PLAY ME A SONG FIT FOR A DINGALING

For a smooth departure I always thought the songs at the end of movies—if they were good—wrapped up the tone of the movie while telling you to get the hell out of the movie theater. So this column is to send you gracefully into the new year.

This is also the last issue of the year, but no need to get upset and spit out all that goat milk—mmm goat milk—in shocked disbelief or scream like the dude in Planet Of The Apes, “Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” We’ll be back with more loony tunes in January in this noisy ass Noise section.

There are a bunch of good song movie endings that would probably work better in a list, but here are a few in addition to the ending to pretty much every Jackie Chan movie—that’s a given. The Breakfast Club has to be one of the best closing songs with Judd Nelson pumping his fist in the air to “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds. It unintentionally tells you not to forget this song or this movie moment.

I’ve always liked the way The Matrix ended with Keanu Reeves hanging up the phone and then Superman-flying out into the atmosphere to Rage Against The Machine’s “Wake Up.”

These songs don’t really have to be well-known. They can just be a perfect fit for the movie like Beck’s “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometimes” in the movie Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind during the replayed moment of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet chasing each other on a snowy beach.

But I think my favorite has to be the ending to Fight Club, when the buildings blow up and topple down one after another and the unexpected hilarious subliminal hairy penis blinks on screen right before the credits roll to The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?”

Since this is the last column of the semester I hope I packed all the power of a concert closing song, while tenderly letting go of love like in an 80s hair metal ballad. Unfortunately there is no encore with columns; I could come back in the last two pages of the Advocate with another rocking paragraph, but I’m sure Dan would bitch slap my ego back into my section. I will of course speak with my superiors about this.