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Films: S is for...

Something Wild

‘What decade, friends, is this?’ Uptight businessman Jeff Daniels hooks up with a ‘wild’ good-time girl played by Tippi Hedren’s Bloody Daughter, commits a few petty thefts, smashes a few shop windows and visits her parents, to the consternation of her ex-convict dad. All this cyan-and-magenta-tinged whimsy takes place to a soundtrack of almost compendious mid-’80s-ness. There’s UB40, here’s New Order. Oingo Boingo, inevitably, turn up (did these buggers exist outside of film soundtracks?) You’ve got the Fine Young Cannibals not doing their one good song (nor, for a mercy, any of their bad ones). You’ve got Timbuk 3 doing… well, have a guess. And most of all, you have perennial college rock also-rans The Feelies (whose Wikipedia entry refers to ‘shimmering soundscapes’ with what we can only assume is that site’s regulation gauche sincerity), cameoing, suitably, as a genuine college rock band, and slaughtering David Bowie songs in the process.

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  1. THX 1139

    February 1, 2014 at 11:54 pm

    It used to really bug me when people used to call Melanie Griffith “Melanie Griffiths” – where did the extra S come from, then?! A bit like people who insist on calling Will Ferrell “Will Farrell” nowadays. Also, when I first saw this on Moviedrome, I really was surprised when Mel took her clothes off, not realising it was a habit of hers. Ah, innocent youth!

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