Loert

a.k.a "How to Become Bald in 29 Minutes"

Well, I love Moulin Rouge, it's probably in my top 10 films of all time. But based on the phrasing of your question, perhaps you're not interested in my opinion.

It's a very fun score with a lot going on, but I have to say it sounds like Powell pretty much wrote down the first thing that came to his head. But then again, it's for a movie called "Minions and Monsters". So I would say he fit the brief exactly, but I can't see myself coming back to this score very often.

I made a piano arrangement of John Williams' "listen...".

Powell not only composes funny music but is also a very funny writer!

I'm sure I've heard that "chaotic" theme somewhere already (the one that plays throughout A Train Through Hollywood, specifically the statement at 1:16). I've definitely hummed it to myself in the past. At first I thought it was from the Chicago musical but having just scrubbed through it I couldn't find it. Anyone else know what I'm talking about? Or did I just think up a theme that JP coincidentally thought up as well? It's driving me a little crazy.

I could write a long post but generally speaking, it's just very technically sophisticated. If you listen to the more action-y music of composers like Stravinsky, Bartók, Korngold, Prokofiev, then I would say that JW is the only living film composer who is able to stand alongside those people, in terms of the sophistication of the music itself (harmony, orchestration...). For example, I love the action music of John Powell, because it is fun and insanely creative, but it is not sophisticated in the same way. And some people, like myself, are attracted to that sophistication.

Williams: Do you want music in this scene? Spielberg: No. Williams[thinking]: thank fuck

I LOVE this ostinato at 1:50 of "disclosure...", with the offbeat synth in the bass:

You know, it's a controversial thing to say and I'm not 100% sure I believe it myself. Obviously the point of the movie is that we should be more empathetic. But I guess my point is if you force the idea too much, people will react negatively to it.

I too found this very jarring. I feel like the general public's reaction would range from "Holy shit, are those aliens? Are aliens real?!" to "Send them back to where they came from! We don't want them here!" OK, so an alien is lying on the ground, apparently injured. So what? Maybe they have laser eyes and are able to vaporise everybody within a 1 mile radius. The angle of showing empathy could work, and is an interesting target to aim towards, but it feels like Spielberg skipped over a lot of steps to get there. I'm starting to agree that perhaps a better film would have been one where "disclosure day" happens in the first hour, and the rest is showing how the world population comes to grip with this information and ends up finding peace with these aliens and in the process find peace amongst themselves? You can't really force empathy. It's a bit like trying to force two people to love each other. But you can use art to try and get people to experience that emotion. And I think the problem with the movie is that it tries to force the audience to feel empathy in the same way that Emily Blunt "forces" empathy with others. But Emily Blunt is a fictional character. The audience is real.

Something that I keep wondering about.. At a certain point, when chatting with Colman Domingo, Josh O'Connor says something like "Why don't I just release all the material online right now?" Then Colman Domingo gets all serious and says: "You must not do that under any circumstances". Why? My hunch is that, at the time of disclosure, Josh O'Connor, Emily Blunt and the alien need to be in the room together, and the film essentially is a build up to that. Is that the reason? Is it because, as the ultimate "empath", the aliens want to transmit their message through her? And if Josh O'Connor released everything online just by himself, people would ignore it, or consider it fake, and it would lead to even more world problems?

Just finished watching it. On the whole I enjoyed it. I love a plot with mystery in it. I think the point of the movie is that it is a build up to "Disclosure Day". It is up to the audience's imagination what the alien actually says, and what the world reaction to that is. Would it prevent WW3? Maybe, maybe not... so I can understand why they cut the story where they did. My main problem is that the "device" is a bit of a "deus ex machina", in that it seems to have a whole variety of powers that gets people out of/in to situations. It makes you invisible, it allows you to see into the past, it has telepathic powers... Fair enough, it is an alien device so we're not supposed to really understand it, but it cheapened the movie a bit for me. I mean, what can't it do? Also, there is something dated about the film... can't quite place my finger on it but aliens just aren't that cool these days. Government hiding secrets? Aliens existing? Eh, so what? As long as TikTok and Netflix are around I'm happy. People are too cynical nowadays. Perhaps you need a bit of a childlike mind to get more out of the film. I agree. This was the highlight of the film for me. Close second being the whole sequence with the main characters being abducted as children (the music helped a lot with that)

Say what you want, but nobody else could have written this soundtrack other than Williams.