[Closed] Now Playing XLIV

While I find First Blood's score to be one of Goldsmith finest (in fact it being my second favourite score of his), I find the film, while not as laughably awful as most critics found it when it first came out, FAR from a "classic". It's a very simple, violent and often quite ridiculous action thriller. Not bad, but lord, it ain't good (even if it has Brian Dennehy, my all-time favourite B-movie "heavy" ).

It *is* interesting to see that the film somehow has gained a much broader critical acclaim with the passing of years.
I don't find that entirely deserved. It was neither novel, insightful, ground breaking or particularly believable.
I loved Leonard Maltin's review at the time, stating " A kewpie doll to anyone who can understand more than three words of Sly's final monologue.", which was pretty much what I had been thinking after the movie ended!

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

It can be enoyed on several levels -- as a straightforward action thriller or as an actual social/psychological commentary in the guise of an action thriller. If you know the original novel it is based, you'll find that the latter aspect isn't just some farfetched notion.

I love films like this. ALIEN is another example. On the surface a straightforward horror sci fi, but oh, with so much more to offer in terms of audiovisual symbolism. Art film aesthetics and potency inside a mainstream Hollywood narrative. God, I love that.

The RAMBO sequels, however, is another story altogether. If they have any innate values beyond the exploitation, it's in a meta-commentary on pervading Hollywood sentiments at the time they were produced.

Acording to Wiki the term PTSD was "coined in the mid 70s" in the aftermath of the Vietnam war. So "The Deer Hunter" and "First Blood" can be seen as part of the general process.

Sure, there's plenty of the same in FIRST BLOOD -- although more in the thematics than in the actual mise-en-scene. Its position as an object of analysis in academia has proven some of that. But I didn't realize that Morell disliked the film.

That's always a slippery slope to me: it seems to me that you can always see whatever you want to see. Arguably such thematics could just as poignantly be addressed for such poor and blatant exploitation movies as I Spit On Your Grave or Adios Sabata.

Hans Zimmer - Black Rain

I haven't listened to this one for a longer while. I really like this score. It has a very interesting atmosphere and fits the Ridley Scott film (or I would even say the Ridley Scott type of cinema) like a glove. I love the Japanese elements of the music and the thematic material. The Nick and Masa theme is a modern classic.

It's actually rather horrible

Double

Triple (Based soley on the original album.)

To each his own!

Well, it does get big praise here ...

http://www.amazon.de/Klassiker-Filmmusi … amp;sr=1-2

I'd like to know that to.

In another note... A friend of mine got a some sort of film music almanach once and another guy from our website got to the index, to see which composers are mentioned in it. So he goes through the index and suddenly...

Who the FUCK is BORIS POLEDOURIS?!

I always thought that the score that put the power anthem style in the spotlight was Backdraft rather than Black Rain. Then Hans, after his rise to fame after two big drama scores - Rain Man and Driving Miss Daisy - started to be suddenly an action star.