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publicist

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Everything posted by publicist

  1. That was so....predictable. You are always so protective about anything regarding this composer, there really is no point in discussing. I'm not here to debate the personal well-being of Williams, Goldsmith or Morricone, but the simple fact that famous film composer who are not John Williams and more versatile often were/are not very selective in choosing their assignments. This leads to more clunkers but also to more adventures.
  2. I guess you have to be 'real' in a rather crude way to be counted as one. Williams is a versatile composer...i guess nobody denies that. But on a messageboard with a rather narrow focus, living mostly on the strength of 'Star Wars', 'Indiana Jones' and 'Harry Potter', it should be clear that it's not exactly his versatility on which his success is based. And to define versatility by genres tackled...please! Even 90's John Barry has an eclectic filmography. But what is it that makes other composers like say Morricone, Goldsmith or even the Zimmer factory more versatile? For one, they all have done a lot of junk. Silly as it sounds, this in some ways seems to be a springboard for more creative musical decisions. Williams is mainly a 'red carpet' composer who is chosen for prestige films and his music is often expected to be a further enhancement of this status. So in reality, even if 'Angela's Ashes', 'Seven Years in Tibet', 'Memoirs of a Geisha' or 'Born on the Fourth of July' are different genres, the music has to follow certain expectations and hopefully generate Award nominations. I love Williams doing things like 'BotF' or 'Angela's Ashes', and i love 'The Lost World' and 'Episode 1', too. So it's not about being critical of him. It's just that i find it not that helpful when he is blindly praised as the supreme being of film composers.
  3. John Williams. as the most versatile of film composers. Let me think about it. Nope..computer says NO in a clear and loud voice.
  4. The thing is that nobody would deny that the level of musicianship required to bring off something like 'Star Trek 1' is on an altogether different scale than that of the workmanlike rather TV-ish 'First Contact', which has it's fair share of functional stuff...is it just this hymnal tune?
  5. 'C'est la Vie'.....a splendid french family dramedy from 2008, partly impressionistic, presenting it's family story in form of 5 little vignettes, one for every family member. It's a very charming film with the amount of spontaneity and almost improvisational aura i have come to expect from modern french cinema. There are family feuds and reunions, fears and surpirses and some really great sight gags on the way (i. e. a sequence where the mother fails her driving test because of a squirrel which only can be saved by abrupt braking, leading to the opposite behaviour in the next test, which of course culminates with the merciless rundown of a dog - it's cruel but oh-so human). What weighs it down a bit is the accumulation of sad incidences in the last half. We know sad stuff happens but we don't want to see it happen to other people and having to pay for it. As film music fan i also objected to the director plastering this section of the film with indie rock. If you only have a faint memory what a Delerue could bringt to such scenes, it's just sad that no effort was made to raise this stuff out of youth culture, stylistically.
  6. I'd never make a fuss about it (or i wouldn't come here at all), it was just my 'knee-jerk' reaction to your concerns about people being quick draws with rubbish statements. :cool: I just find it lamentable that the 'Twitter' kind of communication (short exclamations and such) dominates much of message board life. So i feel as long as people as you or anyone else writing those long cogitations, i have a reason to come back...
  7. If you take it as given that messageboard talk consists of knee-jerk reactions 99,9% of the time, it just makes no sense to waddle around in semantics. 'Mediocre', 'bad', 'uninspired' and 'plagiaristic' or 'brilliant', 'genius' and what-not are only some of the words which are thrown around with little regard for what they actually mean and used rather loosely to describe the fact the author feels, for one reason or another, dissatisfied or taken with a piece of music. And that is really a statement on the consumer's mentality of this society - it's not about being a scholar on the music or a composer and finding some greater context for it, it's mostly (not only) the 'i don't like it' /'love it' attitude on display. And i will add that i find the elevation of someone to God-status and the praisings of every routine job to high heaven as harmful as the badmouthing described (this is an acute FSM board/Goldsmith problem, which never ceases to amaze me).
  8. 'I am Legend' could have been a case where a 15/20-minute download release would have been ideal. The theme is great and pieces like 'The Pier' too, but the darker tracks are just a waste of time. I will never understand what people get out of 'First Contact'. There is nothing in it millions of other Goldsmith scores of this period don't have.
  9. Exactly. 'Behave like an adult!' he was told and alas, his music became sane and dependable!
  10. They are paid. Re-Use fees are an additional income.
  11. To remake 'Pelham' seems just like a bad, bad idea...and Tony Scott at the helm just makes matters worse.
  12. The trailer sounds like Williams got some rough input from Spielberg and deduced that a pure Korngoldian swashbuckling tune and a more questing theme was needed. The idea that a composer is sitting there, thinking 'i write something fancy for the stormy sea' for a kid's movie shot around the MGM tank seems just a bit too flowery
  13. I like it even more in it's mysterious arrangement in 'A Drive'. The score is, as i said elsewhere, a mixed bag. The highlights are real highlights, though, so it's a 4 from me. If the film would be less absurd, the whole 'Blue Fairy' climax could have been a classic Spielberg scene...storytelling without words. The bridge in 'Monica's Theme' feels a bit too sappy.
  14. It was drowning in it's own aren't-we-ironic-little-bastards mode.
  15. In a warped reality where 'Hook' and 'Jurassic Park' reign supreme, that even might be true. Outside of a Williams fanboard, i doubt many people give that stuff much credence. You realize I'm not expressing my personal opinion, like you. The movie was praised by most critics, period. No Josh, it wasn't. It was accepted for what it was. A quick IMDB survey will show you that much.
  16. In a warped reality where 'Hook' and 'Jurassic Park' reign supreme, that even might be true. Outside of a Williams fanboard, i doubt many people give that stuff much credence.
  17. I don't think critics 'liked it'. They were just blasé about it because it's a movie which is generally critic-proof.
  18. Furzfabrik... And it will remain a mystery why people think they have to defend any piece of junk just because they like it. 'Hook' is revolting tripe. Just accept it and love it nonetheless. It will be a deeper, better love for it! Transformers is revolting tripe. Hook is a flawed but thoroughly entertaining and overall well-made film with a stellar score. Who could wrestle with such a logic-proof argumentation?
  19. Furzfabrik... And it will remain a mystery why people think they have to defend any piece of junk just because they like it. 'Hook' is revolting tripe. Just accept it and love it nonetheless. It will be a deeper, better love for it!
  20. At least in Germany, 'Hook' most frequently embarrases itself in TV showings and DVD nice-price segments. It's more likely people forget it because it's just fluff. And we have enough current fluff.
  21. There are certainly enough to fit either category. It's hard to dislike 'Hook' for it's sheer ebullience, but the sugary childishness gets irritating rather fast. For every charged flying or battle sequence there is some goofy mickey-mousing or Disney-ified kitsch.
  22. 'Planet of the Apes' is a-great Elfman. 'T4' is a-standard Elfman sounding like 'Dark Knight' half of the time.
  23. to that i might add that nothing in 'Prisoner of Azkaban' reaches the mythic heights of the grail themes in 'Last Crusade'.And 1989 was a time when Williams still could compose 10-minute cues which didn't sound like they were cut together with blunt instruments.
  24. I like all Williams scores with this sort of european air. From 'Jane Eyre' to 'Seven Years in Tibet' there is not one i'd trade away.
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