The Circle of the Walk of Life

Every movie ending is better when it's soundtracked by Dire Straits

Salomone contends that "Walk of Life" is "the perfect song to end any movie," and he tests that hypothesis by laying it over 50-plus classic endings. Bill Murray whispers in Scarlett Johansson's ear and leaves Tokyo behind, riding off into the sunset on Mark Knopfler's wistful synth-organ melody; the titular Friends decide to grab one last coffee at Central Perk while Knopfler sings about some dude busking in the subway. "Walk of Life" closes out comedies and dramas, sci-fi odysseys and character studies, happy moments and sad ones. It works with Inception just as well as it works with The Lion King.

I've take some grief for my enduring fondness for Dire Straits, and Mark Knopfler's solo albums and soundtrack work, in some cases perhaps deservedly. While I resist the notion that a "guilty pleasure" is a thing, I find myself willing to excuse some excessive synth & keyboard noodling in his compositions (the Local Hero soundtrack) that I scowl at in others. The songs still work for me, even when I recognize they shouldn't.

Sultans Of Swing (Dire Straits Cover) - Ao vivo São Paulo 2014

He can play the honky-tonk like anything ...

My Year On This Is My Jam

Home | This Is My Jam

My 2012 Jams:

Romance Is Boring by Los Campesinos!
Waiting On Forever by Carry On
Crack In Your Eye by Thee Oh Sees
DOMINOS by The Big Pink
Beat Surrender by The Jam
This Fire of Autumn by Tindersticks
Keep On Knocking by The Cars
My Internal Din by I Was Totally Destroying It
Horse Outside by The Rubberbandits
Where Eagles Dare (Misfits) by Superchunk
Eleven by Thao & Mirah
Brandy of the Damned by Nickel Eye
I Don't Know Why I Love You by The House Of Love
Tightrope (feat. Big Boi) by Janelle Monáe
The Face on the Bar Room Floor by The Flaming Stars
I Will Refuse by Pailhead
A Tombstone Every Mile by Dick Curless
Dr. Who Meets Metal (Doctor Who theme/"I Am The Doctor") by 331Erock
Johnny Cash's Mama's House by Emily Wells
Drunk On The Blood Of Saints by Otep
This Is Where I Belong by Condo Fucks
The Green Fields of France by Dropkick Murphys
Save It For Later by The English Beat
Big Day Coming by Yo La Tengo
Love Ruins Everything by Lloyd Cole
Work All Day by Portugal. The Man
Nazi Punks Fuck Off by Dead Kennedys
Going Home - Theme from 'Local Hero' by Mark Knopfler
AM Dial by Midtown Dickens
Translation by The Beast
Drug Test by Yo La Tengo
The Battle of Hampton Roads by Titus Andronicus
Cast a Shadow by Beat Happening
Michael Caine by Madness
Repulsion by Quasi
Disparate Youth by Santigold
Night Falls On Hoboken by Yo La Tengo
Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste by Galaxie 500
Neat Neat Neat by The Damned
Waiting Room by Mustard Plug
Feliz Navi-Nada by El Vez
Just Like Christmas by Low
Take Five by Dave Brubeck
I Hear (Click, Click, Click) by The Rosebuds

Happy 63rd Birthday, Mark Knopfler.

cryptonaut-in-exile: Happy Belated Birthday, Mark Knopfler

Last year (the link above) I was a day late, but crammed a bunch of my favorite videos into that post, so this year I'll just let Mr. Knoplfer lay everybody low with this love song that he made ...

Happy Belated Birthday, Mark Knopfler

MarkKnopfler.com

Image via Music Story

Mark Knopfler turned 62 yesterday.

100 Things I Love About My Favorite Movies (Part 1)

As seen at 100 Things I Love About My Favorite Movies, I'm going to rattle off, in no particular order, things I love about some of my favorite movies. This isn't a list of best movies, or greatest accomplishments (though I'd argue a few of them are), they're just things that I love, even if they're flawed in some way or other. Please note, this will probably be loaded with spoilers of all kinds. Proceed at your own risk.

The rules are:

Rather than posting your 100 favorite films (which has been done and overdone), you simply post your favorite things about movies. I dig the concept, because instead of obsessing over whether the films you put on a list are “objectively good enough” to put on said list, you simply jot down 100 moments/lines/visuals that have made a lasting impression on you or sneak their way into running gags between you and your friends.

The crowded stateroom scene from A Night at the Opera



Nitti: "I said, 'Your friend died screaming like a stuck Irish pig.' Now you think about that when I beat the rap." Because what happens next is Ness decides to handle Nitti the Chicago Way.




Indy emerges atop the sub to that swelling John Williams theme and cheers ...



... I saw this with my aunt at a cinema pub in 1981. I'd never experienced a theater full of people cheering together spontaneously in the middle of a movie before. (It probably helped that the beer was flowing. Ten years old at the time, I just cheered because it was fun.)

The fights in Fist of Legend

I would include them all but this is already going to be the biggest post ever on this site.



The mall fight in Police Story

Staying with the martial arts theme. I could do 100 Things I Love About Police Story.



Lawnmower in Dead Alive


No embed on this one. Chase the link at your peril.

Funniest/goriest movie ever?

Music and finale of The Third Man



Another great movie I could've done dozens of moments, even the opening credits.

She just walks by, leaving him standing there like a sap. So he lights a smoke. I love it.

Marlowe tells O'Shaugnessy he hopes they don't hang her by her sweet neck.

I can't find the scene on youtube, so here's a capture of O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) realizing her fate is sealed.

Gittes, tells guy his wife crossed her legs a little too quick ...



Charles Grodin in Midnight Run



Grodin steals this movie. He's brilliant. Watched again recently, it held up really well.

The Irene Adler moment in Zero Effect

When we find out who the blackmailer is we realize that, whatever the name of the character Kim Dickens played was, it was really "Irene Adler." Drastically under-rated movie.

Chow Yun-Fat as Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Chow Yun-Fat could be in this list for a number roles, but I think CT, HD is his finest movie. One of my all-time favorites.

Chasing or being chased? Memento



The Dude



Mark Knopfler's music for Local Hero



Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction

Bruce Willis as John McLane in Die Hard

One of the best times I ever had at the movies.

The drink/love scene in Out of Sight



----------------------------------------------------

I counted 18 there. Not exactly a round number to stop at, but it's late. Two or three more posts will finish this up.

Axe Men Illustrated

Call Me Max. The Diary of Maxim Dalton.: Guitar lessons: 

Knopfler

Here’s a new illustration. I tried to include all my rock guitar heroes of all times and some other that I don’t like that much but I thought they deserve at least to appear on the list.

Most of the ones you'd expect are on here. (I suspect some would clamor for Joe Satriani. I wouldn't, but I know some who would, or at least would have twenty years ago.)  My litmus test for this sort of thing is whether the list includes Mark Knopfler, Buddy Guy, and Ira Kaplan, so I can't give the full two thumbs up here on account of it going 1 for 3.

Like the Spanish City to Me, When We Were Kids

Geordies facing the loss of their fantasy Spanish City - Home News, UK - The Independent

Not exactly breaking news, to put it mildly, it's just one of those things I was pretty sure I'd sussed out from the song ("Tunnel of Love" by Dire Straits, of course, and there's a Douglas Adams quote on the Wikipedia page) but never got around to actually googling to see if there was more to it. Sure enough, the Spanish City was a fairground/tourist attraction in the Northeast of England that Mark Knopfler visited as a kid. The first place he heard rock-n-roll played loud so, as a formative experience of his, it's made the rest of us that much richer.  Although you'd barely know it if you just read the Rolling Stone Top 500 list.

Facial Recognition ... (Triptych Cryptic Import)

... If This Is Any Indicator, Is Not Reliable Technology
I mean, c'mon.  This celebrity matcher thing didn't notice my resemblance to Tom Baker or Mark Knopfler?

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

video"Romeo and Juliet" Covered by the Killers
Caught this on the "Live from Abbey Road" show on Sundance. Not included in this clip is the the band talking about how much they love Dire Straits, this song, and hoping that by trying to do it justice they can introduce some of their younger listeners to Mark Knopfler & co.

Mix Tape

Mo, your mix tape is ready to go, I think I'm going to be coming to CT on Saturday, so I'll give it to you then. Because I used a Sony 110 min. tape with a slide case, I'm afraid it's not going to have much (anything) by way of liner notes and the song titles and artists are written in small, illegible script. Hence, following for your perusal is the complete list of songs, artists, and the occasional bit of justification for why the song is included:
A.
"Movie Star" by Stereo Total (from the "Tao of Steve" soundtrack); "Ballad of Cable Mogue" by Calexico (takes the Santa Fe, NM aesthetic on loan from the "Tao of Steve" track and moves south of the border); "Worthless" by Dido (I'm not crazy about the album as a whole but I do like her voice); "Pauline" by Eleni Mandell; "Totally Freaked Out" by Bettie Serveert (rounding out the female vocalist groove set by the last two tracks); "Hands Up Billy" by The Fall (I hope this wasn't on the tape MD made for ya); "The Employment Pages" by Death Cab for Cutie ("We Have the Facts..." is one of the best albums of the last several years); "Danelectro 2 (remix)" by Yo La Tengo/N. Takemura; "Dark Sun" by Sally Timms (the lovely and talented); "What Can I Say" by Yo La Tengo (after the Timms tune I felt I had to bend the mix tape rules and come right back with a great Georgia Hubley track); "The Last Laugh" by Mark Knopfler/Van Morrison; "Love Travels Faster" by the Halo Benders; "Negated" by Unwound; "The Ballad of Ezra Messenger" by the Gravel Pit (part one of their American Trilogy, part two follows later in the tape); "So This Is the Night" by the Slackers (the new album has a few wrong turns but they are still pound for pound the best ska band working)
B.
"Negative Attitude" by Lloyd Cole; "I'm Going to Spain" by the Fall; "Fell, Destroyed" by Fugazi; "You Don't Have to Tell Me Now" by Grant Hart; "The Rise of Abimelech DuMont" by the Gravel Pit; "Timber" by Neko Case and Her Boyfriends(sweet little neo-country number); "Little Light" by Jets to Brazil; "Buried Bones" by Tindersticks; "Common People" by Pulp; "Child Psychology" by Black Box Recorder ("life is unfair / kill yourself or get over it"); Dinosaur Act" by Low; "My Time After A While" by Buddy Guy; "Part Company" by the Go-Betweens; "She Thinks I Still Care" by George Jones (we had Sally Timms and Neko Case, seems like time for some classic honky-tonkin'); "Daydreamin'" by Hepcat; "Superman" by Cinerama; "Oliver's Army" by Elvis Costello (gack, the tape ended too soon so it's cut-off, you know how it ends anyways...)

I'd better give props to Mega cuz several songs on here (The Neko Case & Black Box Recorder most notably) I actually have on loan from his collection. Every mix tape has it's missteps (was "Part Company" the best choice off the Go-Betweens album? most likely not, but it's the song I thought of first; are the Dido and Unwound songs really good enough to warrant inclusion? maybe not, but they're new in the collection and I wanted to put stuff that was new, to me at least, on here) and this one is no exception. There it is though ... now, to name it ... "The Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb Tape"?

Long post longer: announcing, in a rare fit of generosity, the first ever, totally free, Triptych Cryptic Mix Tape Giveaway! Some of what's listed above sound good to you? Send me an e-mail with your name and address and I'll slap some tunes from the mighty, mighty c-dog (and mega) cd collection on tape (or mini-disc if you're the other person who bought a player) and mail 'em to ya on my dime. Why? I'm still delirious with fever and hopped up on the heady mix of Nyquil and Captain Morgan-n-Diet Coke. My fellow Crypters are welcome to participate, so act fast because I'm going to send the tape to the first email I get.

Knopflerasaurus

Knopflerasaurus. When the "cool" kids in Jr. High School were listening to Def Leppard, old Led Zep records, and whatever else was big back then, I was a Dire Straits kinda guy. "Geek," I think is the term that applied. (thanks to Mike for the link)

Run Down

In a more perfect world, when I sit down to write a blog post on minimal sleep, a coffee-fueled caffeine jag, and with the lingering sharp pains and dull aches that result from a 2 hour bus trip, the result would be some kind of Kerouac-ian beat poetic blurb about something relevant. Instead though, I can barely remember by the end of a sentence what I started out trying to say way back at the beginning. Something about the different way you perceive the world when your basic sustenance is Pemmican jerky scraps washed down with Red Bull soda maybe? What's been going on in the world while I've been stumbling from bed to bus to job to bus to bed? Debates: too tired to watch 'em. TV show premieres: ditto. Playoffs: I flip blearily between ESPN and Bloomberg from 5:45am to 6:00am -- the damn yanks advanced and NASDAQ is declining, the world's going to hell. I can't sleep on the bus, so I try to read instead. I'm hip deep in Crowley's Little, Big. It's OK, but I'm looking forward to a new book when I'm done with it. Music: been listening to Calexico's new album and like it a lot. Also, the new Knopfler -- getting Van Morrison to sing with him was a good idea ... James Taylor though was not. What else? Umm, moving into the new apartment, finally, this weekend. Once in, I can go back to getting decent sleep and start doing something calisthenic in the morning. The only exercise I get now is trying to find room for my legs when the guy in front of me on the bus reclines his seat. If my heart rate goes over 40bpm, it's only because when I slip into a half-waking dreamstate I think I'm running late and need to run after the bus or face the prosepect of driving through the Big Dig to try to find the office.

Knopfler

It's probably tragically un-hip to get all psyched-up when Mark Knopfler is on Letterman, but there you have it. Last night I flipped to Letterman, which I've watched twice in the last year, just in time to see Knopfler doing a song from his new album. Knopfler has aged. He looks Tommy Lasorda these days. He still plays the same though. Nothing revelatory about his guitar work, just the same old great sound. There are guest turns on the new album by Van Morrison, Difford and Tillbrook (Squeeze), and ... James, erm, Taylor. Like I said, tragically un-hip.