Gruesome Son of a Bitch

Exactly. I just never really got into it. The opening shot with the clouds looked exactly like when the Batwing flies up in front of the moon (see: your Elfman Batman CD cover). The tree from his last okay-good movie Sleepy Hollow was there. I had this feeling throughout that Burton was just going through the motions and dumping in concepts and things from earlier movies. The CGI was atrocious and insanely overused. I don't get that either. On the Batman SE DVD interviews in 2005, you get an almost anti-CG vibe from Burton. Change of heart I guess. I think he has an evil twin that makes shitty movies. Maybe they actually got the REAL Burton for the Batman DVD interviews. Also, Shia is the fucking man for taking a dump on Indy IV at Cannes while Lucas and his sexy African American squeeze were there seeing his new movie and also for trashing Transformers 2 while in the middle of doing that franchise.

Even I went to see Alice in Wonderland and payed the premium for an IMAX ticket. For a while there in my youth, it seemed like Burton was going to be the next Lucas/Spielberg, or at least continue the legacy so to speak. He could do no wrong until he just became a jackass circa 2001 when he did Planet of the Apes. I was hoping he would redeem himself through Alice. It looked kinda cool. Alas, it turned out to be another SW Prequel, Indy IV, Star Trek, etc.

Godzilla - David Arnold. The whole movie it was raining so I associate the music with rainy days. That's kind of screwed up.

That AWIL cover is hilarious. Great stuff.

The thing about Jabba and Yoda is that they were created in an era where they were REALLY good at that sort of thing and really seemed to care about the work.

artyjeffrey would have loved to have been at the screening of A.I. that I attended that Friday afternoon it opened. The reel became screwed up when David was talking to that Kamino robot dude and the movie stopped for 20 minutes. We had like three endings between the false ending, reel problems and the literal ending. Would not frickin' end. And it just kept getting worse...and worse.

It's sad that if you were to replace the Transformers in that poster with Indy, Mutt, Ox, Irina, etc., there you have the finale of Indiana Jones IV.

KOTCS had such lame supporting characters. The earlier movies had the younger spunky Marion, Sallah, Belloq hamming it up, Connery stealing the show, Shorty, Willie (yeah I'm going there), Mola Ram, Elsa (grrrrr), Toht, Lao, etc. KOTCS offers Nicholson's Departed guy (easily the most annoying and unlikeable of the bunch, not to mention horribly written and ridiculously developed), boring old Marion who shows up with limited screen time late in the movie and is suddenly back with Indy (meanwhile we don't really feel the connection at all, regardless of whether we've seen Raiders a billion times), the wasted crazy old guy who unfortunately is a GREAT actor when he isn't playing a dumbass. The female villain was also quite lame, I think. There was another wasted opportunity. What made Elsa such a sexy bad girl in Last Crusade was just that--SEX. Sex appeal. Use it. Instead we got a butch Russian broad with a sword fighting Shia LaBeouf and collecting alien corpses. Speaking of Shia, he's another poorly developed character. He's introduced as this hot-headed young biker punk kid. A bit later on in the movie, we find out he's basically a sissy that dropped out of prep school and threw on a leather jacket. Couldn't he have been COOL? This is Indy's son for Christ's sake. This is what was totally ridiculous about the notion of Lucas doing Mutt sequels. What a joke. Who would really want to see that?

Those pictures are great!

Spielberg and Lucas just can't make these types of movies anymore. Why they went back to Star Wars and Indy, I don't know (stock "$" response), but I do know a lot of people wish they hadn't. Harrison Ford wasn't that great in KOTCS either. At points it was like he was playing the character straight, just, you know, older. Other times it was like a parody. "Somewhere your Grandpa is laughing!", Indy and that big Russian guy, the Twilight Zone-esque scene in that quaint 1950's neighborhood in the middle of the desert. The blame is certainly shared by Lucas and Spielberg. In fact, it's mostly on their shoulders. I mean, how the hell can Harrison Ford play such a ridiculous scene as that straight. "Hello? Can I use your phone??" *nuke is about to blow* "Uh oh, not good." *hides in fridge, flies hundreds of feet through the air and lands, rolling out into the path of a CGI gopher* THIS is Indiana Jones? Ugh.

I don't like Fifth Element either. It just irritates me.

It was really when we were in line for Star Tours at Disney World in the early 90s and I heard the music from the Trilogy playing that I decided I wanted the music. I heard "Into the Trap", ESB's Finale, Imperial March, etc. playing in the Ewok village and it began to click in my little mind that the music could exist separately from the movies. Within a Christmas or so I had the Last Crusade soundtrack, the Anthology, Jurassic Park, etc. Star Wars was the beginning of it all.

<------- First and last Star Wars CDs I'll ever listen to.

Exsultate Justi from Empire of the Sun. Which I thought was totally out of place in the movie. I guess this WAS composed as a concert piece, but I consider it the exception where a piece is entirely weak in the film it supports and enjoyable apart from the film. Destruction of Krypton is so grand and operatic. Definitely concert hall material.

Shorty! Quit fooling around with that kid! Get down in the cart NOW!

I got that Hallmark card for my birthday. I'll always save it. This is the new piece. Edit: Nevermind. There is no new piece.

I agree. Somehow lacked that dreamy magical lullaby sound. I still don't get the hate for the HP scores. This ending part of Hedwig's Theme was the first music I ever heard from the trailer and it made me want to see the movie.

Nope... True story. A couple years ago at a bar I picked up this really hot young number by claiming to be a member of the Boston Pops. I pulled out my Pops friends member card to help sell the lie. Then I told her I played celeste and harpsichord. It worked! Thanks, JW!

Tell the audience to wait until the end of the piece to applaud! This isn't a rock show!

There was the Boston accent again. "Li-buhty Fanfare."

This is what I clicked to hear!

So far it seems we've heard mostly pre-recorded music, non-Williams music and Williams interviews as opposed to actual Williams pieces. I was expecting more of the program I posted on page one. Edit: never mind, here most of it comes.

This is fine for an elevator or, say, the Titanic first class dining room. Not a God damned John Williams Boston Pops show. Do not want!

I need to figure out a way to meet him at Tanglewood. However I need to perform certain favors, I don't care. They can expect phone calls and e-mails in the next few weeks.

Datameister you should find the golf course that John Williams walks at dusk every evening and get us all autographs. I'll mail you my creased Home Alone 2 liner notes that I had stuffed into my ass pocket a couple years ago ready to autograph when Williams got right up next to me...and security rushed him to his car.