Figo
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Posts posted by Figo
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But seriously...how did you get to meet all these people?
Don't you know? I'm this board's Forrest Gump!
Seriously, these are celebrity sightings, right? I assure you, I didn't even speak to most of the people on the list, and some of them I never even got close to. Others, like Samuel Jackson, just showed up outside my store for a cigarette. William Safire actually came in. So did James Doohan (another store, though), and that other Star Trek guy, from Next Generation. Tim Conway came in. So did Teller. I rode an elevator with Gabel Williams. The girl I can't remember hit me up for some matches. I saw Spalding Gray at the grocery store. Jack Kevorkian was eating at a restaurant, and I passed him going to the restroom. I knew it was him, because he had been speaking nearby. Tony Roberts I passed on the street. James Coburn and Andrew McCarthy were shooting movies in town. John Cleese I saw in a hotel lobby. I got stuck in a mob that was flocking to see Ashanti. (I didn't even know who she was. In fact, I had to leave a lot of pop stars off the list, because I can't remember their names!) I ran into the Cure guy when I dashed up the street for a cup of coffee, and then saw Gore and Lieberman on the same corner when they were campaigning for the rigged election. I don't know. A lot of funny stories. All you have to do is live in a city, and the celebrities rain from the sky!
I also meet a lot of musicians through my work and leisure. I go to a hell of a lot of concerts, so I would say I have seen or met most of today's major classical music figures -- although, as I say, I have not actually spoken to or even gotten close to many of them. I've had conversations with Previn, Lukas Foss, Simon Rattle (twice), and numerous others. Rattle even drew me a doodle of himself, remarking that we have similar hair. I usually only get signatures from the music people, so you'll have to take my word for the rest!
Figo, like a CGI feather on the wind.
I forgot I saw Pavarotti, and just recently, on the street, Emanuel Ax.
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Oh good! A chance to show off!
Leonard Bernstein
Andre Previn
Yo-Yo Ma
Itzhak Perlman
Gil Shaham
William Warfield (I mention him because I heard he just died yesterday)
Simon Rattle
Riccardo Muti
Alfred Brendel
Murray Perahia
Gian Carlo Menotti...
Christ, do you want me to go on with the music people?
Samuel L. Jackson
Morgan Freeman
Mel Gibson
Michael Douglas
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Kevin Spacey
Edward Norton
Whoopi Goldberg
Kathy Bates
Ming-Na
William Hurt
Tony Roberts (of Woody Allen fame)
Bernadette Peters
James Coburn
James Belushi
Andrew McCarthy
Kevin Bacon's dad LOL (Does that count?)
James Doohan
The guy who played Number 2 on Next Generation
One of those girl stars from a big tv show in the seventies (can't remember which
)Barry "Greg Brady" Williams
David Cassidy
Peter Noone
Doug Henning (Anybody remember him?)
Penn & Teller (seperately -- always seem to run into Teller)
Mummenschantz
Tim Conway
Robin Williams
John Cleese
Robert Klein
Spalding Gray
Steven Wright
Wilt Chamberlain
Larry Holmes
Mike Schmidt
Famed lion tamer Gunther Gabel Williams
Mischa, the World's Smallest Man
The Great Wallenda (before he plunged to his death)
John Lee Hooker
Chuck Mangione
Lyle Lovett
Harry Connick, Jr.
Daniel Ash
Some guy from The Cure? (looks like Neil Gaiman's Sandman)
Ashanti 8O
Kenny G
Ken Kesey
Umberto Eco
Alice Walker
Joyce Carol Oates
T. Coraghessan Boyle
William Kotzwinkle
Douglas Adams (twice)
Neil Gaiman
Evan "Milk & Cheese" Dorkin
William Safire
Al Gore
Joseph Lieberman
Abbie Hoffman
Jerry Rubin
G. Gordon Liddy
Arlen "JFK Magic Bullet" Specter
Jack Kevorkian (I kid you not)
The guy who played the brother on Mad About You (Keep seeing him on the street)
The Olympic Torch
and, yes, believe it or not, Charles Nelson Reilly!
Kiss the hem of my gown!
Not bad for a guy who never gets out of his apartment.
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So, we're allowed to use the f-word now, are we? 8O
:evil: Good.
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If his goal was to write a piece that feels as long as the actual Exodus, he certainly succeeded!
Figo, feeling every moment of the ancient Hebrews' bitter suffering.
Kilar's Exodus 
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Search your feelings. You know it to be true.
I have two recordings of Exodus. It could have been better with some judicious trimming, perhaps, but personally I find the trick of the long, monotonous crescendo (over 23 minutes!) barely tolerable even in Ravel's far-superior (and shorter) Bolero. Kilar does not possess Ravel's flair for orchestral color. And I'm sorry, the gimmick with the aleotoric voices at the end just doesn't do it for me.
Figo, who far prefers Kilar's Krzesany, which he actually heard in concert.
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Yes, listen to Escape from the Tavern, and then listen to, in quick succession:
The Death of Tybalt from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet
The Battle on the Ice from Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky
The first movement of Schumann's Symphony No. 3 "Rhenish"
Oh, wait a minute, you already have.
Marian's beef is an excellent one. Knowing a thing or two about music, I am constantly distracted at the movies, when composers or studio execs think they are putting one over on the audience. When I hear a quotation, chances are I'm going to recognize it, but in order to recognize it I'm going to have to disengage myself from the action onscreen and sort through my memory bank. That's annoying in itself, but it becomes even moreso when I finally figure out what it is.
Herbert von Karajan, renowned among other things for his Wagner interpretations, claims not to have recognized Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now, so powerful were the images onscreen. Personally, I find that hard to believe. But for a film with the balls of Apocalypse Now, I am willing to forgive a lot. Unfortunately, Horner's projects, most of them, hardly shake my world.
As for the spelling of Gayaneh [sic], I wouldn't worry about it, as it's a totally different alphabet -- hence "Rachmaninoff/Rachmaninov," "Tchaikowsky/Tchaikovsky," "Prokofiev/Prokofieff." There are commonly accepted spellings, of course, but I have seen Gayneh written both ways.
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I'm sure it will look very impressive on my tiny Dick Tracy wrist TV.
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From what I gathered through the classical polls, there must be very few people who actually vote and therefore these oddball choices receive what looks like an unusually heavy percentage of supporters. Film scores also feature in the classical polls, and they are seldom the ones you'd expect. Often, they consist of recent mega-hits (eg., Titanic, Gladiator). An argument can be made for accepting some film music in with the mainstream classical, but I would hardly nominate Gladiator as a good example of anything, let alone a top contender! As with the Academy Awards, I suspect there are extra-musical considerations at work.
When all else fails, consider the following: the masses are asses.
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I heard it sucked ass. I can't imagine the dragons could have been any better than those in Dragonslayer.
The problem with that kind of film is you don't want to pay to see it in the theatre, because you know it is going to suck ass, and yet when you watch it on video, its most impressive qualities are diminished.
Figo, just the same, settling for video.
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Ha! Brusque George Reeves! Did you ever see the episode where the hoodlums break into his apartment and actually find the Superman suit hanging in his closet? He flies them to the North Pole and leaves them on top of a mountain, telling them not to try and escape, knowing full well they will disobey and fall to their deaths.
Now that's brusque!
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"Lame" is pretty strong condemnation for a film that's not that bad. It's actually quite stylish, although the story is very silly. I recommend you see it someday, but long after you familiarize yourself with the music.
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The voting majority apparently doesn't know what makes good classical music, either!
Figo, perennially stunned by the results of Classic FM's boneheaded polls.
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tpigeon, I know you will love it. I too was inspired to take the plunge not just after reading the many enthusiastic comments here -- not least from Chrusher and fivetones -- but from revisiting the OST recording half a dozen times. This is top-drawer Williams. Don't get seduced by the hype. When the disc arrives, your expectations will be high. Forget all about everyone lauding it to the heavens. Forget all about Brian DePalma's film. Try not to let anything influence your opinion. Just enjoy the music.
Not that the praise is undeserved. And not that the film is bad, necessarily. In fact, I rather enjoy it. I was surprised to hear someone mention they were having trouble finding it at the video store. It comes from DePalma's most important period. Far superior to crap like Snake Eyes. Sure, he was intoxicated with Hitchcock, but we all know that. He wanted us to know it! Kirk Douglas is still highly amusing -- playing Kirk Douglas. And the film itself sports one of the most hilarious endings of all time.
I have not yet received the expanded edition. But then, I only ordered it on Friday.
Figo, like you, with bated breath.
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And a score like Star Wars is more "classical" than a concert work like Kilar's Exodus or Adam's Harmonielehre anyway.
HaHa! What a piece of crap Kilar's Exodus is!
Frankly, I'm surprised how many of you actually share my musical tastes. Of course, I voted classical. Like ocelot, if I listen to film music, it is mostly the old timers, or those who have something interesting to say and the technique to say it. If I listen to too much of the recent stuff, I start to become furious. (Like fivetones, however, most of my favorite composers lived within the last 100 years.)
Wickenstein, I am surprised to hear someone who likes classical music say he can't think of much being written in the past decade, and that the best stuff is now in film! Especially as the past ten years have been very weak for film, in general. But perhaps your personal tastes don't extend much past Wagner? For a giant on the current musical scene, look no further than a young Scotsman named James MacMillan. His recent piece The Quickening -- no relation to Highlander LOL -- put my hair on end. Not sure if it's been recorded yet, but lots of his other pieces have. Explore! He is the real thing! Einojuhani Rautavaara, Finland's most revered living composer, continues to do fine work in a very accessible style. John Adams may have written some gooey pieces at the start of his career, but his oratorio El Nino is a masterpiece. John Corigliano, a classical composer who sometimes works in film, won a Pulitzer Prize -- not for The Red Violin, but for his 2nd Symphony. The past decade has also seen a lot more concert music from the pen of some guy named John Williams.
Like Miguel, I adore Copland's flawed but beautiful opera The Tender Land.
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Except Superman.
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I forgot to add, in addition to the dual problems of time and ignorance, the other obstacle film scores face is the question of commercial viability. A studio looks at the bottom line. If a film grosses $300 million dollars, they pat themselves on the back and think they did a fine job, and then of course, they want to repeat the success. If people are lining up around the block to see a film about a bunch of supermen blowing the shit out of each other on a CGI landscape, with all kinds of cool computer-manipulated martial arts effects and fast rock video-style editing, the music becomes of secondary importance. If consumers buy the soundtrack on the basis of liking the film and because they want "inspired by" pop songs, the execs will take note of that, as well. How the next Korngold, Rozsa, Bernstein or Williams is expected to surface under those kind of conditions, I don't know.
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Thomas, if you are ripping off Copland, you have excellent taste in music. Also, you will be well aware that Horner does the same in Field of Dreams. (Give another listen to Our Town.)
As far as exact cribs go -- and I mean exact -- I may be mistaken, he could changed one note in the harmony somewhere or something -- but it sounds as if he spliced entire sections of Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky and Rachmaninoff's 1st Symphony into Willow. And that's just the beginning of a long list of "borrowings" in that highly derivative score.
Figo, going back on his word.
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Uh, Neil -- I hate to nitpick, but I think you misspelled his name! LOL
Figo, who will reserve comment, lest the entire thread shift focus and become a personal attack on him.
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Any award that recognizes Portman and Christensen can't be worth the cardboard it's printed on, but if it makes you guys feel better... :roll:
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Whaaaa--?
You mean people here actually have sex?
Congratulations! We know you will bring him up in the noble tradition.
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YES! Agreed, Trumpeteer! Subsequent tinkering has also damaged Williams' scores for Superman and E.T..
Figo, who thinks the last thirty minutes of Empire are bloody brilliant.
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AI, your posts in this thread seem to be particularly quarrelsome. I would expect something like this from me, but you? What bee got in your bonnet?
Contrary to whatever preconceived notions you may hold about classical music -- snooty gentlemen with pince-nez and matronly women with large bosoms gazing through opera glasses -- liking it does not necessarily denote pretentiousness. Or do you think Williams is putting on airs when he says he loves Elgar and Vaughan Williams? Perhaps you should give them a listen as well, sometime. You may like them, too. Of course, then some here may label you pretentious. :roll:
And yes, film music is still a very young field. Composers have only been writing original scores for something like seventy years. That's a blink of the eye next to what we now regard as classical music, which in some people's estimation starts in the baroque era with composers like Bach and Handel, but in reality stretches back as far as the Middle Ages. It is a noble tradition. To outright dismiss all of western musical heritage because you prefer James Newton Howard is kind of silly.
I've been thinking about film music as an art form lately, and I think the reason I am so disappointed with most of what is being done today is because the music itself is coming into its own. Which means it is moving further away from its classical roots, and people like Korngold and Steiner, and more toward an "if it works, use it" kind of philosophy. It's not necessarily a positive evolution, IMHO -- too many scores these days come off as keyboard improvisations or New Age mush -- but it is an evolution which makes film music a distinguishable genre. And before anyone gets defensive at my assessment, I understand the problem is with me and not with the increasingly unsophisticated and dumbed down scores. The music after all should first and foremost support the images on screen. But an awful lot of what is being written today winds up sounding pretty thin on disc. I'm not sure at what point writing technically assured music became antithetical to film scoring, but I'm guessing it has as much to do with time constraints and musically ignorant filmmakers as it does with anything else.
Has it ever occurred to you, AI, that a big reason many composers write for film is the oldest in the book -- money? Do you know how difficult it is to make it as a composer? How hard it is to earn bread toiling at something which, although a labor of love and enormously fulfilling, is also incredibly time-consuming and intellectually draining? Money problems have plagued even the greatest composers. Everybody knows Mozart was buried in a pauper's grave. In the 20th century, people tend to forget that some of classical music's biggest names turned to film to supplement their income. It was not for prestige alone that Aaron Copland, William Walton, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Arthur Honegger, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, John Ireland, George Antheil, and Benjamin Frankel all turned to the cinema. Even Stravinsky and Schoenberg would have done it, but they couldn't handle the rigors. Some of Stravinsky's would-be film work turned up in his concert pieces Symphonic Ode (which would have been heard, presumably, in the Orson Welles Jane Eyre) and Four Norwegian Moods.
You can look down your nose at the classics all you like, AI. But then what makes you any better than the stuffed shirt gazing through his monacle? The film industry has never been too proud to accept classical composers. It's too bad that you are.
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He's not Jeffery Dahmer, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussain, Hitler, Stalin, or even Ed Wood.
BAN HIM.
LOL
AOTC wins 6 IMAs, incl. Best Score!!
in General Discussion
Posted
Happens here, too, in case you haven't notice. :roll:
Figo, who really needs to figure out how to alter his IP number.