Ren

ooooo
i can't wait!

Knocking out news has done wonders for my mental health and free time. Would highly recommend. If there's valuable news you won't miss it anyway.

I go through about 1.5-2 average sized books every week. The biggest thing that's helped eliminate the Internet distraction is moving reading to the first thing in the morning. I'll wake up about 2 hours before I need to start getting ready for work, have breakfast/coffee/tea and spend the two hours just reading. Novels, non-fiction/history/science whatever.
It's quite peaceful and meditative in those early hours. Unfortunately it's bumped exercise into the evening...its a lot more tough to focus/stay dedicated at the end of the day...
But on the flip side, it's tough to get distracted by the Internet on a run or in the swimming pool.

I'm reworking my film music curriculum. For those of you who don't know I teach middle school music and chorus. The students in the general music class are from all sorts of backgrounds- band drop outs, chorus kids, kids who don't like music, violinists/pianists, rock band enthusiasts....
So it's my job to get them thinking about music in a way that doesn't take years of previous music studies.
I have been having them using their GarageBand program to create an unwritten, fairly improvised score and foley track for a 30 short story that is suspenseful and is open ended. Creating the "sound of fear" by sustaining long low bass strings, descending half and whole steps, crescendos and decrescendos. As well as a high, violin half step trill.
After years of doing this assignment and tweaking it here and there I really realized that the students enjoyed recreating the sound of something. We started looking at cartoon clips and describing certain cliche sounds. Such as a falling object in slow motion would have them playing a descending woodwind line in a way where they were just wiggling their fingers on the keyboard.
What sort of cliche moments or thematic recreations would you aim to include? I have -
fanfare: trumpets, triplets, leaps.
Falling: descending woodwind line, free fall down the keyboard with fingers.
Fear: trill, high pitched violins.
Fear: low sustained strings.
I'm looking to include love theme, action music, etc.

Just watched the one where Ross said Rachel's name at his wedding with Emily.
Great stuff

People should watch FOTR until Gandalf falls off the bridge, when it should immediately cut to the beginning of TTT.

In any order. They are all repeating the same formula; Endless complex battles and then arrive the Eagles, kick the shit out of every one. The End.

I would skip the Hobbit TCs and only show the EEs.

Three episodes in and Under the Dome is really crap, but damnit I wanna know the origins of that stupid thing.

And you met lovely Renovia.
Karol

I don't get the big deal if somebody hacks your CC / debit card number. You just have the false charges removed and you get assigned a new number. It's barely a hassle.

Which is why I've said very little about this cruddy movie.

Which is why I've said very little about this cruddy movie.

very well said.
btw there is a deleted scene where clark goes to the hearing doctor and ends up destroying the doctors equipment by a super scream.

But pub, some of us are reeeeeeeally interested in Koray's beliefs on this subject and haven't heard any of it before.

Nick Cage is infinitely watchable

As I was watching I was really admiring the whole story structure of the film. There isn't a single wasted moment in the film, everything is there for a reason. I also watched the deleted scenes afterwards, and one of them was thing super-long single-shot that would have introduced Gusteau's, starting from outside it, panning over, showing people go inside, people being waited on, eventually going into the kitchen, and finally panning up to the roof to show Remy looking in through the window. Brad Bird then comes on screen to talk about why it was cut - because it wasn't any character's point of view, it was just a long shot to establish a setting. He talked about the important of making the whole film be Remy's story, which is one of the reasons why he eventually realized he had to have Gusteau already dead when the movie started, since the film to that point was trying to tell too many stories at once.
He's really a smart storyteller. I wish he had gotten the reigns to handle Star Wars 7 instead of Abrams.

the film has so many problems, horrific art direction, a failed score, relentless destruction, lack of chemistry between the two main character, unrealistic death of a beloved character, penis shaped entry vehicle to the vagina shaped phantom zone, etc etc.

ID4 tomorrow!!!

I much prefer Robin Hood: Men In Tights.
i enjoyed it up until Wallace Shawn died. The interspersed present day scenes are unbelievably cringeworthy.

Finally saw it, don't really know what to think.
It's loud, the music is awful and was more obtrusive then TDK scores.
It felt at times I was wayching a Sci-Fi Channel made film with a huge budget and then I had Transformer flashbacks during the final battle scenes.
I almost expected after Supes won for the smoke to clear and everyone standing there, staring at him with pissed off looks on their faces, pointing for him to leave earth.
The destruction was almost comical.

Princess Bride and Blazing Saddles. Hard to watch a lot of the former without an amused smile, and always fun to watch with parents who forgot most of it and ask who the cameos are. The latter was for Paula, and it's amazing how much of the movie is tedious downtime.

really Stefan you're giving him way too much credit.

True. The mixing of act I and II by using multiple flashbacks just blew back at the filmmakers. The end result is many individual "vignettes" with no connective tissue between them and rubbish flow. So there's little in the way of seeing how he actually progresses into Superman. Plus Snyder is just too obsessed with action and blowing shit up, even in these supposed "character" flashbacks.

"Major scales?" - Hans Zimmer