The Johns have contributed a track, “Other Father Song,” to the stop-motion film Coraline, which is based on Neil Gaiman’s book of the same name. J. Linnell explains:
A girl finds a door in her house that first opens to a brick wall, but at night, there’s a crawlspace, a portal to another world. It seems appealing at first but it becomes very dark.
TMBG had initially written more material for the film, but as it developed (i.e. the director, etc., wanted darker, creepier music), this is the only one that made the cut. One thing worth noting is that though he doesn’t sing this song, Other Father (as well Father) is played by author, satirist, PC guy in those annoying Mac ads, and TMBG associate John Hodgman. (Coraline is voiced by Dakota Fanning.) The song is 28 seconds.
Their performance of “The Mesopotamians” on Conan lasted longer.
As O’Brien noted, that was visit 13 for TMBG, which is four or five years beyond the band’s current target demographic.
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The rest of the music in the film is by French composer Bruno Coulais, who has done haunting scores for a number of films. The TMBG song works well in context, but Coulais’ score really underscores the movie’s mood.
The Other Father Song has been stuck in my head for weeks. John Linnell has supernatural song-writing powers.
Wait, so the Unhip PC Guy is actually a successful creative person who merely LOOKS uncool? And the Hip Mac Guy is actually an actor with the brains of an anvil, but he LOOKS good.
Heh. Heh. Heh. That ad is so wonderfully freighted with meaning, in so many ways that go so far over the heads of hipsters and vendor fetishists and the fools who produced it, it’s not even funny.
No, wait, it is funny. Deeply, wonderfully funny.
Actually, Justin Long is pretty funny. Accepted was an underrated movie, and he was great as the imbecilic doctor in Idiocracy. However, he admits he knows zero about computers AND he has been romantically linked to Tila Tequila, neither of which point to a great intellect.
Damn, can these guys write songs. The chorus on that Mesopotamians song is unbelievably catchy.
I really wish they had done something else besides The Mesopotamians. Like, the rock version of “Why Does the Sun Shine”. That would bring things full circle.
Are you SURE that’s not John singing in the film? If not, Hodgeman deserves an oscar for that imitation of him.
By the by, Justin Long got to have sex with Drew Barrymore, so give him a little credit
yeah on the soundtrack it doesn’t mention john hodgman on the song, just they might be giants. i’m not a they might be giants fan but the song works well in context, there’s a subtle little tie in at the end (our eyes will be on coraline, the parents try to sew button eyes onto coraline OH MY GOD I JUST BLEW YOUR MIND) but the soundtrack is amazing as is.
also this movie fucking rules and the stop animation is the best i’ve ever seen. it was creepy and amazing. everyone should see it.
My sentence is a bit unwieldy, I guess, but that’s what I was saying: The song is sung by TMBG, not Hodgman.
Ok, I see what you’re saying. Got lost in the pronouns. Plus, both (all three) of their names are John.
What a confusing world we live in
I always see posters for this movie around and I never knew what it was about until I read the description above, anybody ever hear of Being John Malkovich??? Whoever wrote the book that movie is based off of has.
Actually, it’s not really anything like Being John Malkovich. It’s more like Pan’s Labyrinth, but waaaay less dark.
John Flansburgh is quickly starting to look like Horatio Sanz.
These guys are fantastic, but they’re treading a fine line by trying to lead a double (triple?) life: They’ve got their “adult” albums, their “kids” albums, and then all the commercial work they do. But damn if They haven’t proven they know what they’re doing.
Coraline was fantastic, and this is the last weekend you can see it in 3-D before it is replaced by the f’ing Jonas Brothers in 3-d . Seriously, The 3-d was worth the extra few bucks. BUt I’m sure it is still a great film in 2-d.
I liked Justin Long when he played Warren Cheswick on Ed. Damn that was a great show.
Too bad Coraline was such a crap movie.