Saoirse Who? Lily Collins Is The Fairest Of Them All In Julia Roberts' Snow White
So much for the luck of the Irish. Though she was rumored to be the front-runner, Saoirse Ronan couldn't (or wouldn't) close the deal, leaving director Tarsem Singh to pick Lily Collins to play Snow White in his sexy, adult re-imagining of the classic fairy tale. Lily, daughter of horrible musician and undeserved Oscar winner Phil Collins, will be joining Armie Hammer as Prince Andrew Alcott and Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen. [Deadline]
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
While I don't think anyone can disagree that Phil Collins wrote some shitty music, and Aimee Mann's "Save Me" was entire universes better than the "You'll Be In My Heart" crap that won Collins an Oscar, he is by no stretch of the imagination a "horrible musician". Besides his work with Genesis, he is responsible for "In The Air Tonight", "Take Me Home", "I Wish It Would Rain Down" and "Don't Lose My Number". And those are just my favorites.
As a solo artist, he had 21 Top Forty songs, including seven number ones. And while it's true that popularity doesn't mean the music is any good (Ke$ha being the latest example), "In The Air Tonight" is just as moody and mesmerizing as it was thirty years ago. I never once thought I would be leaving a comment anywhere defending Phil Collins - while I LOVE the mentioned songs, I can't stand most of his other hits - calling him a horrible musician just sounds random and uncalled for.
And Jesus Christ, I can't believe "In The Air Tonight" is thirty years old. I suddenly feel incredibly ancient!
I will grant you "In The Air Tonight."
For everything else, I fear it may be just you and Patrick Bateman waving a lonely flag for Phil.
Was "Save Me" the best song that year? Yes. Way to state the obvious. As for the widespread influence of Collins' songwriting, drumming innovations, studio production and profoundly successful application of pop-song conventions, well, I guess you had to LISTEN to them to know what they were worth. In any case, his post "Jacket" work is at least as good as or better than the later works of Joni Mitchell, Robert Plant, Sting, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, or, geez, pick a 70's or 80's superstar at random who made music into the 90's. Or maybe all of these are horrible musicians at large. Wait, I'm forgetting someone. Oh yeah, MICHAEL.
I listened to "The Weekend"'s new mix tape today and thought it was really magnificent. Then I saw your smarmy, post-hipster attack on your mother's favorite radio star and wondered if I was just trying too hard, showing appreciation for the popular artists of my time as well as the cutting-edge indie geniuses of today. Did I miss the point where entertainment artists were now required to use the term "interwebs" with a straight face and chase cheap laughs at the expense of musicians their readers have never listened to? I'm actually a little afraid that my overly-emotional response to your from-the-hip attack on Collins will truly, and not just apparently, label me as "old." But I'll have to live with the fact that you're young, shallow, and wrong.
Dixon, I don't know what it says about me, but citing Patrick Bateman swung me right back into Team Collins.
A small selection of the other musicians who have somehow overlooked Phil Collins' wretchedness and have used him as their drummer:
George Harrison
Robert Plant
Eric Clapton
Brian Eno
Peter Gabriel
I know snark is part of the job, and I realize that Collins comes across as a bit of an asshole most of the time... but "horrible musician" just doesn't work.