Charlie Brigden

I think it's an underrated flick. Unnecessary, probably, but it takes a different approach to the first movie and still works pretty well. It helps that it's tied together by a pretty great Scheider performance.

I voted 5/5. I think it's better than JAWS. Just stunning, ethereal, thrilling.

1. David Fincher 2. Martin Scorsese 3. Michael Mann

STAR TREK: NEMESIS Decided to revisit this after listening to the score. First time I've saw it since theaters, when I greatly disliked it. Ever get that time when you do a 180 turn on a flick? That happened here. Enthralled. Saddened. Excited. Intrigued. I'd go so far to say it's the best TNG flick.

For the love of god, when reviewing TDK, and its lack of flaws, do not forget the one BIG FAT FLAW: The absence of a good score. You haven't seen the movie, and by all accounts won't. Regardless of what you've heard on CD, until you've seen the movie you have absolutely no room to talk about whether the film score is good or not. Not to retread a recent argument, but how the music works in the movie is what matters most, not what it's like as a listening experience. It's possible to have a score that works perfectly in the film but is lousy to listen to.

Agreed, and I enjoyed KOTCS a lot. But we are voting what do we PREFER, not what do we think that is the BETTER. Well, in Mark's case, almost anything (except AOTC maybe??) would be Better than Indy IV... Okay. Based on what I've already seen, I prefer TDK to KOTCS.

It was good from what I remember from seeing the flick, which I liked a lot, mostly because there always seems to be magic when you get Viggo together with a horse.

Agreed, and I enjoyed KOTCS a lot.

For my money Dooku was far and away the best part of AOTC. In a film where acting threatened to reach Ed Wood standards, he was there to show what a seasoned professional can really do. My favourite scene in the film (one of few!) is the one where Obi-Wan is captured and Dooku visits him. He has to deal with some absolutely crass dialogue but he comes through shining, especially with his expressions. Plus, his old-timey Jedi shtick was really cool.

I'm not sure I'd trust someone who can't even get the name of the film right on the artwork.

Check out SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS. That's my favourite "old" movie. I think probably some of it has to do with the way these things are presented to us. Now, there's such an overload in the way you can watch movies, VHS, DVD, TV, cable, PPV, the internet, even your mobile phone. Probably similar to Mark, I grew up as a child loving SF because they used to show it at dinnertime on BBC 2 in the 80s, in a season that ran the gamut from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and BUCK ROGERS to THIS ISLAND EARTH, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. Back then, VHS even was still pretty rare (with retail VHS movies costing £80 a pop) so TV or the theater was the only real option to see these things, until the video rental market (especially in our small town) really kicked into touch in the mid-80s.

I can't say I've heard a lot of theirs, but I liked the AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON track they did.

Yep. And good one on Keaton. I think it's what Mark said earlier. Since I was about thirteen, I started to really get into a wide range of films, which meant discovering movies like CASABLANCA, like KANE, people like Joan Crawford, Robert Mitchum, 30s and 40s horror, the 50s SF explosion. So much so that I freely admit that I'm a grumpy old man (at nearly 30) that is open to knew things but at the same time doesn't seem to like a whole lot of things made after the mid-80s.

Completely. There's no reason why Dooku couldn't have run to Utapau and served Grievous' role. His death had no real effect on the story and it would have been nice to have Lee's gravitas for a bit longer.

Ditto, and I'm not exactly ready to push up the daisies.

Hmm. ALIEN PLANET OF THE APES THE OMEN STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE L.A. CONFIDENTIAL GREMLINS TOTAL RECALL POLTERGEIST PATTON Never heard of Gremlins, Total Recall, or Poltergeist. Most of the others I have only heard of in conjunction with Goldsmith's name. Now, of course, I am of the younger generation. But, according to your definition of A-list, that shouldn't matter. You've never heard of GREMLINS? Seriously?

Hmm. ALIEN PLANET OF THE APES THE OMEN STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE L.A. CONFIDENTIAL GREMLINS TOTAL RECALL POLTERGEIST PATTON

That's why I put to a degree. I think he is probably known a bit, mostly as 'The dude who wrote the OMEN music (which interestingly a lot of people misquote)), maybe as Mr. Star Trek, and possibly gets a bit of recognition (not enough), but Shore I think broke over with LOTR which, like GLADIATOR, I think had a lot of non-soundtrack buyers suddenly purchasing. Maybe even not as the name, but enough people loved and bought those three soundtracks enough to make him hit the big time (and deservedly). I'm not trying to say Powell and HGW don't deserve a bit more recognition. I'm not saying they do either, but I don't think they're there yet at all.

HGW, the Narnia films. JP, the Bourne films. There are others, but those are obviously big budget movies in the past few years. None of those are really looked upon in the way LOTR are or something like that is. NARNIA is considered LOTR-lite, and hasn't set the world or the box office particularly alight, and the BOURNE flicks are considered very well made action movies. LOTR is a stone-cold phenomenon and the Star Wars of the 00s. Those aren't choice 'ohmygodi'dkilltoworkonthose' projects. LOTR is. STAR WARS is. BATMAN is. Hell, even STAR TREK is in some ways. Shore and Zimmer, like Williams and Goldsmith (to a degree) before them are now known to housewifes and non-soundtrack nerds across the globe thanks to LOTR and GLADIATOR. That makes them A-list composers. They are the go to guys, whereas Powell and HGW are the guys you go to when Zimmer or Shore or Elfman or Horner or JNH turn you down. Doesn't mean they're bad composers, they're just not on the bigtime for whatever reason.

I much prefer Empire. Who liked it as well.

I wouldn't call myself either, but the film does some pretty terrible things to Batman and what had been established before. Not hugely worse than the previous two movies, but Two Face's character was gutted completely and Batman himself wasn't really treated much better. Couple that with some awful writing (Akiva bloody Goldsman), and the sub-BLADE RUNNER approach the production design took. It seemed like Schumacher wasn't interested in taking the material at all seriously, and that took it in a pretty generic direction (especially when he said in an interview that Batman needed to get over his parents and lighten up). I guess from my point of view, at that point I was looking to see someone really take a proper crack at Batman (at least in live-action, as the Animated Series nailed the character from day one) and a more serious treatment, which is one of the reasons I like BEGINS so much. I guess it was truthful to the 60s Batman in some respects. Not that that's a good thing.

True, next to BATMAN & ROBIN, FOREVER looks like CHINATOWN. I can't remember a note of B&R's score though. I sholuld track it down, really...