Ren

i guess i really should go see Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln huh?

thanks my Queen.

love the time turner.....

Could be

I've seen her elsewhere and for her age she's an attractive woman. But knock off the bullshit - nobody should feel under obligation to find her gorgeous just because Steef dated a black chick. What a load of shite; if she were white he'd be the first to be be brutally honest about the fact that the lady is middle aged.

To quote Hercule Poirot: "My dear Hastings, at my age, all that is young seems beautiful."

I took a girl to see that. It was fucking brilliant. Haven't got a clue what happened in the movie.

Lucas could take two wives, Ren. One for him, and one for his neck.

Leo is one of the best actors in my opinion.

I just think Zimmer loves his job, his life and can't help but shout about it. He's a happy chap, and a probably a decent salesman.
People like that tend to be infectious; only irritating the most curmudgeonly minded among us.

I hate the lazy Hans Zimmer. I have no problem with the Hans that tries.

To drunk to reed al these long posts

I don't hate Zimmer musically. I hate the bastard personally.
Kidding . . . I'm kidding, folks.
I'm tickled by the timing of several recent posts that reflect some of the thoughts I wanted to bring up when I came trolling back around these parts. (That Mr. Cosman has been the genesis of most of these preemptive threads is ironic and a little frightening: either he's mellowed a bit, or I'm dancing closer to the edge than ever—and I find both possibilities equally likely. ) I was planning on dropping a few lines on the current state of filmusic anyway, and the subject of this current thread was going to be a central theme. I was going to go about it a little differently, though. I'd mention Zimmer and his like, lament the loss of leitmotif,and even pull a quote from a completely apocryphal source, Modern Film Scoring for Dummies:
"The purpose of the various orchestral sections have changed over time as well. The string section, for example, is no longer needed for establishing a general tonal canvas, and certainly isn't to be used for melody. No, the strings now represent your rhythm section. All you need to put together a top-shelf score these days is to have your strings play a constant staccato progression, accenting every fourth beat to establish the cadence. If you don't have the budget for a full orchestra, don't sweat it; just sample some stringy sounds off a different soundtrack and lay those down as your beat track. Let the horns blow a long, swelling, extended note from time to time to add 'color.' Your woodwind people can fill time by turning the pages for everyone else (if you even need more than one page). You can save a few more bucks by firing everyone else. Sample in some sound-effect bursts from time to time for variety . . . and
voilá! Your score will be the talk of Cannes!"Realistic? Maybe not. Exagerrated, even hyerbolic, sure. But it reflects honest feelings that have surfaced as I've been working my way through a sizeable stack of recent acquisitions (another factor that brought me back here, actually). And I don't think there's any denying that Zimmer is a major influence on this trend. What Williams did in bringing back the classical, full-orchestral sound to filmusic in the late 70s, Zimmer has done in sending it right back into relative obscurity again. He set the stage, and too many others—Klaus Badeldt, Steve Jablonsky, Eric Serra, Daft Punk, and the like—have been all too willing to play his disciples. The result is bland, lifeless, assembly-line drudge that, though it may work well enough for the film it accompanies (and, indeed, if often does), makes for a miserable listening experience apart from the movie.
This sense came to a head as I listened to the "Ultimate" version of The Dark Knight Rises. I'm a complete-score junkie, but long before I finished listening to all three CDs I felt like I'd been consigned along with Bruce Wayne to that hole-in-the-ground prison in the desert. There's just nothing there. There's no music in his music. It's cut 'n' paste spotting, and frankly, it's a waste of good potential. I think the main "theme"—can it even be called that?—makes a good representation of Wayne's obsession, particularly in the first film; but you can do obsession musically and still get around to other emotions during the course of a two-and-a-half hour film. (Consider how Williams handled Neary's obsession in Close Encounters. Now try to imagine those four notes being all you heard during the entire course of the movie. How much great music would we have missed?)
Forget the trailer. I'm convinced you could switch the entire scores for both films and hardly tell that anything had changed. (Try it, in fact. Put on one or the other movie, turn the sound down, and plug in the opposite score. I'd lay money on the table that the experience will be nearly identical.)
Please, spare me the whole "the reason people persecute him is because he's too brilliant to be understood" thing—especially when it comes to the art of scoring films. I mean, the entire point of the endeavor is to create an emotional connection with the audience, to draw them more deeply through aural means into a story that's being told visually. This isn't an art form designed to appeal exclusively to "fellow artists or other like-minded" people. You're supposed to be reaching the masses. You may well be the Jackson Pollack of the music world, enthralling the elites with the way you randomly splatter notes on staff paper, but that doesn't mean I have to regard the resulting noise as some higher form of art. If a composer's gonna go Van Gogh on the music world, he should have the good class to cut off his own ears instead of making mine hurt.
Now . . . let me be clear that I'm not saying this is the complete picture of how I feel about Hans Zimmer. I do regard some of his work as outstanding (though I would note that a lot of his better stuff usually has a collaborator's name sharing space with his on the front cover). He's a capable guy. And that may be what's most frustrating of all, y'know? I don't look to Zimmer to give me the next Star Wars-esque masterpiece—but he has shown us he's able to create some excellent music. Why, then, are we made to settle for low-grade schlock from him so much of the time? Having proven that he can do extraordinary stuff, we can only assume that when he achieves less, he's chosing to achieve less. It's cutting corners. It's taking the easy road. It's just plain laziness, that's all.
So no, I don't hate Hans Zimmer, either personally or musically. But man, is he one exasperating guy. . . .
- Uni

There's a liiiiiiight (over at the Frankenstein place...)

Nah, what it is is you don't understand me. I enjoyed it on that kitsch level up until recently, when I caught it again and realised it had just become awful, like old Doctor Who episodes. Unlike you, I have outgrown its novelty charms, that's all.
A proper, better kitsch movie which has lasting appeal for me is Rocky Horror, with its awesome soundtrack and Tim Curry in tights.

Heh heh, someone's irritable...

I think its Ironic, that the reason (they say) that this style was "created", was because they wanted something that wasn't the norm for POTC....
and now its the norm.

The opening rhythm from Bernstein's theme for The Magnificent Seven.
As trailer music goes, the guitar riff from Led Zep's Kashmir!

Yes I though I'd rather use my real name from now on

Love your avatar Ren!

I was listening to Rod Stewart's Maggie May on the radio yesterday and as the instantly recognisable guitar riff kicked in at the end of the song I immediately began thinking of how the iconic nature of its sound, its subconsciously memorable aesthetic, applies to film music. I'm not talking about whole themes and entire cues of famous movie music, but rather like the thread title states - the incidental "riffs" of a certain cue which at their time of recording were just ancillary melody and texture acting as complimentary highlights within the greater cue and score. Sometimes they may have become strikingly noticeable by design, or perhaps it was just the naturally satisfying depth of orchestration which gave the essentially short musical signal its legs.

I'm thinking along the lines of something like the ostinato motor rhythm of Superman, or the whirling hypnotism of Vertigo's Prelude flutes; two instantly recognisable and arguably iconic signatures of the medium. Those two in particular have also just gotten me thinking about whether their shared repetition in terms of construction plays a part in their eventual fame, it certainly seems likely. But I'm sure there are other examples of score riffs which don't adhere to the same musical design, standing out perhaps for more unconventional or seemingly unlikely reasons.

Any examples to share?

God, I hope one of the labels will manage to get their hands on them and release them!

Hee hee, there's nobody on this board more unequipped to point fingers than our little resident sociopath. And even then; living under a rickety bridge is still no excuse for being three days too late with your harassment! Your comedy timing needs work as well. Oh where to start!

I remember that we came real close in 2004. Remember he came out and said sorry but had to go. So we got a group photo "sans Johnny".

My favorite is ceremony of carols by Britten, other completely British recordings of choirs singing traditional British carols.....yeah yeah yeah. Also the carpenters Christmas album. And Sinatra and Bing.