TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

If you got to know me a little, you would find out that I'm one of the few regular people that is on Twitter.

One thing that I like about Twitter is that you can get sent all kinds of interesting and funny and amazing pics, so I'm going to be posting those pics that I find interesting or funny or amazing.

So

without futher ado here is the

TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

 

A DREAM OF WINTER

 

 

YOU TUBE FILM MUSIC CUE OF THE DAY

This feature on my blog showcases one of my great loves and personal hobbies:

FILM MUSIC.

I am a passionate fan of film music and my collection of film music is vast but I want to combine that with a visual aspect (which film music should be aligned too) so I'm going to use You Tube to accomplish this goal.

I will search through You Tube and find videos that feature film music and embed those videos on this blog.

So,

without further ado, here is the

YOU TUBE FILM MUSIC CUE OF THE DAY

As I said in an earlier post about Star Trek: The Motion Picture having a lot to be desired as a movie, the score was Jerry Goldsmith's crowning achievement of the 1970's.  There are parts of this movie that consist of nothing but the characters starring at a viewer screen in wonderment and to the music of Jerry Goldsmith.

That said, the best moment of the film is when Kirk and Scotty are doing a flyby of the starship Enterprise in spacedock (and keep in mind that this is the first time anyone had seen the Enterprise on the big screen) and it consists of sweeping camera shots of the ship and Jerry Goldsmith's transcendent music.  It is a magical movie moment and I present it here from YouTube for your enjoyment.

TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

If you got to know me a little, you would find out that I'm one of the few regular people that is on Twitter.

One thing that I like about Twitter is that you can get sent all kinds of interesting and funny and amazing pics, so I'm going to be posting those pics that I find interesting or funny or amazing.

So

without futher ado here is the

TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

 

In keeping with my post about Jerry Goldsmith and his great score for Star Trek in the 1970's.

 

TO BOLDLY GO...

 

 

FILM MUSIC MUSINGS

 

Here is the  feature on this blog that is akin to the You Tube Film Music Cue of the Day, in that it deals, once again, with one of the great passions of my life:  FILM MUSIC.

I have a huge document called My Top Scores List in which I have picked the Top 5 Film Scores for each year since 1980 along with some commentary on my choices.

You can imagine that by now the list is fairly long and contains a lot of info that I think is blog-worthy so I'm going to start publishing excerpts from the list right here on my blog.

So,

without further ado

Here is Film Music Musings

JERRY GOLDSMITH IN THE 70's

 

Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams dominated the decade of the 1970's (especially the latter half) producing classic scores that were some of the best of the decade and of all time. Williams won two Academy Awards in the 1970's (Jaws in 1975 and Star Wars in 1977) and Goldsmith won his one and only Oscar for The Omen in 1976. Although it maybe true that Goldsmith was always overshadowed by Williams, it still does not detract from the amazing scores that he produced in the 70's and more praise should have be heaped upon him for these scores than he ultimately received.

As a prelude to his output of the 70's, Goldsmith composed Planet of the Apes in 1968 utilizing a terse, ultra-modern atonal sound that was perfect for the topsy-turvy future world where apes dominated the planet. The score was nominated for an Academy Award but didn't win facing stiff competition from Nino Rota's score for Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet and the eventual winner of the Oscar that year, John Barry's The Lion in Winter.

In 1970 Goldsmith gave us Patton. It is easily one of the best scores of the 70's (I put it at #7 on my Top Ten Scores List of the 70's) and it should have won the Academy Award as the movie was highly praised taking home Best Picture honors that year. However, another picture that year which was highly praised and a runaway hit was Love Story (it was the highest grossing movie of the year for 1970) with a score by Francis Lai which featured a beautiful main title theme which is still performed today.

In 1973 and 1974 Goldsmith produced Papillon and Chinatown respectively. Each was a sparse affair with unique instrumentation but seemed a bit lacking as the tendency toward larger scores was beginning to pick up steam especially for such disaster films as Williams' The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno.

In 1975 Goldsmith composed one of his biggest scores for The Wind and the Lion which featured rousing adventure music and big instrumental forces. It was nominated for an Academy Award but was up against a little score called Jaws by John Williams.

In 1976 Goldsmith finally broke through the glass ceiling winning the Academy Award for The Omen but it was not a sure thing and some viewed it as an upset as it was up against Bernard Herrmann's Taxi Driver score which was highly acclaimed.

In 1977 John Williams dominated the scoring world once again with Star Wars and everyone else should have just stayed at home as it scooped up every major award in sight. To add insult to injury, Williams also produced Close Encounter of the Third Kind in '77 which is also a classic.

In 1978 the Academy went a little nuts and gave the Oscar to Giorgio Moroder for his score to The Midnight Express, but the Award should have gone to Williams' Superman of that year as it was clearly the best score of the year and one of the most iconic scores of all time. Goldsmith composed The Boys of Brazil in 1978 which was nominated but didn't win and has been mostly forgotten except for extreme fans of Goldsmith's work.

Then came 1979 and what a year for Goldsmith!! The best of the decade for him as he produced two scores that were of the best of the decade. The first was the score for Ridley Scott's Alien which captured perfectly the feeling of this haunted house movie in space. It also utilized a lot of atonal writing that hearkened back to Goldsmith's Planet of the Apes score (I placed this score at #10 on my Top Ten Scores List of the 70's).

But then came the grand finale of the decade in Goldsmith's score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Now while the movie left a lot to be desired, the score was a magnificent achievement and should have been a shoe-in for the Academy Award (I have it at #4 on my Top Ten Scores List of the 70's, see my list of the Top Ten here: http://mattstarr28.blogspot.com/2013/08/film-music-musings-i-want-to-start-new.html

but for some reason the Academy blinked and gave the Oscar to George DeLerue's A Little Romance (a score that has been completely forgotten). Whoops, Wrong Answer on that One!!!

Truly, Goldsmith is one of the greatest film composers ever and it is a shame that he wasn't more recognized for his accomplishments in his lifetime and particularly in the 1970's.

FILM MUSIC MUSINGS

 

Here is the  feature on this blog that is akin to the You Tube Film Music Cue of the Day, in that it deals, once again, with one of the great passions of my life:  FILM MUSIC.

I have a huge document called My Top Scores List in which I have picked the Top 5 Film Scores for each year since 1980 along with some commentary on my choices.

You can imagine that by now the list is fairly long and contains a lot of info that I think is blog-worthy so I'm going to start publishing excerpts from the list right here on my blog.

So,

without further ado

Here is Film Music Musings

So I just did a post on Empire magazine's 301 Greatest Movies of All Time and in the Top 10 were 4 movies that featured music by John Williams (Raiders of the Lost Ark #9, Jaws #8, Star Wars #6, and The Empire Strikes Back at #1).  The time period of the late 70s and early 80s was remarkable for John Williams as he went on an unprecedented roll of film score accolades in terms of Academy Awards and Grammy Awards.  So, for this post of Film Music Musings, I would like to chronicle those years and showcase Williams' amazing run of awards.

As a prelude of things to come, in 1975, John Williams, of course, composed the music for Steven Spielberg's Jaws which won the trifecta of scoring awards winning the Golden Globe, Grammy, and Academy Award for Best Score.
It would be just the beginning.

Grammy Awards

1977

Star Wars (Best Pop Instrumental Performance) 

Main Title from Star Wars (Best Instrumental Composition)
Star Wars (Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture)  

1978

Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Best Instrumental Composition) 

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture) 

1979

Main Title Theme from Superman (Best Instrumental Composition)  
Superman (Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture) 

1980

The Empire Strikes Back (Best Instrumental Composition)
The Empire Strikes Back (Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture) 

1981

Raiders of the Lost Ark (Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture)
1982

"Flying" (Theme from E.T.) (Best Instrumental Composition)
E.T. (Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture)
"Flying" (Theme from E.T.) (Best Arrangement on an Instrumental Recording) 

Every one of these scores was nominated for an Academy Award as well as Return of the Jedi in 1983 and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984 with Star Wars and E.T. winning in 1977 and 1982 respectively (both these scores also won the Golden Globe in their respective years duplicating the trifecta another two times for Williams during this time period).

Academy Award Nominations and Wins
1975 - Jaws  - Winner
1977 - Star Wars - Winner
          Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1979 - Superman
1980 - The Empire Strikes Back
1981 - Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982 - E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - Winner
1983 - Return of the Jedi
1984 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Amazingly, as seen below, Star Wars was also nominated for Album of the Year in 1977, a feat that is almost unheard of today.

Grammy Nominations

1. Star Wars (1977) (Album of the Year)
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1978) (Best Pop Instrumental Performance)
3. Theme from Superman (Main Title) (1979) (Best Pop Instrumental Performance)
4. Yoda's Theme from The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (Best Pop Instrumental Performance)
5. Yoda's Theme from The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (Best Instrumental Composition)
6. Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (Best Instrumental Composition)
7. E.T. (1982) (Best Pop Instrumental Performance)
8. Adventure on Earth from E.T. (1982) (Best Instrumental Composition)
9. Return of the Jedi (1983) (Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture)
     

TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

If you got to know me a little, you would find out that I'm one of the few regular people that is on Twitter.

One thing that I like about Twitter is that you can get sent all kinds of interesting and funny and amazing pics, so I'm going to be posting those pics that I find interesting or funny or amazing.

So

without futher ado here is the

TWITTER PIC OF THE DAY

In keeping with my discussion of The Empire Strikes Back and love of all things Star Wars

IRON VADER

 I think the cape would complete this outfit.  Imagine Iron Vader flying around like Superman with that black cape.

EMPIRE MAGAZINE STRIKES BACK!!!

 

 

OK, here goes nothing...

So, Empire magazine just put out their July, 2014 issue featuring a list of the 301 Greatest Movies of All Time.  301 movies!!!

Now this list was compiled of a reader's poll so it basically could be viewed as the 301 Most Popular Movies of All Time but that's not the name that the editors of this British mag give it.  They call it the 301 Greatest Movies of All Time.

And I must say that it is quite a list.

First of all, it is impressive that the list contains 301 movies.  When Entertainment Weekly did their movie list last year they only did the Top 100.  This is over 300 movies.  

Now, with that many movies, there are bound to be some stinkers in there just based on the sheer volume of movies needed to fill out the list and that is certainly true but you might also expect that all the great classics are included (as they are included on every list) and that is also true but the rankings that these movies are given is downright mysterious and deserves some comment (aka ranting).

For a few days, I've wondered how to approach this list and last night I was looking it over and I suddenly found it so here goes...

You start the list off and there are a few non-descript movies that could be interchangeable but then you reach #295 and what is there?  WEST SIDE STORY!!!

Now wait just a minute.  Hold the phone.  "Now cool it, Action!"

West Side Story is one of the greatest movies of all time and an easy argument could be made that it is the greatest musical film of all time.  It's in my Top 25 (please see my post on this subject because I may be referring to it often: http://mattstarr28.blogspot.com/2013/08/top-25-movies-of-all-time-recently_13.html )

And Empire has it at 295??!!!??

Immediately this list has gone off the rails.

Especially considering that as the list goes on they have Iron Man 3 at #242 which IMO is not only one of the worst comic book movies of all time but one of the worst movies I've seen in the last decade or so.

Into the top 200 are films like Ben-Hur (barely making it at #200??!!!??), The Sound of Music (#194), The Great Escape (#181), Amadeus (#137), The Exorcist (#136), and The Wizard of Oz (#123). All of these are either in my Top 25 or would definitely make a Top 50 list if I made one, but here they don't even make the Top 100.

And speaking of the Top 100 of Empire's list, it begins with, at #100 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  Ok, maybe there's hope...

Nope.

The very next movie is...  get ready...

The Blues Brothers.

WHAT?

Blues Brothers?  Really?

Well, lets keep going because Singing in the Rain is at #96 and Rocky is at #95 but then at #92 is...

Whitenail and I.

WHAT?  I've never even heard of that movie. And it's better than Singing in the Rain?

The Top 100 quickly starts to devolve into a morass of bad movies featuring directors such as Scorsese, Tarantino, and Kubrick.  Ugh!!!

However, Hitchcock also begins to appear especially with Psycho at #70 (another one of my Top 25).

Titanic sinks in at #62 and we are heading for the Top 50 when lo and behold at #52 is...

GONE WITH THE WIND!!!

WWWHHHHAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT??????????????

Gone With the Wind is, arguably, THE GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME!!!!!

See my post on this:  http://mattstarr28.blogspot.com/2013/08/frankly-my-dear-youre-greatest-movie.html

And it's at #52 on this list?  

There is something seriously wrong here.

OK, take a breath and let's keep going.

At #45 is Skyfall.  But wait a minute, you're telling me Skyfall is the best James Bond movie of all time with this ranking.  What about Goldfinger?  Oh wait, Goldfinger is at #221.  

See my post specifically on Skyfall: http://mattstarr28.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-skyfall-and-rise-of-james-bond-so-i.html 

and on the best James Bond movies: http://mattstarr28.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-best-bond-james-bond-other-day.html

Getting into the Top 35, we find Forrest Gump at #34 and Citizen Kane at #33 (Thank God, one movie poll that doesn't put this over-rated film at #1 - see my post on this: http://mattstarr28.blogspot.com/2013/07/i-just-kane-stand-it-recently.html )

And then Lawrence of Arabia at #31 (I have Lawrence at #4 in my Top 25) and then Casablanca at #26 (how is this movie not even in the Top 25).

At #22 is the worst movie ever made IMO - 2001: A Space Tragedy er... Odyssey.  Yuck!!

And heading into the Top 20 and bookended by Alien at #21 and Aliens at #19 is Apocalypse Now at #20.  Now I like Apocalypse Now but that could be because I only recently saw it all the way through for the first time and I gotta say it is a disturbingly brilliant film.

We start to get some blockbusters from the past 35 years or so from here including Jurassic Park at #18, Back to the Future at #17 and Avengers at #16.  Solid enjoyable films, but Top 20?  No.

We get the worst of the Lord of the Rings movies, Return of the King at #12 and after a hiccup of Blade Runner at #11 we go now to the Top 10.

At #10 is Inception, the first of two Christopher Nolan movies in the Top 10 (that statement right there should be enough for you to consign this list to the trash heap of time) but more on that in a moment.

We get two Spielberg classics (and in my Top 25) in Raiders of the Lost Ark at #9 and Jaws at #8 (both with John Williams scores, I might add).

Then Fellowship of the Ring at #7 which is a movie that for a long time I really admired but then I figured out that it wasn't a complete movie but more on that in a moment.

Then comes my favorite movie of all time (it may not be the best movie of all time, that honor goes to Gone With the Wind, but its my favorite nonetheless) - Star Wars at #6 (you're trying to tell me that there are five movies better than Star Wars - not in this universe).

Next comes a Tarantino movie that everyone seems to love but I can't stand in Bad er... Pulp Fiction at #5.  Oi vey!!

Then comes a movie whose appeal I also don't get and that is The Shawshank Redemption at #4.  It's not a bad film.  It's actually a good film. But it's not a great film.  (And BTW, where is Glory on this list?  That is a far superior Morgan Freeman film with an iconic performance by Denzel Washington - "COME ONNN!!!!")

#3 - The Dark Knight

I just don't get it.  I hated the Christopher Nolan Batman movies (I didn't even see Dark Knight Rises at #72 on this list).  Nolan seems to be the golden boy of the moment (with two films in the Top 10 along with Spielberg) but he just doesn't impress me too much (I was impressed with the practical special effects in Inception because I'm not a huge fan of CGI and to me CGI hasn't improved and has never been surpassed since Jurassic Park). 

This list has, once again, officially gone off the rails. 

But wait a minute...

An offer you can't refuse.

The Godfather is at #2.  

OK, now we're talking, maybe there is redemption.  

Let's get to #1

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

I was shocked.  I had no idea that this was coming.  And it is a mistake of the greatest proportions and reveals a deep misunderstanding of what a great film is.

Now don't get me wrong, I love The Empire Strikes Back.  It is a great sequel, scratch that - it is the greatest sequel ever.  But in and of itself, it is not a complete movie.  You can't have Empire without Star Wars.  Nothing would make sense if you had not seen Star Wars before seeing Empire (the same is also true of The Lord of the Ring movies, they are not complete independent movie entities, you have to see all of them to get the complete story).  

Imagine you were to sit someone down in front of a screen and show them Empire and they had never seen Star Wars.  They would be totally lost.  They wouldn't know any of the characters, concepts, relationships and then the ghost appears in the snow and they would be like, "What the hell am I watching?"  It's not a complete movie.  Star Wars is a complete movie.  You can watch Star Wars and never see the other sequels (or prequels) (btw Return of the Jedi is at #120 and Revenge of the Sith is at #224 on this list).  It is a complete movie-watching experience (sure Darth Vader flies off into space at the end but you don't need to know what happens to him because the good guys have won and now they get their medals - great John Williams music btw).  Empire (is it a coincidence that the #1 movie is also the name of the magazine this list is in?) is a good sequel but Star Wars is a great movie and my personal favorite.

So, what to make of this List?  Well, it's just a list and seems to skew strongly to more recent films that will not stand the test of time.  A buddy of mine maintains that no film of the 21st century can be evaluated as one of the greatest of all time because not enough time has passed.  I would agree with that assessment even though I do recognize that a few very good films have come out of this century such as The Passion of the Christ (a shattering movie experience), Phantom of the Opera (a heart wrenching movie experience), Alexander (an epic movie experience), and Aliens vs Predators (just kidding, heh-heh).

And where are some of the other best films of all time (and those in my Top 25) such as Patton, Spartacus, and Gandhi.  Great films all.  

See my aforementioned post on my Top 25: http://mattstarr28.blogspot.com/2013/08/top-25-movies-of-all-time-recently_13.html

But as I said before, to name the Top 300 films of all time is an epic undertaking (I know I couldn't do it) and inevitably it is an endeavor fraught with the perils of irrelevancy, incongruity, and intelligent decisions and I just couldn't let this one go until I had said my peace.

OK, end of rant.