tpigeon
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Posts posted by tpigeon
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Wait... so United 93 is a fantasy, but you like World Trade Center? You're losing points, Joe. Your comments about each film illuminate nothing about them. You seem only to like decent action adventures and the occasional comedy. I guess if that's all you like, then yes, the 2000's are cinematically bankrupt... for you. For true movie lovers, this is the best time to watch movies. I've seen many great movies in the last years, large and small, and in all languages.
Ted
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This is a very good Williams effort; an all-around solid score. But I don't think it approaches real greatness, though. Maybe the full score does, I don't know. But based on these 77 minutes, I'd say this is a very good score, with nice themes, but the underscore and action writing are somewhat lacking. The Crystal Skull theme is fleshed out beautifully in the latter half, but the action material is nothing we haven't heard before, save for a few great moments in the Jungle Chase. Cues like The Snake Pit are a total bore, and Ants isn't much better (until the end).
I hate to say it, but the score seems too... active. It's frenetic in ways the previous scores were not. (Temple of Doom was, but that achieves a more swirling balletic effect.) When it's not doing the brooding thing with the Skull theme, it's trying to perform as many notes as possible. Mutt's theme and A Whirl Through Academe seem like those jovial Williams cues of old, but they're just too much, I think.
That is my initial impression. I'm not disappointed by the score, but I do not believe it to be among Williams' best in recent years. Azkaban and A.I. still hold those titles, by far.
Ted
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In the Finale, what's the music between Irina's theme and Mutt's theme? I can tell it's a Russian action motif, but I don't recall hearing that anywhere else in the score. Whatever it is, I like it.
Ted
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The Jungle Chase is one of Williams' finest action cues.
Ted
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Damn! He got us again!
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Action writing sounds phenomenal. Ants, Jungle Chase, and Finale are really good.
Ted
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These clips are much better.
Ted
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Hopefully...
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Vanderbait1, I just want you to know: Good luck. We're all counting on you.
Ted
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Yes, where is this damn thing?
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What difference does it make? The soundtrack will be released in six days.
Ted
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Well... are they real?
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I don't want to interrupt this dialogue, but I do want to point out that many critics (both then and now) did not look favorably on Raiders. Certain critics did, and many still do, the Jonathan Rosenbaums of the film critic business weren't so kind to it.
Ted
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Iron Man (2008): What it lacked in excitement, it more than made up for in simply being a well-made, charming movie. Jon Favreau is filling a void in grand, simple entertainment, an art lost on a great deal of Hollywood fare these days.
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001): Not one of the Coens' best, but perhaps this is unfair. It's still a very involving movie; wonderfully twisted, dream-like in its meshing of film noir and the idiosyncrasies of the Coen's aesthetic and narrative style. A very good film.
On tap: I'm Not There, and The Savages
Oh, and You Can Count On Me is a terrific movie; one of my favorite American indies of the 2000's.
Ted
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I believe you know how to reach me, or perhaps I will reach you.
Ted
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Experimentalism is about confounding, not following a set of rules.
Ted
Good slogan, but nonetheless, it's not appliable to the easily perceived instances that I mentioned above.
Alex
Maybe not for you.
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Experimentalism is about confounding, not following a set of rules.
Ted
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Fascinating point, but Spielberg wasn't going for "evenness." Spielberg is doing more than posing philosophical questions about humankind, and so on. He is examining memory, thought, and narrative, with his narrative. Which is why he makes it stutter, he makes it uneven. People brought up on notions of critical judgment and checklisting a film's formal details like good acting, direction, script structure, etc. are bound to hate it. I'm not going to try to convince any one of you otherwise.
Ted
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I've only ever seen the Tangerine Dream version of the film and it worked about as well as any score should be expected to in a mediocre movie like this one.
I actually enjoy the Tangerine Dream score as well. It's not as sophisticated as Goldsmith's, but as you point out, it doesn't need to be. I've always had a soft spot for the movie, absurd as it is. I'll always remember seeing the "Forgive me" scene with the Tangerine Dream score for the first time, and loving it.
Ted
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I thought this thread was about 2001?
It was. I tried redirecting it, but to no avail. Like just about every other thread about a movie not directed by George Lucas and/or Steven Spielberg, it became about George Lucas and/or Steven Spielberg. I could start a thread about Bergman and by the end of the first page, we'd be on to Spielberg or Lucas.
Ted
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Rhetoric.
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There's no accounting for taste.
Ted
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I would refine the previously stated thought that 2001 is about "mankind," to say that it is about communication. When I say communication, I don't mean the organizational device that can be "strong or weak," or carries messages. (That it's reduced to this so often makes me sick.) I mean communication as the constitutive fabric of humankind. Some see that communication as technology, others see it as mediated information, and others see it as the means linguistic frameworks enabling thought and memory as we know it. It is all of these things, and the film involves them all.
Ted
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I'll give it a proper listen later and will probably agree with you then. My post was based on listening to tracks at random in the background, while working on my computer. Hardly the way to judge a score fairly. :cool:I think you put it nicely, Pieter. Although I initially agreed with just about all of this, I just listened to the score again and was much more pleased with it. There is still a lot of inaccessible heavy action writing and a couple re-hashes from the first score, but there are some subtle bits of magic in there, and he does some amazing things with the battle theme from the first film; I'm guessing it's Aslan's theme. The final two cues are terrific.I, too, first listened to the score in that manner.
Ted
I just watched 2001: a space odyssey
in General Discussion
Posted
World Trade Center was manipulative and exploitive. Just because it was based on survivor accounts does not make it any more or less plausible than something that's not. Like the old saying goes, it's not so much about what a film is about, but how it is about it. And United 93 struck me as a much more genuine movie.
I don't have a problem with small comments, Joe. It's your cut and dry tone that prompts my responses. That you leave no room for a view other than your own is the problem, not that you have opinions and views.
And yes, I can say that the 2000's until this point have been great for movies. But then again, the points made in these conversations ultimately say more about who makes them than they do about movies themselves. I recognize that I have an optimistic attitude about movies, but I have seen around 80 or more theatrical releases each years since 2001, and I can confidently say that I've seen plenty of great filmmaking.
Ted