Elmo Lewis

"The great thing about JJ and this new generation making great movies is that they believe in orchestras and that's the most important thing."

Wow, I'm hearing a lot of Oscar buzz for this score.

This.

Mr Smith Goes to Washington is the mother of all courtroom speeches (if this one takes place in the Capitol, it originated the whole "now-Mr-Authority-listen-to-my-layman's-rethinking-of-the-situation-let's-go-back-to-the-basics" angle that has fed the courtroom genre). It has very rarely been surpassed -- I can only think of the aforementioned Mockinbird and JFK -- but even when it is simply rehashed (Amistad) it's still strong. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD-lFCsYOPs The speech gimmick has produced some memorable of populist soul-searching and I am quite fond of them -- but it's been parodied so, so many times that barely any serious drama has been able to get away with them since the 1980s. (Amistad got away with it because it was the most interesting part of a very dull movie, which is an interesting technique to solve the problem.) Now we get superb court dramas (I have always been extremely fond of The Rainmaker or, to a lesser extent, the courtroom sequences in Changeling) without speeches but with much less realistic suspense.

It's settled!

Doesn't Amistad show the Civil War for like 5 seconds? Hardly the best movie about the subject, although it really clarifies some of the reasons why the conflict broke out.

The Academy has never thought towards the future. If anything, they react in hindsight (Martin Scorese winning for The Departed and not for any other movie he made in the 1970s or 1980s) and always based on politics.

Thanks for pointing that out, I have seen the movie. So do you know any examples? Sheesh, dude. Chill out. -Tom, surprised that Glory didn't get much love in this thread.

We're saving it for the doldrums.

So if Williams employs a subdued oboe solo for the parting of the Red Sea to contrast with the imagery -- will that be a disappointment? I have also noticed that 80% of fanboys film music fantasies implicate a choral accompaniement.

Morlock loves Community as well, Alex. And I watched 300 the other day and agree 100% with you. So I can't be wrong.

Composed and arranged, depending on the scene's needs. It didn't seem to come up with anything new (not saying it didn't, you just don't notice it), but it was tastefully done.

How come 99% of the time, fanboys' fantasies and expectations revolve around the world "epic"?

I did. It's hard to criticize a film done out such passion. This wasn't made by professionals, it was made by people like you and me. For that alone, the film deserves more respect and good will from the viewer's eyes than, say, Superman Returns. That being said, not even under those conditions did I enjoy the time I spent watching it. "Unprofessional" is no excuse for "untalented", but this is what most of the performances are. Even for a fan film, the script and story aren't very strong or original. I forgive them for not exuding fanboy passion -- who wouldn't? -- but they fall into a far more dangerous area: fanboy complacency. Same applies to the editing and pacing. Ultimately, there is more "fan" that "film" in this fan film. So, do I felt like I wasted my time? Do I condemn the film and its makers? Hell no. Misguided as I perceive it, it's a passion project. Beyond the superficial story, the choppy editing and the bad casting, what we are witnessing is somebody's dream coming true. This is something I will never get tired to seeing. As far as I know/care, the director/dreamer is not happy with the final result either. But we can't kid ourselves -- the film itself is only part of the experience. His dream and its realization are part of the viewing experience and that cannot be ignored. I am glad you posted it and I am glad I saw it. I will not see it again out of pleasure (I may write an article about it for my newspaper this week, with an interview to the director, so I may revisit some scenes), but ultimately I'm glad I, as a long-time Superman fan turned audience member, got to contribute to the realization of this ambition. As for the music, the use of Williams' themes is remarkably respectful and intelligent. No fanboy composer masturbating to the Maestro's composition -- they are properly used with the proper sound whenever they are needed, sometimes to great effect. Whoever was behind the music might not be (doesn't ned to be) extremely talented, but he was at least strikingly smart.

What about it doesn't make sense? I am also curious, in what new light do you regard those scores you used to not care for after your epiphany? Are they lazy efforts, projects to be humbly re-discovered or something you have just given up on understanding?

Oh yeah that's the most recent one. It was all right. Possibly the best Halloween episode, which is not saying much. Its biggest flaw is that was mostly devoid of charm and that it can't possibly make any sense outside any context. Do you find Britta hot?

If I say Glory, can we just go ahead to unPC humor about African Americans?

If he saw the trampoline episode, it's fair to assume he saw last year's extravaganza. It was a nonsense love-it-or-hate episode. I belong to the latter category. Either way, none of those three are particularly brilliant.

No wonder you don't like the show then.

He was set to produce next year's Oscars Cerimony, with Eddie Murphy hosting, but during an interview when he was discussing is work method and was asked about rehearsing, he said "Rehearsing is for fags". I guess you can imagine what happened next Was it the fag thing or was it the very racy and classless interview he did with Howard Stern the next day? BTW, just today The New York Times published a fascinating column on the smugness of political correction advocates.

That was kind of the point. It was part a regular show which focused on character relationships, but also part a meta-exploration of TV logic (TV fiction has never gotten more meta than this) through concept-driven episodes*. Surprisingly, each season's arc and the characters were always the main focus. *I know this sounds wordy and pretentious but it translates really well to the screen. For instance: last season, after a lot of character development, the season tried to show how much the main characters had bonded, and how limited this bond was. So they decided to do a clip show. They set up a classic clip show premise (the finding of objects lost through the season) but it was delivered with a twist: all of the clips were new scenes, which served as both a commentary and a celebration of classic clip show episodes in other shows and an exploration of the show's clichés. So: character development, commentary on a classic technique and self-criticism of the show itself, all in one, hilarious master stroke. And this is just an example. There are countless concept-driven episodes like this. (Its most celebrated one is from season 1, Modern Warfare, where a series of very cleverly threaded references to action movies served as the background of the most important character development of the season.)

This thread is great. And it looked so dull at the beginning. So Josh, tell me, are you just now discovering the Holocaust?

I infer you haven't watched much of either show. Yeah, but instead of going to a different slot, it's been removed altogether. It's a shame. Despite its episodic, self-conclusive nature, the show really had an underlying continuity and, after a kick ass second season, was really getting to the core of its characters. Its idiosyncratic humor and narrative approach always has and always will make it inaccessible for a casual, let alone large, audience. It's a shame. I don't wish to sound like a whining fanboy, or to demonize financially troubled NBC, but it was one of the most intelligent shows of the past decade.

A very desperate NBC has put Community on hiatus. This is a day that will live in infamy. Am I the only fan of the show here?