mahler3

What Merkel said

I still consider it the greatest TV show I have ever seen. Before the grand finale, there are 6 or 7 filler episodes that I could do without, but all the rest is pure gold. And Fire Wal with Me elevates the whole thing even more

I caved and bought the Blu-ray for 18 euro's, which is against my policy of buying single film titles that cost more then 15 Euro's.
Also bought a Jaws coffeemug!

"Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" is amazing!
I also like "Too Low For Zero", and "Healing Hands".
My absolute favourite ,though, is "Blue Eyes" (sigh).

The thing with Elton is, even his lesser known songs feel like classics.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight. what a great song.
I prefer his Lucy in the Sky with Diamond's over the Beatles version, and his version of Pinball Wizard just destroys the crappy Who version.
I'm not a big fan of the lion king songs. they're okay but not among his great songs.

I have many Elton's favourite songs. I love all his early 70s albums, they're just great. This song is beautiful:

Empty Garden.
had the pleasure of hearing Elton sing it in concert.

I finally watched this on BluRay between yesterday and today, with a friend who had not seen Jaws for many years, and it was superb. The image was vibrant and clear, considering that I HDMI cabled the laptop to the TV, the sound was excellent (my TV speakers aren't actually that bad, so I may hold of on upgrading the sound system for a while), and I couldn't help but watch with a giddy grin on my face for most of the movie, as I knew all the lines that would be spoken. It really is a perfect movie.
Oh, and I noticed that when Chief Brody wakes in the morning, the nightstand that's beside his bed...I have two of those exact pieces of furniture. They were hand-me-downs from my grama, so go figure.

I had 1975 posts in a discussion of Jaws. Irony.

As someone who interviewed several film composers (I talked with John Debney, Elliot Goldenthal, Howard Shore, Alexandre Desplat, Dave Newman, Christopher Gordon and few others) I know very well that you have to be easy and relaxed when you're posing questions with such personalities. Even though you made your homework and prepared lots of interesting deep questions, you have to be careful to follow the suggestions that come out from the conversation itself. You can't just impose your own agenda over the course of the chat, otherwise the person who's being interviewed could have the impression you're trying to force words into his/her mouth. Of course it depends very much on the overall personality of who you're interviewing and how they feel in that particular day and moment, but one thing I learned from my own chats with those guys is that you don't need to make an impression you're clever and knowledgeable. They appreciate a lot if you mention a lesser-known work of course, but they appreciate even more when it's clear you're listening to what they're saying.
Williams is such a huge personality with a large body of popular work that it's almost inescapable you end up talking about Star Wars, E.T, and Jaws, especially if you're committed to do a piece addressed to a general audience. The great thing about JW is that he never feels bored or annoyed when telling well-known anecdotes and stories. In this sense, he shows always a deep respect for the person who's interviewing him. This is anything but ordinary, especially when we're talking about celebrities of some sorts.

I listened to half of this interview this morning in my car on my way to work, hope to listen to the rest during the course of the day.
I have to say that it's a pretty good interview, very well made. I love the good-natured, candid overall tone. The criticism I read toward Tommy Pearson is highly unfair. He poses all the right questions and conducts the chat with great command. I don't know what people expect from a Williams interview, but this is really the best and deepest you can get from him. He even goes personal in more than one occasion. I think sometimes we're too demanding from these kind of things. We always expect some kind of "revelation of the deepest secrets" from the words of the artist, but the reality is that music is something quite difficult to verbalize in words. Williams however talks in detail about his work, his creative process and illustrates always clearly his vision about his own music. I don't know what more you can ask from him.

Have a word with yourself, Richard!
I have attended many film music concerts with Tommy Pearson presenting and he knows his onions when it comes to film music, make no mistake - he will be presenting the RPO's John Williams concert in October at the Royal Albert Hall, for example (completely sold out, by the way, as is the LSO concert to which Tim refers) and has performed similar duties for the LSO, CBSO, etc. Much as I would have loved to hear Williams quizzed about The Plainsman, Images and Heartbeeps, a) the maestro probably would not remember having scored them and b) most of the Classic FM audience would not have had a clue what they were on about.
I enjoyed the interview very much. I felt that there were enough new insights from Johnny to maintain the interest of the hardcore fans such as us while covering the bases for the casual Classic FM listener, familiar with whatever Williams selections the station deigns to air and no more.

One of the best Williams interviews has to be the Q/A at the Thornton School of Music at USC in 2006 for a group of students, where Maestro himself gave a fairly long presentation of his early years and background, again showing how good speaker he is. The questions themselves were less revelatory but still pretty interesting stuff besides the general questions people, even professional musicians, tend to ask. John Burlingame was a great host as well. The interview/Q&A ran for about an hour if I remember correctly and was really fascinating. I do not know however whether the video or videos are available anywhere at the moment.

Tommy Pearson is interviewing John Williams for ClassicFM on Thursday (LA Time), and ClassicFM are inviting their Facebook fans to submit questions. Go for it!
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151084563549260&set=a.433117119259.201606.6569469259&type=1&theater

I've just submitted a couple of small questions

Good ones Maurizio. The ones I would ask were basically put by this fellow David Kay... But some very good ones overall. Though some of them, the more well informed fan would already know the answer

1. Superman leaves home (the americana sequence at 1:30) - what else encapsulates poignant nostalgia as well???

2. Binary sunset/Luke Races Home
3. Empire Strikes Back - All of it is just perfect...seriously too many moments
4. "ET and me"/ET Finale
5. Close Encounters "The Mountain" and end sequence
6. Saving Private Ryan Hymn to the Fallen (after the reprise)
7. Raiders - Throne Room
8. Jaws: "Out to Sea"
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9. Empire of the Sun: Cadillac of the Skies

This sequence really moves me to tears and elevates JW above any other film composer today the way he really gets to the poignant heart of the scene and its complex subtext:
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10. Close Encounters: The Mountain

Hello!
Which score do you prefer? It's a discussion that probably won't ever go away. Jaws is the focus, but there's also a veritable feast of other film music from James Horner, Michael Giacchino, Dimitri Tiomkin, John Powell and Gabriel Yared.
My latest show might be enjoyed by some of you, so I hope you do. Thanks as always to John Takis for his contribution:
http://www.timburden.com/movie-magic.aspx