15. “Equal Rights” – “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping”
There are enough funny, memorable songs in The Lonely Island’s sadly underseen, but destined-for-cult-status, mockumentary “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” that it probably could have filled this list on its own, from Chris Redd’s Tyler The Creator parody to the song where Andy Samberg’s Conner4Real tells the Mona Lisa she’s “an overrated piece of shit” with “dead shark eyes.” But the bit that made us laugh hardest is the glimpse we get of a song called “Equal Rights.” It’s a duet between Conner4Real and Pink, as herself, which sees the pop superstar make a plea for equal marriage, while constantly and defensively reminding the listener that he’s not gay by bringing up “Predator,” lighter fluid and 4x4s. It’s a frankly and rightly savage parody of the well-meaning but self-serving hijacking of the LGBT movement by, in particular, Macklemore, and is made all the better by the interview that follows with a disbelieving Ringo Starr: “He’s writing this song for gay marriage like it’s not allowed. It’s allowed now!”
14.”Ricky Baker Happy Birthday Song”/”The Partisan” – “Hunt For The Wilderpeople”
Taika Waititi’s brilliant little charmer “Hunt For the Wilderpeople” is sublimely offbeat, but also incredible deadpan and subtle (its excellent soundtrack made our Best Soundtracks & Scores list, too). A story about an unwanted rebellious kid before the national manhunt in the New Zealand push that propels the story, said kid, Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison), is just a troubled boy shuffled along from foster home to foster home. But his overly enthusiastic and guileless new foster aunt Bella (a comical Rima Te Wiata) goes to many amusing ends to make Ricky feel at home. For his birthday, she composes the “Happy Birthday Ricky Baker” song which is made further hilarious by the fact that Ricky already knows the words somehow and his curmudgeonly foster uncle, Hector (Sam Neill), can’t stand him. It’s really just a symphony of funny little facial expressions on both sides (plus a riotously funny little tune). Then there’s the use of Leonard Cohen’s “The Partisan” at a key moment of the film when Hec and Ricky are on the run from the law and are about to take a stand. It’s honestly a bit of a “you had to be there,” but for those that already adore restrained and indirect little bits of sly comedy, these little moments are to smile for inside.
13. “We Found Love”/“Dream Baby Dream” – “American Honey”
Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey” has many fine qualities, but subtlety is not among them. But subtlety isn’t necessarily an essential part of great filmmaking, and if the music of the film is a blunt instrument, it’s often an effective one. Sure, it might be on-the-nose for the first meeting of Sasha Lane’s Star and Shia LaBeouf’s Jake in a supermarket to be scored by Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” but it’s hard to think of a song that would have served better for those two characters in this particular world. Similarly, accompanying a later scene, as Star hitches a lift with a truck driver, is Bruce Springsteen’s cover of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream,” and if hipsters might roll their eyes at its inclusion in a film so nakedly about the American Dream, it doesn’t take away from the magic that it creates.
12. “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” – “Green Room”
Originally premiering back at Cannes in 2015, Jeremy Saulnier’s wire-taut thriller “Green Room” has taken on additional power since it hit theaters earlier in the year. It’s partly because of the tragic death of the film’s star Anton Yelchin. But it’s partly because of the horrifying rise of the Alt-Right, or to use the more appropriate name, Nazi Fuckos, in that time. The film pits punk band The Alt Rights against a siege of neo-Nazi ballbags, and ends satisfyingly with a ton of dead skinheads, but the film’s biggest two-fingers-up comes before the bloodletting, as the band, accidentally booked to play a neo-Nazi bar, defiantly play a cover of The Dead Kennedys’ anthem “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” enraging the crowd. It turns out to be a mistake for the characters, but man is it satisfying to watch right now.
11. “Emotional Rescue” – “A Bigger Splash”
There are many joys to Luca Guadagnino’s “A Bigger Splash” — the dignified, quietly simmering performance of Matthias Schoenaerts, the raspy one by Tilda Swinton, the terrifying hurricane of sexuality of Dakota Johnson, the film’s pleasingly pulpy beach-read vibes. But the greatest of those joys is an all-timer of a performance by Ralph Fiennes as Harry, a joyous, extroverted, secretly manipulative music producer. Fiennes is clearly having a blast as a middle-aged man who hasn’t even considered the idea of living a little less large, and gets his finest moment when he puts on The Rolling Stones’ “Emotional Rescue,” puts on a Jagger-ish falsetto, and struts his stuff like a dad at a wedding, if that dad still had three decades worth of coke coursing through his system. He might be best known as Voldemort and The English Patient, but this’ll be the clip they play to remember Fiennes in years to come.
