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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeJan 28th 2017
    Well, I guess I have to see the film again; it's been a couple of years. I don't really remember or recognize any of these alleged flaws that you guys point out.
    I am extremely serious.
  1. Thor wrote
    Timmer wrote
    For fooks sake Thor, it was STOOPID!!!! Really, really fucking stupid. I'd have thrown a brick at the screen if I could've afforded it.


    Really? I didn't have that reaction at all. In fact, for the first time in the series, something was REALLY at stake, and I also loved the uncertainty about Batman's fate in the aftermath, untill that restaurant scene.


    I was never sure if that scene was reality or an image of the alternate reality that Alfred would have wished for Bruce.
    Bach's music is vibrant and inspired.
  2. I thought DARK KNIGHT RISES was okay. Sure there are some impossible elements (less frequently mentioned there is the speed with which he recovered from his broken back), but lots of classic movies have unbelievable elements and are still enjoyable. Superman reversed the flow of time by flying around the earth really fast. Khan only thought 2-dimensionally despite being a tactical (and in every other way) genius.

    In other news, we saw HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE last night. It's excellent!
  3. The biggest complaint I've heard but never somehow minded was how quickly Bruce reappeared in Gotham after leaving the cave. For me the worst moment was the aforementioned Cotillard scene, a rare misdirection from Nolan and some of the worst acting I've seen, let alone from someone as good as Cotillard, who I really like otherwise.

    Some things make me wonder if there are deleted scenes and what they are.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
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      CommentAuthorSouthall
    • CommentTimeJan 29th 2017
    Full Metal Jacket

    I watched this a lot when I was a teenager, but not for a number of years until now. I probably appreciate it for different reasons now, but it's a hell of a film.
  4. Adding a missing pilot for a potential series, from 1980 called "Jake's Way" to IMDb.

    A crime small town western show set in presant time (back then). Some of the characters are believable, but it's boring.

    Directed by Richard Colla of original Battlestar Galactica fame.


    Normally I might have made a joke on the boards that at least something wasn't scored with wild kazoo riffs. Low and behold, what's playing over the action music in at least one scene, wild kazoo riffs. Fuck me -- it's come true!

    The composer: Frank Lewin

    Music supervision: Lionel Newman. So, Lionel saw this, right, and thought it was a good idea?
    The views and opinions of Ford A. Thaxton are his own and do not necessarily reflect the ones of ANYONE else.
  5. I just saw my first Sergio Leone western. It was ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.

    My first impression (with the opening scene at the train station) was that it was the most boring thing I had ever watched. Once I got used the glacial pacing and got into the story, it was pretty good. I thought the reveal at the end of the connection between Harmonica and Frank was brilliantly done, and made so much sense of the rest of the film. So the pay-off was good, for all the time it took to get there. Casting Henry Fonda as such a villain was a great move. I still have issues with the pacing. There were quite a few scenes that dragged on WAY longer than they needed to. There were other scenes that seemed to come out of nowhere. I was left wondering "how did we get here?" With some of them it was clear that there had been some action prior to that scene that must have happened, but that was never shown. I had to read up on the film to understand some of the plot points after the film was over. That's kind of bad for a film that's already so long and so deliberately paced.

    As for the music, the themes are classic, and effective, for the most part. The harmonica motif for the main character is piercing, and creates a great sense of dramatic tension whenever it appears, but it's certainly not pleasant to listen to, and it grated worse and worse on my as the film went along. The main theme is glorious, and was always welcome whenever it appeared. I did think that one of the scoring choices was pretty odd. The music that played during the scene where [spoiler]Cheyenne was dying[/spoiler] didn't seem to match that scene at all!

    It's a classic film and a classic score for good reason. It's interesting to see how differently it was made than how films are typically made today.

    I also just saw ARRIVAL, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I thought it was very original, very entertaining, and quite moving at the end. Really, really well done. I enjoy cerebral sci-fi a lot. This one did not disappoint.
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2017 edited
    christopher wrote
    I just saw my first Sergio Leone western.


    Have you been living under a rock? wink

    I love the slow tempo myself (you can't approach this with contemporary Hollywood eyes!), and I think Cheyenne's death scene is beautifully scored. John McMasters over at FSM expressed it beautifully:

    "When [Cheyenne] plays out his death scene with Harmonica it is used to gently underscore his winsome angst and terrible pain. Harmonica turns away because Cheyenne does not want to be watched as he dies — the tinky tinky theme continues for a while and Cheyenne struggles in pain and then like a breath cut short at the moment of one of the anticipated musical pauses — the music stops and does not come back — Cheyenne collapses like a spent puppet. This moment always brings me to tears."
    I am extremely serious.
  6. I fear my exposure to older films is very limited, yes. I've also never seen a Kurosawa film. Even some great contemporary directors - I've never seen a Terrence Malick film. I've been meaning to, but I'm rarely in the mood to try something more ponderous.

    You are right that we can't judge old films by today's eyes, but wasn't ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST considered very slow even when it was released? There certainly is a very different idea about how to make movies now. I've been surprised several times when watching older films at the pacing, the staging, or the score because it's just so different than how it would be now. I get that. So I try to appreciate films for what they were when they came out, and I try to view them through a more objective lens, but it's hard to escape the biases created by my culture when my exposure to older films has been limited.

    As for the death scene, I noticed how the music stopped, and thought that was a smart move, but I still think it was a weird choice. I think that music typifies Cheyenne's character well, but not at that moment. I could see scoring it with a hint of that, but still I would think it should have been slower, with a sadder undertone or something. It's such a surprising moment to realize that he's dying, that I think the music should have tried to help the audience through that a little more.

    I guess I'm not really in any place to tell Leone and Morricone how they should have scored what may be their greatest collaboration, though, huh? smile
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2017
    christopher wrote
    As for the death scene, I noticed how the music stopped, and thought that was a smart move, but I still think it was a weird choice. I think that music typifies Cheyenne's character well, but not at that moment. I could see scoring it with a hint of that, but still I would think it should have been slower, with a sadder undertone or something. It's such a surprising moment to realize that he's dying, that I think the music should have tried to help the audience through that a little more.


    That would be the more conventional choice, yes. But I actually think it's MORE effective the way it is now. The 'cloppety-clop', lively theme that describes his character is suddenly halted mid-sentence. Like John said in the quote above, like a "spent puppy". I think this makes it far more moving than a more traditionally "sad" theme.

    Don't be too embarassed about not having seen certain classics, though. I meant that more in jest, and we all have "holes" like that. I have those too, even though I've seen a LOT of old films, both from Hollywood and outside.
    I am extremely serious.
  7. Two or three years back, I'd started watching a couple of Tarantinos I hadn't seen yet, and listening to the audio commentary, I realised how important Leone's movies were to understand what Tarantino is doing, so I stopped and went back to the beginning. Since I'd only seen Once Upon/West & America, and a pretty long time ago where I was too young to appreciate them for what they were, I decided to do the whole thing, watching the Dollar trilogy (I'd never seen that before) and the ONCE trilogy. Yeah, they move damn slow, but I came to appreciate that. A lot. Leone plays with these ultralong scenes like a genius, and if you stop thinking about being annoyed by how long it takes and actually soak it in and let it play with your mind, once the whole set-up is done and the violence explodes, you're wasted. Listening to the audio commentaries on the Leones was pure enlightenment, too. So much significant stuff I'd never realised. Especially the commentary on Once/West made me appreciate the movie so so much more, and nearly got me going WAY back and start watching John Ford stuff, but instead I went forward when I was done and watched the remaining Tarantinos, and - wow - did I get a mindfuck from that. Tarantino took Leone and pimped it up to 3000. Those suspense-building scenes in Inglorious Basterds, Django, and now Hateful 8, geez. Frikkin' genius.
  8. Finished solving composer credits and ripping selected cues from a short-lived TV series called "Future Cop".

    I actually checked it out some, since it didn't appear bad. I was worried it was going to be like or close to "Holmes and Yo-Yo", but thankfully it was not. It was a serious take, with Ernest Bognine as a co-star. Heck, the android sacrificed himself in the pilot.

    Borgnine is put on rookie duty to train a new cop who turns out to be an android.

    The show changed some from the pilot film to series. In the pilot Billy Goldenberg provided the theme (as well as score), and the android character (Michael Shannon) had two people taking care of him. In the series J.J. John provided the theme (which is terrible, in my opinion; Goldenberg's was bland, but better) and scored all but one episode (the last one, scored by rare TV composer Thomas Talbert). The second person who took care of th android in the pilot, morphed into another character in the series, the cheif of police.

    There was also some kind of TV movie. I didn't watch it. It was scored by Charles Bernstein.


    The scoring isn't bad, but there's not much to take away from it. Maybe thirty minutes of material worth it. I don't know why Thomas Talbert didn't get more work back then, as there was nothing wrong with his scoring. It was rather close to J.J. Johnson's efforts.


    Not bad, worth a shot, but not anything I feel compelled to watch again. I'm surprised this had so few episodes considering it wasnt' bad, yet "Holmes and Yo-Yo" had thirteen episodes. Thirteen! Have you seen one of those? I've had the displeasure.
    The views and opinions of Ford A. Thaxton are his own and do not necessarily reflect the ones of ANYONE else.
  9. Finished solving composer credits and ripping selected cues from a short-lived TV series called "Hawk". My main drive was that Nelson Riddle was supposed to have done one or more episodes. I watched a little.


    Starring Burt Reynolds as a detective.


    There's nothing remarkable or particularly interesting about the series (seventeen episodes in total). Hawk (his character) is supposed to be an intelligent and kind of edgy cop, but Burt doesn't pull off the performance.

    And it's not the Burt Reynolds we've all come to know as the weird-haired mustache man. This looks like some young newbie Burt would ask, "Who the hell is this newbie? Get him off the set."


    The end tally was one episode score by Riddle (nothing particularly strong), one score by Shorty Rogers (that was a terrific jazz score), and the rest was by Kenyon Hopkins, but nothing by Hopkins stood out at all.


    The Rogers' scored episode:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFSn77DrJ34
    The views and opinions of Ford A. Thaxton are his own and do not necessarily reflect the ones of ANYONE else.
  10. Postman Costner

    Pants.

    But Howard's score flashed me. Just ordered the CD.

    Volker
    Bach's music is vibrant and inspired.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2017
    Postman pants, Postman pants, it doesn't star kevin Costner's cat...
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
  11. Captain Future wrote

    But Howard's score flashed me.


    Ahhh ... did it have boobs?
    The views and opinions of Ford A. Thaxton are his own and do not necessarily reflect the ones of ANYONE else.
  12. justin boggan wrote
    Captain Future wrote

    But Howard's score flashed me.


    Ahhh ... did it have boobs?


    Yeah, musical boobs, just the right size. wink
    Bach's music is vibrant and inspired.
  13. Hm. "It falshed me." Seems to be German pseudo English like "Handy" (mobile, cell phone). Wasn't aware of that.
    Bach's music is vibrant and inspired.
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2017
    I think I'm one of the very few in this world who actually enjoy THE POSTMAN.
    I am extremely serious.
  14. Thor wrote
    I think I'm one of the very few in this world who actually enjoy THE POSTMAN.


    Nope, you're not alone. Good Movie, the 3 hours fly by. Goes to show what great music can do to a movie for me.
    waaaaaahhhhhhhh!!! Where's my nut? arrrghhhhhhh
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2017
    I certainly prefer it over the much-lauded IL POSTINO. But less than THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. POSTMAN PAT is somewhere in the middle.
    I am extremely serious.
  15. Thomas Glorieux wrote
    Thor wrote
    I think I'm one of the very few in this world who actually enjoy THE POSTMAN.


    Nope, you're not alone. Good Movie, the 3 hours fly by. Goes to show what great music can do to a movie for me.


    It's a Costner ego trip with laughable dialogues, a predictable plot and a decorative female prop. The characters have jumped right out of a dime novel.
    Howard's music is the sole redeeming factor here.
    Bach's music is vibrant and inspired.
    •  
      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2017
    Captain Future wrote
    It's a Costner ego trip with laughable dialogues, a predictable plot and a decorative female prop. The characters have jumped right out of a dime novel.


    True, but I dig the postapocalyptic premise.
    I am extremely serious.
  16. I still hope for a film adaptation of A Canticle for Leibowitz. Preferably as a TV mini series.
    Bach's music is vibrant and inspired.
  17. Captain Future wrote
    Thomas Glorieux wrote
    Thor wrote
    I think I'm one of the very few in this world who actually enjoy THE POSTMAN.


    Nope, you're not alone. Good Movie, the 3 hours fly by. Goes to show what great music can do to a movie for me.


    It's a Costner ego trip with laughable dialogues, a predictable plot and a decorative female prop. The characters have jumped right out of a dime novel.
    Howard's music is the sole redeeming factor here.


    Let's hope for a The Postman expansion this year, it's the 20th anniversary. I would buy it in an instant.
    "considering I've seen an enormous debate here about The Amazing Spider-Man and the ones who love it, and the ones who hate it, I feel myself obliged to say: TASTE DIFFERS, DEAL WITH IT" - Thomas G.
  18. Logan.

    Just wow.
  19. "Lipshitz Saves the World"
    Pilot (minus end credits): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D48LFY9haN4


    A 2007 pilot for a potentially series that bafflingly didn't get picked up.


    A well written and very funny pilot about a nerdy teen who gets pushed around named Adam Lipshitz, who has dreams about being somebody and that he is bound for greater things, but realizes that's another fantisy. Until he comes home and finds Leslie Neilson in his living room.

    Leslie informs Adam that he's the key to saving the world.


    It's funny, funny, has plenty of Leslie Neilson in jokes (including making fun of his famous "And don't cal me Shirley" line), and leaves you wanting to see more. Sadly, there is no more.



    Also sadly, Leslie Neilson is no logner with us, so if by some magical chance this was given another shot, he'd need to be re-cast. I thought about it and one name leapt to mind: Adam West.

    Maybe even William Shatner or Nathan Fillion.
    The views and opinions of Ford A. Thaxton are his own and do not necessarily reflect the ones of ANYONE else.
  20. "The Pentagon Wars" (1998 HBO TV movie)


    A really good TV movie with familiar names such as Cary Elwes (Wesley from "The Princess Bride"), Kelsey Grammer, and John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox, "Scrubs").

    You might think it would be hard to tell a full-length film about the short comings (putting it nicely) about the Bradley tank, but boy would you be wrong. 104 minutes practically fly by as we watch in horror at how much of this is true (or to what extent is true) about the deception, tricks, lies and threats about a deeply flawed tank.

    It's humorous, serious, and overall just a lot of fun to watch. Well worth your time if you haven't seen it.


    The professional and very good orchestral score is by Joseph Vitarelli. Sadly this score, ranging from a lightly whimsical theme, to militaristic cues, and others, has not been released. There is a hard-to-find promo with two tracks from it, titled General Reel, which is also worth having because of other fine work on it (sadly I don't have a copy).


    EDIT:
    I now have the promo.
    The views and opinions of Ford A. Thaxton are his own and do not necessarily reflect the ones of ANYONE else.
  21. I watched the pilot to a series called "White Collar".


    I had wanted to watch it back when it came out, but it wasn't possible and then I simply forgot about the series.

    A seriocomedy about an F.B.I. agent who re-captures a forgerer who has escaped from prison to find his girlfriend who has broken up with him. When the agent catches up to him to put him away, the forgerer recognizes a clue that ultimately leads to the guy getting a work release as a consultant for the F.B.I.

    It's clever, funny, and the leads are work well off each other.


    Downsides: the terrible "hip" scoring by John Erhlich (who, as I see by IMDb, scored every episode of the series); if it were me, I'd have suggested tossing the score -- it's annoying as sin.

    It doesn't breath much, it moves on too quickly sometimes.

    And the Goddamn shaky cam shit wore out its welcome even before 2009. Using it in 2009 is like a cinemotographer's way of saying: I HATE YOU AND THIS IS YOUR PUNISHMENT.



    I'm a few episodes in now and everytime the score starts, I mute the sound. Terrible when that has to be done.
    The views and opinions of Ford A. Thaxton are his own and do not necessarily reflect the ones of ANYONE else.
  22. Just watched the Hollywood in Vienna 2013 James Horner tribute concert again.

    I was once again mesmerized by this amazing event because the blu-ray is such an improvement on the youtube stream I saw a couple of years ago. And evidently because it's a top-notch concert, holding many of my favorites as well as an excellent medley. Well two actually if one counts the excellent Star Trek medley in the first part.

    Love the Avatar and Titanic suites, as well as Braveheart and Legends of the Fall, which all received beautiful renditions. The final piece was 'If We Hold On Together' and I found it an appropriate gesture for the singer to hold on to James' hand for a few seconds.

    The only thing I didn't like about this was the big guy during two songs, almost completely butchering them.

    I'll check out the bonus features as well, which includes a lengthy interview by Robert Townson.

    It's still unfathomable to me that only 2 years after him been celebrated at that event he was dead.
    "considering I've seen an enormous debate here about The Amazing Spider-Man and the ones who love it, and the ones who hate it, I feel myself obliged to say: TASTE DIFFERS, DEAL WITH IT" - Thomas G.