Muad'Dib

I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just... I could have got more. If I'd made more money... I threw away so much money. You have no idea. If I'd just... This car. Someone would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? 200 CDs right there. 200 soundtracks Smeltington. 200 more.
This wrist watch. 10 CDs. This is gold. 10 more CDs. He would have given me 10 for it, at least 5. At least 1 more CD. A soundtrack album, Smeltington. For this.
[sobbing]
I could have gotten one more CD.. and I didn't! And I... I didn't!

Maybe it could start like the first 15 seconds of this...

Neptune's Bar from Cinderella Liberty

Old thread! I did these two for my university, one being a rescore of The Sea Hawk battle scene with Star Wars music and sound effects, and the other one being the rain scene from Bambi with music from Morricone's The Mission. The Sea Hawk one was a lot fun, but I'm quite proud of how the Bambi one turned up. If anyone's interested, here they are:
The Hawk Wars:
https://vimeo.com/69657191
Bambi's Mission:
https://vimeo.com/72008012
PS: Your rescores are dearly missed, Faleel!

With score, if you like.
http://issuu.com/scoresondemand/docs/common_tones_in_simple_time_23702

Bullshit.

I didn't know this till now: John only had the A section down until Spielberg pushed for an extra phrase - in the end completing the famous flying theme. What a delightful interview! Also check out the playful twinkle in John's eye at the beginning when he plays those five notes

I found about this piece (and this particular performance) on this very forum a year ago or so. It's so worth revisiting and sharing it for people who aren't familiar with it. Such wildness, I adore it...

Speaking of wolves...

Never Cry Wolf (1983)
What an absolutely beautiful movie. In more than one way it feels like Costner was heavily inspired by this film for Dances with Wolves. Both films have their own pace, they take their time, there's a lot of solitary moments for the characters and interactions with the natives... Costner's film is probably the better of the two, but still Bullard's film is magnificent. It's a shame it isn't more well known, but I think I can understand with it may have been overlooked by audiences: It takes risks, and most of the time it doesn't give you complete answers. In fact, the ambiguous ending leaves you with a bittersweet feeling which I dare to say feels quite real, like the solution to the issue of man vs nature isn't as easy as black and white, but it's so much grey. And like wolves, this is what this movie is. Grey. And I love it for that, specially considering this is technically a Disney movie (!).
I could have done without some of the narration. Most of the time I felt the images spoke for themselves, but I guess they didn't want to alienate mass audiences even more. I do think that more movies like this are needed, that take their time, peaceful and contemplative but still full of emotion.
I can't end without mentioning the breathtaking locations paired with some gorgeous cinematography. And of course the work with the actual wolves is fantastic. I fell in love with the white-colored pair of wolves. When they got close to the main character's camp, I was geniunely scared -I've been there-, but at the same time they're so beautiful. I think that's a pharse that can resume nature for us: Beautiful but deadly.
9/10

There used to be a video of the sequence featuring this piece planned for Fantasia, similar to the one I posted of Debussy's Clair de Lune a while back, but it has been removed since I last saw it. Too bad, since it was enchanting.
 
 

Couldn't have said it better! Just watched it last night, and I adored it. It left me with quite a feeling of some of guilt for whatever reason, like something stuck down my throat. I laughed a lot but every laugh was based on a sentiment of offensivness or the fact you couldn't believe someone would say or do something like that. Black humour at its best.
I do think that it started and ended so strongly that somewhere along the middle it kinda lost power and didn't feel it was really going anywhere. But these kind of films are more like that, less plot driven and like you said, character driven.
It's also interesting that -despite a lot of controversy was made by some people thinking this is a movie that glorifies that world- it's absolutely nothing like that. In fact one of the high points is that Scorsese never makes you feel any sympathy whatosever for Leo's character, and that's fucking brilliant. It's refreshing to have a character like that in a mainstream picture. And yes, every one of the actors was aces on their parts. DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and I especially adored Rob Reiner's perfomance. He was a pure joy to watch.
8.5/10

The Wolf on Wall Street
This might be Scorcese's most offensive, provacative film yet, just in the many profanities it uses, though I feel its a neccessary element. There is never a dull moment. Yes, it runs a bit long and could be shorter, but looking back at it, there isn't one scene I would take out. This isn't your conventional narrative, its 3 hours of pure character on screen. And if anything, Scorecese does character best. It's a whirlwind of an epic that takes the audience racing through the life of Jordan Belfort, vibrantly showing off its production values and stellar performances. I know someone else mentioned it here, but I agree that this may be one of Leonardo Dicarprio's strongest performances yet. The screen presence of Dicaprio is just dynamite! And package that with Terrance Winter's fantastic screenplay and you have brilliance in the works here. At times, you do wonder how all-over-the-place the movie can be, but I think that just adds to the atmosphere. One of the friends I went with couldn't stand it and I understand that. It might not be for everyone and it can be shorter, but I came out very satisfied, as is mostly the case with Scorcese.

FINALLY watched it. Some intial, random thoughts:
- Liked the opening very much. It had a special sense of mystery that I always welcome on fantasy films. It was quite nice, but it dragged on some points. But it proved perfect for the transition to Bilbo. That was a great little moment. In fact, when keeping with the Company and Bilbo specially, the film worked quite nicely. It's their story after all.
- Loved the Mirkwood scene, specially when they started to hallucinate. Felt like a great throwback to fantasy films from the 80's.
- Bilbo keeps proving to be a much better character than Frodo. He's amazing; I'd like if PJ would realize that it's his tale and it's the character people connect with the most. Freeman stole the whole show in every scene he was in. No surprise there, he's a burglar after all.
- Didn't care at all for Legolas or Tauriel. In my book they were totally superfluous to this particular film. Specially Legolas. I can see some point on Tauriel, but she was neither great or bad. Just meh... Kinda bothered me that I could predict where they would appear to the aid of the Company.
- I liked the extended Bard material, and his earlier introduction was well done. But after that, his figure lost some interest when the dwarves were already safe in his house. I don't know, there was something missing I think to achieve that initial greatness the character presented on his first scene. I would have removed Legolas completely from this, two (fairly similar) bowmans seems a little confusing in my opinion.
- When listening to the soundtrack, I imagined the barrel chase to be so much better. It's not bad as it is, in fact I applaud the fact that they went for a such inventive and fresh idea in a modern action movie (thank you Tolkien, bless thy soul) but I think it could have been glorious. I imagined it to be so dynamic, Shore's score blasting through the speakers, the action synchronized to it, a beautiful marriage of music and image. What we got was, well... Not so good. The constant music starting and stopping, silence, music starting again, silence felt extremly weird in a lot of places. When it started I was ok with it, but as it progressed they did it more and more, and the scene dragged. I wish PJ would have cut the scene to the music, not the other way around. Sticking to Shore's times could have been glorious perfection.
- Don't know about many of the sub-plots. Gandalf fighting Azog felt a little out of place for me, and the fact he was so easily defeated. But I guess without that we wouldn't have the awesomeness that's coming in the next film... But it did bother me how the film had to cut back and forth between the so many characters and sub-plots. When I was getting invested in a scene, bam, they cutted to something else. I guess it was part of their idea to keep interested in what was coming, but I kinda miss when scenes would play out in a more complete form, begin, develop, end and then on to the next thing. But I guess it's a different way of making the same thing.
- Until Smaug appeared (more on that low below) the film felt a lot less "fun" than AUJ. Although I think it was much better filmed and edited, it lacked a little that sense of adventure the first film had going on so much. I remember watching the first one I had a smile from ear to ear during the whole thing. Here, while a get that they were going to a darker place -and I applaud that- in some moments I felt they forgot to put more of their hearts into it. Don't know, just my thinking...
- Smaug was FUCKING AMAZING. As soon as his face appeared, I was enthralled. Magnificent, truly magnificent. What amazed me the most is how well they injected personality and expression into his facial movements. I didn't thought they could handle it so well in CGI, but damn they proved me wrong. How alive this creature was, made the whole film worthwile for me. I need to watch it again, that impressed I was. That voice... Exquisite.
The initial talk with Bilbo was perfect, beautifully executed. It's amazing how much there was going on in a very simple scene when they're both just talking to each other. I wish Jackson would have noted this for the stuff that followed between the dwarves and Smaug. There wasn't a lot of purpose to that scene in the context of the story -although I think I understand what they were going for- but still, it felt out of character for Smaug. I've always compared him to Shere Khan from Disney's Jungle Book: They're both ruthless killers, but they're still perfect gentelmen, incredibly smart and full of class. They kinda did what they did to Khan on Jungle Book 2, where he was easily distracted by mutliple objectives. I kept thinking why Smaug wasn't spitting fire at them when he had them right in front of him, and in my mind I thought he was playing around with them, having some fun with his prey. But the film never seemed to express that idea.
That chase between Smaug and the dwarves made me think too much of the fight between King Kong and the V-Rexes, specially that moment where Thorin was stading right on Smaug's nose. I kept thinking that it wasn't really necessary. Much like in the first film where Bilbo played riddles with Gollum, the simple scene between just the two of Bilbo and Smaug was much more effective than an overly-long wild goose chase.
But I can't complain. More Smaug, the better I suppose. I'm gonna be so sad when he has to die next year.
In short, flawed but when it's good, it's fucking good. It can be amazing in fact, a true fantasy film. But of course, it's not an easy book to adapt for modern audiences. Altough I still mantain most of the best stuff comes when keeping fairly close to the book.
8/10

http://floobynooby.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-cinematography-of-incredibles-part-1.html
[update] Here's Part 2
http://floobynooby.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-cinematography-of-incredibles-part-2.html

Williams talks briefly about The Book Thief with Variety's Jon Burlingame:
http://variety.com/gallery/eye-on-the-oscars-composers-sound-off/#!3/john-williams/

If anyone should learn to "tread lightly" it's Godzilla.

Cool! Good to know the sequel is still alive.
Hopefully Johnny will score and have lots of opportunities for more fun material like the first movie's score.

Official teaser trailer:

Looks far more promising than WB's Jupiter Ascending. Love the ominous tone to it.

Do you ever browse the internet to keep tabs on your fans?
I can barely switch on a computer, let alone Google! [laughs] Many younger composers and students often ask me... No look, I'll drop the act. This antediluvian image I've helped cultivate for myself is something of a lie, I guess [laughs]. The truth is that I have an unhealthy addiction to social media. Around about 7 years ago I registered on a forum dedicated to me - the 'John Williams Fan Network' or 'JWFan' for short. Sounds incredibly egocentric, I know, but I did it only after pressure from my wife. Since then I've become what's known as a 'top poster'; but no-one knows who I really am. Probably for the better!
That'll keep them guessing.
I hope so.

It's a gorgeously achieved climax. It's that lovely bass line going B-Bb-A, or 6-b6-5 in D major, which has a rich history of romantic longing.
But it's not too too common in Morricone. He uses it sparingly, making its impact all the more effective when it does appear.
Here's another one of my favourties in Morricone in Deborah's Theme (Once Upon a Time in America) - you have to listen from about 1:19 to get its full effect, but the falling bass line happens through 2:11, 2:19, and 2:25:

Delicate enough to melt even the stoniest of hearts.