Bryant Burnette

I know there are some Stargate fans on this board, so here's the bad news:

http://www.gateworld...l_end_thi.shtml

It is getting hard to be a long-running sci-fi show these days.

Ray Morton's Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Making of Steven Spielberg's Classic Film came out last year, so it's not brand-new, but it's pretty new, and it's also pretty awesome.

The book goes into tons of detail about every aspect of production (pre-, unhyphenated, and post-).  It's extremely readable (although some of the more technical aspects of the visual effects section get a bit bogged down), and highly recommended for anyone who cinsiders themselves a fan of the movie.

One caveat: not much about the music.  This is a very detailed book, even including a recounting of how the posters were designed; but the score gets relatively short shrift.  It may simply be that Morton was unable to get any interview time with Williams or anyone else closely associated with the scoring of the film.  Then again, maybe not.  Either way, it's a great book.

I was thinking about this earlier today, and thought I'd post about it: 1982 was/is undoubtedly THE best year ever as far as summer movies go. A number of movies that can rightly be considered classics were released during that part of the year; enough, in fact, that I think it's just beyond question that this was THE best summer movie season ever.

Here's a rundown (using a rather loose definition of "summer," and using IMDB for the dates):

May 14: Conan the Barbarian
May 21: Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
May 21: The Road Warrior (this only sorta counts, since it'd already been released overseas)
May 28: Rocky III
June 4: Poltergeist
June 4: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
June 11: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
June 11: Grease 2
June 18: Annie
June 18: Firefox
June 25: Blade Runner
June 25: The Thing
July 2: The Secret of NIMH
July 9: Tron
July 16: A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
July 23: The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
July 23: The World According to Garp
July 30: Swamp Thing
August 13: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
August 13: Friday the 13th Part III
August 13: An Officer and a Gentleman
August 13: Pink Floyd: The Wall
August 20: The Beastmaster

I'm in astonishment over a few of those dates. For example: Poltergeist (which scared the piss out of me and still kinda does) and The Wrath of Khan came out on the same day, with E.T. opening only seven days later?!? Astonishing. Then, a few weeks later, Blade Runner and John Carpenter's The Thing came out on THE SAME DAY?!? That's . . . that's "wow," is what that is.

But I'm not sure that August 13 isn't even more impressive, in some ways. Those are all four movies that people are still watching today, for better or worse, and for four movies that last twenty-five-plus years to be released on the same day is just incredible.

Obviously, some of these movies are better than others, ranging from undeniably great to undeniably awful, but they've all got something to say for them. Several are simply minor films from extremely notable filmmakers; several are trashy late-night classics; all are at least semi-notable even today, and I don't think any summer since has seen such a high concentration of memorable films. Of course, I could be wrong, and if so, I want to know about it.

Discuss.

I've just listened to the Yes, Giorgio score and was wondering if anybody could tell me anything much about the music.

I know that Williams wrote the music for "If We Were In Love," and that the actual score was by Michael J. Lewis. However, was that the full extent of Williams' involvement?

The reason why I ask is that the "Overture" sounds a little bit like Williams to me, and I can't quite figure out why. It occurred to me that it could be because it is Williams, and that the reason it doesn't sound more like Williams is due to his not having conducted the music.

Anybody know anything about this music? Other than that Pavarotti in English sounds weird?

Did anybody else watch this on SciFi?

Fairly entertaining hooey. Well made; I suspect a lot of folks will have watched it as a straightforward documentary.

I still think the best example of this type of filmmaking is The Curse of the Blair Witch, which also aired on SciFi. I always watch it in tandem with The Blair Witch Project, which is one of my favorite scary movies.

I hope this special will end up on the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull DVD, just for completion's sake.