[Closed] Recent Viewing Part III

You're a reasonable man, so I imagine you will.

Saw Atlantis the other day. It was fine, a little slight. The real knockout was JNH's score. Why can't he write like this anymore? Dynamic, wonderful music.

Holy shit, now I feel really old. One of my first movies was Disney´s Robin Hood (when it came out)!

But I agree, Atlantis has some great score stuff, especially the second half. It´s not my favourite JNH score, but certainly one of his best adventure scores, with King Kong being in the lead.

The movie is spectacular, too, design- and storywise. It´s a shame it bombed, but that was to be expected. I believe it started on the same day as Lara Croft.

Digging a bit deeper, I´m a bit confused now. I always thought my first one was Dumbo when it got rereleased here, but it seems that would have been in 1976, which would be too late, given that Robin Hood was released in December 1974 here. I know I had a readalong audiobook of RH, and some cardboard stuff (the castle and the fair) to build, and I was sure I saw it in theaters, but it got rereleased only in the Nineties, way too late. I´m young at heart, but not that young. ^^ Maybe some time-traveling was involved.

So I think you won, depending on when Jungle Book was (re?)released at your place.

Back from Ancient Disney Viewing to Recent Blockbuster Viewing, I really enjoyed Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness. Two very well made movies with surprise twists and astonishingly political stories about how to use fear to get what you want, the moral implications of preemptive strikes, drone tech, and so on.

I got very annoyed though about all those debates on how the Mandarin was used in IM3 or the sexism issue with the Trek movie. Stunning how people tend to whine about issues like that when there should be discussions about the implications of the actual stories and how western civilizations handle foreign politics these days, which seems to me to be the more important issue. People always cry about weak blockbuster stories, and now that we actually got some which are worth talking about, they get upset over some creative decisions and a girl undressing in front of Captain James T. Kirk (as if that one was new).

That´s a beautiful movie, indeed, Captain. I fondly remember collecting the sticker album.

And I guess we both collected the Captain Future sticker album...?

Sadly I didn't. But I owned a dire cast model of the "Comet", that annoyingly was outfitted with wheels!

http://www.google.de/imgres?q=captain+f … ,s:0,i:219

I did. To be honest I was half expecting the film to be dedicated to him - thought that would have been a nice tribute to one of the key contributors to the Bond films' success.

I got the same one. CF was massive for me. I read the original novels Bastei Lübbe published at that time. Did you know some publisher printed the missing ones only a while ago, and that there are brand new audiobooks/plays out with some of the original voice actors from the series? I haven´t had a chance to read the new ones or listen to the CDs. Do you know them?

I was a little surprised that they didn't, John Barry was 'family', he was even godfather to Barbara and Michael's children.

I'm watching POINTLESS on BBC 1, the last round was naming actors who appeared in Skyfall, after Judi Dench was mentioned co-host Richard Osman pointed out that M's house was formerly John Barry's home.

Respect!

As good as it is, it does have one big flaw... the line "THERE'S A STORM COMING." Seriously. When are we going to hear the last of that frickin' line? It's like scriptwriters' very own Four Note Danger Motif.

I watched a 1974 TV movie called "Cry Panic".


A man on a trip for a job in another city, has been driving a long while and he accidently hits and kills a man. He makes his way to a house to call the police, but when the police and the tow truck get there, the body is gone, everybody is acting suspiciously, and an unnerving mystery unravels.

Decently written, acted, and plotted carefully.
It's a good watch if you want a chagne of pace.


The score by Ken Lauber, is servicable. While I'm sure some of the peice would be nice apart from the film, they don't really work -- it wasn't scored quite right and what score there is, is too little.


Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4i0LpPHBHs&

I was taken out only once and that was right after the destruction of Krypton (when the pounding comes in when the capsule lands on Earth).

The synths you mention are mostly the pedal steel guitars, as far as I understand. One synth sound relates directly to the sound effect of the [spoiler]world engine[/spoiler] in the film, in the end I was sometimes confused about it until it waned down.

I found the final action cues to work very well in the movie and also the flight scene, which I believe is Hans' best turn in the movie alongside the farewell sequence on Krypton (which is overlong).

The shaky cam pissed the hell out of me. It's Superman for fook's sake, make it all smooth! Also the lack of humour. To be honest, I hated how we were constantly reminded THAT HE WILL BE A GOD WHO WILL CHANGE THE WORLD every friggin' 5 minutes into the film.

In general, except single scenes (how I loved the moment, when a crying Clark tells his mother the world is too big and she calmly tells him to make him smaller, it's actually something I personally associate with and it made me cry, actually), the film lacked true heart. All the emotional core of the movie (accepting an alien identity, being an outsider and handling those super skills he has; also the ultimate choice he faces especially at the end of the film) is basically told in explanatory dialogue (though Cavill was acting well, I would say) which is so full of pathos that it's pretty, but in the end empty as a balloon.

Definitely there are choices made by Hans I will defend and I think I'd have grounds to defend it - picking an ambient approach to the Krypton material, including a specific key/harmonic choice. I will definitely defend the fact that there are separate themes for Kal-El and Clark Kent, with Kal-El's theme allowed to shine in the final flight sequence. [spoiler]Especially the fact that the failed flight features a failed - unfinished - performance of the Superman theme and his soar in the end starts off and ends with a triumphant performance of the Kal-El material, him rejoicing his alien heritage and skills.[/spoiler]. I will defend the concept of Kal-El's theme stemming directly from the Krypton ambience and material and the fact that Superman's theme derives directly from the Clark Kent piano figure and is expanded on in key emotional, not ACTION, but emotional moments (first flight, movie's ending).

I think that the inclusion of the Krypton ambient motif (Look to the Stars) as the basis over which the mayhem took place in the final action music was definitely an inspired choice, as well. Oh, also, the lullaby Hans wrote for the farewell sequence was a case where the music alone made me cry during watching the movie.

What I didn't like was the Zod material, which should have been more complex and Hans CAN pull it off very well (he's usually quite great with villain material, but somehow this time he chose to simplify a complex character; I found the Zod construction an interesting change of pace for a superhero villain), I disliked the choice of going full action when the capsule lands on Earth, which zeroed all the potential emotional resonance the solo violin could have in the movie. I didn't find most of the action stuff jarring, the copy I saw had the score in those scenes actually buried in the sound effects, though I am concerned with the fact that rather than actually properly (except Terraforming and If You Love These People) developing those cues he battles with the overall volume of the movie - that wasn't good and it's the kind of development Hans can do. Also, the scenes where Lois runs from the alien ship with Jor-El being her guide has a nice little cue, but sounding totally inappropriate, to the point of me looking if there wasn't Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan lurking around, because what was supposed to be an urgent suspense sequence ended up sounding like a bunch of CIA analysts finding a clue in clandestine intelligence material. While I generally applaud that there were bits of musical silence, I think there were scenes that were overscored, not that the choice of music (mostly Clark Kent's piano figure, which I honestly love) was wrong, but that the music itself wasn't necessary at all.

That said, even John Williams wouldn't have saved this empty piece of mayhem which could have been so relevant due to its emotional core and development of the character. Trust me, the whole emotional idea behind the story, what it is really about, is something that speaks loads to me as a human being and seeing it done so badly and taken so easily was something... that almost hurt me.

I was only recently introduced to UNBREAKABLE.

I was reminded of it because of all this super hero talk. For me, it was one of the best superhero films i've ever seen.
I LOVED it. Completely LOVED IT from the directing to the photography and costumes.

I wonder which theme is the general preference in Unbreakable. My favourite theme is actually Visions.