| 2002-10-15 07:48:38Shelley Duvall's recording of Harry Nilsson's "He Needs Me" is featured in the new film Punch-Drunk Love starring Adam Sandler.
Harry Nilsson wrote "He Needs Me" for the movie Popeye. Actress Shelley Duvall ("Olive Oyl"), performs the song in the film and on the Popeye soundtrack album.
In Punch-Drunk Love, Adam Sandler plays "Barry Egan," a small business owner with seven sisters whose abuse has kept him alone and unable to fall in love. When a mysterious woman (played by Emily Watson) enters his life, his romantic journey begins.
Shelley Duvall's performance of Harry Nilsson's "He Needs Me" (from Popeye) is featured throughout the film.
""He Needs Me", the Nilsson song Shelley Duvall sang as Olive Oyl in Robert Altman's 1980 Popeye, bursts in on the Adam Sandler-Emily Watson romance in 'Punch-Drunk Love.' Duvall's wistful yet awkward rendition, illustrating the hard work of romance, accompanies the moment Sandler and Watson warm up to each other. It comments on their grouch-meets-passion-flower matchup as if they were indeed Popeye and Olive. But Punch-Drunk Love's director, Paul Thomas Anderson, keeps the song on the soundtrack-several Dolby levels louder than ambient sound-through even the next several scenes. Incongruous
and self-conscious, Olive's aria is there for its own sweet sake, and it's the first stroke of genius Anderson has ever come up with." -- Armond White (New York Press)
"It's a fucking great song ..." -- Director Paul Thomas Anderson
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