

 

[USER]

So all the while Sparks were writing the screenplay and music for Leos Carax's new film, an avant-garde musical. This is a very big deal. Here's the opening with Sparks front and center:

If you don't know, Leos Carax is one of the great modern filmmakers and Annette is perhaps the most anticipated film of the year in the art film world. The Mael brothers do it again!


And if you are curious about Carax's place in film history: I teach this scene as the major transition point between French New Wave and modern French filmmaking (the split is obvious). One of the great film scenes. Denis Lavant is a genius and once David Bowie hits everything is pure magic.

From Carax's Mauvais Sang:

 

[Robin L]

I'm really digging "Plagiarism" right now: