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The Last Jedi vs. The Post


Josh500

The Last Jedi vs. The Post   

45 members have voted

  1. 1. Which score are you personally enjoying more?

    • The Last Jedi
      38
    • The Post
      7
  2. 2. In your opinion, which score is more worthy of an Oscar (nomination)?

    • The Last Jedi
      29
    • The Post
      16


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I'm not asking you to compare these 2 scores. Just read the poll questions, and discuss!

 

Personally, I'm enjoying The Last Jedi more (it's Star Wars, after all!), but I think The Post would have been more worthy of an Oscar nomination, just because it seems more original and fresh. 

 

But both are fantastic scores, two very different scores that serve their respective movies, I'm not ranking one over the other.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Josh500 said:

I'm not asking you to compare these 2 scores. Just read the poll questions, and discuss!

 

Personally, I'm enjoying The Last Jedi more (it's Star Wars, after all!), but I think The Post would have been more worthy of an Oscar nomination, just because it seems more original and fresh. 

 

But both are fantastic scores, two very different scores that serve their respective movies, I'm not ranking one over the other.

 

With this poll I'd you are asking us to compare the two scores, and you are ranking one over another (TLJ when it comes to enjoyment and The Post when it comes to originality/freshness). ;)

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I think both deserve nominations.  If The Post was better received, then maybe we'd have a double nomination.  Since I'm enjoying TLJ a lot more, I'm glad it got the nomination.

 

4 hours ago, Josh500 said:

I wonder why none of the prequels were nominated, but both TFA and TLJ are!

 

What's up with this nonsense? 

 

Williams was busy as a bee during the prequel years and received nominations for his "worthy" scores.  He may have been nominated if SW was all he did.  I still think TPM should have been nominated alongside Angela's Ashes. Williams arguably had better output in 02 and 05 than SW.

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I think the academy shockingly simply did not respond to The Post. I am pretty sure it is no. 9 in the best picture rankings. It is the only Best picture nominee to have just one other nomination. It literally just has best actress and best picture which shows it basically had no support in the academy. It got shut out by the Baftas and DGA too.

 

So basically the film seriously had no traction at all. I think that did Williams in for the Post because frankly the best scenario was him getting nominations for BOTH Star Wars AND The Post. If The Post were stronger, Williams would be doubled nomed like in 2011 and we wouldn't need to have this poll.

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1 hour ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

Critical reception. The prequel trilogy was generally very badly received. The new trilogy is loved by critics.

 

I read somewhere in this forum that the prequels weren't eligible for nominations. Is that right?

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1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

I read somewhere in this forum that the prequels weren't eligible for nominations. Is that right?

 

Of course they were eligible. Why wouldn't they be? They have tons and tons and tons of new material.

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4 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

Critical reception. The prequel trilogy was generally very badly received. The new trilogy is loved by critics.

 

That must be it! Because the prequel scores are absolutely fantastic (JW in top form), even if the movies weren't. 

 

This also makes me wonder why the hell Jurassic Park wasn't nominated along with Schindler's List. But we all know the Academy acts in its own mysterious ways.

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I read the Ebert reviews at the time. Only Episode II was negative, but a funny read. Then again, Empire gave that one 5 stars. What's the extra star for, anyway? I prefer Ebert's grade scale.

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Nobody above age 12 like these movies but those below made all the difference.

 

I wouldn't nominate either TLJ - too much pastiche - or The Post - insubstantial, and by all accounts for another Spielberg borefest with solid technical creds but a vacuous inside.

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I liked the prequels, and still do. And I was 22 at the time, with a strong connection to the original trilogy. I had all the odds against me. I even remember writing a long defense article for the earliest incarnation of Celluloid Tunes at the time. But this is a tired, old topic.

 

As for THE POST, it's the best movie I've seen so far this year, and I wouldn't be surprised if it will remain on top -- or close to the top -- when the year is over.

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Right. Because most people are not able to sniff a turd they just fell into. Apart from a very special demographic with much larger personal problems than prequel-love i think most 'normal' people just shrugged, wrote the 8$ off, went home and forgot.

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23 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

 

As for THE POST, it's the best movie I've seen so far this year, and I wouldn't be surprised if it will remain on top -- or close to the top -- when the year is over.

 

Why do you feel this way? I saw it last week and was actually disappointed, and I'm a fan of some of Spielberg's "boring" movies (Lincoln is one of my favorites from him). I thought the movie moved really briskly, and there were some genuine emotional core (the scene where Kathy confronted McNamara about the Papers was very touching)...but I felt like the stakes were too muted, like the stakes of free press--allegedly the whole spark of this bullet movie being fired to release-- wasn't that big of a deal. Everything felt too matter of fact, for the most part...Spielberg said he was making an homage to a 70s thriller, but I think he could have gone way farther in that respect, which he did in Munich! 

 

The score feels sincere, and careful, but overall  I prefer The Last Jedi: it feels like a really hearty meal that gives me a very wholesome, full feeling in my stomach.

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1 hour ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Why do you feel this way? I saw it last week and was actually disappointed, and I'm a fan of some of Spielberg's "boring" movies (Lincoln is one of my favorites from him). I thought the movie moved really briskly, and there were some genuine emotional core (the scene where Kathy confronted McNamara about the Papers was very touching)...but I felt like the stakes were too muted, like the stakes of free press--allegedly the whole spark of this bullet movie being fired to release-- wasn't that big of a deal. Everything felt too matter of fact, for the most part...Spielberg said he was making an homage to a 70s thriller, but I think he could have gone way farther in that respect, which he did in Munich! 

 

The score feels sincere, and careful, but overall  I prefer The Last Jedi: it feels like a really hearty meal that gives me a very wholesome, full feeling in my stomach.

 

The amazing thing is that I really don't care about the genre. I have a particular aversion towards newspapers/investigation movies with lots of papers, telephone calls, dialogue and office spaces. Usually bores me to tears. I also don't think the premise of this film is as exciting as LINCOLN or BRIDGE OF SPIES. There's not as much on the line, so to speak -- even though the publication of the papers obviously has huge implications. So why, then, did I like it so much -- and even MORE than the aforementioned movies?

 

Well, I think Spielberg is a master of squeezing juice out of a lemon. The film is so chockful of playful ideas and visual motifs that there's rarely a moment of downtime. The use of doors and lamps, for example. Or swirling camera movements, like the fantastic "Skype" conversation towards the end when the camera swirls around Streep; although the men are no longer in the room, they're still swirling around her through the phone line as she's making the crucial decision. The framings (Streep in relation to the men [on the verges], Hanks in relation to his employees [the feet on the desk shots], the use of deep focus photography with constant movement and activity in the background. Stuff like this is like candy to a film lover's heart!

 

Williams' music is beautifully spotted. Relatively sparse, but always on target. Loved the electronic murmurs in the beginning (shades of MUNICH) or the riveting rhytmical figures for crucial moments or the 'newspaper machinery'.

 

For me, both film and score is in a whole other LEAGUE than THE LAST JEDI, even though I liked that movie quite a bit, and the score was at the very least a runner-up to my Top 10.

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I've actually got to say my vote is split on this one. I am enjoying TLJ a lot more than The Post. But I think The Post should have been nominated for the Oscar (though I say this having only heard the album; not seen the film). It covers a lot of ground in a short time, and I think the more rhythmic, textural material is really interesting. I love those jagged brass figures in "The Presses Roll" a lot, and also that lovely, melancholy tune in the same track that gets carried by the woodwinds. The electronic stuff is really tastefully applied. As much as I like those elements, I kind of wish the whole score had been in the vein of "The Oak Room" and "Two Martini Lunch," in a more reflective, jazz-tinged mode. Plus it's really beautiful piano/combo writing that seems to just scratch the surface of something richer. I think Williams has a kind of dark, forlorn side that he doesn't indulge often, but when he does it's usually very striking. But from my understanding that's not the kind of film Spielberg made. I'm honestly surprised TLJ got him the nomination; I thought it would be a double nomination or just The Post.

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12 hours ago, Josh500 said:

This also makes me wonder why the hell Jurassic Park wasn't nominated along with Schindler's List. But we all know the Academy acts in its own mysterious ways.

I think they wanted to prevent that he won't get an Oscar at all, because half of the Williams supporters would have chosen JP and the other half SL. The Oscar for Schindler's Lust was basically obligatory.

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I think, to the eternal bafflement of JWFan, that hardly anyone found JP, a commercial movie with few aspirations aside technical ones, much to write home about in 1993, boffo box office aside. Just look at the nominees in these years.

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I always found it funny how people claimed that JP is mostly based on special effects and that's it, although it excels at using them sparsely. Spielberg could not have been less pretentious as the only director who had such possibilities at that time. JP ages well because of its great direction and not because of its great CGI.

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46 minutes ago, publicist said:

I think, to the eternal bafflement of JWFan, that hardly anyone found JP, a commercial movie with few aspirations aside technical ones, much to write home about in 1993, boffo box office aside. Just look at the nominees in these years.

 

I bet you think that about Jaws too. And E.T. and Close Encounters etc. :D

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1 hour ago, Josh500 said:

I bet you think that about Jaws too. And E.T. and Close Encounters etc. :D

 

Those scores and movies were nominated in important categories. Was JP? 

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21 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

Those scores and movies were nominated in important categories. Was JP? 

 

So you're judging the quality of movies based on how many nominations they got? Seriously? 

 

Anyway, that was my question. Jurassic Park boasts a spectacularly outstanding score. It should have received an Oscar nomination.... Unless Williams, Spielberg, and Universal decided tegether not to submit it for consideration at all.

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Gee, yes Josh. I'm more stupid than you, y'know...

 

Anyway, JP was typical Spielberg bombast that didn't need to be nominated for music. But as two nominees were rather weak, it could have in these spots. As for scores that SHOULD have been nominated, well, that's an entirely different matter.

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The Post is a good score, but it is still median when compared to other Williams works. Even Desplat, Doyle or Newman could achieve a similar result to what he presented.

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18 minutes ago, James said:

The Post is a good score, but it is still median when compared to other Williams works. Even Desplat, Doyle or Newman could achieve a similar result to what he presented.

 

They wish!

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8 hours ago, James said:

The Post is a good score, but it is still median when compared to other Williams works. Even Desplat, Doyle or Newman could achieve a similar result to what he presented.

 

I highly doubt that. The Post is a very specific score applied with surgical precision to enhance the impact of key scenes in the film. And these scenes are scored very much with Williams' dramatic sensibility. Sure others could achieve the same instrumentation or musical constructs which admittedly are not the most complex of JW's career but they wouldn't be able to replicate JW's understanding of drama and narrative momentum and tension and pacing which which is more about the application of music rather than the composition of it. That is entirely Williams doing and the simpler nature of music doesn't mean that lesser composers could have achieved the same impact.

 

Honestly the default move would be to score this with an Oscar bait pretty period piece chamber score. Williams scored it as a desperate and urgent conspiracy thriller greatly increasing the impact his score has on the film.

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22 hours ago, Thor said:

 

They wish!

I disagree. About Doyle at least.

 

14 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

Williams scored it as a desperate and urgent conspiracy thriller greatly increasing the impact his score has on the film.

You know,  we never give credit to the directors too.

If Spielberg told him to score it like a desperate and urgent conspiracy thriller, then he did it that way.

OF course each one of them has his opinions, they may agree, they may disagree, they may meet somewhere in the middle.

We don't know to what extent this feeling of the score is 100% Williams or Spielberg too.

 

Now, it's anothe thing if eg. Desplat's or Doyle's music notion of a desperate and urgent conspiracy thriller, differs from that of WIlliams.

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1 hour ago, filmmusic said:

You know,  we never give credit to the directors too.

If Spielberg told him to score it like a desperate and urgent conspiracy thriller, then he did it that way.

OF course each one of them has his opinions, they may agree, they may disagree, they may meet somewhere in the middle.

We don't know to what extent this feeling of the score is 100% Williams or Spielberg too.

 

JW is known to comply to the director's wishes.

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Close, but I'll give it to The Last Jedi, just because I enjoyed it more on its own. The last few cues of The Post were freaking fantastic though, and how the score was used in the film, just proves why Williams is a master of drama. 

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