Romão

"The Grail cannot pass the Great Seal. That is the price of immortality"

"The Grail cannot pass the Great Seal. That is the price of immortality"

"The Grail cannot pass the Great Seal. That is the price of immortality"

I swear, some people just need everything spelled out to them.
 
Who watches The Last Crusade and not realize its...not a conclusion, but a farewell. I'm not even talking about the closing shot, but also the fact it starts with a flashback to Indy's childhood, that it deals with his father (whose James Bond), its called THE LAST Crusade: anything and everything about it screams "final entry."
 
But some people really needed that "The End" title there.

And a really fantastic album

Giving Tintin a relisten after Ulyssessian compared it to Dial of Destiny
 
For whatever reason 0:55-1:09 hit a sweet spot this time 
 

That is some damn gorgeous cover art. If that's not Jim Titus I'll eat my hat.
 
Anyone underwhelmed is missing the BIG PICTURE here. I'm 100% sure this is the release Mike Matessino was referring to with those comments.
 
So yeah the way I read this is that bigtime Hollywood director/producer Frank Marshall (son of film/TV composer Jack Marshall, who worked with Mike Matessino to produce two previous albums of his father's music, and presumably helped get a note from JOHN WILLIAMS HIMSELF on the Thunder Road album) is using his Hollywood clout to help Mike Mattesino (and therefore La-La Land Records and other labels) access more things at Universal than were available previously... namely Universal TELEVISION (aka Revue), where his father worked and produced some music to mine for album.
 
Ever since the the Universal Classics series of mostly-premieres began half a decade ago, MV at LLL has been expressing hope of eventually getting into their TV holdings -- but this is the first time it's happened! (Yes, we had scattered examples before like Stu Phillips's Knight Rider work on FSM, but those were special cases.)
So Mike's "where it might potentially lead" could mean a set of Oliver Nelson's The Six Million Dollar Man scores, a title MV has expressed clear interest in. It could mean finally an official release of original music for Columbo, by Nelson/Goldenberg/Melle/DeBenedictis/etc.!
 
But it's not just about exciting 1970s TV music possibilities like those two titles. Not even remotely. Because we've heard composers like GOLDSMITH, WILLIAMS, SCHIFRIN, GRUSIN, and Quincy JONES reminisce about their camaraderie and time together working at Revue in the early-mid 1960s. These composers were in their PRIME back then, and there is now strong potential for PREMIERE releases of music in good sound, by ALL of them, from this important time period in their careers when they all had offices near each other at Revue and they were listening to what each other were doing. Oh and also...it wasn't just the new guys. Lots of amazing Golden Age veterans were also getting TV work at Revue during that same time period!
 
Now for The Munsters and The Deputy, Jack Marshall was THE composer as far as I can tell. No guest composers listed on IMDb anyways (thought that's not always accurate as we all know). But let's look at the other two series, because La-La Land and Mike Mattesino were able to access original Jack Marshall scores for WAGON TRAIN and THE VIRGINIAN for this release! That means they've got archive access to tapes for those series -- *they have both located and transferred tapes* for those two beloved western TV series, which ran for a whopping EIGHT and NINE seasons, respectively.
 
What premiere possibilities exist for those two series alone?
Well on The Virginian there were single scores by Franz Waxman, Hans J. Salter, Oliver Nelson, Patrick Williams, and Frank DeVol! Multiple scores by Bernard Herrmann, Fred Steiner, Dave Grusin, Russell Garcia, Morton Stevens, Harry Sukman, David Buttolph, Richard Shores, Lyn Murray, David Shire (some of his earliest Hollywood composing credits), and Leonard Rosenman! To say nothing of an amazing Ennio Morricone theme written for the final season when the show became "The Men from Shiloh"! What a lineup of talent!
 
But even that pales in comparison IMO to the potential of a Wagon Train set, folks... at least a HALF DOZEN original scores by none other than JOHN WILLIAMS! FIVE original scores by Jerome Moross (plus all the versions of his theme, of course). TWO original scores by JERRY GOLDSMITH! TWO original scores by Leigh HARLINE! FOUR by Ernest Gold! And, super exciting for me, a whopping SEVEN original scores by one of my favorite Golden Age composers, the underrated ROY WEBB -- these were actually his FINAL COMPOSITIONS for Hollywood!
 
Then there are a bunch of scores by other quality names like Morton Stevens, Lyn Murray, David Buttolph, Cyril Mockridge, Richard Shores, Conrad Salinger, Alexander Courage, Laurindo Almeida, Jeff Alexander, Hans J. Salter, Nathan Van Cleave, etc. And then single scores by perhaps bigger names like David RAKSIN, Frank SKINNER, Daniele AMFITHEATROF, Frank DeVOL, Gerald FRIED, John GREEN, Herman STEIN, William LAVA, and Lalo SCHIFRIN.
It is MIND-BLOWING to think of a potential 4CD set of premieres for this series... or hell why not go for a couple 4CD sets (and spread out the Williams and Goldsmith between them to help the sales)?
 
And then there are all the Revue series that Jack Marshall didn't work on as he did with those two. We could get a CD of 87th PRECINCT music by Morton Stevens + the single score for the series written by Jerry Goldsmith. We could get a CD of DESTRY, a short-lived single season western TV series with THREE original Goldsmith scores, plus a score each from Morton Stevens and Cyril Mockridge.
 
Then there are the anthology shows, with each episode treated almost like a mini-feature...
CHRYSLER THEATER had original scores by WILLIAMS, HERRMANN, SCHIFRIN, and GOLDSMITH, among others.
The various incarnations of KRAFT THEATER had original scores by WILLIAMS, WAXMAN, GOLDSMITH, SCHIFRIN, MURRAY, and HERRMANN, among others.
and oh yeah maybe even the original tapes could be found for...
THRILLER! SIXTEEN original scores by Goldsmith (which are much longer than the Tadlow suites would indicate), plus even more by Morton Stevens and Pete Rugolo (and one by William Lava).
 
There are many other fantastic 60s and 70s shows to consider as well, which I'm sure others here can supply. But the mind boggles at the possibilities...
 
Yavar

This seems as good a time as any to finally start the thread I've been meaning to start for years. LEGO IDEAS has just announced an upcoming set based on Jaws:

 
For those who don't know, LEGO IDEAS is LEGO's crowd-designing platform: Anyone can upload their designs, as long as they fulfil certain criteria, and if a design gets 10,000 votes from other users within a certain amount of time, the set will be considered for an upcoming release. Every few months, all eligible designs since the last selection are reviewed by LEGO, and usually one or a few of them are selected for production. The final set is created by LEGO designers based on the original submissions, so often diverge quite significantly from the original version - for various reasons like parts availability, stability, size/cost, or sometimes unknown and hotly debated reasons. In the case of this set, my guess is that the final version will look more polished (Bruce looks a bit too artificial to me in that submission - or perhaps that's the point?), and it will certainly have custom-printed minifigures that more closely match the film.
 
The John Williams connection is obvious, but it's even stronger than you might think at first: LEGO has a LOT of sets (and entire set themes) based on Williams-scored franchises:
Star Wars (huge theme) Harry Potter (huge theme) Jurassic Park/World (big theme) Indiana Jones (recently revived theme) Home Alone (the McCallister house was a previous IDEAS set) E.T. (an E.T. minifig was produced for LEGO's Dimensions video game several years ago) Superman (various versions of the character have been produced for the DC Comics theme) …and now Jaws  
Also, LEGO famously miscalculated during the late 90s and got into big financial trouble. It is generally acknowledged that the company wouldn't have survived without the Star Wars licence that they've been using since 1999. Considering that many of us agree that Star Wars wouldn't have had the impact it has without Williams, I believe it's not a big stretch to say that Williams indirectly saved the company.

I'll tell you: as a spectacular, absolutely hysterical piece of 1990s action cheese. It starts out in check, although Morgan Freeman playing an Arab is an early indication of what's up against, and then about a third of the way in, the cheesiness starts to mount to absurd degrees. And then, after the big climax, where you think this movie should have definitely come with a warning for the lactose intolerant, it ends with THAT CAMEO! Just to put a cherry on top of the cheesecake.
 
I laughed so friggin' hard! It was glorious!!

It's not a question of verisimilitude, it's a question of tone and aesthetic.  You had three movies that were rooted in religious mysticism, and it gave the films a certain tone, with a mix of Haggard, Kipling, Victorian Exploration, Humphrey Bogart cool, with 1930's serials thrown in the mix, with villains that mostly fit with this sort of quest for mystical artifacts. And then you have a McGuffin that's tied to a very different era, Roswell and sci-fi b-movies and so on. It just doesn't feel part of the same series. Everything starts to clash and not mix very well. Even Indiana's attire doesn't seem to fit.
 
And when I saw that flying saucer, with a design straight out of an Ed Wood movie, I knew this wasn't working.
 
It's far from being the movies only problem. But it is part of it

I'm really looking forward to the movie, but that track had far too many "BAAAAAM"'s for my taste

1492 is shockingly bad.  How they decided to move forward with that script remains a mystery to me. It really is quite horrendous

It's not a question of verisimilitude, it's a question of tone and aesthetic.  You had three movies that were rooted in religious mysticism, and it gave the films a certain tone, with a mix of Haggard, Kipling, Victorian Exploration, Humphrey Bogart cool, with 1930's serials thrown in the mix, with villains that mostly fit with this sort of quest for mystical artifacts. And then you have a McGuffin that's tied to a very different era, Roswell and sci-fi b-movies and so on. It just doesn't feel part of the same series. Everything starts to clash and not mix very well. Even Indiana's attire doesn't seem to fit.
 
And when I saw that flying saucer, with a design straight out of an Ed Wood movie, I knew this wasn't working.
 
It's far from being the movies only problem. But it is part of it

I love that cover. I really wish this was a CD release

I must say, Chen, as a neophyte Wagnerian, I've been greatly enjoying your posts on the subject. With both this subject and the George Lucas inspirations for Star Wars, your volume of knowledge is impressive 

It's not a question of verisimilitude, it's a question of tone and aesthetic.  You had three movies that were rooted in religious mysticism, and it gave the films a certain tone, with a mix of Haggard, Kipling, Victorian Exploration, Humphrey Bogart cool, with 1930's serials thrown in the mix, with villains that mostly fit with this sort of quest for mystical artifacts. And then you have a McGuffin that's tied to a very different era, Roswell and sci-fi b-movies and so on. It just doesn't feel part of the same series. Everything starts to clash and not mix very well. Even Indiana's attire doesn't seem to fit.
 
And when I saw that flying saucer, with a design straight out of an Ed Wood movie, I knew this wasn't working.
 
It's far from being the movies only problem. But it is part of it

It's not a question of verisimilitude, it's a question of tone and aesthetic.  You had three movies that were rooted in religious mysticism, and it gave the films a certain tone, with a mix of Haggard, Kipling, Victorian Exploration, Humphrey Bogart cool, with 1930's serials thrown in the mix, with villains that mostly fit with this sort of quest for mystical artifacts. And then you have a McGuffin that's tied to a very different era, Roswell and sci-fi b-movies and so on. It just doesn't feel part of the same series. Everything starts to clash and not mix very well. Even Indiana's attire doesn't seem to fit.
 
And when I saw that flying saucer, with a design straight out of an Ed Wood movie, I knew this wasn't working.
 
It's far from being the movies only problem. But it is part of it

I must say, Chen, as a neophyte Wagnerian, I've been greatly enjoying your posts on the subject. With both this subject and the George Lucas inspirations for Star Wars, your volume of knowledge is impressive 

I must say, Chen, as a neophyte Wagnerian, I've been greatly enjoying your posts on the subject. With both this subject and the George Lucas inspirations for Star Wars, your volume of knowledge is impressive 

Williams has a decent excuse: hearing the Ring (probably heavily cut) without knowing a word of German... I bet Lohengrin would be more in his wheelhouse though!
 
Meanwhile, Verdi could scarcely believe the second act of Tristan was composed by a human. Puccini said "Before it we are all but mandolinists!" Elgar called it unforgettable. Britten "Dwarfs every other creation."  Liszt: "I do not know what will be left for our opera composers to do.’ Grieg: "rises above all our epoch's art." Pederweski said (of Meistersingers) "the greatest achievement of any artist in any form of human endeavour whatsoever", which Mencken said trumps "the whole canon of Shakespeare." Roger Sessions thought Rheingold had the most astounding musical transformation in all of music.
 
Even Meyerbeer and Berlioz loved Lohengrin (as did Van Gough: "would that we could do to colour what Wagner does to harmony"), which Thomas Mann called "the epitome of the romantic in art", while Debussi adored Parsifal, a work which caused Chabrier to faint and Mahler to have a revelation. Tschaikovsky deemed The Ring "one of the most tremendous artistic projects ever conceived by the human mind."
 
....
 
I'll see myself out.

Sorted 

70? When did that happen? 😲
 
Happy birthday to mad Danny! Some of the pieces I absolutely adore:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Karol

Virile, in Indy's sense, is the set of character traits inclusive of courage, strength, ingenuity, but with a hefty nobility of self-sacrifice.  I would argue the whole character arc in ToD is Indy going from merely fun, adventurous (but ultimately very selfish--fortune and glory motive) to a willingness to take risks/death for the sake of others, even those with whom he has not connection (the slave children).  The fact that he is always in over his head and knows it makes it silly fun versus the more "serious" hero in a John Wayne-soldier sort of way.  
 
James Bond is borderline psychopathic in how he interacts with woman/others.  He's presented as the epitome of cool more so than heroic.  

I don't see what this means.
 
Newsflash: movies exists for the audience, not vice versa. The reality of the movie - any movie - is the reality of the individual watching it. Whether its objectivelly "great" or "classic" is entirely rhetorical when one doesn't feel one had got something out of watching it.

The Mummy Returns. My own playlist consisting largely of the original album and slightly extended by the Intrada tracks. I removed the last couple of tracks from the 2001 disc, which are redundant, and added the final reels music recorded in LA. That way, I have the expanded 87-minute album. The original was, obviously, missing important cues from the end of the film and the Intrada album is too long and doesn't flow that well. This is the best of both worlds and my preferred presentation. Shame about the sound quality of those additional cues but there's nothing to be done.
 
The Legend Of The Scorpion King Scorpion Shoes Imhotep Unearthed Just An Oasis Bracelet Awakens Evy Kidnapped Rick's Tattoo Imhotep Reborn My First Bus Ride The Mushy Part A Gift And A Curse Medjai Commanders Evy Remembers Sandcastles We're In Trouble Pygmy Attack Racing The Sun!* Come Back Evy Curator’s Bad Idea* Sand Warriors* Rick Battles Imhotep* False Victory (Revised)* Wrong Girlfriend (Revised)* Happy Ending* The Mummy Returns – End Credits* *Intrada tracks
 
Karol