The Projector #11: In Stereo (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

I’m writing this on a Sunday night after the news broke that Ric Ocasek, frontman and primary songwriter for The Cars, unexpectedly died at the age of 75. If you’re movie-minded, it doesn’t take too many leaps to get to The Cars’ most famous soundtrack moment from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but it’s worth considering why The Cars’ “Moving in Stereo” works so well in that scene. It’s a slinky track but not a leering track. It keeps its distance. Like the rest of The Cars’ catalog, it creates its own mood and live in it, mixing new wave energy with a chilly reserve that’s both alluring and unnerving, whether it was Ocasek or drummer Benjamin Orr traded lead vocals. The band kept their shades on.

Maybe that’s what made The Cars so soundtrack-friendly. Fast Times gave them their most famous moment on screen, but you can hear The Cars providing a slice of the day’s hits in late-‘70s/early-‘80s films like Over the Edge, Times Square, The Sure Thing, and The Last American Virgin (hands down the most depressing teen sex comedy ever made). A Cars track gave a movie a recognizable hit, but also a bit of an edge. Even at their most upbeat, the group was always a little off. These days, the group’s music provides a shortcut for films and shows wanting to convey “The ’80s” (even though the band’s earliest hits appeared in the ’70s). But even in this context it's resisted becoming a cliché. You can drop “Let’s Go” into Bumblebee and it refuses to sound tired.

Which is a long way of saying that some artists’ songs get overwhelmed by soundtrack placement or worn out through overuse, but others’ somehow don’t. They find ways to live side-by-side and bring their own energy to the stories using them. It’s also a long way of saying Ric Ocasek will be missed.

Podcast news: Our look at murderous games in creepy old houses, which kicked off last week with an episode devoted to Clue, continues with an episode dedicated to Ready or Not. Both involve a lot of running around a big house, but only Ready or Not features goats, gushers of blood, and the most hilarious joke about looking up a question on the internet you’ll see this year. We’re still lining up our next bonus episodes, but look for news on that soon.

Want some pieces to read? This week seemed a little lighter than usual in terms of standout reads. Maybe everyone was busy at TIFF (or we just weren’t paying close enough attention)?

• With a new adaptation of Little Women on the horizon, Ashley Spencer looked back at the making of Gillian Armstrong’s great 1994 version via an oral history for The New York Times.

• Everyone knows 1999 was a great year for movies. But what about television? At Rolling Stone, Alan Sepinwall considers the twin debuts of The West Wing and Freaks and Geeks.