Brundlefly

I'm mostly looking forward to: Dune: Part II Killers of the Flower Moon Oppenheimer None of these directors has given me any reason to worry about the final product, they have all produced one great movie after another, two of them being the saviors of the contemporary blockbuster, the other one being my favourite director of all time. Movies I'm eager to see, but not without worries: The Dial of Destiny The Fabelmans Napoleon Mangold has done great movies in the past and Logan was awesome, so I'm very optimistic with that one. Spielberg has done some very so-so films in the past, none of them really bad, but none of them particularly exciting either. Hopefully, the movie justifies all the praise I've heard on this forum so far. Scott has produced two films in 2021 and, as if he has tried to have these two epitomize his whole career, it was hit and miss, so it will be a complete surprise what end up getting.

Oh god, with more and more presumedly Varese title getting into other labels' hands, I am hoping for a re-release of Fate Is the Hunter/Shock Treatment, a definitive release of The Mephisto Waltz/The Other and a definitive release of Damien: Omen II/The Final Conflict!

Nope, they normalized the tracks (at least it seems like this is what they just did with the quiet tracks), so that the loudest part of each track almost equals the amplitude peaks of all the other tracks (regardless of whether the peak is a slight string crescendo or a forceful orchestral outburst). Trying to paraphrase it in abstract manner: When the volume of a track ranges from 1 to 10, it's fine and left as is. When the volume of a track ranges from 1 to 5, on this Intrada release they raised the volume, so that the volume reaches from, let's say, 6 to 10. The result of this madness is that pieces that remain quiet for their entire running time are now unnaturally loud. This can be fixed by just lowering the volume level of the affected tracks. The cues itself are not compressed and have great dynamic range. However: There are some tracks that combine several cues at different volume levels, so these need to be seperated first, before you can change adjust their volume. After that you can put them together again.

To be fair, here we go:

Here's the cover with picture noise reduced and without the Deluxe Edition banner: The more you look into the master issues, the worse it gets. There are cues combined in tracks that have wildly different volume levels and there is also clipping on a few tracks.

Nope, there is a certain price range that can fly beneath the radar if you're lucky.

I do already use it. Maybe he is going to remove the Deluxe Edition banner at some point... There is no actual brickwalling. As I've stated: This means, you can fix this by just changing the amplitude of each track.

I use Adobe Audition and when I try to fix those kinda issues, I check the sound by ear and by eye. In the end, it is relevant what it sounds like, but the visuals of Audition and Audacity can help you to objectify the evaluation of the sound. I can post the ups and downs of the volume levels I have applied to the tracks, as soon as I'm done.

This release is great, it fulfilled all my wishes that I could possibly have - it's complete now, it sounds better, the main program is really thought out with most film versions being in the bonus section, the artwork is superb. It is not as essential as, say, Amistad, but it ranks high in Goldsmith's discography, so I don't regret buying this definitive treatment. I think, that is the least I could write after my Intrada rant.

You have a better overview than I do, frankly. If you compile a list, I will integrate it into the thread for 2023. It's really not that much left from the mid-70s onwards.

My La-La Land package arrived - the first surprise is that I don't have to pay any customs, the second surprise is that LLL doesn't have those cheap jewel cases any more - wonderful!

Sometimes it's like that and other times it's people putting their lust for complaints over their enjoyment of the release or score they've got. Complaints can be a great chance for change and improvement, but sometimes they are applied in a very hostile fashion - not excluding myself from that reproach.

That is not true at all. You hear the volume dips very clearly without any spectographs. It's like you turn the volume knob up and down troughout. The two screenshot just serve as an illustration of what is clearly audible. A quiet piece should be quiet after all, and not have its volume beefed up to the limits. Besides, this kind of relativism of "each sound engineer" having "his working method", regardless of how flawed the result is, doesn't make any sense. There are objective measures for mixing and mastering an orchestral recording. Pizzicato strings playing at the same volume in two different tracks just shouldn't have that much volume difference on the final product. I bought the release and I'm very happy about it, but I also wished it had been done properly. I will fix the volume differences myself and that's that. However, I find it important to at least complain about the issue. After all, complaints are not the negative and destructive phenomenon that many people think it is.

Don't know and I honestly don't wanna know. The issue I described is not easy to ignore and restricts the listening pleasure considerably, but it can also get fixed fairly easily. I wonder, how much longer they want to provide us with mediocre products and stay away from quality checks. Is it an economic issue to hire people like Mike Matessino and Jim Titus?

The score in complete form is great, more quiet and sneaky cues make the listening experience less violent and intense and more hypnotic and insidious instead. Douglas Fake's master is as amateurish as the cover art. Look at this: You see the first ten seconds from two different tracks. In both cases you hear rather calm pizzicato strings, it's basically the same notes and the same volume. However: The amplitudes in the screenshot differ conspicuously! I'll tell you why: The first track will get very loud and the second track will remain quiet. And instead of just leave that as is, the second track is kinda normalized on the Intrada release, so that the maximum amplitude equals the maximum amplitude of the louder piece. This bullshit is applied throughout the whole release, which makes for a very inconsistent and unnatural volume railcoaster. There is no volume compression within the tracks, but the tracks are compressed towards each other. Not the first time for Intrada to do this and I'm afraid it won't be the last time.

Another step towards the death of art by law - when you're not allowed to trick people into movies that are something they didn't expect and didn't want to deal with, you can go fuck everything.

I can understand what you mean regarding the first Godfather movie. I'd argue that the second Godfather movie deserves the high rankings it often gets. Have you seen Lost Highway? In my opinion, this is his masterpiece and I'm mesmerized about the fact that it got so overlooked next to Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive (which would have deserved a spot on this list as well). As a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan, I'm of course not really surprised about Psycho being the number one spot, however, I'd really prefer Vertigo or Rear Window to be ranked above it, now and then.

It's a meeting of the classics that have to be on any prestigeous list plus a few controversial (or straight out moronic) picks. No recent masterpieces such as Call Me by Your Name, The Power of the Dog, Sicario, Lost Highway or Heat, for example, made the list. One of the biggest offenders certainly is 12 Years a Slave - there are few to no other movies that water down the topics of slavery and racism as much as this Oscar bait. If you want to see a movie that is not only radical, but also offers a congenial essay on the bigoted dressing up of humanitarian cruelties during slavery and shows no mercy to a white audience, then watch Django Unchained - should have been on that list.

I should just order it? After all, I'm quite surprised, how few Spielberg-Williams-collabs I'm only lukewarm towards. I've decided to just rate the movies and there aren't that many ** or *** and no * at all.

I honestly don't know why I haven't seen it yet. It's not in my collection, because I was hesitant to buy an animated movie without having seen it beforehand.

Not seen it yet.

So sad that this magnificent score is - yet again - available for a minuscule time span, before it gets immediately OOP again.

Do you know Warning Shot?

The Sugarland Express **** Jaws **** Close Encounters of the Third Kind **** 1941 ** Raiders of the Lost Ark ***** E.T. ***** Temple of Doom **** Empire of the Sun **** Last Crusade **** Always ** Hook ** Jurassic Park **** Schindler's List **** The Lost World *** Amistad **** Saving Private Ryan **** A.I. **** Minority Report **** Catch Me If You Can **** The Terminal *** War of the Worlds **** Munich **** Kingdom of the Crystal Skull **** Tintin War Horse **** Lincoln **** The BFG *** The Post *** The Fabelmans When I'm talking about my wish for a 30th collaboration I am referring to feature films of course, even though I respect the three projects you were talking about as a nice addition.

Hollow Man, of course! Underrated late gem and I trust the positive reviews stating that it is an essential expansion.