Misc. Film Fun: Live Long enough to Find the Right One (France, 2006)

Remember the Rubettes? Not by name, probably, but they were an assembled British pop band that, while a one-hit wonder in the US, were more successful in Europe. Their biggest international hit is without a doubt Sugar Baby Love (1974), but perhaps more notable is that they were one of the few pop groups in the 70s who had the balls to do a "serious" song about a gay figure, Under One Roof (1976) — it was not a hit in the US. (Interestingly enough, another "serious" song of the same year, Rod Stewart's The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II), was.)

The bubblegum pop song Sugar Baby Love, in any event, has popped up in a number of advertisements and TV shows and movies, including P. J. Hogan's super-popular Muriel's Wedding (1994 / trailer), which is more entertaining than the trailer lets you surmise,  and Neil Jordan's less-popular Breakfast on Pluto  (2005 / trailer), which is still on our To See list. And the song is used in full in this great French, computer-animated AIDS-prevention commercial from 2006, which won a Silver Lion at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival that same year. It tells a great story of surviving the ups and downs of life and living long enough to find the right one. It also uses some pretty nifty cinematic transitions and visual concepts that show more creativity than many a movie we've watched. And, lastly, it has a happy ending. It may be a commercial, but it is very much a cinematic experience. Enjoy.

The straight equivalent to this ad, by the way, using the The Vibrators' "punk" classic Baby Baby [1977], can be seen here. It is not as visually fun, is annoyingly Phyllis Schlafly in attitude, somewhat racist,* and oddly annoying and less enjoyable than the queer ad. It basically can be labelled FAIL. (Remember, all you vaginas out there: if you can't get a man and that house in the suburbs, your only option is to jump off a bridge. And while we're at it: face it, if you don't one day have kids, you are not a complete woman.)
* Though, actually, when remembering our wild years long ago as a teen in Washington, DC, when we slept with anything that moved, the "racist" interlude — sorry, fellow white guys — is true. (We confess to having played both Cowboys & Indians and with dolls well into our post-college years.)