Maybeshewill - Movie Quotes

In September 2011 I reviewed Maybeshewill - He Films the Cloud Part 2:

http://colinkellymusicinreview.blogspot.ca/2011/09/maybeshewill-he-films-clouds-part-2.html

It turned out to be one of my most popular posts.  I have been meaning to revisit the inventive band and I think I know what to talk about.  Maybeshewill never has lyrics, in place of lyrics they use movie quotes, and here is the complete list.

Album: Japanese Spy Transcript 

Song: In Another Life, When We Are Cats 

Movie: The Rules of Attractions 

“The Rules of Attraction” might appear as a shallow teen heart throb movie but in reality is a very dark film. We follow three protagonists as they struggle with their sexual interest with one another. It is quite enjoyable seeing each one of these characters get slapped in the face with reality as all three are forced to see how wrong they were to romanticize, glorify, and justify their selfish intentions.

The quote Maybeshewill uses here is the final confrontation between Sean and Lauren. Sean the megalomaniac is properly put in his place. Don’t worry Lauren get hers shortly after.

“Lauren, wait. Hey, wait. Lauren.”

“Oh my god.”

“Get in the car.”

“No!”

“Lauren, don’t walk- Hey! I really did try to kill myself! Just before I faked it.”

“Wow. Sean it’s over.”

“No it’s not!”

“Yeah it is. I’m in love with somebody else.”

“Who?”

“My old boyfriend Victor, and that’s none of your fucking business, actually!”

“What? Fucking Victor?”

“Yeah.”

“What... the fuck are you writing me letters?”

“Wow. Deal with it Sean. It’s over. Rock and roll.”

“Lauren, I want to know you.”

“What does that mean? Know me. Know me. Nobody knows anyone else, ever!”

Interesting side note, “The Rules of Attraction” was written by Bret Easton Elis who also wrote “American Psycho.” If you are paying close attention you may have noticed the common last name of “Bateman” for both leads in “American Psycho” and “The Rules of Attraction.” The reason for this is simple, Patrick Bateman, the American Psycho, is supposed to be the older brother of Sean Bateman.

Song: Transmission Three 

Movie: Return of the Living Dead 

“Return of the Living Dead” is a silly movie. Co-creators of “The Night of the Living Dead” wanted to take the zombie idea in a different direction then George A. Romero. While I often criticize movies like “Day of the Dead” and “Land of the Dead” for being completely idiotic and absolutely void of any relatable character motivation, Romero on his worst day has nothing on the return of the living dead series; having said that... the first film “Return of the Living Dead” isn’t bad.

The quote Maybeshewill has lifted is when Burt to forced to explain (as best he can) what the fuck is going on. I think Maybeshewill did an excellent job with this quote, the atmosphere is the song is truly frightening; more so than the actual horror film.

“Freddy are you alright?”

“Tell her...”

“What did you do to Freddy? What’s wrong with him, and this man?”

“You know I think it’s time you tell us what the fuck’s going on.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything dick brain.”

“We think you should.”

“Tell them god damn it.”

“Talk!”

“There was a chemical. There’s some chemical and it soaked into the soil of the graveyard and made the corpses come back to life.”

“What chemical?”

“I don’t know what chemical, god damn it!”

Album: Not For Want of Trying 

Song: Not For Want of Trying 

Movie: Network 

News anchor Howard Beale’s speech is often considered one of the best movie monologues of all time, and rightfully so, actor Peter Finch is so powerful in his performance. The 1976 film “Network” is a must see for anyone who would fancy themselves a film buff and choosing to use this quote was a good idea. In this example I do not feel Maybeshewill did anything special, they just choose a fantastic quote to put in one of their songs.

“Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.

We know things are bad, worse than bad, they're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'

Well, I'm not going leave you alone. I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a human being god damn it! My life has value!'

I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!”

Album: Sing the Word Hope in Four-Part Harmony 

Maybeshewill must have realized people like big powerful movie quotes in their songs because the album “Sing the Word Hope in Four-Part Harmony” has four songs containing four movie quotes and one dramatic reading of an article. Also this is when Maybeshewill decided to be a little more obscure since I have never seen any of these films.

Song: Co-Conspirators 

Movie: The Verdict 

I’ve never seen “The Verdict” but I sure want too after hearing this speech delivered by Paul Newman.

“Well... you know so much of the time we’re just lost. We say, ‘please god, tell us what is right. Tell us what is true.’

I mean there is no justice. The rich win; the poor are powerless; we become tired of hearing people lie; and after a time we become dead, a little dead. We think of ourselves as victims... and we become victims. We become... we become weak. We doubt ourselves, we doubt our beliefs, and we doubt the law.

But today you are the law.”

Song: Our History Will Be What We Make of It 

This song “Our History Will Be What We Make of It” doubles up on the movie quotes. The opening speech is from the film “Good Night, and Good Luck” a film about the McCarthy trials staring George Clooney and the closing speech is from “Young Winston” a film about Winston Churchill.

Movie: Good Night and Good Luck 

“Our history will be what we make of it. And if there are any historians fifty or a hundred years from now and there should be a kinescopes of one week of all three networks, they will find there, recorded in black and white and in color, evidence of decadence, escapism, and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have a built in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information.

Our mass media reflect this.

But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then history will take its revenge and retribution will not limp in catching up with our sins.”

Movie: Young Winston 

“It may be the human race is doomed, never to learn from its mistakes. We are the only animals on this globe who periodically set out to slaughter each other for the best, the noblest, the most inescapable of reasons. We know better, but we do it again and again in generation after generation. It may be that our empire too is doomed, like all those that have gone before it, to continue to spew and waste its best blood on foreign soil, no matter what we say or do in this place, or think, or believe, or learned from history.

But thank god for us.”

Song: This Time Last Year 

Movie: I Heart Huckabees

I can forgive myself for having not seen “I Heart Huckabees” it seems like the kind of movie I would normally avoid. “I Heart Huckabees” appears to be a movie about a bunch of self appointed intellectuals discussing the world through the lens of childish immaturity. At least that is what I can gather from the following quote.

“Clothes, videos, toys, cheeseburgers, cars, a functioning economy.”

“You can still have a functioning economy and preserve open spaces with a little planning.”

“Yeah.”

“Socialism.”

“Um, complete disaster.”

“Theodore Roosevelt was a socialist, and William Butler Yeats.”

“Theodore Roosevelt!”

“Henry David Thoreau, Robinson Jefferson, the National Geographic Society, they’re all socialists?”

“You’re talking about socialism.”

“No, I’m not. I’m talking about not covering every square inch of populated America with houses and strip malls until you can’t remember what happens when you stand in a meadow at dusk.”

“What happens in the meadow at dusk?”

“Everything.”

“Nothing!” - “Everything!”

“Nothing!” - “Everything!”

Song: Sing the Word Hope in a Four-Part Harmony 

Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/12/recession-economics

This is not a movie quote, but I felt it was worthy of mention because it is a quote nonetheless. The speech in “Sing the Word Hope in a Four-Part Harmony” is not an exact quote, but is based entirely off the above linked article, “The generation facing its first recession. How will they cope?” by Tracy McVeigh. Maybeshewill has recorded this speech about generation Y, which they are likely apart of; based on age and the fact they have recorded this speech in reference to the content from a first person perspective.

I do not know if the voice in “Sing the Word Hope in Four-Part Harmony” is one of the gentlemen from Maybeshewill, but I do know this recording was done specifically for the album of the same name.

“We are young, confident, affluent, and have no memory of tougher times. We’ve grown up in an era of never ending financial growth, and have expected things to stay that way. We’ve grown up in owner occupied homes with total acceptance of technology, global warming and terrorism. Our whole society has been based on consumerism for the past fifteen years, making us dream consumers, yet we don’t know the difference between a credit card and a debit card, and we have no idea how much a pint of milk costs.

On average we have eight hundred illegally downloaded songs, and one in eight of us spends more than one hundred pounds a month on our mobile phone bill. We’ve never read a newspaper, and we’ve never used our chance to vote.

We allow our governments to make decisions without giving us all the facts. They send troops abroad who will die in order that we can steal resources from the people who have them. People who meant us little or no harm until we invaded their country. We allow those troops to commit horrendous atrocities and yet our leaders hang our alleged enemies for much less.

We’ve spent years entrusting our futures to our parents, our governments, the banks and the corporations who have continually lobbied for their own interests, and we’ve let them make selfish decisions that have left our society teetering on the edge of ruin.

We’re blinded from the information that would really shock us by stories of sex and sleaze which doesn’t make the smallest difference to our lives, and so we have no desire to do anything about the things that really do. We’ve watched as greed wipes billions off the world’s stock markets, destroys jobs and lives, and proves that capitalism is just as corruptible by human nature as communism.

These are tough times but we seek solace in our friends and Co-Conspirators, we make small differences in each other’s lives, and dream that we can make real progress.”

Album: I Was Here for a Moment, Then I was Gone 

“I Was Here for a Moment, Then I was Gone” is Maybeshewill’s latest album. They have kept with the tradition of having the longest possible album title but they have broken away from the tradition of having song quotes instead of lyrics in their songs on this album. Instead the album is an instrumental.

I do not know whether movie copyrights become the sudden enemy of Maybeshewill or if perhaps the band wanted us to pay more attention to their fine guitar work this time around. All in all “I Was Here for a Moment, Then I was Gone” is a good album and keeps in the spirit of Maybeshewill even without great movie quotes.

- Colin Kelly