True Faith

Although Hard Candy is giving the competition a run for it's money for most compelling trailer of the season (not), Sofia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette is certainly getting some of the more all-over-the-place reactions. It's hard to resist the what the fuck? reaction upon seeing La Dunst and Jason Schwartzman (!) frolicking around eighteenth century France to New Order's "Age of Consent" (!!).

This got me and Phil thinking about other historical events that could be portrayed on film by young actors and semi-appropriately matched up with hits of the eighties. For instance, how about a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the Spanish Inquisition set to, say, The Smiths' "Panic". Or what about a film highlighting the Bolshevik Revolution and the far-from-uneventful rule of the Romanov's to Tears For Fears's "Everybody Wants To Rule The World"? The journey of Lewis and Clark and the subsequent meeting of Sacajawea to The B-52s' "Roam"? The biography of Henry Ford set to Gary Numan's "Cars"? The Watergate scandal to Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now"? Joan of Arc and The Eurythmics' "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves". And shit, let's just do a random matching of the following events: the Salem witch trials, the romance of Josephine and Napoleon, the Teapot Dome scandal, the Sacco and Venzetti trial, the horrors of Vlad the Impaler, with the following songs: Janet Jackson's "Escapade", The Human League's "(Keep Feeling) Fascination", Terrence Trent D'Arby's "Wishing Well", The Psychedelic Furs' "Pretty in Pink", Madonna's "Borderline". We clearly have a lot of options to work with.

Anyway, despite La Dunst I am optimistic about Marie-Antoinette. So far Ms. Coppola has broken even in my book. Love love loved The Virgin Suicides. (And you really can't beat Air's soundtrack.) Then came Lost in Translation, which...blargh. But New Order is one of those bands that will always be cool, and everyone loves the whole alleged aloofness of Marie-Antoinette. It might just work out after all.