Butt-numb-a-thon | SpoutBlog

Huey Lewis & The Comeback of the Plot Song

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

My post on Huey Lewis’ two, questionably classic contributions to the Back to the Future soundtrack garnered some impassioned responses. Ryan Stewart wrote in to defend the track that I called the lesser of the two, Back in Time:

Cassette? Um, I own the LP. Back in Time is the best example ever of a plot-song. It’s that 1/1,000 that actually work, and work really awesomely, and the kind of thing they’d never have the guts to do these days.

Oh yeah? Well, never underestimated the guts of David Gordon Green. A friend of Spout pointed me to this Stereogum item from Monday, in which Seth Rogen, writer and star of Gordon Green’s Summer 2008 comedy The Pineapple Express, confirms that none other than Huey Lewis was commissioned to write “a track reminiscent of Power Of Love” for the movie. My source says he’s heard the song, and he confirms that it incorporates “lyrics that tell the plot of the movie, with ‘Pineapple Express’ in the chorus.”

So is the plot song ready for its comeback? Are YOU ready for the plot song’s comeback? Can you even name the last film that featured a full-on plot song? I can’t. While you’re pondering all of that, watch the above clip from The Pineapple Express. I’ve heard one or two whispers that the film could very well show up at Harry Knowles’ Butt-Numb-A-Thon this weekend (which, sadly, I’m not going to be able to attend), so we might get a full review of Huey’s contribution sooner rather than later.

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BNAT Apps Due Next Week

By Karina Longworth posted 2 years ago

I’m getting ready to fill out my first-ever application for Butt-Numb-a-Thon, Harry Knowles’ annual 24 hour, marathon film festival. My tastes do not always neatly dovetail with Knowles’, but for years, friends who have attended past BNATs have come back with rapturous reports. Another cause for excitement: this BNAT will be the first to take place at the new Alamo Ritz, which is replacing the old and much-beloved Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin.

Like a Telluride for genre geeks, the lineup is a total mystery before the festival begins, and lucky attendees must stay in their seats for the full 24 hours or risk missing something. About half the films are vintage and/or lost classics, the other half are (generally) Hollywood films that have yet to be released. Last year’s audience was privy to the premieres of Knocked Up, Black Snake Moan, Rocky Balboa, 300 and Dreamgirls, as well as screenings of The Informers, Inherit the Wind, and a “1976 X-rated animated” film called Once Upon A Girl, which caused my friend Jette Kernion to write, “Harry, I am sending you the bill for any psychotherapy I may need as a result of watching this thing.”

The application is rigorous: in addition to answering questions about Kurt Russell movies and “celebrity sexual fantasies” (presumably, they’re not one and the same), you’re instructed to upload “your favorite photo of you from a past Halloween Celebration or Costumed affair.” Out of thousands of applicants, Knowles hand-picks the couple of hundred eventual attendees. My chances of being deemed worthy of attendance are probably pretty slim, so cross your fingers for me, and if you want to apply, all the info is here.

[Via Matt Dentler]

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