The Yes List – Where the Wild Things Are Makes Beautiful Music
Each week, The Daily Beast scours the cultural landscape to choose three top picks. This week, Where the Wild Things Are gets a dreamy new single.
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Where the Wild Things Are Makes Beautiful Music
Fans of the classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are have lapped up teaser posters and the Arcade Fire-scored trailers for Spike Jonze’s upcoming live-action film adaptation (in theaters October 16), but what kind of music goes with furry monsters? The soundtrack won’t be released until September 29, but the first digital single, “All Is Love,” debuted this week and is streaming (for free) on the film’s MySpace page. Karen O, the frontwoman for The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (and ex-girlfriend of director Jonze), rallied composer Carter Burwell, members of Queens of the Stone Age, The Bird and the Bee, Deerhunter, The Raconteurs, and an untrained children’s choir to score the film. The effusive, charming track by Karen O and the Kids will appeal to adults and kids, and is (yet another) good sign about the movie whose cast boasts Catherine Keener, Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini, and newcomer Max Records as the young boy who rules the wild things. Karen said, “I didn’t want to make music that was hammering you over the head or go for some kind of pushbutton emotion.” Mission accomplished.
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thirtysomething: Still Angsty at Fiftysomething
The first season of the classic TV series thirtysomething was finally released on DVD this week, after years of struggle to obtain music rights for the show’s memorable original soundtrack. The angsty drama gave voice to baby boomer woes about navigating adulthood when the show debuted in 1987. Among the standouts in the cast were Ken Olin and Mel Harris as the nervous new suburban Philadelphia parents Hope and Michael Steadman, Timothy Busfield as Elliot struggling in his marriage to Nancy (Patricia Wettig), and Peter Horton as Gary, the boyish professor who could never seem to grow up. With extras including a conversation with creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick (who teamed up again on Relativity, My So-Called Life, and Once and Again) the DVD doesn’t disappoint, and although the show can sometimes feel dated, after so many years, it’s easy to be sucked back into a show this effortlessly good. The following three seasons will be released in six-month intervals, so parcel out the episodes now. Plus, view our gallery of where the thirtysomething cast members are at fiftysomething.
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Inside Vogue’s Queendom
Fashionistas have been clamoring to see The September Issue, the highly anticipated documentary following Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour and her creative underlings during the 2007 preparation for its massive fall fashion issue. The documentary premieres this weekend in New York before a larger rollout on September 11. Director R.J. Cutler, who talked to The Daily Beast’s Kim Masters, was granted unprecedented access to Wintour, who even described herself as “not always warm and cuddly” during a rare appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman this week. The bristling chemistry between Grace Coddington, Vogue’s creative director, and Wintour, is one of the highlights of the entertaining film. The Daily Beast caught up with Coddington at the red-carpet premiere: "People just think Anna and I go out and spend a lot of money and things come very easy, but it's not like that. I think the recession has meant we've all come back to reality, which I don't mind at all.”