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What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Older Films)


Mr. Breathmask

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11 hours ago, A Farewell to Kings said:

Wh8ch version did you watch? Editors cut or Theatrical?

 

Theatrical has a hodgepodge score of Young + assistant rewrites and lifts and reworks of material from S1

 

Where the editors cut uses more of Youngs original score prior to all the additional music and rewrites.

I guess theatrical, can't be sure.

9 hours ago, Edmilson said:

The worst Raimi Spiderman movie is still better than the best Webb/Garfield.

Disagree.

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This week I watched for the first time The Creature of the Black Lagoon (1954).

 

I was surprised to hear a bit of "Jaws" in it.... yes, the ta-dum, ta-dum.... of course it's not really developed in the score, not the way John Williams developed it, of course.

 

But, I was just amused... 

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I really already saw each and every good movies of the 80s, because each time I watch one I don't know, it's very dull.

 

And so this one was.

 

Near Dark (1987)

 

💤

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MV5BZmNhNjUxN2EtMTRkNi00YzAzLTg5ODgtZjc2

 

First time viewing.

I enjoyed it for what it is, but I guess I enjoy other fantasy films from the 80s more (like Willow, Krull, Labyrinth, Legend).

The score by North of course is masterfully written but I felt sometimes that it didn't fit so much. I don't know...

I have heard this from other sources too..

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59 minutes ago, filmmusic said:

The score by North of course is masterfully written but I felt sometimes that it didn't fit so much. I don't know...

I have heard this from other sources too..

 

Interesting. I think the score fits perfectly. I think, for many, that's the problem.

 

Glad you finally saw it.

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Glad you finally watched it.  Definitely not as all around “accessible” as some of the other fantasy of its era.   It took me more viewings and some maturity to get it.  Same with the score. I love that it’s a bit off.    It’s an odd movie, and the music suits it. 

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1 hour ago, filmmusic said:

MV5BZmNhNjUxN2EtMTRkNi00YzAzLTg5ODgtZjc2

 

First time viewing.

I enjoyed it for what it is, but I guess I enjoy other fantasy films from the 80s more (like Willow, Krull, Labyrinth, Legend).

The score by North of course is masterfully written but I felt sometimes that it didn't fit so much. I don't know...

I have heard this from other sources too..

Having watched it in couple of months ago, I found the more intense, modernistic parts, were very effective but it was the more lighthearted sections which were considerably more grating - Forest Romp in particular, sticks out like a sore thumb in a way that perhaps it wouldn't have done if the score had been more lighthearted in general. Similar with parts of the End Credits which is just too frothy compared to what's been before and doesn't mesh well with the rest (notably the bit that was originally written for 2001 instead of the Blue Danube).

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Like myself, was this your first exposure to Alex North?  I’m trying to chase the highs of Dragonslayer and 2001 by checking out Spartacus and Cleopatra.  Surprised to hear some similar chime and woodwind clusters in Cleopatra. 

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I'm currently watching Dragonslayer.

 

It's definitely a movie that miss just a bit of charm. The casting is ordinary, the script is ordinary, the score is a bit of an anachronism... yet the whole is not totally bad, it just lack a bit of charm.

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24 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

It might be "ordinary", Bes, but the dragon is fucking brilliant.

 

I have a tendency to prefer a movie saved by it's score rather than saved by it's special effects!

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I saw Dragonslayer somewhen in the 80s and don't remember much of it except that at the time I was really impressed by the Dragon scenes because this wasn't the usual Harryhausen stop motion that you were used to at the time. It looked really brillant in my memory.

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4 hours ago, Andy said:

Surprised to hear some similar chime and woodwind clusters in Cleopatra. 

Yeah, I noticed that too!;)

2 hours ago, Bespin said:

the score is a bit of an anachronism

What do you mean by that?

(By the way, I know what the word means, it's a Greek word).

How, do you think, the score should sound in 1981? 

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6 hours ago, filmmusic said:

I enjoyed it for what it is, but I guess I enjoy other fantasy films from the 80s more (like Willow, Krull, Labyrinth, Legend).

 

Really? I actually think this is probably the best of the 1980s bunch of fantasy films: notwithstanding the bizarre finale where Sir Ralph Richardson is used as a time bomb straight out of a James Bond film, I found it a clever movie, with equally inventive filmmaking, a superb dragon, a suitably grimey dark ages aesthetic and nice locations.

 

Definitely better than stuff like Legend, which looks utterly gorgeous but has one of the dumbest scripts I've ever come across, better than the more saccharine (but good!) Willow, better than some of the hokum that happens in Excalibur,  and better than Krull and Conan. Haven't seen Labyrinth all the way through, but its a different kind of fantasy film alltogether, anyway.

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12 minutes ago, filmmusic said:

Yeah, I noticed that too!;)

What do you mean by that?

(By the way, I know what the word means, it's a Greek word).

How, do you think, the score should sound in 1981? 

 

I think Jerry Goldsmith or John Williams could have provided a totally different score for this movie.

 

North's score is not bad, not at all in fact, but is it "suited"? Does it give the movie the lacking "Oomph" it perhaps needed? No.

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2 hours ago, Bespin said:

 

I have a tendency to prefer a movie saved by it's score rather than saved by it's special effects!

I'd rather not see any film which is saved by anything.

Both the score and the effects of DRAGONSLAYER, are top drawer.

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But there’s really something to it. It needed time for audiences to grow into it, and you can’t watch it without admiring at least some of it.  It gets a lot of discussion, and I think it’s because it’s so unique for it’s time and genre. 

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It became a cult movie, I don't deny it.

 

But Peter MacNicol as an hero... a serious Dragon Slayer??? Mercy...

 

;)

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35 minutes ago, Bespin said:

 

I think Jerry Goldsmith or John Williams could have provided a totally different score for this movie.

 

North's score is not bad, not at all in fact, but is it "suited"? Does it give the movie the lacking "Oomph" it perhaps needed? No.

 

Nothing you said here explains why you called it anachronistic.

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I'm SURE Alex North was not studio's first choice for that movie.

 

I'm sure he was not even plan C.

 

But like I said, we can't re-write history...

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38 minutes ago, Bespin said:

But Peter MacNicol as an hero... a serious Dragon Slayer??? Mercy...

 

Definitely one of the film's weaker links, for sure.

 

Also, I get all the stuff about the lottery but at that point in the movie you really just want to get back to the dragonslaying! And like I said before the finale is a total sham.

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Peter Macnichol was just fine. I didn’t care for his permed hair, but I thought he was a suitable Mark Hamill surrogate. 
 

I think @Bespin is using anachronistic in place of of old-fashioned, as it was late in North’s career, and he had peaked in the 60s, not 80s.  And I sort of get it, because his sound is so unique, it can’t be called old-fashioned like, say Rosza or Bernstein, because it’s a bit more unconventional and never IN-fashion.  So, I get that it is out of place with its 80s contemporaries’ more tonal harmonic fantasy stuff like Goldsmith, Horner, or even Trevor Jones. 
 

Anyway, here’s a pic of my Dragonslayer stuff. A4BAAEA6-D34C-489D-A70A-245CF64A634D.jpeg

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That’s one thing that makes North a brilliant choice.  I don’t know if it was on purpose or not but it’s a profound reflection of the story: one Epoch giving way to a new one. The Age of Wizards, dragons, and magic ending, in favor of Christianity and other beliefs.  In this case it was the end of North giving way to the post Star Wars era of film music. 
 

It reminds me of Rosza scoring Time After Time. An old fashioned story rooted in the past, using a composer from decades earlier for one last hurrah. 

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5 hours ago, Bespin said:

But Peter MacNicol as an hero... a serious Dragon Slayer??? Mercy...

 

He's never supposed to be. It's not even a Luke Skywalker journey to becoming the hero he always could be. He's never meant to be the one that heroically slays the dragon. And he isn't.

 

Whether you think it's a good movie or bad, it's not a "fun" movie. And it isn't a "fun" score.

 

I suppose it's an anachronism in that you put it up against it's contemporaries and it has no retro swash to it's buckle. It's a serious score at a time when most action adventure was putting its tongue more firmly in cheek.

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Dragonslayer is another 'how did that pass me by at the time?' movie. Must keep an eye out for a TV screening or something. 

When it comes to 80s fantasy, Time Bandits knocks a lot of it into a cocked knight's helmet. Yes.

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3 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

When it comes to 80s fantasy, Time Bandits knocks a lot of it into a cocked knight's helmet. Yes.

Absofrigginglutely!

TIME BANDITS is among the best films of the 80s.

 

I saw DRAGONSLAYER twice, at my local flea-pit. It might have been as a double bill, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what the other film might have been.

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11 hours ago, Tallguy said:

It's not even a Luke Skywalker journey to becoming the hero he always could be. He's never meant to be the one that heroically slays the dragon. And he isn't.

 

I think that's special pleading.

 

Its a kind of spin on the heroic quest type story, but that story is still recognisably in there. Its McNicoll who gets the amulet to where he needs it, its McNicol who triggers the bomb, and at the end he goes off with the girl...

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1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 

I think that's special pleading.

 

Its a kind of spin on the heroic quest type story, but that story is still recognisably in there. Its McNicoll who gets the amulet to where he needs it, its McNicol who triggers the bomb, and at the end he goes off with the girl...

 

Kind of the point is that Galen THINKS he's that character. The objection to MacNicol's casting was "But Peter MacNicol as an hero... a serious Dragon Slayer??? Mercy..."

 

He's NOT serious. He wants to be and he wants other people to think he is. But he isn't.

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It's been a while, but I remember Dragonslayer as being quite good. As I recall, Guillermo del Toro was enamoured with Vermithrax, and you can see the resemblance in his designs of Smaug.

 

Top 5 80's Fantasy Films

  1. Conan the Barbarian
  2. Excalibur
  3. Dragonslayer
  4. Ladyhawke (unfortunate score not withstanding)
  5. Willow

IMO Conan & Excalibur are two fantastic films in their own right.

 

Honourable mention: Clash of the Titans; The Sword and the Sorcerer; Hawk the Slayer.

Best forgotten: Legend; Labyrinth; Krull.

 

 

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52 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

It's been a while, but I remember Dragonslayer as being quite good. As I recall, Guillermo del Toro was enamoured with Vermithrax, and you can see the resemblance in his designs of Smaug.

 

Top 5 80's Fantasy Films

  1. Conan the Barbarian
  2. Excalibur
  3. Dragonslayer
  4. Ladyhawke (unfortunate score not withstanding)
  5. Willow

IMO Conan & Excalibur are two fantastic films in their own right.

 

Honourable mention: The Sword and the Sorcerer; Hawk the Slayer.

Best forgotten: Legend; Labyrinth; Krull.

 

 

It's amazing how the quality of scores doesn't really relate to the quality of the films, especially when you get Krull and Legend, being top tier scores from each composer, while Ladyhawke is a good film with an unfortunate score. I'm sure I've seen Legend but all I can remember is that it looks like it's filmed on sets, not necessarily an issue, but given the wealth of beautiful, magical real places in the world, sometimes you really can't fake it...

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2 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I'm sure I've seen Legend but all I can remember is that it looks like it's filmed on sets, not necessarily an issue, but given the wealth of beautiful, magical real places in the world, sometimes you really can't fake it...

The sets were (besides Goldsmith's score) the best about it.

And I agree about Ladyhawk. But I would also say, that before the 90s Fantasy was in general a film genre that needed to be saved by its scores.

And that was fortunate for movie score fans.

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Tampopo

 

A delightful little Japanese film that embraces the "ramen Western" title, with the food preparation as lovingly shot like the ones in Babette's Feast. Kunihiko Murai's score is just as delightful, especially the humorous training montage. 

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14 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Top 5 80's Fantasy Films

  1. Conan the Barbarian
  2. Excalibur
  3. Dragonslayer
  4. Ladyhawke (unfortunate score not withstanding)
  5. Willow

IMO Conan & Excalibur are two fantastic films in their own right.

 

Interesting. I'd probably put Dragonslayer at the top of that list. I think Conan has tremendous energy, but its also a little antiseptic for me. Excalibur is probably better, but does divolve into hokum here and there, and the decision to tell the whole story, generational leaps included, was not a succesfull one.

 

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16 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Top 5 80's Fantasy Films

  1. Conan the Barbarian
  2. Excalibur
  3. Dragonslayer
  4. Ladyhawke (unfortunate score not withstanding)
  5. Willow

Even if we exclude The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, I am personally missing "Clash of the Titans" in that list. I liked that better than Willow.

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I'm not sure if some of these films can be called "fantasy", but here goes:

 

HIGHLANDER,

DRAGONSLAYER,

TIME BANDITS,

EXCALIBUR,

THE PRINCESS BRIDE,

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN,

THE LAST STARFIGHTER,

LEGEND,

KRULL,

CLASH OF THE TITANS,

HEAVY METAL.

 

 

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22 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

Even if we exclude The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, I am personally missing "Clash of the Titans" in that list. I liked that better than Willow.

I started watching Clash of the Titans a few weeks ago and couldn't get beyond about half an hour. It just felt interminable with horribly stilted acting (even by the standards of these types of movie it seemed kinda ropey). Even worse, Laurence Rosenthal's score never seems quite as good as I think it is. Don't really know why to be honest - perhaps I just miss Bernard Herrmann. For 80s fantasy, give me James Horner or Jerry any day.

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2 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I started watching Clash of the Titans a few weeks ago and couldn't get beyond about half an hour. It just felt interminable with horribly stilted acting (even by the standards of these types of movie it seemed kinda ropey). Even worse, Laurence Rosenthal's score never seems quite as good as I think it is. Don't really know why to be honest - perhaps I just miss Bernard Herrmann. For 80s fantasy, give me James Horner or Jerry any day.

Same for me recently when I tried to watch Willow again. I had to finish after half an hour.

Lord of the Rings ruined our senses for enjoing such kind of crappy fantasy movies.

 

 

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Once saw Clash Of The Titans described 'as a special effects movie - with terrible special effects' :lol: . 

Am currently reading Heroes, the second book of Stephen Fry's retelling of the Greek myths. The differences in events in the original stories to how they're depicted in COTT is interesting ... for example, Perseus decapitates Medusa with relative ease on the page. None of this 'carefully stalking her through her cave lair' stuff.      

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