Nick Parker

It’s sad that this even needs to be posted here, but since people seem to be willfully obtuse about how this works...
 

No one was thinking that but you!

Up till now, I was only aware of Brian De Palma's "The Fury" (1978) through the very fine score composed during JW's goldenage (generally considered 1975 - 1983 give or take) where everything he did was a homerun.  He was on fire and unstoppable at the top of his game. 
 
The movie was directed by Brian De Palma who was part of the New Wave of film directors...a group of new renegade directors coming into their own in the late 60's and 70's such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, François Truffaut, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, etc.  These films explored more psychological territory with new story and film making techniques plus was the birth of the blockbuster.  One thing I recognized in this film was use of multiple angle shots, lots of complex lenses such as amphomorphic wide shots (such as a close shot taken from a distance with a telephoto to make it look close), green/blue screen, etc.  These were experimental film makers utilizing the very latest techniques not to shoot a scene but to show the character's thoughts.  There is a great debt to Hitchcock with this generation of filmmaker (and composer).
 
For some odd reason, I never had much interest in seeing the film but it was on TV this weekend.  I really enjoyed it!  It is a psychological thriller that can be thought of as a precursor to a school of mutant teenagers where they have powerful ESP skills and at first, can only read minds but ultimately can move objects and destroy people as they grow in power.  There are evil powers at play that want to take these teens and mold them into weapons.  But the process of doing so makes them somewhat psychopathic killing machines that the corrupt experimenters have little capabilities of controlling. 
 
The film is full of 1970's style directing such as lots of slow motion deaths, some of which are kind of funny today.  Like an assassin getting shot multiple times in very slow motion.  You also get the impression the footage wasn't actually shot in slow motion but the acting was in slow motion.  The film is very campy but some of us who remember the 70's find that endearing.  If you only see a scene of it, you'll feel it didn't age well.  Acting is over the top...lots of slow motion "noooooooo!!!!" type of stuff.  BUT the cast is great too.  Kirk Douglas is very good as a father who is also an intelligence offer searching for his ESP gifted son who was kidnapped to be developed into a super weapon.  Amy Irving stars as a similarly gifted girl.  She's good in what I think must have been a very limited role but was quite young - definitely hams it up with lots of extremely distressed facial expressions.  This might be Daryl Hannah's film debut as a bully schoolgirl with Amy Irving.
 
You see what I mean from this ending scene when the villain gets his come upance:
 
 
If you watch the film from the start, you don't notice the haminess as much because it becomes part of the story telling.  Overall, the film is quite entertaining and fun.  The score is extremely good and a rare example of JW's use of electronics with the ARP synth for the mind bending themes.  The music is very loud in the mix.  The score is motific and quite Bernard Herrmannesque but is very good and catchy.  Overall, the film was lots of fun and featured a vintage goldenage score well worth hearing since you'll notice lots of parallels with other scores of the time like Star Wars and Superman.  One could argue this is JW's most electronic score since the ARP synth is so prominently featured. 

Who is talking about memes?
 
 
Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it can't be true.
 
Ever sneeze or cough on occasion? I do. If you do while standing next to me, it very much makes a difference *to me* whether you wear a mask or not.
 
One of the great things about the internet is that it is a good source for information. For example, a quick Google search turned up this:
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent
 


 
 
Before the mask requirement, infection numbers were increasing. If people only act against a real and potentially substantial threat when they're afraid, then fear has a certain value. If people listen to reason and protect themselves *and others* against that threat without being afraid, so much the better. Currently, you're continually posting arguments against listening to reason.
 
 
If you don't wear a mask inside a closed building, it might very well prevent those people from being infected by you. If it's outside, the risk is lower (but still existent). In any case, I very much doubt that people evading you when you're not wearing a mask is a serious problem for society.

Vienna, population 1.9 million, total COVID deaths so far 210 (i.e. just sligthly higher than yours). Original spread before official measures was roughly exponential, but was brought under control around Easter and has been low since then, but during the last few days numbers have been increasing again, and that's one week before schools open after summer, and before the autumn weather kicks in and prevents people from mainly meeting outside.
 
 
What else is new, regarding this or any other topic, with the caveat that not all politicians lie all the time, and that luckily at least some of them listen to and sometimes act on the advice of actual experts.
 
 
We were talking about cinemas, and without any mention of outdoor cinemas, it was clearly the regular kind, with large-ish numbers of people sitting in closed rooms.
 
And if the rooms have fitting ventilation and people keep their distance, masks may not be necessary while they're in their seats. But they have to get there, and they might buy snacks at the bar, or go to the toilet, and that will bring them into closer contact with other people, or into poorly ventilated areas. Which is why many regulations I've seen require you to wear your mask until you reach your seat, and put it back on again when you leave it.
 
My observation has been that many people are obviously either too dumb or too selfish (or both, but there seem to be plenty who are just dumb) to properly put on a mask. Part of clear rules for when to wear masks is simply because a large number of people are too dumb to do it on their own. And the more often intelligent people refuse to wear a mask in certain situations where it's mandatory but possibly not that important, the more dumb and selfish people will either forget or deliberately refuse to wear one. Furthermore, my personal experience shows me that being lenient in "not so important" situations also increases the chances of simply forgetting about it when it's more relevant.
 
I haven't heard of many situations where masks were mandatory outdoors, as long as people were able to keep their distance. Those cases I'm aware of were in cities or countries where the spread was out of control, or threatening to be.
 
 
Yes, because the point of wearing a mask isn't primarily to keep *you* safe. At mask won't do that anyway. What it does is significantly reduce the risk of you infecting others in case you are a carrier. That protects those around you, and indirectly (through those people you don't infect because you're wearing a mask, and through those people *they* don't infect because *they* were a mask) people you know, and ultimately yourself.
 
My own risk of catching it and showing heavy symptoms is probably low. But I have two grandmothers aged 90, and my mother is approaching 70, and they certainly have a higher risk if they're exposed. And even if my own risk is comparatively low, that doesn't mean I want to chance getting a disease that can have any number of outcomes, some of the chronic - even more so if the spread is no longer under control and the hospitals can't cope.
 
Have you read the reports from Italy during the first weeks? Or those from some US cities (including NYC, I believe) a couple of weeks later? Prolonged conditions like those wouldn't only mean that people who desperately need it can't get medical care because of the hospitals being full, they would also mean that a significant number of health workers would get sick and die themselves, and I imagine a possibly even larger number would get traumatised and thus stop being able to carry out their jobs.
 
 
1) You don't know which people are "healthy", because not showing symptoms is a normal case for active carriers.
2) I don't complain about anyone going outside and breathing fresh air.
 
But people being reckless indoors (or more precisely in any location where the risk of infection is increased) are a different matter. If you want to breathe fresh air, go outside. If you *have* to be inside, and *really* have a physical condition that permits you from wearing a mask, fine. That's why it's so important for everyone else to wear one.
 
 
It's "under control" (to an extent, and not everywhere) *because people wear masks and mass gatherings are suspended*. There is, so far, no effective treatment or cure, and no tested vaccine. The only thing that keeps the disease in check is not spreading it. And arguing that you don't have to take measures against it because it is under control (as a direct result of those measures) is the fastest way to lose control over it. And once it is *out* of control, those measures won't be enough to contain it, until the only chance of keeping it in check becomes actual hard and problematic political measures like putting entire cities under house arrest for weeks and physically threatening people who refuse, and then where will we be when even now a significant number of people confused "freedom" (from oppression, and to do what you like as long as it doesn't harm any others) with "freedom to endanger others by not wearing a mask because you don't feel like it".
 
 

Mark Hamill has said many times throughout the years that he's always envisioned himself as a character actor, so landing the main character in this most-popular series was weird for him. Afterwards, it was very hard for people to divorce him from Luke Skywalker, so with voice acting, he found he was able to live out that desire to be the character actor he always wanted to be. Sounds pretty damn successful to me, especially if you see all the work he's gotten over the decades!

My boy Hetty V:
 
 
 

I've been on a Joaquín Rodrigo kick this week and have just nabbed the remaining volumes in the Naxos recordings of his orchestral music. The Concierto de Aranjuez is undoubtedly his most famous work for guitar (if you like Elmer Bernstein's guitar concerto, you should definitely check out the Rodrigo) but for sheer bravado, I highly recommend his piano concerto which is just the right mix of modern and traditional, with all the ballsy drama of a great, golden age film score. Also looking forward to the harp version of the Concierto de Aranjuez which I gather is even more effective than the guitar original due to the harp's greater range.

Johnny goes G-Funk.
 
 

I'd submit The Spark from Last Jedi. that might be helped by the fact the hellacious build that just keeps adding instruments and getting louder and louder is preceded by such a gentle rendition of "Luke and Leia"
 
 
Keeping with The Last Jedi, I'd also say Chrome Dome is pretty "masculine" in that it's basically just low strings, drums, and horns almost punching each other out.
 
 
The Last Jedi gets pretty "muscular" in quite a few spots. The score got knocked when it first came out for not really containing any new "hits" as it were, but it's a really good entry in the Star Wars canon overall.

Oh yeah, the Arena! 
 
 
Goddamn, that is meaty!
 
Also love that low brass etc. at 5:12.

I have a feeling a lot of those early Elfman scores don't hold up very well in C n C form.

*said in various scenarios such as holding a Nazi by the neck over a tall ledge*
 
"Sorry to see you Goethe."  *lets go*
 
"Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't...unfortunately for you, I'm very weak." *pulls trigger*
 
 

*said in various scenarios such as holding a Nazi by the neck over a tall ledge*
 
"Sorry to see you Goethe."  *lets go*
 
"Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't...unfortunately for you, I'm very weak." *pulls trigger*
 
 

*said in various scenarios such as holding a Nazi by the neck over a tall ledge*
 
"Sorry to see you Goethe."  *lets go*
 
"Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't...unfortunately for you, I'm very weak." *pulls trigger*
 
 

Yeah, one of the things I was surprised by when I saw it was how lively it was. The pacing of the dialogue, and the humor, gave the movie a brisk pace. I also like how it flirted with some of Lincoln's not-as-noble sides.

I had a good deal for one that a colleague no longer wanted, but it fell through. And then money got a little tight, so I'm still holding out for it
 
Hopefully within the year!

I loved Lincoln...i think a lot of you are being very unfair to the movie

I see without seeing. To me, darkness is as clear as daylight. What am I?
 
 

This is a dickish overgeneralization. You're either forgetting or deliberately ignoring the many other films he loves, listed exhaustively: Ghosbusters II, Godzilla (1998), ID4, and The Lost World.

Not to say this is the only example of this writing after the 70s.
 

No mention of Fifty Miles of Desert? This forum is as dead to me as this movie is to Eastwood's career.
 
 
 

Why not? 

Saw someone mention here last week that they watched 
 

 
I meant to chime in but forgot to, so here I am. I saw this a couple of months back. Playing out like an utterly bananas extended episode of The Twilight Zone, I only wish there existed a scenario where I could look forward to a movie like this every week. Other than those boring sorts who take their films gravely serious, I can't really imagine how regular viewers could fail to be entertained by this really quite effective meltdown disaster and thoroughly cuckoo sci-fi thriller. 
 
An initially awkward Nic Cage starts out as a regular family guy living out in the country, when suddenly a strange exotic object lands in his back yard (we call 'em gardens in England) and well to cut to the chase, life as he knows it collapses around him as weird shit starts to go down. If you take any kind of pleasure in seeing Cage going loko then this movie is for you. It's creepy, it's violent, it's gory, it's funny and its just bloody weird. The best part about the whole thing though is that Lovecraftian horror was the chief motivation behind the story, and so by the end it's also epic. There's a thrilling payoff here, and I haven't seen anything vaguely similar since Darabont's The Mist. In fact if you like that film - another hokey and imperfect slice of breakdown sci-fi - you'll probably like this one too. I'd give The Color Out of Space 3.5 out of 5.

I'm watching a handful of these Fleischer Superman cartoons. You can clearly see how influential these were to Bruce Timm and Miyazaki (particularly "The Mechanical Monsters") in terms of style, but the quality of the animation still holds up almost eight decades later. Gorgeous Art Deco setting, compact storytelling, inventive designs and a memorable theme.
 
 
These don't get enough love.