From the video vault: I watched Labyrinth today, for the first time in about 15 years. I bought the DVD from Wal-Mart for $7.50 a while ago but I've been apprehensive to watch it. It was my favorite movie as a child, and I didn't want to ruin it by watching it as an adult...I expected the special effects to look dated and I thought the story and dialog might seem cheesy 15 years on. I couldn't have been more wrong. O.K, O.K, obviously some of the effects were noticeable, but overall it's still a great movie.
I think the main attraction is Bowie (duh!). When I was little I probably didn't care too much about the weird man who played Jareth. I also didn't notice that the songs he had written for the movie were all mildly inappropriate for the story line! Most of the songs are only pretty loosely connected to the film (except for that Magic Dance one). This song, "As The World Falls Down", stands alone as a typical 80's Bowie synth-ballad. In this video for the song, there are clips of the movie, but the female object of Bowie's affections has been deftly switched to an older Jennifer Connelly look-alike. Thank God, since she was only 14 at the time. The genius of this particular video is that it plays out like a regular "love song" video and then Hoggle shows up as David's roommate! Hoggle! Jesus Hoggle, way to break the mood. There's this weird tension between Jareth and Sarah in the movie, which seems inappropriate for a grown man and a 14 year old, and most of the songs seem like love songs in a way. But, for some reason Bowie gets away with it, because he's Bowie. It's a strange paradox, but for some reason he doesn't seem like a real human at all, and it that case it's not creepy in the slightest. Those freaky alien eyes make up for a multitude of sins....
Anyway this isn't my favorite song in the movie, there's a link to that. It's called "Within You". It's just a better song, however I always hated that bit in the film as a child....the MC Escher staircase stuff was just all boring and there weren't enough puppets! After re- watching the movie though, this bit is brilliant. There's no music video for this one, so the clip is of the movie.
Anyway here's the vid for "As The World Falls Down" and the link to "Within You".
Long live Jareth!


Within You...from Labyrinth.