1. Television Romance – Pale Waves
2. Hollow – Desperate Journalist
3. Want You Back – 5SOS
4. Blonde – WATERPARKS
5. Murder By Pride – Stryper
6. The Hell Of It – Paul Williams
7. Love Is Dead – Brett Anderson
8. She – Suede
9. Shake It Off – Ryan Adams
10. Head Like A Hole – Nine Inch Nails
1. Nando’s – The Wimmins’ Institute
2. Rainbow Connection – Paul Williams
3. Deathcamp – Tyler The Creator
4. She Loves You – McFly
5. Cats And Dogs – Hannah Golightly
6. Suzanne – Leonard Cohen
7. You Love Us – Manic Street Preachers
8. Oddie Moore – Skating Polly
9. Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division
10. Electric Man – Mansun
1.Rainbow Connection – Paul Williams
2. Love To Love – The Monkees
3. Ticket To Ride – The Carpenters
4. Faith – George Michael
5. Spaceships – Hannah Golightly’s Imaginary Band
6. Love Me – The 1975
7. Girls/Girls/Boys – Panic! At The Disco
8. People Say I’m No Good – Charles Manson
9. Hollow – Desperate Journalist
10. Just A Kid – Manic Street Preachers
Still Alive is a very different movie to the one that I was expecting. Before watching it, I knew Paul Williams for one monumental performance in the horror classic Phantom Of The Paradise. Phantom is one of my favorite films ever and also one that terrifies the hell out of me. It was my good friend Simon Cann who first lent it to me with a knowing nod and a ‘you will love this’ but the first time I sat down with Phantom I totally freaked out and only managed to watch half of it, it chilled me in a way that no other film had done. Luckily Simon convince me to keep it until the day came when I could watch the whole thing and that day came and it was true love.
Still Alive hardly even mentions Phantom, we see Williams playing live at the Phantom-Polooza convention and we see Quentin Tarantino putting on a double bill with Phantom playing and Williams in attendance, but that was it. Williams it turns out was so much more, is so much more.
An Oscar winner for his song Evergreen from A Star Is Born, he also wrote songs for Bugsy Malone, The Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie, David Bowie’s Fill Your Heart and The Carpenters We’ve Only Just Begun, classics one and all. Add to this songs for John Travolta, Tiny Tim, Three Dog Night and my beloved The Monkees and you have one of the greatest unknown songwriters of them all.
Still Alive, despite the title is not a ‘look at how his career has crashed’ film, far from it. Sure Williams is no longer playing massive stadiums, instead doing residencies in hotels across America, but the point is he is happy, during his big years he did all the drugs and all the booze and now his weakness seems to be for squid, no really, you lose count of the amount of times that he devours calamari during the hour and a half running time. The flim maker learns a lot here as does the audience about what success really means and how someone who you might think has been forgotten has a huge cult following and can get praise and devotion wherever he goes. Williams remains entertaining and interesting throughout but also sure of how he wants the film to be presented and at no point does he seem pushed in a direction he does not want to go.
After being thoroughly entertained by Williams here, I would love to see a sequel just about the cult of Phantom…
