TheRuleOfThirds

Tonight, I watched The Omen for the first time and decided I wanted to watch something a little lighter.  So I surfed around and found First Blood on Spike.  Since I analyzed Jerry's work in The Omen, I continued in analysis mode with First Blood.  At first, I used to like Rambo: First Blood Part II the best, but these days...First Blood is giving it a run for its money.

FBII is cool because it's one of the best action scores out there.  If you want 80s action, this is the score for it.  It's got the Vietnam theme on a synth only found in the 80s, it's got the "Rambo synth" that sounds like the 80s, plus it's an epic piece of music.  

FB, on the other hand, is a lot deeper than just action.  It gives more of a psycho-sonic profile of John J. Rambo and I think it's more experimental than any of the other scores.  Less is more.  But "Hanging On", "First Blood", and "Mountain Hunt" are some solid tracks.

Rambo III is the least impressive score of the trilogy.  While it directly recycles cues from FBII, it still has quite a bit of new music.  My favorite track being "Night Fight."  For the first part of it, there's just a nice energy to it that is pretty "Rambo."  For the most part, I consider Rambo III to be full of "talking" cues--which for a Rambo score is about as out-of-place as dialogue.  Plus the "Rambo synth" is barely used.  Boo!

Over the years, I've had a love-hate thing for Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.  You can't help but love "O Fortuna", Orff's claim to fame, but the rest of the work doesn't sound very much like that, with the exception of "Fortuna plango vulnera."  

So for those of you who have heard it, what do you think?  Is it a classic or should you just listen to "O Fortuna" and be done with it?

I myself am not sure if it's a classic, but it certainly is worth repeated listening.  It was composed in the 1930s, so it bears similarities to more traditional film scores--like Star Wars--which is probably what draws me in.  Some of it, I suppose reminds me of Khachaturian's Gayane Ballet, but with more texture and variety.  Gayane's pretty consistent with the Middle Eastern vibe and that's the set style.  With CB, though, it's pretty much all over the radar.  You've got a piece like "O Fortuna" that sounds like an epic war centerpiece, but then you've got these other pieces that sound more like pieces from your church's Christmas pageant.  

Basically, I like it because of the variety, but it also gets old after a while, I think.  "Fortuna plango vulnera" is definitely underrated.  You should hear that just as much as "O Fortuna."  Whenever I listen to it, I can't help but think of Stukas dive-bombing some little town in Europe.  From what I understand, the Nazis liked Carmina Burana.  Ironically, in 1966, it was performed in Israel too.

So there's my thoughts.

I just read on FSM that Horner is scoring Mel Gibson's Apocalypto.  

Anybody else stoked about this?

Okay...so tonight, I was in a mood where I started listening to those DVD rips from the ToD score ("Underground Chaos").  It was just so much fun...I put the DVD itself in to get the full effect.  And it was fun!  The ever-growing likelihood of getting a new Indy score is sending chills up my spine right now.  So I started asking myself some questions.

Since this will probably be the definite last Indy score, is someone going to hire the LSO?  Gotta go out with a bang, ya know?

Two, what kind of approach will we see JW take?  Are we going to get an action score like Raiders, a fun score like ToD, or a serious score like Last Crusade.  If I had to predict what will happen, I might go with a second serious score--Spielberg and Williams are old and they're doing movies for older people.  On the other hand, Spielberg's said this is the sweet dessert we get for all the serious movies he's made lately.  And I certainly hope so.  So maybe we'll get a fun movie/score out of this?

Does anyone collect them?  For some reason, back in high school, I used to collect these things.  I'm not sure how much they offer in lieu of fine literature, but I think it's fun to collect junk from the golden age of SF.  My first buy was Starlog #20: Superman: The Movie.  I can't remember what my second one, was.  Anyhow...I stopped buying them, but today I bought my first one since I've been in college.  I got Starlog #40: The Empire Strikes Back.  Included: Mark Hamill interview; The Film Music of John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, Pt III.



So does anybody even know what a Starlog is or am I the only one?