publicist
-
Posts
17,837 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
42
Posts posted by publicist
-
-
6 hours ago, Richard Penna said:
It would be like saying that the film version of Ripples would be 'unacceptable' on a TLW reissue because it's a music editor creation. The only difference? A lot of people liked that one.
If anecdotal evidence is the benchmark...
The kind of often shoddily editorially created credit assemblies are on these releases because it just doesn't matter much (there's a lot of musically superfluous stuff on it, anyway). But to replace a whole batch because there are pops in it, i mean, in times of worldwide efforts to save the environment just seems a wee bit off.
-
But isn't this snippet saying the opposite?
-
-
This is a fair representation - and as always, instruments are not casted quite like what you'd expect, creating a sometimes interesting idiosyncratic atmosphere.
-
Labels still reproduce this ugly end title stuff that sounds like tone-deaf fan edits? These cues deserve every pop and cackle.
-
Not-bad thriller score from trio Wong/Rees/Crosby, which has offered several surprisingly good scores in the last years (runner-up: the swooning romantic Mat Biec). It sags in the middle, but the beginning and the end are good.
-
22 minutes ago, filmmusic said:
Apocalypto (James Horner)
Atmospheric but not one I would revisit often.
If you're a fan of the bird calls, you can alway fall back on 'The New World'.
-
21 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:
Fair. I might check it out but there’s lots of pretty decent film music-esque modern classical to enjoy so guess there’s not much point wasting time on the less good stuff.
Just in time for Halloween, i'd recommend wasting time on the *really* good stuff.
-
3 hours ago, Tallguy said:
I should make a sig file that says "The OST of Close Encounters of the Third Kind might still be the best."
It has really sloppy editing (i know technical facilities were a lot less than what they are today, but still, some of those edits rankle).
-
4 hours ago, Thor said:
And Menken, if you count songs.
And Barry, who has 5 (afair, one was for the Born Free song).
-
Thanks for another one of your schoolmarmish rebukes (i sure hope you don't have a Twitter account, Jay!) but first, the promo was released in physical form and how and under which legal status i obtained is frankly none of your business and second, i never said i enjoy it. Certainly not on a 40€ level.
26 minutes ago, Jean-Baptiste Martin said:I agree with you @publicist. That's why the presence of the three missing songs will largely determine my interest of this new edition.
Because they are not in the promo and will add a new touch of messiness, to use your expression.We'll see about that in the clips;)
QuoteThe orchestra comes at the end of the album, if that can help motivate you.
It's more the stuff in the middle that defies interest. That the movie is one of those pathetic Oscar baits in which well-paid actors suffer in a deadening stiff-lipped way sure doesn't help (either the book was very good and they destroyed it in the screen version or a dud found its celluloid match).
-
Anyone who would put *that* flip cover first has much more urgent aesthetic problems than bad photoshop croppings.
- Brundlefly and blondheim
-
2
-
3 hours ago, WilliamsStarShip2282 said:
Which Copland piece?
You might try the Third Symphony (Molto moderato) or the Lincoln Portrait.
Or if that's too classical, you might find this piece by another genuinly american fellow comfortably - or uncomfortably - close to it.
-
Ah ok, you possess a better subtext perception than me, obviously. If that is what he meant, of course
.
The widespread availability of the 70-minute crew promo makes this new release a bit obsolete, as it is far from Horner's best (though the liner notes, as is a custom for these kind of boutique releases, will try their best to sell it as exactly that) - maybe the sound is improved, it always struck me as a wee bit distant and muffled.
I will add, though, that there is a kind of welcome messiness to it, which became increasingly rare in the 2000's, when Horner's career trailed off into clubfooted epic meandering and languid, never-ending piano soliloquies (i still haven't made it through all of 'House and Sand and Fog').
-
57 minutes ago, Jean-Baptiste Martin said:
This edition of How the Grinch Stole Christmas was supposed to be released in 2020 for the 20th anniversary of the film but has been postponed by the COVID.
That's not what i got out of Bespin's weird phrasing, but OK.
-
45 minutes ago, WilliamsStarShip2282 said:
Seriously?
I hardly moves, and what moves are just old, clichéd americana gestures right out of Copland.
-
- Popular Post
Finally came around to deep-listen to my not-so-new LLL edition for a Spielberg/Williams score from The Unsteady Years - when Spielberg, in the wake of real-life fatherhood, divorce and a lack of love for his first *serious* moviemaking forays, became rather lost between play-it-safe blockbusters like 'Last Crusade' and bewildering updates of old projects like 'Always' and 'Hook' (natch, 'Peter Pan').
Spielberg played around with the project for many years, burning through screenwriters and script versions in a rather quichotic quest for a sensible update of an old MGM wartime tearjerker full of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo with Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne that made him (and actor Richard Dreyfuss) cry when he was a 10-year old. When the whole thing limped to cinemas in December 1989, heads were rightly scratched. Exchanging the World War II backdrop to one of aerial firefighting, Spielberg can't seem to set one foot right. Miscast Dreyfuss comes back from the netherworld to fix up his girlfriend Holly Hunter with a new flier guy (the actor playing him was so devoid of characteristics, he sank without a trace) - this idea is presented as darling, precious concept, but, in 1989 (!), the whole notion that anyone could have *gasp* sex in a love triangle like this seems to frighten Spielberg, so all you get is Holly Hunter in a white dress and a few romantic scenes that are exactly a 10-year old's idea of what 'romantic' constitutes. All that's left are a few spectacularly directed aerial scenes that Spielberg would have better put into a showreel (or saved them for his later WW2 tv shows).
John Williams was left with this mess, trying to figure out what Spielberg was trying to tell us. The result is a very discreet affair (for Williams, anyway). He dodges the things that don't work - the mousy 5-note motif that brackets the sweeter scenes (Intimate Conversation) is characteristic of a time when he tried to put some distance between himself and the many bad reviews he earned for overscoring 'Empire of the Sun'. But very exciting it ain't. The thoughtful piano cadences of the movie's proper love theme (Pete and Dorinda) are very delicate and nostalgic and they sure work better than the scenes they are accompanying. The big dramatics remain either unscored or are handled in a kind of skimmed milk manner (The Rescue Operation). There's also a kind of long-lined flying theme, and that's the stuff that stays with you. Williams elaborates on it in the metaphysical finale, a long scene of Holly Hunter flying through the night with Dreyfuss by her side as guardian angel. Williams seizes this scene - he musters all the french horn love he has in him and makes a symphonic poem out of it (Among the Clouds), though Spielberg made him replace the final minutes with a movie music finale more pitched to Spielberg's sentimental 80's sensibilities. And it includes the only big gesture in this score, on a biblical scale that would have made Cecil B. DeMille proud, when Hunter's plane crashes into the water and a big string exclamation full of religioso phrasings takes over. It's the only moment when 'Always' musically comes truly alive.
With all the lackluster minimalism of the first half, the finale and the several versions of the credits save it (one includes a long Williams do-over of the old Jerome Kern-standby 'Smoke Gets in your Eyes' sandwiched between his own themes). So the LLL is one of the rare cases when the expansion of a middling score unleashes at least two or three reasons to like it more than you did before.
- Tallguy, Jay and Tom Guernsey
-
3
-
13 hours ago, Bellosh said:
Most underrated: Saving Private Ryan. I think it's a perfect score.
In a 'Most Boring Solemn Americana Score ever' contest, no doubt (though that's a crowded field).
'The River' is a nice, 'populist' ( in the best sense) score that i think isn't much-liked becasue the usual Williams fan considers it too pop-infested. But in a time when Williams' music started to become rather boring after the turbulent 70's, it was a good throwback.
-
9 hours ago, filmmusic said:
I haven't watched the film yet, and I generally love Terrence Malick.
I generally find his movies insufferable, but 'A Hidden Life' was a step up. The empty (and endless) symbolism was tied to a strong story, for a change.
-
Extremely cold it certainly isn't (the appearances of the score's two quasi-main themes, the song and the Blue Fairy theme, take up a considerable amount of the score's running time and are among Williams' most beguiling). It's the contrast between the melodic and the distant is what makes it, though it's certainly a slog in complete form.
-
55 minutes ago, Bespin said:
I must say that the release of this expansion is quite an unexpected impact of Vangelis' death...
The release is an impact of Vangelis' death? And unexpected at that?
-
1 hour ago, Tom Guernsey said:
This kinda sounds like it should be worth a listen. Is it just not very good or not very memorable?
The repertoire value is low (it's all very familiar), but it isn't bad. There isn't really a wow moment, so it all depends on how often you can listen to your favourite idioms without tiring of the ingredients.
-
1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:
Penelope, Not With My Wife, You Don't are great musical treasures. And Stepmon is a candidate, too.
If these are great musical treasures, i shudder at the thought of the failures!
-
I'm not sure i would recommend it, but this new symphony by Michael Kurek, which would be labeled 'neo-romantic' in classical genre terms, sure sounds like the guy listened to too much film music (the variety of silver age updates golden age).
- karelm and GerateWohl
-
1
-
1
The Classical Music Recommendation Thread
in General Discussion
Posted
I really only look for pieces (criticism nowadays seems almost too stodgy a term in the Age of Twitter) that somehow evokes my interest, either by POV or deep-dive background knowledge - though rarely technical or formal aspects as such. That's stuff i pick up, but to have it front and center often seems to dilute the sensual qualities. What was going on in i. e. Bartok's life when he wrote a piece like the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste evokes my interest, or why it influenced many people at a moment in time.