Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas

10 Underrated Songs by Fictional Music Groups (in Movies)

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

This week, thanks to The Rocker, we can add another fictional band to the long list of music groups created solely for the movies. They’re called Vesuvius, and they’re an ‘80s hair band with a hit song titled “Promised Land.” As part of the film’s marketing, the track was offered as a free download for play on Rock Band (see the clip above). But if you ask me, the wrong tune was used in the promotion. Another song from the soundtrack, also credited to Vesuvius, is called “Pompeii Nights,” and it’s definitely the better of the two.

I’m not surprised, though. While most people favor the songs of Spinal Tap, a once-fictional band that has become popular enough to evolve into a “semi-fictional” performing act, I’ve preferred such gems as “The Whites of Their Eyes” by PEZ® People, from The Big Picture. Also co-written by This is Spinal Tap’s Christopher Guest and Michael McKean, and sung by McKean, this song is apparently so underrated that I can’t even find an audio sample, let along a YouTube clip of the fake band’s music video, which was directed by fictional filmmaker Lydia Johnson (Jennifer Jason Leigh).

Fortunately, for the benefit of this list, the rest of these under-appreciated tracks have a few fellow fans.

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Ideas for the Jim Henson Biopic

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Empire reports that a Jim Henson biopic is on the way, and few people could be more excited than yours truly. However, like Empire, I would hate to see a generic biography directed by somebody like Penny Marshall. Yet I’m not so sure if I like their idea of getting Michel Gondry any better. Maybe Spike Jonze, but not Gondry. No matter what, though, this movie has got to have a creative edge. It doesn’t have to be too crazy. It doesn’t even have to confuse the real world with the Muppet world in a Dreamchild sort of way. Of course, it should feature Muppets playing real-life people from Henson’s life. Maybe take Robert D. Slane’s already completed screenplay for the biopic and cast all the parts with Kermit and the rest. But have a real actor portray Henson.

That would be the most logical and appropriate way of making a Henson biopic, but here are some other ideas, just in case Empire Film Group wants to throw out Slane’s script and start fresh: follow just one night in the life of Henson, specifically the night he went through hundreds of takes of a seemingly simple shot for Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas (see the blooper reel above to see what I’m talking about); follow Henson’s after-life, specifically giving us two-hours of him spinning in his grave due to the poor handling of the Muppets since his death; follow my conspiracy theory that Henson was killed by a CGI assassin; or just have Jonze loosely remake his own puppeteer-based Being John Malkovich with a Henson portrayer in the Cusack role and Kermit in the Malkovich role. OK, I’ll stop before I get any sillier/stupider. Anyway, you see what I’m getting at. Henson really deserves something more than your typical everyday biopic. And it has to be anything but serious.

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