Once is a fluke, twice a pattern. Three times is just sick. Since when did three guys from Toronto who’ve cranked out quality music since the early 70’s become the “hot” band to include in movies?
Rush has arrived. At least in the cinema world, that is. Just this year, the trio with one of the most loyal fan bases, who admittedly and proudly were never an “image” band, has been highlighted in three quality movies.
In I Love You Man with Paul Ruud, their most recognizable and highest charting hit Tom Sawyer is used more than just one of the band’s most recognizable songs, it is an anthem used for guy bonding, and remembering the adolescent catharsis even after you’ve bought into the myth of suburbia and all of its pedantic trappings. The band even has a cameo in the end of the movie playing Limelight.
Adventures of Power, which I saw at the Phoenix Film Festival, showcases the drumming of Neil Peart at the heart of the film. As the main character Power wins a tournament air thumping Tom Sawyer, Neil himself has a cameo, handing out the top prize, and as always, handles himself with class and dignity while keeping the tongue-in-cheek attitude.
And just when you thought that a band that has outlasted many of their prog- and arena-rock brethren couldn’t be used again in a flick this year, a character in Adventureland skillfully uses Limelight in a pivotal scene (including skillful air drumming).
I don’t know if it’s kismet, serendipity or Cygnus X-1 (sorry, couldn’t resist) is in full phase, but just why in 2009, three different films with three different directors have decided to mine the seminal work of the Moving Pictures album is anyone’s guess. But, as an admitted and unabashed Rush fan since second grade, I am geeked to finally see directors declining to use bands who are the flavors of the month and use a band that spoke to many of us as kids and still speak to us as men.
Now when are we going to see 2112 on the silver screen?
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