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The Cinematic Allusions of Jonathan Coulton Part 2: Ecclectic Boogaloo

Written by Zombie Boy

Thursday, 26 March 2009 22:10

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The Cinematic Allusions of Jonathan Coulton Part 2: Ecclectic Boogaloo
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Last time out, I gave you the first half of my list of the top 15 Jonathan Coulton songs that I want to see made into movies (Click here for a refresher). I was really excited about it; I thought it was going to be a heart-breaking work of staggering genius. Well, not so much. But I'm in too deep to back out, and so here is the other half of the list. I still stand by my choices, and the intention behind the columns, even if I don't do the mighty JoCo justice. Hopefully this adventure will at least pique some sort of interest in the man in at least one person who reads this. I gotta tell you: it has been my experience that JoCo is like Pringles: you can't listen to just one song. So, without further ado, here is 9 through 15. Enjoy!

9. Creepy Doll: This is another big favorite JoCo joint. As it says on his Wiki page, he essentially tried to distill every horror movie that scared the fuck out of him when he was a kid. That is the kind of endeavor that is near and dear to my heart, and especially so because he succeeds so well.

The first time I heard the song, I got a strong impression of Telly Savalas looking in horror as his stepdaughter’s doll intones, “My name is Talking Tina, and I am going to kill you.”

The first time I heard the song, I got a strong impression of Telly Savalas looking in horror as his stepdaughter’s doll intones, “My name is Talking Tina, and I am going to kill you.” Jaysus, I am shivering just thinking about it. I actually thought once of writing a script based on this song, and filming it as a short, done mostly in my house with friends. In the tale, a sort of bourgeois chick decides to move to the quaint old countryside, and encounters the titular creepy doll. It haunts her in various ways, and then she tries to get rid of it and gets a big surprise. Think Karen Black and a Zuni Fetish Doll.

10. Tom Cruise Crazy: Okay, this one is kind of a gimme, but what can I say? Now, a lesser songwriter would use their studio time to take a three and a half minute potshot at Mr. Top Gun, but JoCo ain’t going out like that. Sure, he makes a vague homosexual reference, and a not so vague stab at the inanity of Scientology, but he also attempts to get inside Maverick’s head, and finds a way to sympathize with him, so what could have been a slander piece actually turns into a weird sort of defense of the man. Witness: “Tom Cruise is always getting older, he knows he’ll never be that young again, and when Tom Cruise looks back over his shoulder, he sees a thousand younger leading men…and he knows someday he’ll have to play an old retarded grampa, while someone younger plays his sexy son.” Now we just have to find someone who can lose themselves in a character as well as, say, Sam Rockwell lost himself in Chuck Barris, and a writer and director who can be sensitive to the issue and not make a parody of the material. For my money, Tom Cruise completely redeemed himself of his marriage to the grody Katie Holmes and his Oprah outburst and ridiculous cultish rant against Brooke Shields for treating her obviously medical issue with, you know, medicine, with his role in Tropic Thunder. Oooh! Here’s an idea: know who should play Tom Cruise in the cinematic version of Tom Cruise? You guessed it: Tom Cruise. Christ, I’m a genius.

11. Chiron Beta Prime: Another slice of pure genius, JoCo does the impossible: he makes the Christmas song cool again. In this yuletide missive, the Anderson’s are having a hard year. They were recently banished to a work asteroid by the Robot Council, but they are trying to make the best of their first Noel in the mines. The song is sung like one of those boring-ass Christmas letters that some people like to annoy you with, except this one is full of ammonia-exuding rocks, airlocks against an unbreathable atmosphere, sadistic robot overlords (did I say overlords? I meant protectors) and, of course, the omnipresent Soylent Green. In my vision of this film, the robots have to be the old-school impersonal Cylons from the 70’s Battlestar Galactica. They have to be big and bulky and shiny, and have eye units that go “whoomph, whoomph” like KITT and shit. Basically, Total Recall meets Miracle on 34th Street. If that doesn’t make you hard, check your pulse: you may be dead.