Glóin the Dark

No matter how one compares the average quality of life today to that of the past, it's undeniable that events of recent times have demonstrated (on several fronts) the precariousness of our situation in a manner which wasn't quite so starkly obvious before. On top of that, the fact that information and images are now captured and disseminated with such ease and speed means that horrifying events and conditions are being brought to the attention of others with unprecedented immediacy. There's nothing reproachable about a person feeling pessimistic or depressed in such circumstances.
  
 
 
It's not that it isn't worth bringing up; just that it's explicitly against the forum rules.
 
 
 
People tend to express opinions about the things that worry or bother them. After all, here you are complaining about what some guy writes on his blog.

No matter how one compares the average quality of life today to that of the past, it's undeniable that events of recent times have demonstrated (on several fronts) the precariousness of our situation in a manner which wasn't quite so starkly obvious before. On top of that, the fact that information and images are now captured and disseminated with such ease and speed means that horrifying events and conditions are being brought to the attention of others with unprecedented immediacy. There's nothing reproachable about a person feeling pessimistic or depressed in such circumstances.
  
 
 
It's not that it isn't worth bringing up; just that it's explicitly against the forum rules.
 
 
 
People tend to express opinions about the things that worry or bother them. After all, here you are complaining about what some guy writes on his blog.

No matter how one compares the average quality of life today to that of the past, it's undeniable that events of recent times have demonstrated (on several fronts) the precariousness of our situation in a manner which wasn't quite so starkly obvious before. On top of that, the fact that information and images are now captured and disseminated with such ease and speed means that horrifying events and conditions are being brought to the attention of others with unprecedented immediacy. There's nothing reproachable about a person feeling pessimistic or depressed in such circumstances.
  
 
 
It's not that it isn't worth bringing up; just that it's explicitly against the forum rules.
 
 
 
People tend to express opinions about the things that worry or bother them. After all, here you are complaining about what some guy writes on his blog.

No matter how one compares the average quality of life today to that of the past, it's undeniable that events of recent times have demonstrated (on several fronts) the precariousness of our situation in a manner which wasn't quite so starkly obvious before. On top of that, the fact that information and images are now captured and disseminated with such ease and speed means that horrifying events and conditions are being brought to the attention of others with unprecedented immediacy. There's nothing reproachable about a person feeling pessimistic or depressed in such circumstances.
  
 
 
It's not that it isn't worth bringing up; just that it's explicitly against the forum rules.
 
 
 
People tend to express opinions about the things that worry or bother them. After all, here you are complaining about what some guy writes on his blog.

No matter how one compares the average quality of life today to that of the past, it's undeniable that events of recent times have demonstrated (on several fronts) the precariousness of our situation in a manner which wasn't quite so starkly obvious before. On top of that, the fact that information and images are now captured and disseminated with such ease and speed means that horrifying events and conditions are being brought to the attention of others with unprecedented immediacy. There's nothing reproachable about a person feeling pessimistic or depressed in such circumstances.
  
 
 
It's not that it isn't worth bringing up; just that it's explicitly against the forum rules.
 
 
 
People tend to express opinions about the things that worry or bother them. After all, here you are complaining about what some guy writes on his blog.

No matter how one compares the average quality of life today to that of the past, it's undeniable that events of recent times have demonstrated (on several fronts) the precariousness of our situation in a manner which wasn't quite so starkly obvious before. On top of that, the fact that information and images are now captured and disseminated with such ease and speed means that horrifying events and conditions are being brought to the attention of others with unprecedented immediacy. There's nothing reproachable about a person feeling pessimistic or depressed in such circumstances.
  
 
 
It's not that it isn't worth bringing up; just that it's explicitly against the forum rules.
 
 
 
People tend to express opinions about the things that worry or bother them. After all, here you are complaining about what some guy writes on his blog.

You keep saying "we" and I'm not sure who you mean. Because the world is a very heterogeneous place; there is no single "as a society and culture". Even if it long-term steps many things have overall tended to get better, at the same time the danger of wiping out (or at least severely crippling) the entire human population is currently at one of its peaks (and is also something that didn't even exist for much longer than perhaps a century). And in at least several worrisome, "our" society from my POV is closer to what it was like 100 years ago compared to 30 years ago. (And my POV is still a relatively privileged one compared to many others)

Have you seen Uncut Gems?

Talking about PTA (in another thread), here are some snapshots of Leonardo Dicraprio working on PTA's upcoming movie: 
 

Leo and PTA
 

Leo
 

Leo and PTA
 

Leo

I should be more or less through now.
 
TOP 20 FILMS OF 2023 (Norwegian premiere dates):
 
1. The Fabelmans (Spielberg)
2. Knock at the Cabin (Shyamalan)
3. Aftersun  (Wells)
4. The Killer (Fincher)
5. The Quiet Girl (Bairead)
6. Pearl (West)
7. Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire (Snyder)
8. Funny Pages (Kline)
9. How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Goldhaber)
10. The Whale (Aronofsky)
11. The Creator (Edwards)
12. Infinity Pool (Cronenberg)
13. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Mangold)
14. Leave the World Behind (Esmail)
15. Meg 2: The Trench (Wheatley)
16. La elva leve (Giæver)
17. The Covenant (Ritchie)
18. Napoleon (Scott)
19. Natt (Hoel)
20. Den siste filmen (Vennerød, Kyvik)
 
Honourable mentions: Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One (McQuarrie), Plane (Richet), The Equalizer 3 (Fuqua), The Last Voyage of the Demeter (Øvredal), God is a Bullet (Cassavetes), No One Will Save You (Duffield), Brødrene Johansen (Ottersen), Tar (Field), The Tank (Walker)
 
Worst movies: There’s Something Wrong With the Children (Benjamin), Biosphere (Eslyn), Retribution (Antal), Babylon (Chazelle), The Son (Zeller), The Bunker Game (Zazzara), The Outwaters (Banfitch), Oppenheimer (Nolan), Tina & Bettina 2 (Svarstad), Barbie (Gerwig), Women Talking (Polley), Asteroid City (Anderson)
 
TOP 10 FILM SCORES OF 2023:
 
You can hear my reasoning, and a clip from each score, in this podcast episode: 
 
https://celluloidtunes.no/celluloid-tunes-82-the-10-best-scores-of-2023-31st-international-edition/
 
1. Tropic - Sebastian
2. The Creator - Hans Zimmer
3. Der Fuchs/The Fox - Arash Safaian
4. Carmen - Nicholas Britell
5. Simple comme Sylvain - Forever Pavot
6. L'Envol - Gabriel Yared
7. Rustin - Branford Marsalis
8. Magnificat - Nathaniel Méchaly
9. Tetris - Lorne Balfe
10. La Théorème de Marguerite – Pascal Bideau
 
Immediate runner-ups:
 
11. The YouTube Effect - Paul Haslinger
12. Tin & Tina - Jocelyn Pook
13. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – John Williams
14. How to Blow Up a Pipeline – Gavin Brivik
15. L'Uomo Che Disegnó Dio - Giuliano Taviani & Carmelo Travia
16. A Thousand and One - Gary Gunn
17. Saltburn - Anthony Willis
18. La Contadora de Peliculas - Fernando Velazquez
19. Wild Boys - Alexander Arntzen
20. The Real Jungle Book - Thomas Wander
21. Grosso Guiai All’Esquilini: La Leggenda del Kung Fu - Flavio Le Fosse
22. Boy from Heaven - Krister Linder
23. Zodi et Téhu: Frères du Désert - Mika
24. The Cars We Drove Into Capitalism – Dalibor Grubacevic
25. 1947: Road to Boston – Lee Dong June
26. Everybody Loves Diamonds - Ralf Hildenbeutel
27. Bonne Conduite – Charles Ludig
28. In Love and Deep Water  - Takatsugu Muramatsu
 
Loved it, but disqualified:
 
May December - Marcelos Zarvos & Michel Legrand
 
Secondary runner-ups (not ranked):
 
Paradis Paradox - Milo Cantor
La Fille de Son Pere - Julie Roué
Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire - Tom Holkenborg
La Vénus D'Argent - Aamourocean
Napoleon - Martin Phipps
Grimm's Forest - Steffen Kaltschmid
Le Cours de la Vie - Vladimir Cosma
Libres - Oscar M. Leanizbarrutia
Supercell - Corey Wallace
The Letter: A Message for Our Earth - William Goodchild
Maestro in Blue - Kostas Christides
Christmas Bloody Christmas - Steve Moore
L'Amour et les Forets - Gabriel Yared
 
TOP 5 TV SCORES OF 2023:
 
1. Split - Maud Geffray
2. The Last Kingdom: Destiny is All - John Lunn, Eivør & Danny Saul
3. Killer Coaster - Rob
4. Rain Dogs - Alex Baranowski
5. Barracuda Queens - Joakim Åhlund
 
Runner-ups (not ranked):
 
North Atlantic: The Dark Ocean - Bradley Ayers
Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix - Oscillian
A Casa Tutti Bene: Seconda Stagione - Paolo Buonvino
Ooku: The Inner Chambers - Kenji Kawai
Irresistible – Yuksek
Para: Wir Sind King – Timo Pierre Rositzki
Luden: Könige der Reeperbahn – Julian Scherle
Tore – Per Störby Jutbring
En Cuerpo en Llamas – Aitor Etxebarria
El Mantequilla: Maestro de la Estafa – Amado López
La Primera Vez – Santiago Uribe
A Town Called Malice – Alfie Godfrey & Lorne Balfe
Shetland – John Lunn & Danny Saul
Boat Story – Dominik Scherrer
Endeavour – Matthew Slater
Perry Mason – Terence Blanchard
 
TOP 6 VIDEOGAME SCORES OF 2023:
 
1. Tron: Identity - Dan Le Sac
2. Hyper Meteor - Robby Duguay
3. Quantaar – Cody Matthew Johnson & Jeff Rona
4. Heartless - Benoît Vanhoffelen
5. Palia – Stefan Schmidt
6. Jusant – Guillaume Ferran
 
Stats:
 
- Saw 242 movies in 2023, out of which only 66 new films (an alltime low, for various reasons)
- Sampled between 1500-2000 new scores

THE FABELMANS wasn't "obligatory". Great score that should have won.
But, yeah, a lot of his recent noms have that feel.

Have you seen CODA?

Well, JW obviously writes the best music he can for the task that he's given, and I think that's all that matters. It can be dangerous to go into such metaphors of whether or not a composer was writing "from the heart" or not, because there are some perverse connotations there, for example that music "from the heart" has to be unpolished to some degree, because it must be unfiltered by the intellect (or something like that). I don't buy that sort of talk. People express themselves in different ways. Just because some music sounds unpolished and raw, doesn't mean it came directly from the heart. One can maybe say that his 1st Violin Concerto is a more personal work than Jaws, but they're both great pieces of music, so...
 
Nevertheless, there are obviously cases where a composer "phones in" and doesn't put all that they can give into a picture. And I think it's fair to say that out of all composers, JW has done this probably the least. Virtually every film he's done has something special about it, which is astounding given the number of films he's worked on.
 
So essentially what I'm saying is, I don't care anymore whether JW writes "from the heart" or not; his music is some of the best film music out there, and I love listening to it and will probably never get tired of it, so clearly he's doing it right.

A top ten would consist of LOTR stuff for very obvious reasons, but this one from Seven both predates LOTR and acts as a great encapsulation of how Shore captures horror and madness, it is just so beautiful as a composition:
 
And whatever you say about anything related to Shore, it will come down to this nightmare - still the greatest use of large orchestra as a narrative device - the uncompromising score is everything:
 

“Mads Mikkelsen was good, though.”

December
 
TBA: The 17th Annual JWFan Awards

I haven't seen Roma or Zola, but I have seen Lola

Shit, I was thinking of Zola.

Shit, I was thinking of Zola.

I've seen CODA. It wasn't depressing. It also wasn't worthy of being a best picture nominee let alone winner.

Oscars Shakeup: ‘Barbie’ Moved to Adapted Screenplay by Academy Despite WGA Classification as Original (EXCLUSIVE)
 
https://variety.com/2024/film/awards/barbie-moved-adapted-screenplay-oscars-1235848136/?fbclid=IwAR2IqZeTi_G7VwUGttPTdHrLq_MEdTkv6By3lFvnnvdGjQmSHGnFDYllRK8
 
So, let me get this straight. To the Academy, Barbie is an 'Adapted Screenplay' - likely due to the fact that Barbie and Ken are existing IP.
 
Even though this specific Barbie story is not pre-existing within the IP. It's not based on a book or any other pre-existing medium other than the characters, seemingly.
 
However, Biopics, based on real people and real events that are pre-existing and undoubtedly based on research and pre-existing stories, such as King Richard, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Judas and the Black Messiah, Vice, Green Book (which won), Spotlight (another winner), etc. count as 'Original Screenplays'?
 
I really don't care what Barbie goes under specifically, but it's stuff like this that have made me unable to take the Oscars seriously for years now. Just seemingly arbitrarily applying rules when they feel like it.

Bottoms
This film was fucking hilarious. It has a fantastic script by Emma Seligman & Rachel Sennott. The former also directs with a lot of confidence and fun shots. The latter is the lead next to Ayo Edebiri and they are both so funny. The whole cast is outstanding, not a weak link among them + a fantastic soundtrack. Ending might be a bit overkill (pun intended), but overall this is one of the best comedies of the year!
 
How To Have Sex
This didn't feel like a film, but more like somebody filmed a real holiday. It was both uncomfortable and very well done. The story is really important and told extremely well. It has a great lead performance by Mia McKenna-Bruce and is a strong directorial debut for Molly Manning Walker. I'll be looking forward to what both do next.
 
Dream Scenario
Nicolas Cage is really great here. Both extremely funny, uncomfortable, slightly scary and really sad. He is the main draw for the film and even though I think the concept of the film is fantastic, I don't feel like it made use of it's full potential. Add to that, that I felt like the third act was rushed and didn't really fit with the rest of the film and it's a bit of mixed bag.

Yeah, I watched Bottoms without knowing too much about i and it caught me by surprise! The critique/satire is so well implemented within the comedy and everything feels so natural and organic, probably thanks to the comedic chops of both Rachel Sennot and Ayo Edebiri. Looking forward to see what else Emma Seligman does in the future beacuse her two feature films have been great IMO!

Saint Maud is cool.
 
Clarke is excellent. As is Jennifer Ehle. Plus there are some beautifully haunting images

I'm doing a catch up of stuff I haven't seen before I make my list and watched Bottoms yesterday.
 
Even though the end is slightly overkill (pun intended) I loved it!