Radiohead: Songs That Could Be Movies

Optimistic

From: Kid A

The Song:

The Movie Version:

When John Crumb is sentenced to 1000 years on the prison ship 0pt1m15t1c for a crime he didn't commit, he immediately starts devising an escape plan.

But his plot to wrestle the controls from his captors goes awry, and he crash-lands 0pt1m15t1c onto a prehistoric planet earth.

Suddenly, Crumb finds himself having to fight dinosaurs, prison guards, and the murderous alien survivors of the wrecked prison ship in his search for civilisation.

Rescuing a walkie-talkie from the wreckage, Crumb makes contact with Cassandra - the only guard on the ship to treat him like a human being - who guides him through the wilderness.

But is Cassandra all she seems? And is the planet as far from home as it appears?

Key Quote:

Crumb: "Flies are buzzing around my head. Vultures circling the dead."
Cassandra: "Try the best you can. The best you can is good enough."

Lotus Flower

From: The King Of Limbs

The Song

The Movie Version:

Dr. Pablo Lotus has lived his life free of all emotional attachments, choosing to focus exclusively on his work as a botanist.

But when his beautiful lab assistant Patricia Flower accompanies him on a research trip to Australia, Vietnam and India, he finds himself falling in love.

The new feelings stir up more than emotions, however.

Lotus finds himself having powerful visions of a desolate earth that has been entirely reclaimed by wildlife. Great buildings have turned from grey to green. Seas are choked with algae. Cars lie rusted and filled with flowers. And at the centre of every vision - a strange man in a bowler hat, dancing between the blooms.

As the visions become more and more extreme, Lotus decides to end the relationship with Patricia. He walks away from her, immediately bumping into a man in a bowler hat. And the man starts to dance...

Key Quote:

Lotus: "There's an empty space in my heart, where the weeds take root."

Morning Mr Magpie

From: The King Of Limbs

The Song:

Download The King Of Limbs here .

The Movie Version:

Mary Magpie is married to Martin Magpie - an corrupt banker whose financial dealings exploit the poor and reward the rich.

Mary has a luxurious life, with plenty of distractions to stop her from considering the implications of her husband's actions.

But a series of events directly linked to the government's austerity cuts effect her sanity.

Her mother dies of a heart attack after she's sacked from her beloved librarian job, her father is stabbed in a mugging and left to die after short-staffed ambulance drivers fail to reach him in time, and when Mary goes to spread their ashes on their favourite National Trust beauty spot she finds it's been turned into an office block.

Devastated, she decides to go on a rampage of revenge, ending with a confrontation with her husband over breakfast.

It's Kill Bill meets Falling Down, essentially.

Key Quote:

Mary: "You stole it all, give it back."

Just

From: The Bends

The Song:

The Movie Version:

Andrew Byrne is a chronic masturbator, finding it impossible to form meaningful relationships with other people, or even hold down a job.

His one successful relationship ended when his first love, Sarah, caught him masturbating at a family dinner.

He seeks counseling, and makes progress with a psychiatrist who helps him control his urges, to the extent he's even able to find work as an office assistant.

But when his psychiatrist retires, replaced by the most beautiful woman Andrew has ever seen, Byrne falls into a spiral of sex addiction - his repressed urges forcing him to seek out more and more dangerous highs.

Key Quote:

Sarah: "You do it to yourself, you do. And that's what really hurts."

Creep

From : Pablo Honey

The Song:

The Movie Version:

When the demon Nelumbo Nicifera is given a glimpse of heaven as a punishment for refusing to torture a lost soul, he falls in love with an angel he sees in his vision.

Resolving to escape hell and invade heaven so that he can be with his new-found love, Nicifera takes on giagantic devils and huge seraphims alike, on the path to a third-act confrontation with God and Satan themselves.

Key Quote:

Nicifera: "I don't belong here."

Paranoid Android

From: OK Computer

The Song:

The Movie Version:

Generation X slacker Bobby Guts is the lead-singer of punk band Paranoid Android.

When the band gets one too many bad reviews, Bobby and the band tool up and decide to invade the local newsroom, taking the camera crew hostage and forcing them to broadcast their music non-stop live.

When other local bands - Pig Skin, The Panic, The Vomit - hear about the situation they join Paranoid Android in broadcasting their music to the nation.

Key Quote:

Bobby Guts: "When I am king you will be first against the wall."

House Of Cards

From: In Rainbows

The Song:

The Movie Version:

Thriller following the lives of several swingers in seventies suburbia, and how their key-swap parties affect the society that surrounds them.

When investigative reporter Danielle Davies finds herself in the home of a prominent politician after a particularly intense key-swap party, she discovers documents that could bring down parliament, the government and the House Of Lords.

Key Quote:

Danielle: "Your ears should be burning."

Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was

From: The Bends

The Song:

The Movie Version:

In the future war of 3023, cyborg solider B225 is a genetic and scientific freak.

Through an accident of design, he's the only cyborg solider that can experience pain.

As a result, he's experimented on mercilessly - with army scientists considering him to be the key to unlocking the secret to defeating enemy cyborg soldiers.

But when B225 can't take it anymore, he escapes and goes on the run.

Finding himself in the middle of a worldwide war, he starts to wish he was back in the lab...

Key Quote:

B225: "You have turned me into this!"

There There

From: Hail To The Thief

The Song:

The Movie Version:

A pirate ship is shipwrecked on a strange desert island.

When the pirates start to explore, the landscape seems to shift and change around them. Night falls, and strange green creatures start to attack them, killing several members of the crew, before apparently vanishing into the woods when dawn breaks.

It's Pirates Of The Caribbean meets Evil Dead 2, basically.

Key Quote:

Blackbeard: "Just because you feel it, doesn't mean it's there."

Pyramid Song

From: Amnesiac

The Song:

The Movie Version:

Experimental animation featuring literal adaptations of Pyramid Song's lyrical imagery.

Despite being entirely silent for its duration, it wins the best screenplay, film, director and music Oscars.

It breaks all box office records and inspires Michael Bay to quit the film industry in disgust.

Suffice to say, it's the greatest film of all time.

Key Quote:

Opening dedication: "There was nothing to fear, nothing at all."