Christopher Victorio

"I can release three albums in a single season!"

Hold onto your skinny jeans, everybody, because Green Day has not one, but two movies showing at this year's SXSW film festival in Austin next month. One is titled Broadway Idiot (a documentary about Billie Joe Armstrong's work on the American Idiot musical) and the other is called ¡Cuatro! (a documentary about the making of the trio's latest three albums ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tre!, all of which were released last year).

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Future Bond singer?

​So, rumors continue to circulate that Adele will be responsible for the next James Bond theme -- hell, she practically admitted it on a British talk show a few days ago. We think this is fantastic news, because the last few have been either remarkably unmemorable (Chris Cornell practically put us to sleep with "You Know My Name") or rather un-Bond-y (Madonna doing Auto-Tune all over "Die Another Day" -- bleugh). Bond songs are supposed to be huge, bombastic, and vaguely nonsensical affairs, and we think Adele will take this opportunity and do something fabulous with it. While we wait though, here are our six favorite Bond themes so far.

"Goldfinger," Shirley Bassey

This is the one -- along with Bassey's "Diamonds Are Forever" -- that set the tone entirely for all subsequent Bond movie themes. By which we mean, this song is so completely and utterly ridiculous, ostentatious and un-ironic, it stays with you forever. And it's funny! Granted, maybe not as funny as Sheen Easton doing "For Your Eyes Only", but Bassey performs this with all the insane finger gestures, crazy eyes, and overacting of a drunk aunt losing it on the dance floor at a bachelorette party. Watching Bassey perform this is actually more entertaining than any Bond movie we've ever seen. No really.

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Which isn't totally surprising: The Bay Area foursome was pretty darn hesher, especially back in the days when bassist Cliff Burton was in the band, before he died tragically in a 1986 bus accident. Back then, Metallica was drink, grow hair, play metal. Repeat. Maybe add a little drugs and women, then repeat again. What more needeth a real and true hesher?

Apparently, though, the Hesher film did a very good job of capturing Burton in the character that Gordon-Levitt plays. Like, a good enough job that Metallica itself expressed approval.

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Since we have so many queer women in this fine city of ours, we figured we should probably just go ahead and throw this out there: Have any of you ever gotten so hot 'n' bothered after a make-out session that one of you started turning into a werewolf? No? Didn't think so. But that's the premise of a new movie named Jack & Diane (we hope you're suing, John Mellencamp) that stars none other than Kylie Minogue.

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Yes. You did read the headline correctly: Mark Wahlberg just compared Justin Bieber to Tupac Shakur. Since you -- like us -- probably can't quite believe that just happened, here's the actual (ridiculous) quote:

"The world needs Justin Bieber," Wahlberg opined. "Justin Bieber is like the white Tupac. Compared to a lot of people."

Is he, Wahlberg? Really? That's a bit like saying Lady Gaga is like the white Aretha Franklin -- compared to a lot of people (who've never held microphones). Or that Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch were like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five -- compared to a lot of people (who've never made any music at all).

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The Furies

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If you've ever doubted the punk-rock pedigree of our neighbors to the north, ask yourself this: could just anybody make it work going by the name Joey Shithead?

Tomorrow night the Roxie Theater, in conjunction with Indiefest, presents Bloodied but Unbowed, a documentary about the punk scene in Vancouver during the pivotal years of 1977-1982. You may be familiar with bands like D.O.A. and the Subhumans, but what about The Pointed Sticks? The Modernettes? Do you know how to pronounce U-J3RK5? ("The five is silent.")

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Putting rock musicians in movies has been a catchpenny ploy since about fifteen minutes after rock music began to hit nationwide in the mid-1950s. The crusty-nosed brats buying all the records were, after all, the very same unruly vermin clogging American drive-ins every weekend. At first, acts were rung on to do numbers in the manner of swing or jazz combos in innumerable 1940s B-programmers, but soon the temptation to cast rockers in lead and supporting roles became too great. Here are a few of the more puzzling examples:





5) Meat Loaf in Roadie (1980)
Critical reappraisal is past due for this comic chronicle of one Travis W. Redfish (Loaf), preeminent load-out man of '70s festival rock and freakishly durable pratfall victim. There's just too much intelligence and menace in the star's pudgy, foot-wide face to quite pull off a lead role as an idiot-savant, but his comic timing is better than most SNL alums, and the story has a few minor-key charms among the major-level noise supplied by Blondie, Alice Cooper, Pat Benatar, and the B-52s. Director Alan Rudolph went on to carriage-trade success with Choose Me (1984) and The Moderns (1988).

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