Bayesian

Now this is exciting news! I hope it's got enough appeal for a theatrical release.

I can't believe I only discovered this thread now. Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin?? Color me curious -- and cautiously optimistic! I have fond memories of the Naked Gun movies. Along with the Hot Shots and Airplane movies, they made up the bulk of an entirely distinct category of comedy whose existence was like an island in the long timeline of Hollywood movies. The main reason the absurdist humor worked, of course, was that Leslie Neilsen played the role completely straight but also tongue in cheek. That's probably damn harder than it looks, and I hope Neeson gives a performance that can compare. He has to play the role like he knows the world he's in is ridiculous and absurd but still takes it dead seriously. More than that, though, the NG movies worked because everyone played their roles straight. There was no winking at the audience. I hope the script treats the audience like adults and doesn't stoop to Deadpool-style pandering. Also, I hope during the opening credits they do something like put up Leslie Neilsen's name and then awkwardly/frantically try to replace it with Liam Neeson's. That would make me laugh.

Here’s an article that discusses it in a little detail: https://cointelegraph.com/news/hans-zimmer-writes-tron-theme-song. Apparently, the “song” had been under development since 2022 (although the end result sounds like Zimmer only worked on it since 8:00 this morning.) Read the article. It quotes Zimmer on how this music represents the potential of Web3.0. The disconnect between what he says this song represents and the actual banality of the music itself is… well, it’s astonishing. I really believe Zimmer has somehow managed to achieve the impossible — he’s transcended his corporeal form to become a being of pure marketing.

The re-uptake of this thread has been a very interesting and thought-provoking read. (I also admire how civil we’ve all been so far in disputing positions!) A few years ago, my take would have been more conservative/conventional, namely that JW is representative of the skill set that a “proper” professional film composer should have and that composers with less formal musical backgrounds are slowly dragging down the quality of film scoring as an art. (Danny Elfman being a very important exception.) But I’ve become more sanguine about the whole thing lately. Not because I’ve begun to enjoy or appreciate the music of the likes of Zimmer or Balfe (I haven’t and never will), but because I realize composers such as them are, if nothing else, good at the very narrow thing they do and that there’s room in the movie business for their specialization. Zimmer’s music for Dune, for example, would be a godawful sonic experience for most people on its own, but as part of the movie, it definitely succeeds at evoking an otherworldly environment. As for the actual musical talent—piano performance, reading or writing music by hand, improvisation, etc— of the likes of Zimmer & co., it actually shouldn’t matter, in principle, whether a person can do these things if he can give the buyer what he wants. If producers want the Zimmer sound and a composer can give it to them without the benefit of a conservatory education or sight reading skill, well, why not? We shouldn’t want credentials (or the philosophy behind credentialism) to stand in the way of people finding their way to success. That kind of gatekeeping is classist and elitist and I’d love to think society has had its fill of such things finally.

Wish is now on Disney+ and I gave it a watch because of my morbid curiosity given all the bad reviews and press it got last November. And yeah, the movie is as middling and disappointing as everyone says. It's not a bad movie necessarily, but it's just so frustratingly weak in too many aspects. There's no soul or depth or nuance to anything (costumes, faces, settings, character arcs...). The overall impression you get is that this movie is a simulacrum made by an alien or generative AI of what it thinks human beings would enjoy in a Disney animated movie. Watching Wish is just a wan and emotionally flat experience. Except during the songs, when all you can do is cringe at the amateur quality of the writing. ("Throw caution to every warning sign"? What does that even mean?) You can't help but miss the genius of Howard Ashman and Stephen Schwartz when you hear talents like Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine do what they can to make lemonade from the artless rhyme-lemons foisted upon them. Also, it seems like every tenth word spoken in the movie is "wish." I never thought that word could get annoying to hear but, yes, it definitely can.

Yeah, I’m gonna have to agree here. That trailer was a masterpiece, selling us on Nixon’s life as a modern-day Greek tragedy. (The movie itself was just as great; probably Stone’s high-water mark as a filmmaker.)

Doesn’t Disney own the IP on Winnie the Pooh? I’m extremely surprised they’d allow this character to be used like this!

Some folks here have mentioned not having seen Insomnia. If you’re one of them, make point of watching it. It’s Nolan’s first movie and it’s really good. Robin Williams was masterful in it. Watching his performance will remind you that we lost him far too soon.

Her role couldn't be that big, could it? Haven't they been filming this one since 2022? I'd have thought principal photography had wrapped on this already, SAG/WGA strike notwithstanding.

That trailer is awesome. Several solid LOL moments in there for me. I'm gonna do my part to make this a box office hit. Plus, I'm not ashamed to say I love Will Smith, always have, always will. And they found a way to bring Capt Howard back, and not just in a silly cameo kind of way, but core-of-the-plot kind of way. That's seriously awesome.

I had no idea this was in the works. Very exciting! I hope we can look forward to an official cast recording. As Menken’s last contribution to the Disney Renaissance era (launched, of course, by he and Howard Ashman), it’s nice to see Hercules get the live musical treatment.

By all accounts known to me, we should be safe this time around. This is going to be a straight up sequel with no reboot elements of any kind. (I’m sure, too, after his experience on POTA, Burton’s now allergic to the very notion of reboot, lol.)

That's a really thoughtful way of describing how Goldsmith finally clicked with you. I appreciated reading it. Maybe I can find my own way in based on this..

It’ll look great on your bookshelf. Sure does on mine!

I felt the need to post this track from the Pocahontas soundtrack (1995). Up until 0:58, we get a statement and a bit of development of what I think is supposed to be Pocahontas' theme (a seven-note motif). All quite lovely and whatnot. In the movie, this is when Pocahontas and John Smith kiss for the first time. But at 0:59, the motif takes a dark turn as one of Smith's men sees the kiss, reflecting the impression of Smith as a traitor to his people. The theme snippet (now reduced to 5 notes) is then immediately repeated, but in an anguished and devastating way, as this is when we realize that P's husband-to-be is also watching them kiss. Those few seconds, from 0:59 to 1:11, contain the music of those awful first moments of heartbreak happening in front of your eyes. It's the soundtrack of the implosion of hope. It's a stunning musical moment. To anyone who knows music theory: can you explain what's happening during those 12 seconds? The five-note motif is played twice during that span, with the first iteration sort of setting up an aural expectation for the second iteration. But whereas the first iteration sounds like horror dawning, in the second iteration, the last three chords of the motif (starting at 1:07) sound like pure anguish. What does Menken do in those three chords to achieve that emotional response??

I imagine my first exposure to Goldsmith was Gremlins. The main theme was super catchy and stuck with me for years. However, I didn't pay any attention to who wrote it (just like I never cared at the time to learn about who wrote the BTTF music, which also stuck with me instantly). Goldsmith is a tricky one for me. I know he was super talented and I very much respect that. But overall, his music leaves me weirdly indifferent, or even antagonized at times. It's like I can appreciate at arm's length his proficiency but with relatively few exceptions, his melodies and thematic development don't click with me and his scores don't linger in my mind. In some cases, like Air Force One, his music just gets really grating on the ear. And I've tried to like him, believe me, ever since joining this forum, where lots of folks are deeply fond of his oeuvre.

Great questions, Bespin. I’m definitely curious about the answers too. I just wanted to pop in and clarify that what we on this forum refer to as “micro-edits” are just simply “edits” in a professional sound engineer/mixer/editor’s context. (I once posed a question about that terminology here and that was my takeaway.) Technically, the only thing big, small, or micro about an edit is maybe how much original material gets displaced from the affected cue. Otherwise, it’s the always fundamentally the same mechanistic action to cut in or cut out something that wasn’t captured in the original recording. If I’m wrong on this, let’s get that cleared up also. I’m sure I’m not the only one confused by the use of this forum vernacular.

I would have loved to have attended this! Mind you, that would unfortunately never have happened even if I'd known about it in advance; getting to Vienna from California and back would be budgetarily out of the question, so I'm hoping against hope that the concert was recorded.

Ok, that was pretty great! It's sorta like Desplat channeling Elfman in Desperate Housewive mode. Wherever he got his inspiration, I totally dig it.

Another wonderful accolade for JW that’s, as always, well deserved. I can’t help but notice that out of the 19 laureates, JW is the one the AP picked to headline the article. Just further evidence that his living legend status reliably sells, whether it be concert seats or live albums or article clicks.

Does anyone happen to know what cello Ma played at these concerts? Mere curiosity, is all. He’s got two cellos from the early 18th century—a 1712 Strad and a 1733 Montagnana, according to Wikipedia. (To think that either of those master luthiers couldn’t have any idea at the time that their instruments would be playing JW’s music three centuries later..)

Well, we are talking about Warners here, which is striving valiantly for the award for most ineptly-run studio in Hollywood. Maybe we shouldn’t read too much into this decision.

Other takeaways-- Hook expanded edition is selling like hotcakes and may be 80% (or more) sold out already... and MM hasn't begun working on Star Wars expansions yet. (Or maybe he has and he's really good at hiding that fact. But the way he spoke about SW as a project he'd like to work on doesn't sound prepared. I think he really hasn't been given the green light yet for that one.)

Thanks for sharing this! It's nice that the first concerto still gets some attention. Although Discogs has pics of the album, it doesn't appear on Amazon or even Pentatone's website. Anyone have any luck finding it for sale?

Competing tornado hunter teams, with one of them led by a brash, cocky SOB.... barrels filled with round metal tornado sensors... "we got twins!"... tornadoes that get bigger and badder each time... I appreciate the originality of the filmmakers here. I mean, they really went out of their way to find new directions to take this story. Who says Hollywood is a soulless, dying, creatively bankrupt bottom-feeder??