charlesk
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Posts posted by charlesk
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AHAHAHAH.....HAHAHA...HAHA.....Hilarious!!!! LOL This topic is a big joke....... or isn't?
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I remembered once, my piano teacher and mentor in classical music, I lend him my 2LP set of Star Wars, since he gave me many of his own classical discs. He returned Star Wars the next week without much comment... But after a few months, he 'casually' asked it back, to record it, and when I asked if he liked it, he said "oh, it's just that gorgeous brass of the London Philharmonic..." Yeah, right...
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Mahler, the symphonist. I see his influence in Goldenthal, in David Arnold's Stargate and in Williams. Mahler's music drove me crazy of joy many, many times. It is actually very difficult to find where he didn't influence anything in music (did I hear Britney Spears?).
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Williams that sounds like no other Williams? I have to say Heartbeeps.
Williams that sounds like nothing else? The Battle of Hoth, The Hunt in Lost World
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New York's Finest from 'The Usual Suspects' by John Ottman. Funny that Ottman, who did the fantasticly creative 'Incognito', also did one of the most blatant rip offs ever.
The track is an exact replica of JW's 'The Conspirators' from JFK, in form, insturments and orchestartion.
Hehe, Even John Williams rips off his own conspirators theme in Jurassic Park's Dennis steals the embryo
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Frank Lehman's analysis was a great contribution to this forum, and to the documentation that it's been compiled about Williams and his work. I plan to check every detail he mentions about the themes. I agree, Williams has advanced in themes, he has explored everything traditional and is inserting some stuff that is very interesting for music lovers and composers. Thanks, Frank! Do you have a login in the MB?
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I've found that those classical music 'lovers' who promply discard Williams are, in fact, hidding their lack of tolerance to the modern style of orchestra music, which is very different from Mozart or Beethoven or even Wagner. They just can't keep track of the free form structure of the score, the highly changing action descriptive moments, the non-tonal parts. They just have nothing to grab to, like the old structures of Mozart.
It was Aaron Copland who said in his book that it is actually weird that we should be listening to music from Bach and Mozart, which belong to a much different kind of people, instead of embracing the music of our era. Our music is less isolated, less 'local', it now embraces drums and rythms, melts classical simplicity with baroque counterpoint with romantic lyricism and modern atonality. Our music is the result of our history, it exhudes the drama, the wars, the complexity of our fast technological world. Of course some people will not be willing to embrace this, as they don't embrace technology, as they live in the past, yearning for their 'better' days, instead of enjoying the process of evolution. I pity them...
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I truly respect Goldenthal for this score. He is innovative, amazing orchestrator, can do atonal stuff like few can, and tonal 'songs' of great beauty too. He can also imitate styles from others, like in Batman, or take disparate elements and merge them like in Titus and Frida. On top of anything, it shows that he researches to do his scores, unlike others like Horner, Elfman, and Zimmer who have been doing just the same for ages.
As for the movie, they just showed it this morning on HBO, so i saw it againg, and I reminded myself to buy the DVD. The technical achievement of the CGI acting is awesome, and Dr. Aki Ross is definitely the most beautiful woman I've even seen. I dig her.
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Yeah, it's a weird photo. Even Gary Oldman looks like Tim Curry.
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William Ross was pretty good at conducting CoS.I don't think if John Williams had done it it would have sounded any better.
K.M.
I disagree. I think William Ross does some conducting mistakes. I'll give an specific example. Compare Williams' Hedwig's theme, with the similiar Prologue in CoS.
In Hedwig, at 1:35 the jovial second theme is introduced. Notice the phrasing, which notes are stacatto, which legato. In Prologue, in similar pasage at 1:36 that phrasing is omitted.
Similarly, in Hedwig at 3:27 strings play a theme and the last part is repeated in brass to great effect. In same passage at 2:36 in Prologue, the brass is there but almost inaudible.
They are not BIG mistakes, but they make me wonder how much more I have missed, just because I have no way to compare with Williams' version.
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I love The Patriot, though not for the americana/farm theme, which quite descriptively, is boring and vane in its optimism. I love The Patriot for its action cues, the use of drums and the epic orchestrations. I use this score to complement the dramatic cues in A.I., since they sound quite well together. As for the movie itself, I saw it much after I knew by heart the score, and I enjoyed it better than the average guy, when I saw how effectively Williams grabbed the emotional requirements of each scene.
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A SLIGHT resemblance, but they are very different in my opinion. Moreover, there are more (excellent) themes in Enemy at the Gates
You should be ashamed, Peio, a musician like you... it is a rip off. It's structurally the same, it rests in the same notes, same rythm, applied to the same historical topic, and even a musical deaf recognizes the similarity. It's an escandalous rip off. If as you say, Horner does show talent in the rest of the score, then why he had to copy this theme?
Schindler's list theme is based on very conventional chord progressions, you only have to play them for a minute and improvise until a decent theme comes out. Horner was just lazy...again 
As for the AMAZING Seven Years in Tibet, this is one of the scores that makes me respect so much Williams. His blending of ethnic percussion and choir, the lyricism, the developments and cohesion of the whole work surparses whichever movie it was meant to accompany. I could never appreciate this score in the movie itself. So many silly directors out there...
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for some reason I cannot access the archive. All I get is the Don't post at this board.
Is there are trick I am missing.
Charles, I don't think I have ever said I hated the movie, but I did change my mind that it was great.
I have always liked Lucas' movie more than John's score, which I have been more critical of. I stand by much of what I said, but the film didn't stand upon 2nd viewing. After a 2nd viewing I decided it was the 4th best Star Wars film, and the score the 5 best or in this case the worst Star Wars score.
I never said you hated it, but it was very funny this morning when somebody sent me the Ikonboard link, because you are here generally regarded as someone who didn't like the prequels. The joke was short-lived, but it was fun anyway. Same I can say about AOTC
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Can Lucas redeem himself and his series with Star Wars Ep III?
(Extracted from this original post about AOTC at Ikonboard link)And for those who will hate it just because they can't get past TPM, get over it and relax and enjoy. Lucas may not be a great director, but in this film Lucas pays homage to past movies and for no other reason than that I applaud him.And can you redeem yourself from your changes of mind? LOL
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I don't call myself a composer, although some may disagree. I think I would be a composer if I had to live from this job (there is no better inspiration than hunger). But art is so subjective, everybody feels with authority to criticize it, and the fact is that art is just an expresion of one's self, it can't be wrong as far as you are letting yourself coming through. Under this view, everybody is a latent composer.
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I SO glad that Williams was 'busy' scoring The Lost World. I would hate having Williams score a movie like Titanic, although I'm sure he would do something far less superficial. I didn't like the Cinderella-meets-Romeo-and-Juliet uninspired and predictable script, didn't like the obscene budget and marketing, nor Cameron's ego boost for worse, which made him the king of the mediocre, nor Horner's repetitive pop-balade-trash score with Casio choirs, and the inevitable procession of versions of the theme by screaming Celine Dion and insomnia-killer Kenny G. Its success is a living witness of how audiences are so easy to manipulate with old-time uncreative corny recipes.
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Now I won't be able to use the word 'style' anymore without a sexual connotation?
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John Williams heard the impatient trumpeteer and made a fast gesture that shut him up. The orquestra seem not to have enought time to rehearse, they missed notes everywhere, the first part of the Homage, conducted by Kunzel was filled with rythms and syncronization errors. But still, while they played the famous themes of several movies, I couldn't help to notice how emotional this music is. Audience applauded their favorite themes (all of them), and the performance was ended with an standing ovation.
John Williams listened very proud and humble at the same time. He looked old, but when he was called to the stage he ran and jumped like a boy. He received a glass bowl as an award (which I guess he'll use to put fruit in it, hehe, joke!) and he made a fluent speech and after some rehearsed lines with Kunzel, he climbed to the podium to conduct (yes!) the 1984 Olympic theme, my favorite of the bunch. It was very emotional moment. I'm very proud of having followed this man's life and work.
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:cry: Yeah, I heard about this lost this morning. I agree with Stefan (
), I also loved her in The Lion in Winter (yes, Ross, I'll never get tired of recommending it). It's a must for all those who love great scores, great stories, great acting, smart dialogues, complex characters.She also did other brilliant characters, filling them all with ther characteristic intensity.
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After watching The Hulk and reading last Joe post, as well as Ross', I have something in favor of the Superman The Movie advocates, that I would like Ross to comment.
We criticized Clark Kent being played as a geek, as opposed as the Clark Kent of Lois and Clark, which is a normal person. But isn't Superman about social adaptacion, about self-confidence, about overcoming our shyness and being bold? The Clark of Lois and Clark is quite adapted socially, successful, attractive, no problem with women and self-confident...then, what is the purpose of the Superman alter ego?
I think that much of what Superman represents is hope, the hope of being able of unleash our hidden powers when we need them, and in this case, making Clark a shy geek as in the movie supports this message.
So, Ross, what really changes in the Clark Kent of Lois & Clark when he transforms into Superman, that the didn't already had as the bold, attractive, adapted and successful person he already is? It seems to me that the only thing is that he gets the love of Lois. In Superman The movie, he gets this plus self-confidence, success, attractiveness and social approval. So, isn't in this way of thinking Lois & Clark's approach more superficial than Superman The Movie?
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* it might contain spoilers *
I just saw The Hulk yesterday. Before doing so, I was an advocate against another superhero movie, and was never interested in Hulk in particular. Now, I'm not quite so.
The first half of the movie was indeed, slow, but I loved the development of the father/son relationship. What Bruce Banner was trying to forget about his past was quite predictable, so there wasn't for me any surprise later, but still the character of the father and how he loved his child and harm him at the same time was interesting.
The long introduction built the background that allowed me to enjoy the rage of the Hulk when he transformed in the second part. Being a big critic of the CGI of the trailer, I should say that I had to take out my hat in scenes like the battle against the tanks, which I enjoyed so much, and Hulk's wet eyes when he saw the girl approaching in San Francisco. I have to admit that impervious Charles wet his eyes too for a moment at that CGI acting. Overall, CGI action sequences where more convincing, more powerful and less distracting than, say, Matrix Reloaded.
The ending was however, cinematically and visually dissappoining. The final passionate father monologue was a little bit overacted. The battle between father and son is one of those that would be awesome to read in a book, but very difficult to convey in a movie. The duel of titans was abstract and the CGI was dark and confusing. You could only guess that they tried to make a huge cataclismic event, but the effort didn't impress anybody and I watched the scene cold and indiferent.
As for directing style, well, you should all know by know that Ang Lee used transitions and composite picture-in-picture style reminiscent of a comic book. Although I welcomed these in scenes where many things were going on, in which they helped adding pace and tension and supported the storytelling, I hated some overuse of them in casual scenes of dubious importance.
As for the music. It works in conveying the primitive power of the character. However, Elfman seems to be trying to compete with Horner in self-plagiarism. Too many parts seemed identical to Planet of Apes, Spiderman and Red Dragon. He only added the 'arabian' voice to the elements already explored in his other movies.
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I really liked the Underground music. You made it interesting and classy; that is in good taste. Having lived in Latin America I can say the merengue is quite accurate.
Cue 5 is enjoyable as a ragtime piece. Cue 3 has some of the special nostalgy of Gymnopaedias.
My feedback with the piano pieces, is that you should try to listen more piano pieces, to understand what you can really do with it. I can notice that piano is not your instrument, and that limits your creativity by making the accompaniments and arrangement of the melody very simple and repetitive, as if you were composing only what you could play. Piano is an orchestra in a box, if it is easier for you, compose for the piano as if you were composing for a full orchestra, adding more layers of instruments and rythms, and then reduce it to make it playable in two hands. If the final result requires a very good pianist, so be it, but you would have made a piece in which your creativity was not limited by your own technical limitation on a particular instrument.
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I would do a Superman movie following Superman as a kid, when he discovers his superpowers, when he's seen as a freak at school, when father and mother reveal he is not only adopted but also from outer space, probably Superman in his teens has an ego boost and overuses his superpowers, then he learns humility. He maybe accidentally killed of almost killed somebody because his powers were out of control at a fight at school with a bully, things like that. Who exactly is Superman, how he handles being different (the not so charming part of it).
Testing sound systems w/ JW
in General Discussion
Posted
In the Jurassic Park CD, the very first track has a strong bass drum that must sound undistorted and powerful. In the following track, "Incident at Isla Nublar" the is a continuing very deep bass, like a heart beat, that is not distiguishable in bad speakers. That track has further on brass and strings too. Also, Lost World's rescuing Sara drums saturate most system I've tried. I would like to see the system that doesn't distort this track.
The ultimate test would be something with female choir like Hymn to the Fallen. Female choir in fortissimo tend to saturate the middles on the speakers, if it doesn't you have very cool ones