on this day

Today is September 11, which means...


...it's the birthday of actress Virginia Madsen. While her role in 2004's Sideways may have earned Madsen some long-overdue recognition from the critics and the studios, it's her earlier work, replayed ad-infinitum on mid-afternoon basic cable, that I'll always most fondly associate her with. That, and her excellent job voice acting the role of Roulette on the much-missed Justice League Unlimited cartoon.

In tribute to Ms. Madsen's birthday, here are a selection of tracks which appeared in some of her earlier films:

From Electric Dreams (1984): A love triangle between a woman, a man, and a personal computer. How does a guy compete with a luxurious monochrome display and a whopping 4 kilobytes of RAM?

Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder - Together in Electric Dreams (from the Electric Dreams OST, 1984) - Another case of a song outperforming the movie (or TV show) it was composed for. See also: "I Can Dream About You" by Dan Hartman from the Streets of Fire OST and David Naughton's "Makin' It."

From Fire With Fire (1986): Good girl meets bad boy, they fall in love, then flee into the wilderness to escape those who would come between them. A perfectly functional melodramatic premise, but after seeing male lead Craig Sheffer's all-too-convinicing performance as the asshole ex-boyfriend in Some Kind of Wonderful, it's impossible to see him as anything other than villainous (and certainly not worth getting covered in mud and deer ticks over). There's a term for that sort of typecasting: The James Spader Syndrome.

Brian Ferry - Slave to Love (from Boys and Girls, 1985) - Love slavery (of the non-Gorean sort) is rarer than you'd think these days. Many people opt instead to be Indentured Servants to Love, working off their passion debts over a fixed period of time and then moving on to a form of Free Agency for a while.

From Modern Girls (1986):

Depeche Mode - But Not Tonight (from Black Celebration, 1986) - For a more in-depth write-up of Modern Girls, the controversy behind "But Not Tonight," and a really disturbing scene from the film featuring Madsen, please refer to my previous post on the subject.

From Heart of Dixie (1989): White southern college students find their content of their characters tested against the backdrop of the 1950's civil rights struggle. Dear privileged white folks: No matter what you think, it really isn't all about you.

Gogi Grant - The Wayward Wind (from Her Very Best, 2002) - The film's soundtrack features modern rerecordings (by "The Snakes") of period songs. Maura has the soundtrack CD around here somewhere, but I decided to go with the real deal, even if it gives me unwelcome flashbacks to the radio station my grandma used to listen to while driving.

From Candyman (1992): Candyman was a rare spark of intelligence at a time when horror films had descended into increasingly stupider reiterations of the tired (more like "totally exhuasted") slasher movie subgenre. It's not a perfect movie, and has moments of excessive pretentiousness and token lashes of gratuitous gore, but you're not going to find Sophoclean "Lite" tragedy or the Uncertainty Principle as applied to urban folklore in Dr. Giggles or a Witchboard sequel.

Phillip Glass - It Was Always You, Helen (from The Music of Candyman, 2001) - Probably one of the best scores ever composed for a horror film, Phillip Glass's minimalist tapestry of electronic, piano, and choral elements is an essential part of what makes the film so effective.

(For my thoughts on the other, darker significance of this day in history, last year's post pretty much sums it all up.)