We just don’t know what to make of this clip from the new Sean Penn movie. There are so many weird things going on here.
First of all, this looks more like a truck commercial than a promotion for an upcoming movie.
As far as some of the other ingredients in this bizarre stew, Sean Penn, a first-rate actor, is playing an aging goth rocker, who has stopped releasing music. OK, that’s fine. Weird, but not impossible to process. But it gets weirder. According to several plot synopses, he’s traveling across America to find a Nazi who humiliated his father in Auschwitz.
Do we really need that plot device thrown in there? And do we really need Frances McDormand looking at his old video on TV with a look of delighted awe?
And what of the song? It is apparently by an Italian group called Nino Bruno e le 8 Tracce, and although I have been listening to the song non-stop, it definitely sounds more like Alex Chilton than The Cure.
And how about the title of the movie? That’s also the title for one of the best Talking Heads songs.
And then there’s the girl dancing around in her underwear to the song. While this is never an offense on the senses, it just doesn’t seem like the proper song for that. The only thing I can think of is that this combination of disparate elements may just be crazy enough to work.
