ivy -- nothing but the sky

I'm comfortable enough with myself to admit that I watched the film Shanghai Kiss. Not a fabulous movie. In fact not even a decent movie, though I liked all the actors and the places (it's great to see Shanghai on film -- see below).

But one excellent thing about the film is that the tune "Nothing But the Sky" by Ivy is in it. Here's a link:




But to see/hear how it was used in the film check this one out:



The nearly sci-fi landscape of Shanghai along with that ambient, ultra-airy sounding voice is really an excellent match...

Oh, and here are the entire lyrics for the song:

Meet me tonight
Fifteen miles high
Nothing but the sky
Shining in your eyes...

the wayward cloud

This is a 2005 film by Tsai Ming-Liang (and in a way uses two characters from his 2001 film What Time Is It There?). It's a musical, or has musical numbers. And the music is great: it recalls 50s, 40s American music with singing in Mandarin.


Basically the setting of this film is a drought-stricken Taiwan where water is really hard to come by. Mix in a lot of watermelons. And a porn star and the filming of his scenes. Yeah, you get it: this is NOT a musical for the entire family -- in fact it's probably a fit for only the smallest minority -- though the film apparently made a lot of bread. If the image above doesn't prove that then check out the trailer (you have to be over 18 to watch it...the subtitles in the trailer are in French). You can hear (and see) in the trailer that the musical numbers really do constitute a "celebration of life": colorful, imaginative, funny, lascivious, weird...that's life, right?

The film's title in Chinese is 天邊一朵雲.

blonde -- guesch patti

Well, even though I'm not really in favor of posting youtube clips (who knows how long they'll be around???) you'd never know it from my actions. So here goes another one. Since I just posted a tune found in Greenaway's 1996 film The Pillow Book here's another: a French pop tune called Blonde by Guesch Patti.



I can't heap enough praise upon this tune. The music is dark and spacious, and the singing is a great counterbalance to it in terms of weight. And check out the F#7+5 chord at 0:56 (it repeats, too)! (BTW a G7+5 is a great chord in the turnaround in Stolen Moments.) For those of you who speak French you might not need it, but the scrolling text is helpful (it ties into the theme of the film, too). Oh, the clip is absolutely not a G-rated affair, so be forewarned.