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I'm a sucker for punishment and will probably watch the 3rd one

Oh dear!!? ...and like me you have a stoopid threshold.

Nid de Guepes (The Nest)

Wow! I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller! A captured mobster is being transported with high security. A bunch of clever crooks are pulling a heist. What if both events were to occur at the same place? Fantastic for most parts (no, I did not find it over-the-top)! And a brilliant Desplat score. His action themes and that gorgeous string theme over the last few minutes are simply awesome. I tried listening to the cd a long time back and gave up after a few minutes. Guess it's time to check it again.

Looks like this is what led the director to make Hostage a few years later.

And oh! Nadia Fares is the cutest thing since Alice Taglioni.

It´s up to you Tim, but trust me, you DO NOT NEED to watch Mummy 3. The allegedly big epic finale is not big, is not epic, no nothing. Well, it is embarrassing actually. Better go and play an hour and a half of good pool.

Bad script, bad music, pointless excuse for another mummy story, horribly cast, bad use of visual effects... you name it.

RV: The Mummy Returns

Good film, though the Scorpian King isn't all that believable, IMO.

Some of the CGI was awful.

I saw an old Hitchcock film on new years eve, "I Confess" starring Montgomery Clift and with a score from Dimitri Tiomkin. The story, about a priest suspected for murder after his confidentiality prevented him from answering a detective's questions, is typically suspenseful and much helped from some excellent photography. But I felt that the long anticipated ending was storywise predictable and left me quite unsatisfied in the end. The weakest element however, was the score. Every time there was a pause in dialogue or a brief transition scene Tiomkin inserted some sort of virtuosic interchangable fanfare (typical, as he was a former concert pianist...) that communicated absolutely nothing that was relevant to the structure or dramaturgical content of the film, and with the single function to fill out the lack of sound and keep the story moving. There is in particular one ridiculous scene in which Montgomery Clift's character, father Logan, crosses the street. This transition scene is about ten or twelve seconds long, and accompanied by an equal amount of ridiculous dramatic brass chords that have absolutely no relevance what so ever.


I also saw "The Incredible Hulk" with a score from Craig Armstrong. Its a stereotypical, yet exciting action flick where the only thing that really bothered me was the score. Though excellent trough its functionalities, it seemed to be halting along due to the amount of unmusical loop-like repetitions and unhealthy dependance on percussion grooves. Because the general pace and intenisty of the music was always the same, the climaxes seemed awfully stressed and unengaging. But I suppose this is a symptom common to most Hollywood blockbusters.

RV: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I actually like it! (Though I could do without the random Yetis.) And the score actually sounds pretty good in the context of the film! Guess I'll have to go revisit the OST...

Yeti's!? That's the only reason I want to see the ruddy film!!

L'Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment)

Awesome! Just awesome! There's not too much of a plot to this. It's just about a French student on an exchange program to Spain, and his diverse room-mates. The camaraderie they share is delightful! I guess if you've been an international student living with other room-mates then it's hard to not like this one.

And Cristina Brondo is still cute!

I have to watch the sequel to this film- Les Poupées Russes (Russian Dolls)

Marty? Scorsese?

When we're at it...

Goodfellas

Saw it for the third or fourth time and WHAT A MOVIE. Everybody acts great, the paradocumentary form is amazing. Pesci is especially good. And De Niro. Nothing much can be said. Just perfect.

I disagree completely!
The movie works since minute one like a clockwork, never being too overdramatic nor crying inducing (that goes for the last part of the movie). Fincher´s direction is PERFECT, changing the tone of his previous films but with his style in every single moment of the film. And at the ending is simply sublime in all aspects.
As for Brad Pitt, well, I´ve always had the same problem with him: a moment a think he is a good (even a really good) actor, and the minute later I think he is performing like a robot.

As for Desplat´s score, I´v got to say it´s really good, shining in the appropriate moments and providing overall a great score to the visuals. As with the direction, never over the top or overdramatic.

Whether or not the film makers have an obligation to embrace a culture, I think this film was blatantly aimed at a Western audience with only a few Chinese voice actors. Most of the film's stars were American, and the antagonistic was our very own Ian McShane ("But he's a panda... [incredulous] You're a panda?"). So I can understand why the score was primarily Western with the odd oriental orchestrations.

Plus it's not a serious film and has talking animals in it who know kung fu, so I think there's little need for an accurate portrayal of any culture.

CCBB is an extremely difficult story to tell.