johnnyammonite

A small part of me wants to go with HP:POA because I know my old favorites so well that it might be nice to listen to that one a million times until I'm sick of it (b/c sometimes I feel that way about the old standbys). But, let's face it, I'd start to miss some of my favorite Star Wars themes before I'd miss something like "Buckbeak's Flight" (no matter how great that track is.) So now, nostalgia asks for ROTJ (box anthology) whereas the music-lover asks for ESB. Eh, today I'll say ROTJ.

I think artists have a natural tendency towards abstraction as they mature. Purely playing with the elements of the medium may become more interesting than playing with concrete ideas and verisimilitude. That said, I think that Williams is more than capable of writing the iconic themes many of us grew up and fell in love with. I remember the 1st time I went to see "Harry Potter:1" and I adored the music and all of the catchy themes. The 2nd one not so much (but then, that wasn't much him...) and I thought that the music to the 3rd movie was even better than the first. And I honestly have thought several times while listening to the music of those movies, "Oh, he's going back to his old style." He once again made some music thet matches characters or scenes in the same way he tackled Star Wars and movies of that era. I think the highest testament to the "iconic-ness" of these HP themes is that they keep getting used in the previews for the new movies. (We'll see if Doyle's score is used in the ad for HP:5.) More interesting is trying to guess why he chose to do that for those movies. Did the directors say, "We need loads of themes for the characters"? Did he decide that these are children's movies and so they should have thematic music children would latch on to? I don't know to be honest, but wouldn't be surprised if it was b/c of the latter.

Let's say Charade just for the Mancini, the Grant, and the Hepburn. (And throw in a little Wally Matthau and a Our Man Flint with a hook-hand for good measure.)

There was a comic book done quite some time ago called "Ironwolf" that was just this mess of ideas, but still a lot of fun. Spaceships made of wood, fashion reminiscent of the 1700s, vampires, lion-men, whole planets that looked like the Apple store. I always kind of liked the combination of all these really unrelated things all coming together in this one story about political maneuverings and revenge. Come to think of it, maybe a "Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser" movie would be fun, too. As long as it was well done.

There was an earlier thread where people tried to figure out if the main theme from "Into the Trap" was hidden in "Approaching The Death Star" and "Faking The Code". I don't know if anyone came to any definitive conclusions, but it's a good excuse to listen to the ROTJ soundtrack again. Also—and this isn't as much as "hidden" as it is "blatant"—the music played in TESB when Vader talks to the Emperor* is pretty close to SW's "The Last Battle" (about 2 minutes in and playing for about 40 seconds). * "Han Solo And The Princess" about 2:30 into the track

Recently I was hopping through teevee channels and came across the last 15 minutes of "Anaconda 2: More Anacondas". The snakes were pretty bad in that film. Nowhere near as bad as the snakes I saw on the leaked footage for "Snakes On A Plane" (but that stuff is supposedly unfinished). Snakes aside, "Jumanji" still wins in my book for worst movie house CGI. In fact, most of the effects in that movie were wretched. Anytime an animal that truly exists is CGIed, I think the effects team has to work especially hard to make it look real. Usually, it sucks. We're just too familiar with what the animal looks like or should move, and if the animation is off, the results look bad. (A good example of false animal animation done well would be the cow that gets nailed by a car in "O Brother Where Art Thou?".)

I went to the Tuesday concert last night. My opinions are pretty much a mix of the two sides of this spectrum. I thought some of it was excellent, and some of it was less than so. I think the start of the show has the most missteps. CE3K seemed a little weird, and Goldsmith's Star Trek was hesitant to start instead of the punch of those first two booms (as stated before). But Magnificent 7 and "Conquest" were really pretty good and it seemed like the orchestra was finally hitting its stride. "Tribute" was fun, as was everything that came after it: 1941, Jaws stuff, HP and SW ("Throne Room" was the ROTS version, which has really grown on me. I am convinced it's as close as we'll ever get to the long desired "Force Theme Concert Piece".), and the same encores mentioned before. I, too, felt like the trumpets just lacked some confidence. They needed to really blast and hit the notes, and sometimes they just sounded unsure. Other times they were on the money, like during "The Imperial March". The strings were incredible the whole time. Also, it was a surprise to hear the slide-whistles during "Aunt Margie's Waltz". That was new. All in all, I really liked it, and watching JW direct for the 1st time, it is interesting to see him gesture and coax the music out of the orchestra.

I always liked that little connection. Also liked how the music played just before it on "Han Solo &..." when Vader is talking with the Emperor mimics the music that's played in "The Last Battle" in Star Wars (about 2 minutes into that track). Nice, creepy stuff with the strings sliding around the corners.