Jump to content

Sir Hilary Bray

Members
  • Posts

    1,208
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    5

Posts posted by Sir Hilary Bray

  1. First proper listen of Solo yesterday. To me, Williamsesque if not a score that he would have approved of. The use of 'classic' themes seemed more natural than Rogue One. Reminiscing Therapy wove the themes in brilliantly (though the opening Death Star Theme took me by surprise, I haven't seen the film since the cinema.) I guess in Powell's context it's not the Death Star Theme but rather the-then Imperial theme (pre-Episode IV). 

     

    But then onto Patriot Games by Horner. I have the original release but what with re-reading the book for the first time in ages and rewatching the film consequently, gave it a few listens. Was faintly nonplussed. It's okay, it's nothing earth-shattering -to my untuned ear, somewhere between his 48hrs/Red Heat scores and the Apollo 13. The early part of Boat Chase -as indeed the odd part elsewhere (The Hit and Attempt on the Royals) that has this ethereal, offworld kind of feel to it. Though Attempt on the Royals feels typical Horner (alongside such tracks as Surprise Attack from Star Trek II and The Ambush from Clear and Present Danger) of building up the tension, hitting us with the 'excitement'/action and then the climb down. 

  2. Watched a few in the past month, recent forays include- Rollerball, Air Force One, Bridge of Spies, the '58 Dunkirk and culminating with Das Boot. The lattermost on Blu-ray. Far cry from when I had a VHS of it and the opening shot of the submarine approaching the camera was so murky (like my old Red October VHS) you were nonethewiser really if there was a sub there. 

  3. Red Heat. 

     

    Silly stupid film but it's fun in a way and I like the score (Russian Streets was one of the first Horner tracks I ever heard thanks to the 2CD Titanic: Best of Horner thing I got for Christmas aeons ago). Also, only just twigged it's got the guy who looks vaguely like a Russian Connery in Hunt for Red October. Sven-Ole Thorsen...and he's Danish. 

     

    It's like 30C here so I apologise...

     

  4. As mentioned elsewhere re-read Boys from Brazil, the film and went to the score. Something about that waltzy main theme but also the music for the first reveal of Mengele. Proper 'bad guy' music. 

     

    But, again in light of finding the book, John Barry's Dances With Wolves. A beautiful score, I found Dunbar's theme quite moving this time round but the favoured track remains The Buffalo Hunt (Film Version) -the way it gradually builds, soars even and that sound when you see Dunbar racing in to the hunt -has an old Western feel from the 50s. 

     

    You want to see the frontier?

    Yes sir, before it's gone. 

  5. Well, one of the last films I watched prior to Pool of London was The Boys from Brazil.

     

    I recently brought a secondhand copy of the book, I've not read it in years but have seen the film a few times and so revisited it. I guess it's largely a weird, hokey film. Cloning Hitler, having the said little Hitler's turn into said Fuhrer by killing the fathers when the boys' are a certain age and so forth. But personally, it's driven by the performances of Peck (tad hammy I suppose but something quite enjoyable about it) and Olivier. And then there's the score. 

    Still, I read that Peck's Mengele got voted villain of the year or was nominated for it. Something weird about that in itself. 

  6. Prussian Blue, Philip Kerr

    the penultimate Bernie Gunther. There's one more, Beware of Greeks, typical Bernie though by now I was marvelling at Kerr's ability by now to fit Gunther into the fabric of the Third Reich (such is the length of the series and how much was established in the first trio of books). I then google and to my surprise, great surprise, see that Philip Kerr died in March of this year. Great shame.

  7. end of last week watched The Poseidon Adventure. Tend to do so at some point every year and it's almost a guilty pleasure watch (forget the sequel. Waste of time). But on this viewing I marvelled more at Williams' score -chiefly Raising the Christmas Tree and when the survivors first sight the red wheel. The former makes something almost comical as raising a huge Christmas decoration immensely epic. Like climbing Everest. (I reread the book and easy to see why changes were made, they were more survivors in the book -32 and a few other things). Anyway, tradition is that once I watch Poseidon, onto Towering Inferno, or vice versa. 

     

    Footnote is that this was probably the first Gene Hackman film I watched and though it's probably down his all time favourites, still a role I enjoy him in. Even if there's touches of ham along the way: "Why God? Why this woman!?"

  8. revisited Enemy at the Gates. I think it was the first Horner disc I ever brought (from the old Tower Records, Piccadilly Circus) and for a while it was all the rage in my listening cycle. That being said, this time I had re-listened after Perfect Storm and the two sort of crossed-over in my mind as well as the earlier listen of Titanic this week. 

     

    However, one part that still works for me is about 6.42 in "Betrayal" that sound when Tania catches sight of Sacha hanging -the music full of angst and horror before segueing into the Russian counterattack against the Germans (I've not seen the movie for a while so probably thinking of a different scene). River Crossing to Stalingrad starts well, resonating with that image of the globe and the seemingly unstoppable tide of the German blitzkrieg. Another highlight the Tractor Factory. 

  9. Been reading a book on Robert F. Kennedy and what with other stuff, sought out selected tracks from Williams' JFK. Something about the theme that just stirs time after time. I find it's one of those scores that to me can become quite separate from the movie it has been done for. Motorcade for example -that gradual build and frantic use of the theme conjuring images of the actual motorcade and the shots ringing out as opposed to Costner's narration/delivery. Or Arlington -hopes lost, dashed. 

     

    Worthy mention to the JFK Suite that's on YouTube, in Japan I think, conducted by JW himself. 

     

     

  10. My famous folk are low end of the scale I suppose with one or two exceptions- Walter Koenig, Gene Wilder, George Lazenby, Eric Sykes, Ian McDiarmid (from afar sadly, in Waterstones the other week in London) -indeed, seen a few in passing but never said anything to -Richard E. Grant, Leslie Phillips and a bunch from the Beeb as my campus was on top of Broadcasting House virtually. 

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.