[Closed] Recent Viewing Part III

Shiro Ishii is a Japanese name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shir%C5%8D_Ishii

You watched a whole show about him and came away thinking it was about the CHINESE? Major faux pas! The Chinese were very often on the RECEIVING END of actions of men like Shiro Ishii. Very sensitive matter for the Chinese.

I'm just trying to think of a European parallel that would make sense... it's sort of like a post criticising the Jews for their terrible acts during World War II, in particular men like Adolph Eichmann.

Two more things about The Amazing Spiderman... I thought the cast was great. But am I the only one who didn't feel anything for the Gwen character? I read in reviews that 'the chemistry was great', but I don't agree on that one. I don't know why...

The other thing has to do with the cast as well: Dr. Connors was great. But I thought, he has something familiar, what movies do I know him from?? So I looked it up and thought 'Crap! It's Spike!!'

Yes, perhaps stupid I didn't see that earlier (I also did not know his name, Rhys Ifans). But then I went through his photos on IMDB and was amazed. That guy has the ability to look so different in each movie. There were even movies I had seen and I hadn't noticed it was him in it. Very funny. He's like a kameleon. And I also laughed out loud because as himself he looks mostly like Spike, all the press and premiere photos are very funny. And then as Dr. Connors for instance, wow, almost unrecognizable.

I wonder if it wasn't the piece Driving with the Top Down (or along those lines) on the album (it's either this scene or the end credits). The cue was ghostwritten by a certain unknown composer called Hans Zimmer.

I think Iron Man's great, excellent direction and great acting

I though Iron Man 2 was decent, but lacking everything that made the first to amazing, plus I like Don Cheadle a lot, but Terrence Howard was much better in the first film

It's nice to see though for Black Widow though

Iron man was a great movie with a horrible score. Iron man 2 was a boring run for the money with a slightly less horrible score. What horner did was miles away. And the only reason djawadi is getting a bit of redemption is not any score he wrote in his career so far that does indeed have qualities, but for one tv show Main title.

"Witness to the Mob" (1998 TV movie)

I didn't have any interest in seeing it until I found myself, for some reason, on orchestrator Sonny Kompanek's IMDB credits (he's worked a bit with Carter Burwell). I noticed He had one composer credit, so I expanded that to see what it was and it was this TV movie.

Sure enough, it was on Youtube, so I went to check it out to see what his only score was like. I ended up enjoying the film a lot. Oddly enough though, no composer is credited for the whole score, but rather:

Stephen Endelman: "Themes By"
Sonny Kompanek: "Additional Music"

So, themes and additional, but no main composer. To further complicate matters, IMDB has somebody named Steve Donato listed for "background music". I'm guessing, but this was probably a replacement score.

The film is based around two main characters -- Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano and John Gotti, real life mafia members, from their rise, to their fall.

It's casted well (oddly enough, one of the other actor's names is "Johnny Williams"), written well, and the direction is good enough (it's not the directed masterpiece of "The Godfather", but still)
Robert De Niro is an executive producer on it.

It treads on a good deal of ground covered in other mobster films, so don't expect something more from it.
If one were to call "The Godfather" #1 -- the TOP, and "Goodfellas" second shelf quality, then one might be able to call "Witness to the Mod" probably a 4th place contender; it's not a materpiece, or even excellent, but for what it is and what it offers and delivers on, it's very enjoyable.

The only down sides: it'll never be timeless like those to previous films I mentioned, or any other classic mafia film I left out. It doesn't have the cojones or over all quality, and unlike the aforementioned classics, this film shoved in politics. Two snipes at Ronald Reagan thrown in, pointlessly, out of the blue, for no reason -- just throw away attacks. Some FBI agents are listening to the Sammy and Gotti talk, while theyr sit in an apartment; in the background of the place Sammy & gang are at, the TV is playing a speech by Reagan. Choice lines from the FBI -- the bulk the entire sceen, really just seems to be written and shoved in for the attack:

"this guy's a bigger liar than you"

"Reagan and Italian muzak; I can't take much more of this," one FBI officer.
"I don't know which is worse," another FBI officer.

You know what else is awful, aside from the garbage liberal crap shoved in there? The lazy, pathetic writting. In fact, the all the FBI officers seen in the film were poorly cast and their acting wasn't up to snuff with the rest of the cast in the film -- which is odd. Everybody else was, but not them. Go figure.


The score? I'm not sure how to go about describing it. It's certainly no "The Godfather", and it doesn't seem to have any cohesive, over all connective whole, but there are enjoyable cues nonetheless.
The murder of the main boss during the first half of the film, the end credits music -- both nice pieces, for example.
It's mainly orchestra, but I could easily identify orchestra samples used here and there, including one I know I've heard a number of times in "The X-Files". I'm not sure how this would do as a CD release, but it would make an interesting promo. There's no samples at Endelman's site, and Kompanek's site has gone down in the passed few days, so I can't say about his either.


If you have any interest, the movie is split into 18 parts on Youtube. Herei s Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IowhvQ3rMDM

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the p

The Godfather

It's been a few years but I bought the Blu-Ray box set of the trilogy. I love this film. Brando's performance is deservedly iconic but this is Al Pacino's film and the hammy parody of himself he became later shouldn't take away from his early brilliance.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that this truly exceptional film is not even amongst the top three films that Francis Ford Coppola made in the 1970s. And speaking of people whose later indiscretions have rather clouded people's judgement of their earlier triumphs - there is surely no greater example in the field of directors than FFC.

A masterpiece. The commentary on the new DVD (I didn't have BR when I bought the movies and I don't intend to replace my DVD collection with DVDs) is also quite something. Very candid.

Am I the only listening to director commentaries here? Michael Mann is a bit too much about himself and his research (Public Enemies was a disappointment in that regard), some of the best commentary tracks I've heard were from Tony Scott and Ridley Scott.

Jack Nicholson's for Antonioni's THE PASSENGER is brilliant...if you can understand his gravelly whisky voice. It's the only one he's done.

I also like Ridley Scott's commentaries. Otherwise, the interesting ones are few and far between.

True, but I find the 'realtime' format the only way the creators can really address specific details, which is what interests an analyst like myself. In interviews otherwise (or even documentaries), it's usually more general terms, which I find less interesting.

In the case of Blade Runner I love both Ridley's commentary (haven't listened to the other ones) and the documentary.

Ridley is very candid about his decisions, always.