[Closed] Recent Viewing Part III

This topic has strayed dangerously far from discussing the brilliance of Francis Ford Coppola in the 1970s, so I will throw into the ring Hearts of Darkness - a documentary about a great film (in my opinion, the greatest of films) which is itself a great film.

Indeed!

Yeah, it's a good one. I did a Cinema Club entry on it once:

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/p … ;archive=1

Just as well they didn't title it THE SPECTACULAR SPIDERMAN then eh?

I've seen plenty of films and tv programs and whatnot recently, but never really bothered to post here. A couple of things, though:

JS: OORLOGSWINTER (2008)

Fine Dutch film about a young boy who gets caught up in the Dutch resistance during WW2. Honest and straightforward in narrative and a solid performance by the boy, but hardly breaking new ground. Donaggio's score is gorgeous, however.

JS: FIRST LIFE (2010)

BBC documentary, allegedly Sir David Attenborough's last before his retirement, about the origins of life on Earth. Very fascinating in the cross-section between geology and biology.

Some advertising for Joep's review, article and interview regarding this score
http://www.maintitles.net/reviews/oorlogswinter/
http://www.maintitles.net/features/arti … g-process/
http://www.maintitles.net/features/inte … ogswinter/

The Dark Knight Rises

Franz said it perfectly.

This is a sequel to Batman Begins.

This is not a sequel to The Dark Knight.

Think of it that way and you will not be disappointed.

It's missing that spark that's been present in Nolan's other films, and it feels very much like a big summer popcorn action film rather than the tight thriller that was TDK. But it was never going to top TDK, and luckily it doesn't feel like it's trying to.

I'm seeing it again tomorrow and will provide more thoughts then. It was good, just a bit....simple?

Ledger is, I'd say, impossible to top, really.

There was idea of getting Johnny Depp as Riddler early on, but they quit the idea. One thing that was defined is that they would never use the Penguin.

I actually think -- having seen the film now -- the use of Bane was a gallant attempt, but ultimately the wrong sort of villain to bring in. They did everything they could (bar a few missteps) to make him work, but I can't help but feel there's something about the Joker that's hard to improve on. You can beat him senseless, and he's still laughing at you. He still wins. Something with him, Harley Quinn (Hathaway would make that work), and maybe another rogue at the edges... Deadshot would be interesting (and quite a Nolan-world villain), particularly if Batman had to go out of his way continually to save the Joker's life from Deadshot (testing his ethos about who is worth saving).

Oh well, we have the film we have. Some of it is very good.

Last Sunday, a lovely tv show started again on the Dutch TV: Zomergasten.

It's a show that has been running for 25 years always during the summer.

The concept is easy: invite an interesting guest, and let him select tv and film fragments and let him talk about it live.
What makes it special: the length of the show: 3 hours.

I've recorded the episode of last Sunday and I'm watching it now (well, I'll continue watching it tomorrow, because it's getting late now) and the guest is Henny Vrienten (Dutch composer of soundtracks such as the Discovery of Heaven and left Luggage).

I've only seen the first 30 minutes or so, but already parts of 'La guerre du feu' have past the review and he discussed how he approaches scoring films.

I'm wondering what is going to come next.

Martijn, Bob, Joep, and my fellow Belgian country men, anybody else see the program?
Did you like it?

E.

So, I was clicking around on Youtube -- can't even remember what the original search was for, and I found loaded videos of the full walk-through's to all five parts of the "Back to the Future" video game (ommitting game playing around and cutting to the dialogue and plot).

Being as I lost interest in video games a long time ago, but love "Back to the Future", I thought it might be interesting to check it out. It took a few hours to go through since essentially each part's length is almost that of the first film's running time, making it -- if you were to cut out wasted time, about 3.5 new movies.

Man, this was completely worth it. You know how the Star Wars prequels sucked? How the Indy sequel sucked? How both "Men In Black" sequels blew chunks? Or how the "Ghostbusters II" sequel mostly sucked? How you thought if a sequel of "Back to the Future" was made today, it would blow powerful chunks? Apparently that EPIC FAIL doesn't cross over into this video game!

Wonderful, absolutely delightful. It was almost like seeing a fourth sequel only a couple years after the third film, stepping back into the familiar characters that haven't been changed, with all the enjoyable universe it had established.

An amazingly complex plot and temporal misteps. The dialogue was something like 95% spot on -- it was like it was written in the 1980's; while there's no writer credited on IMDB, Bob Gale -- a writter on all three of the original films, is credited as a "story consultant" -- but I suspect it was far more than that. This game, from 2011, is just too good to not have had his hand in it. Even though the game itself credits two other writers: Andy Hartzell and Mike Stemmle.

The in-jokes, the references to all three films, many of the original actors repraise their own voices -- it was wonderful. CORRECTION: Only Christopher Loyld repraised his own character -- everybody else from the films, was voiced by voice actors.

Future Marty: "Bring him along -- this concerns all of us!"
Marty: "Why, did something happen to us?"
Doc: "Do we turn into assholes or something?"


Oh, they should edit out all the crap, and play the game straight through with a professional player, and make them driect-to-DVD movies. Okay, not really, but I'd buy them.

No matter what they do, they just can't seem to fix the timeline when Doc makes just an itty bitty mistake. Damn butterfly wings. ;-)

This was great -- can't say it enough. All the complicated stories, the repercussions. The future world Doc and his accidental new wife create -- a bad 1984 Utopian place.

Just what do you do when the Delorian crashes to the ground breaking, and Doc's not there and you're stuck who knows where? Just what happens when Doc dies and fades out of existance? What happens if Doc should disagree with you immensely and turn against you? So much great stuff, and all believably -- character motivations were well done.


Phew, okay, now on to the score. Oh, did I mention this was friggin' wonderful? Just want to make sure one more time.

Okay, the score was composed by somebody named Jared Emerson-Johnson. I'd never heard of him before, but somehow he got all these high profile game scors: "Back to the Future", "Jurassic Park", "Star Wars: The Old Republic", "Wallace & Gromit", and some miscellaneous game (only games, and one short film). He's also credited as a "voice director" on this game, and others.

Sounds like actual bits from the original film (possibly some from the other two) were tracked in here & there but I'd say overall there was far more original score. While it was obvioously not a real orchestra (At least it sounded like that most times, though I could be wrong), it was done real well and didn't sound fake.
It utilized themes, motifs and ideas from Silvestri's original score, and often kept the general tone of the original film score -- which was a great way to go about it and make the game feel even more like it was a part of the 1980's. It was overall orchestrated well and the music sounds like it would be enjoyable to hear apart from the game. Sadly, the composer has no personal website, though he is a member of a creative film group and has some samples up, but none appear to be from the game.


Screw these crappy movies -- I would like to think any fan here would enjoy themselves very much spending time seeing this instead. And like the film's before them, the very end leaves off with a surprise. They even licensed out the friggin' "Back in Time" song for the end credits.

Want to check it out? Here's Part 1 (the first chunk)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f_8VOFi … ure=relmfu

Yes, Justin, the BACK TO THE FUTURE game is great -- especially the opportunity to walk around in the neighbourhoods we remember from the films and our childhoods. It's in the classic Telltale/Lucasarts tradition; I hope they'll continue to produce more new point-and-click adventures like this, since that's probably the only thing I would play right now (it's what I used to play the most back in the 90's).

Justin, I've read your long post about BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE GAME and it has definitely intrigued me. I played the demo of episode 1 a while ago and it was good fun, though I never picked up on it as there were other games on my radar then. I'm thinking of getting it, since both my brother and me love the films, we grew up on them and they haven't aged a bit, ironically!!

Thor, is it 5 episodes long? Is it true only Christopher Lloyd reprised his part?

Yes, I heard A.J. LoCascio (voice of Marty) in the demo. He sounds exactly like teenager Michael J. Fox, creepy actually.

Looks like we'll be getting back to the future soon, on the PS3.

Not yet, but I looked into getting the game. Haven't bought it yet, but it sounds really fun from your description.