Elmo Lewis

This looks like it's just a lazy guess, but just in case anybody needed encouragement: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118045764/#.TsJQyJ8Hlyw.twitter

You people lay off KM. His constant concern for unreleased music is an important part of the conversation about every new Williams release. We don't want this place to become more benevolent and conformist than it should, do we? I mean, we all enjoy what music is released (even KM or he wouldn't worry so much about the rest of it), but I think posts like this... ... are important to have in a John Williams fansite. What "great silent majority" are you talking about? I said "a group", who have all the right in the world to complain endlessly about whatever they want, and do not need anyone to tell them to "cheer up". It is not just a right. It is a necessity for the rest of us. I didn't note down how much unreleased music there was in Tintin. How much of a Ultimate Edition scenario would such an otherwise welcome promo represent? I don't disagree with you here, but Sony Classical is an evil, moneygrabbing label. Even if this release is one Williams' best with them, we should still distrust them.

Oh yes, the content is quite repulsive in its opportunism. But as a commercial, it gets the job done better than plenty others in the banking sector. I have no opinion on the music. To me, it's just one more pastiche that screams "don't be scared, we are nothing new and therefore not threatening. Now listen to us and feel reassured".

I never speak of what I know. I find it in poor taste.

Well, it's not an "either/or" situation, is it? They both could have contributed to a seamless Williams sound.

Really? If there was no sarcasm, you must be on the business. Well, it's manipulative and simplistic as every commercial is. But I find the naivete with which the main ideas are pitched (ever constructing, ever upwards, addressing the average citizen main financial insecurities with big, bold letters) quite charming. A very tight presentation of a bunch of thoughts from a brainstorming session. It's ingenious.

I agree. We need to contact the designers, befriend them and get that material. We should all vote on the most charismatic and charming amongst us for the task. (And hold an alternate poll where Stefancos wins just to keep him happy.) It's remarkable how much more jazzier Tintin's theme sounds in these snippets. Can we hypothesize that Williams originally envisioned the theme with a jazzy sound all throughout the movie and was asked to rewrite it into brassier, more traditional fanfares? Perhaps to not alienate audiences? I recall reading here that Tintin's theme was associated with a jazzy sound. This was months ago, maybe it was Jason -- but then again, it just may be he was outwardly describing "The Adventures of Tintin" and my mind is playing tricks.

Maybe the fact that it was music for a science fiction movie by the man who wrote the obscenely best-selling Star Wars soundtrack gave it a boost.

He's practically retired now. I don't think those playing the Hollywood game even consider him as an option anymore. Plus, his music is too complex and traditional-oriented to match the average producer's vision of audience demands.

What an ingenious commercial.

But he was never attached to this one it seems, he said no, or was busy or something. Yeah, I think it was an Amenábar's proposition and Williams had to decline it. I guess a high percentage of projects in Hollywood are (or were, in a different time) offered to Williams, just in case he'd say yes. I don't think we should count those offers, no matter how public, as "almost scored" since Williams was never involved in the project.

I think it's just the headline that's confusing (purposefully so, in order to gain more clicks). It's very likely that the author didn't even come up with it himself, but it was rather a visitor-friendly editorial choice. I find the rest of the article to make reasonable sense.

Doesn't it? It has themes from five previous movies.

His reasoning, and I don't think this should be ignored, is that it's the score that best represents the importance of his leit-motifs in a score. Not the best score per se: the best example of what potential Star Wars' copious leit-motfs have. Since that, and not the quality of the music, is the author's point, it makes sense to have Sith and not superior scores with less themes like ESB.

There are a handful of exceptions, but generally the rule is: for Best Director and Best Actor/Actress, the Academy is awarding the person, not the job they did; Best Picture means political statements; and the rest of the categories are considered tokens.

The movie is serviceable at best, but it speaks to the Kennedy fan inside me (a side effect of being raised in Massachusetts, I guess). I'll pop it in every now and then, if only to laugh at Costner's godawful accent. Has he ever been successful in any of his many attempts at conveying an accent? Why does he even keep trying? It's personal branding. If a movie like JFK gives you credibility doing political thrillers set in the 1960s, you do more of them. Just like Dances With Wolves.

It is indeed a peculiar list, but it is very aplty justified by the author. He intends to pick a score from each genre and era of Williams' career (the subtitle of the piece hails Williams as "Hollywood's most versatile composer"), so that seems to be his primary goal. After that, the way he justifies the most mind-boggling choices is quite reasonable considering he is addressing people who don't know Williams very much. His reasoning, and you may or may not agree with it, is that "since Raiders doesn't seem to say more of Williams' talent than Superman, let's give the very odd Long Goodbye a shot." Either that or he's well-versed in the hipster technique of hailing an artists' most obscure and early works as his best.

Oh thanks, I didn't know that.

Charles Laughton.

It's just the basics of escapism fare: you need your protagonist to be nobody in particular, just to have a ton of hidden potential useless in the real world but invaluable in a secret, fantasy environment. That way everybody can relate to him. Ever seen Wanted? It's a horribly unsuccessful film but it's shameless escapist.

No! It's not the background! You can tell me a lot about Indy's personality, what he is like, what he isn't, what he doesn't like! Probably not to write a ton of pages about the subject, given the nature of the film and that it isn't necessary! Same with Neo. He's Everyman. He's alienated and smart beyond his job. In true escapism fashion, that's all we need/should know.

So finally I got around to seeing BBC's Sherlock. I don't think I need to explain why I thought it was so phenomenally addictive and all-around successful at this point. The chemistry between the main cast, the scripts, the plots, the tone have all been properly praised before. Even the flaws I thought the pilot had (Sherlock's interaction with a realistic environment was inevitably very similar to recent incarnations of the myth like House than Sherlock Holmes, and I also thought that guiding the audience through Holmes' deductive process with superimposed texts as he explored the lady's corpse was a cop-out) disappeared in subsequent episodes. So much care, intelligence and, unlike other BBC productions, showmanship behind this. My only complaint would be Andrew Scott's Moriarty. Not the way he was written, of course, but the way he was performed -- it was like channeling Ralph Fiennes' over-the-top Voldemort sans the gusto, as if he was forcing his psychopathically playful mood swings. It never once looked, to my eyes, as if Scott was having fun with his material, but as if he was trying to hit all the notes at once. In any other production, this performance might have been more than acceptable. In Sherlock's outstanding caliber, it happens to stand out a bit more.

Do they not? Beware of post-modernism. Koray heaped tons of praise on Moon and other people liked it too. We have a 12 page thread on Super 8 filled with positive reviews http://www.jwfan.com...showtopic=18799 Bear in mind that most of those reviews were written immediately after people saw the movie. People tend to be hyperbolic with the aftertaste of the movie still in their mouth.

You need to run my post through Google Translate. And I think that if there was anything superficial about the movie, it was all the things that didn't have to do with nostalgia. Then again, you say the film doesn't feel like The Goonies, so you must be watching with kinder eyes than me.