Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark is a band comprised of Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys. As a pair, they look like they could have starred in 1980's Merchant-Ivory films or 'Chariots Of Fire'.
In reality, they are actually associated with one very iconic John Hughes film. I had the great fortune to see their songs performed live recently. It's difficult to focus on any one aspect of their journey. OMD has a legacy of mastering pure electro-pop, and they remain true to their sound. So let's begin with where they are TODAY. They released an album in 2013 called 'English Electric'.
OMD's English Electric album
This new release by OMD is solid. Check out OMD's latest video for the song 'Metroland' (it's an adorable video.)
From the lengthy (when non-acronymed) name of the band, to each melody and lyric they've put forth, this is a duo that doesn't cut corners. If they do something, they will do it right. Scientifically so. And as I witnessed recently, when they perform they give everything they can to make that song everything it can be.
It's not about over-performing for the sake of personal gain, and it's not about selfish absorption of energy from their loving audience. It's about the output of energy (at just the right level) to make each song function at its most optimal, propelled by the current that runs from the band to the audience and back again. Electricity in its purest form, still. And they clearly loved that energy as much as we, the audience, did.
Electricity (and Solar Energy)
What has always attracted me to their songs and lyrics has been a sense of sweetness and intelligence. And their passion for science is always evident, as in one of my favorite conclusions to any song –– in 'Electricity':
The alternative is only one
The final source of energy
Solar electricity!
I've been a solar energy advocate for most of my life. My father worked for a solar power company for several years in the late-80s. Our home in Portland, Oregon functioned on solar energy without a single hitch. It was very much a a solution, even back then. Even in a city and state known for being cloudy for much of the year. The sun is strong enough to power every place on Earth easily, and completely. We all know that, or should. But yes. OMD proposed the use of solar power via their song's lyrics in 1979...!
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are essentially forward thinking futurists like their hero Nikola Tesla. Which brings me to 'Tesla Girls', a song they released in 1984.
Nikola Tesla (and Tesla Girls)
'No! No! No!' 'Tesla Girls' is not just a means to pay homage to their hero, famed electrical engineer and futurist Nikola Tesla, a man greatly responsible for the use of electricity as we've known it; the song gives pause to appreciate smart girls.
Nikola Tesla
This is a band who announced to the world that they appreciated women for their brains. (Imagine that...! :)) Aside from the more obvious reference suggested by 'Tesla Girls', that certain women having a magnetism similar to electricity––and that attraction being tough for a man in love to understand––these are men who were so ahead in their thinking they resolved to admire what so many scientists have long suggested: that women tend to be smarter than men. OMD embraced that idea instead of hiding from it. So, yes. 'Tesla Girls' is a feminist song by a group of men in the 1980's.
Tesla girls, Tesla girls
Testing out theories
Electric chairs and dynamos
Dressed to kill, they're killing me
But Heaven knows their recipe
(No No No)
You wouldn't believe me if I said
The things I've seen went over my head
I've been patient Heaven knows
I've learnt the rules and how it goes
I can't sit still or settle down
And when I walk I don't touch the ground
See those girls they're heaven blessed
I guess it's so they know best
Tesla girls, Tesla girls
Writing in their diaries
Now and then they'll watch TV
Now and then they'll speak to me
But Heaven knows their recipe
The Show
A lifetime of loving Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark did not prepare me for how much I would enjoy their recent live performance at San Francisco's Regency Ballroom on April 12, 2013. I was looking forward to the show and didn't want to set my expectations too high. And then the actual experience exceeded all of my expectations. Here's a photo of me at the end of the show (lingering after the majority of people had filed out) feeling moved by the glory of synth-pop I'd just witnessed.
This is how it went: the crowd that gathered at the Regency Ballroom kept growing until the place was filled to capacity. It was a packed house, and I'd never seen the popular venue as crowded. Everyone was smiling, happy to be there. People were genuinely being nice to one another. Multiple strangers complimented me on my jacket, and my iPhone cover––fittingly, an 80's 'cassette tape' one (pictured below.) People in attendance were being friendly for no apparent reason.
My cassette phone cover
I realized that people who love this band are just sweet people. Because O.M.D. is what one would call a 'nice' band, and that's a wonderful thing to be. I also had this tremendous sense of 80's nostalgia as I looked around, despite the fact that the audience age-range was broader (and younger) than one would expect for an original 80's electro-pop band. But that's just it: 80's electro-pop still sounds exciting and this style of music gains new fans every day. There was so much vibrant energy, everywhere! Reminding me again of the very band we were waiting to see and their super-fast song 'Electricity'. I made a bet they'd close the show with that one, and I was right.
If You Leave
I also knew the band has a funny love-hate relationship with arguably their biggest hit: 'If You Leave'. Before breaking out into his fantastic 80's style dancing when the music begins, Andy McCluskey amusingly said at another recent show: 'We don't normally play this song but we will for you tonight. It's a song that ruined our careers. We were doing great as an alternative band 'til we wrote this... [music begins] It's still fucking great, mind you!' See that great performance below.
I was interested to see how they'd introduce the big song at the Regency Ballroom. I could tell everyone present was a dedicated fan like myself, people who know and love the entire oeuvre of The Manoeuvres. Not just one big song from that one soundtrack, made especially popular by the prom night romance of that epic love triangle of Andie, Duckie and 'Blaine? His name is Blaine? That's not a name, that's a major appliance!'
Prom Night
As O.M.D. themselves have said, despite (and in large part, because of) everything it represents... "It's still a fucking great song." And that is not a subjective sentiment. It IS a f%#!ing great song. Everyone who breathes will agree in their hearts and minds, even if they wouldn't declare it out loud. Just as it brought odd couple Andie and Blaine together for a kiss, closing out an incredibly poignant and romantic movie, 'If You Leave' is a song that anyone belonging to any clique, group, subculture, or what have you, can agree upon. Because it's a song that fully accomplishes what it sets out to do. It's romantic. When they played it for us, their captive audience, I suddenly realized I'd never before heard as beloved a pop song as that one performed live. It was such an amazing feeling to be in the midst of a roomful of people in a state of euphoria over that song, one that everyone associates to either the memorable romance of 'Pretty In Pink', a prom night fantasy or a reality of their own.
Enola Gay
The show was incredible, packed with all their greatest songs and a few new tunes. Some of my favorites aside from the aforementioned 'Electricity', which closed out the encore as the final song of the night: "Secret', 'Souvenir', 'Enola Gay', Walking On the Milky Way', 'So In Love', 'Joan Of Arc', 'Locomotion', 'Messages'. They played them all. Here's a quick video of 'Enola Gay' from the night that gives some idea of how the show looked and felt.
Tesla Girls
And they also played 'Tesla Girls' that night –– for the first time in a long while, as Andy explained. Lucky us! I'm so glad they did.
David O. Russell might have traveled here from the past. Whether or not you believe in time travel, his brand of filmmaking in today's world is remarkable. He is the only director working today with a penchant for telling stories (that touch on tough topics) with incredible humor and wit, without making a joke out his characters. The joke is not on anyone in a David O. Russell picture –– but it might just be on life itself. He's the only director I can think of who's gifted enough to make true screwball, romantic comedies out of even the most dour scenarios. And he's the only one whose work comes close to directors from around the Depression-era, those who were able to bring a kind of magical, yet believable, earnestness to the silver screen. David O. Russell could be, might be (or is he??) from another time.
Even his name, David O. Russell, belongs in another era. It has that kind of ring to it (it even recalls the big name of Selznick, the other David O.) In my mind, he could be out there in the 1930's or 1940's, receiving accolades alongside his 'peers-from-another-time', Frank Capra or Howard Hawks. Imagine a creepy moment now –– like in 'The Shining', when you realize Jack Torrance had always been at The Overlook Hotel as he appears in that photograph from 1921.
Maybe there's a photograph of David O. Russell alongside Preston Sturges at a film directors' function of some sort, somewhere. This theory is both delightful and scary.
Preston Sturges | David O. Russell
And speaking of Preston Sturges, his 'Sullivan's Travels' is one of just a handful of movies that struck such a deep chord in me, instilling the desire to be involved with filmmaking in some capacity. I see a lot of what I love about 'Sullivan's Travels' in David O. Russell's films.
Is David O. Russell the improved Sullivan... incarnate?
That 'Sullivan's Travels' connection can be broken down into three aspects that appear in each of my four favorite David O. Russell films:
Main protagonist embarks on an unusual, perspective-altering journey, which directly ties with his career or family.
Protagonist meets unusual and alluring people along the way –– who join this journey and make a huge impression on said protagonist.
Characters depicted in the story manage to be both incredibly easy to relate to... and yet, somehow, they are unlike anyone you'll meet in life (reality+magic, ordinary people living extraordinary lives –– or the failed attempt at the opposite, as in the case of 'Sullivan's Travels'.)
In fact, I'll take it a step further and say that David O. Russell may have actually been like John L. Sullivan (again, that name from another era) –– a successful Hollywood director who wants to show the world what real life and real problems are like, only to realize people would rather laugh and be entertained when they watch a movie to escape from all the misery of life (not to relive it again) –– however, David O. Russell has achieved what Sullivan had hoped to achieve and beyond. He found the key to showing what has potential to feel real and true, without losing your audience, is by balancing that with strong doses of cheer. Maybe David O. Russell's time traveling is in fact that he is the new-and-improved, and wiser, Sullivan... incarnate!
The four films that have this 'Sulivan's Travels' connection for me are:
Flirting With Disaster (1996)
I'm a huge fan of this movie (it's been my favorite of David O. Russell's until 'Silver Linings Playbook' came around. Now they are tied for favorite.)
Quintessential screwball comedy. It's just as funny today as it was in 1996. Considering how poorly comedies from the 1990's hold up, that says an awful lot about David O. Russell's timeless sensibilities.
Just thinking about this movie makes me laugh. Did anyone else notice the 'Bringing Up Baby' references? For example, the fiance/spouse in both films is a scientist. I still cry from laughing at the various madcap misadventures that take place on this journey, and I especially love the accidental acid trip scene with the Schlichtings.
As with all of Russell's films, could the cast have been any better? Apart of the main trio, I'm thrilled there's a movie I can watch containing Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin –– the list goes on.
I Heart Huckabees (2004)
So many heavy questions about life and our very existence are at play –– and yet somehow, this movie couldn't be any lighter or more enjoyable. I heart this movie (sorry, had to say it.)
The casting here is once again top-notch. Lily Tomlin returned to work with David O. Russell (and famously threw a fit in a moment of frustration) playing an 'existential detective', along with Dustin Hoffman. Naomi Watts is truly memorable in her oddball role, Isabelle Huppert and Mark Wahlberg round out the cast with some great moments. There is really no shortage of talent here.
'I Heart Huckabees' is a movie that would have fallen apart at the hands of another director, but with David O. Russell's screwball comedy prowess, it's highly entertaining. And I personally love its existential messages and leanings.
The Fighter (2010)
When I sat down in the theater to watch 'the Fighter', I wasn't sure what I was in for, since it looked like it would be another dour but inspirational true-to-life (based on a true story) boxing picture. I was curious to see what David O. Russell wanted to do with it.
The opening sequence of this movie was enough for me to walk out right then and there satisfied and happy. It's probably one of the most buoyant and jubilant opening sequences of all time, perfectly capturing the humorous side of the two brothers, Mickey Ward and Dickey Eklund. It also manages to show us that in this dumpy town, where people could be down and depressed –– they actually know how to live, and to laugh. The opening welcomes you right into their world, and you're happy to join the party.
Another example of brilliant casting: The Ladies. Melissa Leo was about to hit the big time and win an Oscar for her role as Alice Ward, tough mother to quite a lot of kids: countless equally tough daughters (ones with hairstyles, wardrobes and attitudes that don't typically appear on movie screens –– which is hysterical) and the two boxing sons.
Amy Adams also shows her tougher side in this movie (and by this film, it was obvious what kind of range she has.) Looks can be deceiving, and anyone who has see 'The Fighter' can attest that despite its seemingly down-trodden appearance, it is an extremely uplifting and fun movie to watch.
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
My favorite movie of 2012 –– and even in recent memory. Forget Bradley Cooper's countless, well-deserved nominations for 'Silver Linings Playbook', his work in this movie is astonishing. His performance has recently been eclipsed by the one given by his talented costar, Jennifer Lawrence, who has actually been winning the awards for which she's been nominated. But don't be mistaken: Bradley Cooper is the shining star of this movie. His is THE performance of the year, in my opinion.
The cast is incredibly talented, like they have been in all of David O. Russell's films. But in 'Silver Linings Playbook', everyone hits their stride in what becomes one of those rare movie experiences where every scene, and every performer in it, is just perfect.
Again, David O. Russell tackles a tough (and very timely) topic –– mental health –– but he does it with so much warmth, sweetness, and humor that his film becomes a screwball comedy instead of a downer. That is much more challenging and masterful work than making a straight comedy, drama, thriller... what have you. Watching this movie, I laughed, I cried... I cried from laughing. The range of emotions we feel along with the characters is of staggering, in some ways life-altering, proportions. On this particular journey, we are all entirely engaged from start to finish. It's a perfectly executed David O. Russell film. The director is now at the very peak of his game.
Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver are so believable as Bradley Cooper's parents –– their love for their son is palpable and incredibly moving. Like many movie lovers, I agree that it was refreshing to see De Niro back to his rightful place and level here. His collaboration with David O. Russell has been a welcomed reminder of what his acting is all about. As soon as we left the theater after watching 'Silver Linings Playbook', long before others had even heard about it (it was only playing in one theater in all of San Francisco at the time) I announced with assurance to my husband that all four actors –– Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Jackie Weaver –– would be nominated for Oscars. I hoped David O. Russell and the movie would, too.
I also hoped Chris Tucker might be on a short list for best supporting actor nominations. In fact, the entire supporting cast was surprisingly excellent.
I wasn't sure what to expect with the dance scenes. I've studied ballet throughout all of my adult years, in particular (and danced whenever I could from grade school through college), and there are certain emotions that movies depicting dancing (or dancers) just don't capture well. Since these two characters are meant to be lowly amateurs, competing for the sake of connecting, I didn't expect much besides humor and potential embarrassment from the final dance sequence.
And here is where I prayed that the film's EDITOR would get an Oscar nomination. (Follow up note: the film's editor did get a nod from the Academy.) I won't go into verbal detail, but the dance sequence made me cry. Somehow, David O. Russell, the camera crew, the editor –– everyone involved –– understood what this sequence should look like and mean, those moments in motion. I felt exhilarated, and my heart was breaking at the same time. This very surprising scene, its outcome and the way it was executed was pure movie magic. I told my husband between tears, this is a timeless scene –– this scene is an instant classic.
Long after the Oscars and awards brouhaha have ended, people will watch 'Silver Linings Playbook', and that dance sequence (such a classic, rewarding scene) will live on and make people smile, laugh and cry over and over again. Just like any great screwball (or depression-era) comedy, this one will long live in our hearts and minds.
English speakers are often impressed/amused/overwhelmed by how the German language may offer one long-ish word (or awkward word combo) to represent what's described with a phrase in English. One such amusement can come from a German term for couples (or any two individuals) who dress alike. That word-combo is 'partnerlook'.
Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg in matching corduroy suits
The word is silly, but it works. The idea of partnerlook can never seem entirely romantic. It can even be creepy to spot a couple dressed alike. But the term typically describes couples who wear matching rain gear. Or as a German native described it: 'Boring jackets.'
But on the right couple, partnerlook can be adorable. Even tasteful. Partnerlook can mean the couple feels like a union of equals, that they don't necessarily have traditional roles –– or that they simply like each other so much they want to dress alike. Whatever lies behind partnerlook-ing (if it can be used as a verb), I thought it would be fun to share some great examples of 'partnerlook' for Valentine's Day. Behold: the partnerlook.
Sonny and Cher partnerlook-ing
Jean Shrimpton and Terence Stamp
Matching sweaters
The Shrimp and The Stamp in sweaters
Dick is not ashamed of his partnerlook with Paula. Why should he be?
David Bowie and Angie took parterlook-ing so far they came out the other side
The full-on partnerlook
They've perfected their partnerlook
One couple truly mastered the partnerlook: Paul and Linda McCartney. Often times with the same hairdo, which is a far more committed and powerful statement than wearing similar threads. P and L understood PL like nobody's business. Happy Valentine's Day :-)
Orange overalls and tees
Floppy hats
Matching mullets, expressions, coats
There can be exuberance in partnerlooking
Sweaters: entire families can participate in partnerlook
Very clean, streamlined togetherness
Two mullets and a baby
Stage mullets
His and hers
The yellow and the pose makes for the best wedding photo ever.
This is where my retro active outlook runs amok. I have the deepest concern for all non-human animals living in this cruel world. Respect for all species.
