For those of you that are new – I call stealing something in the name of art liberal borrowing.
For those of you that knew – what didn’t you tell the new people?
My latest discovery comes in the form of Hey Rosetta’s Red Heart. Though it’s not as cut-and-dry cut-and-paste as some of my cases, I think you’d be remit to not admit a blatant similarity to Better Than Ezra’s In the Blood. Take a listen to the opening melody structures and meet me down below:
Okay it’s more like a liberal liberal borrowing. Or maybe one just reminds me of the other. Kind of like how the opening of Churchill’s Change reminds me of Dean Martin’s Sway:
It’s been a while again, folks, and I’d like to present to you a few more occurrences of homagesliberal borrowings. If you are unfamiliar with my concept of liberal borrowing, click liberal borrowing (not this one, the previous one).
The first few I’m going to breeze through because they’re already older songs, and other people have thought the same or the artists acknowledge the similarity.
SOME NIGHTS BY fun. (do I really have to write it that way?) = CECELIA BY SIMON & GARFUNKEL
My friend swore up and down about this one, and being the defender of originality that I claim to be, I just didn’t really hear it… until this video:
He also thinks fun.’s We Are Young shares common ground with The Beatles’ Hey Jude. I told him to find me a sample; he’s still looking.
I WON’T GIVE UP BY JASON MRAZ = DELICATE BY DAMIEN RICE
When I first heard I Won’t Give Up, I wondered why I felt like I knew its melody but not the words (by the way, does Jason Mraz realize he looks like that now?):
WASHINGTON NATIONAL’S LOGO = WALGREEN’S LOGO
I’m late to this, but I only noticed because my Detroit Tigers made it as far as they did. Otherwise, I don’t watch National League games at all. But answer me this – notice anything? ‘Cuz Walgreen’s did.
Pictured in each poster: two dudes (one square, one “like, whatever”), short-haired pixie chick, wall.
If the posters are any indication, these are supposed to be the films that define the generations they’re made in. But that shouldn’t be the case for TPOBAW (nerd acronym alert!).
The book written in 1999 by Stephen Chbosky actually takes place around the early 90’s in which sex, drugs, homosexuality, and aimlessness were common themes (a.k.a. buzzkills) also featured in RB (n.a.a. again!). Does the same pre-social media angst of the 90’s translate to now? If the posters can do it, so can the celluloid.
(SIDENOTE: I read and bought TPOBAW multiple times. It was one of my favorites. A Holden Caulfield for Gen-X’ers. I’d hate it now.)
It’s been a few months since I’ve championed originality in music, or as I call it whilst demonizing (rock and roll!) it – liberal borrowing.
Of the latest two occurrences, one I should have caught a while back. The last time I mentioned Ryan Star on this blog was to pick on his name (go on – click it… it’s one of my better posts).
Needless to say, I embedded the video for his song Breathe, and I never noticed that it’s opening guitar solo sounded oddly familiar…
Ryan Star’s Breathe
Ringo any bells?
John Lennon’s Woman
I would consider it an homage if it was about the same thing. But it’s not. So it’s…
LIBERAL BORROWING!
As for my latest find, I overheard this song playing overhead in a sports bar:
Lee Brice’s Hard to Love
Any other song’s intro come racing to mind?
Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car
What’s the verdict here – liberal borrowing or homage?
I’ve never claimed to be hip. But then again, I’ve never claimed to be elbow either. (I should stop claiming to be funny.)
So when I recently discovered that rapper T.I. had a song called Rubber Band Man, somewhere deep in my core idiot actually hoped and thought it might be a remake (or let’s say, re-imagining) of The Spinners’ The Rubberband Man.
I figured know I’m not the first to notice this, but are you noticing a trend?
Keep your sights on the bulls-eye…
First, Katniss has her way with the bow and arrow in The Hunger Games, then Hawkeye shows up as a master archer in The Avengers, and finally Princess Merida goes all Robin Hood in Brave. Kinda weird, right? Like Hollywood’s prepping us for Armageddon by developing a fondness for rudimentary varieties of arsenal.
But like I said, I unfortunately was late to the (hunger) game catching that one, so howzabout this Coinkydink or Coinkydonk… the flying vessels the Chitauri use in The Avengers are similar to the flying disks in Masters of the Universe movie:
Sorta…?
What about the Chitauri Leviathan, then? It looked comparable to those Decepticon ships in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, right?
Yeah, this one’s a bit better… let’s go for one more COC!
Remember how it looked for Tony Stark inside the Iron Man suit?
Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Jr.
Do you think they got their idea’s from 1997’s Star Kid?
With Colin Farrell’s Total Remake Recall coming out this summer, it got me thinking… hasn’t he done this before? It’s kind of like Total Recall in Total Real Life. He’s becoming sort of the Remake King, and it may suit him well.
When S.W.A.T. was originally released, Farrell was the Sam Worthington of that moment. He was the foreign Actor! living the Hollywood dream. You couldn’t escape his movies – Hart’s War, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, and, ugh… Daredevil (his Bullseye was the best thing about that movie).
By the time Miami Vice was released, Anytown Vice could have been breathing down his neck. Addictions to pain killers and Playboy models were derailing his career, and this film was not helped by it (or, ugh… Jamie Foxx.)
(SIDENOTE: Insert In Bruges here. This film is not a remake, but to me, it remade his career. This was the first time I thoroughly enjoyed his work as anActor in bold, versus my usual sarcastic Italics!)
As for Fright Night and Total Recall, the court’s still out for me. I enjoyed the originals of both, and I don’t think his presence will hurt either of the newer incarnations. My big question is:
What’s the next remake he’ll, um, remake?
Now that Hollywood’s diving into 90’s television with the reboot of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (which I guess was technically and re-imagining of the comic book character), my suggestion is to go back to the TV remakes with Full House: The Movie!
All Most Actors! have precious egos. That’s why more often than not, they don’t like typecasting.
Now some Actors! benefit immensely from typecasting. If they’re weird-looking, they play weirdos; if they’re pretty, they play pretty people.
Don’t tell me JuliaRoberts or Brad Pitt weren’t playing Julia Roberts or Brad Pitt in most of their movies. The only reason Julia Roberts won her Oscar for Erin Brockovich was because she played outside of her type. She stepped (slightly) beyond her bubble (by showing pushed-up cleavage), just like Halle Berry did (by getting completely naked) in Monster’s Ball and Charlize Theron did (by looking ugly and getting naked) in Monster (those examples are Coinkydinks).
(SIDENOTE: I’m not sure what Sandra Bullock did except get cheated on…)
Anyboobs, Susan Sarandon has had a recurring character this season on 30 Rock. She’s been playing Lynn Onkman, the former teacher and lover of Frank… or in a word – a pedophile:
His hat should have read, "HOT FOR EACHER"... it's funny because the "T" fell off.
Where the Coinkydink or Coinkydonk comes into play is in Adam Sandler’s new movie, That’s My Boy, her daughter Eva Amurri plays – wait for it – a pedophile. Or should I say teacher and lover?
BONUS FIND! Though not in the preview, according to IMDb, Susan Sarandon is listed as third in the billing (she portrays her daughter’s character all grown up, ‘natch).
So is it all on accident (Coinkydink)?
Or is it a serious case of typecasting (Coinkydonk)?
It’s pretty weird that Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, and Janet Jackson all happen to be in ads for Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and NutriSystem respectively. I wonder which one inspired the remainder of the campaigns (Coinkydonk), or did they all happen to happen at the same time (Coinkydink)?
(SIDENOTE: It’s no Coinkydink that Mariah’s is the most annoying commercial of all time.)
BUT WAIT! These musical divas aren’t the only ones chiming in.
You also have Charles Barkley (for Weight Watchers) and Terry Bradshaw (for NutriSystem):
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