not helped by a sleepy, droning electronic score by Jerry Goldsmith, one of his most boring "80's drum machine" efforts
Here I agree with you -- it's a dreary score and a dull one, and I'd also rank it at the bottom of his all-synth efforts. Actually it's one of my least favorite Goldsmith scores altogether.
That's why Jerry's run from 1985 through '89 is my least-favorite period of his. His "keyboard lullaby" early 90's period isn't any great shakes either, but I'd rather listen to something like Medicine Man or Dennis The Menace than Criminal Law or Extreme Prejudice.
So you would rather listen to DENNIS THE MENACE just because it's "all orchestral" over a legitimate classic like HOOSIERS? Can't argue taste, but...sheesh.
Monterey Jack wrote:I'm not a fan of any all-electronic scoring from the 80's, save for the occasionally effective passage from Tangerine Dream. It was fine as backing for the pop music of the decade, but as dramatic underscoring, it was the "Team Zimmer" music of its day...any idiot can create "tension" by holding down a note on a keyboard for several minutes.
Electronic music is certainly easier to create than orchestral (though don't tell First Breath I said that!), hence the number of talentless bores who specialize in droning synth scores. But not all electronic music consists of drones, and synths can be used to create any type of music. Wendy Carlos dislikes repetitive/droning music, and her electronic compositions have always contained interesting harmony, counterpoint and strong melodic development. John Williams' music for the final scene of Witches of Eastwick is all synthesized, and it is certainly melodic and well-crafted, and doesn't drone.
As far as 80s electronic scores, I personally find Tangerine Dream's music pretty weak (especially their risible score for The Keep, which actually uses the theme from The Snowman over the final scene!). But I'd say Vangelis' Blade Runner is one of the best scores, not just of the 80s, but of all time. Vangelis' scores for Missing and The Bounty were also outstanding.
Tangerine Dream's scores for SORCERER and THIEF were incredible, and with Vangelis' work on CHARIOTS OF FIRE and BLADE RUNNER the best examples of synth use until so many composers pretty much ran that style into the ground through repetition and sheer laziness (see Team Zimmer).
Jedbu wrote:Tangerine Dream's scores for SORCERER and THIEF were incredible, and with Vangelis' work on CHARIOTS OF FIRE and BLADE RUNNER the best examples of synth use until so many composers pretty much ran that style into the ground through repetition and sheer laziness (see Team Zimmer).
Synth scores don't come much better than Blade Runner, and I have always been a defender of Chariots of Fire -- a score which didn't really "feel" electronic (or out of place in the period setting). Moreover, it really pumped energy into a film that might have come off like a stodgy "Masterpiece Theatre" segment were it scored more traditionally.
There are times when you a movie is shooting blanks right from the start, and “The Judge,” alas, is one of those instances.
A pet project for star Robert Downey, Jr., “The Judge” would like to be a heart-tugging family drama about a hotshot defense attorney (guess who) who returns to his Indiana hometown after the death of his mother. Naturally, things are fragmented back home, primarily due to Downey’s fractured relationship with his dad – a tough old judge (Robert Duvall) who’s waging a health battle of his own. There’s also Downey’s challenged younger brother (Jeremy Strong), gruff older sibling (Vincent D’onofrio), and then a court case that brings – of course – father and son together at last.
Every actor in “The Judge” tries their best, and one can sense what Downey might have seen in the material, at least in an outline form. The problem is the feeble, pedestrian screenplay credited to Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque, which never hits a truthful note and is contrived at every turn. Nothing feels real in “The Judge” – not the phony midwestern setting (the film was actually shot in Massachusetts!), the predictable squabbles Downey has with his ex-wife, his relationship with the girl (Vera Fermiga) he left behind 20 years before, and especially not the drawn-out ending. Bloated to a 2.5-hour running time, it’s no surprise “The Judge” failed to muster much of an audience last fall, even among adults Downey was hoping to court (no pun intended) with the picture.
Terry Gilliam's new film often feels like an homage to 80s science fiction dystopian pictures, with hints of Blade Runner, Max Headroom, and (most obviously) Gilliam's own Brazil. This film likewise is set in a dystopian world similar to Brazil (though one less surreal, and set in our actual future), features lots of Gilliam-esque camera angles and wide lenses, and tells the story of a minor "cog in the machine" (Christoph Waltz) who wants to be something more. Waltz plays a kind of programmer / hacker whose request to work at home is granted, provided he works on solving the thus far insurmountable problem of the "Zero Theorem" (which is hard to articulate and would take too much time to explain here -- if it can be explained at all!). Complicating things are a Max Headroom-like CGI therapist (Tilda Swinton) who keeps interrupting Waltz's progress, and a voluptuous blonde (Mélanie Thierry) whom Waltz gradually falls in love with.
Gilliam has never been much for happy endings -- which is not an invalid perspective -- but in the case of this film, the script cruelly misleads the viewer, by constantly encouraging us to expect Waltz will solve the problem, break free from his dull, routine life and live happily ever after with the girl he loves.
Instead he spurns the girl's invitation to elope (prompting her to walk out of his life for good), decides to stay with his job and and solve the problem. Unfortunately the evil corporate CEO (Matt Damon) reveals to him the problem is unsolvable, and just a ruse created by the evil corporation to keep control of people, by giving them hope or something (the explanation is rather convoluted). And (not unlike in Brazil), Waltz's character ultimately rejects the real world, and finds happiness by retreating into a false virtual reality fantasy -- which makes for an abrupt, unresolved, and utter lead ballon of an ending.
Brazil had its share of narrative problems, but it was at least visually inventive in its "alternate universe" or surreal mirror of our own world. But that kind of thing has been done in so many movies since then, that there is nothing especially fresh or unique about The Zero Theorem. Beyond that, the story and characters just aren't interesting enough to sustain the viewers interest (even David Thewlis' character is basically the same as Michael Palin's in Brazil), while the dialog is loaded with double talk, and the whole film causes one to simply "zone out" after a while.
-It's been about five or six years minimum since I saw this. Boy, does this film just get worse and worse all the time. I've watched so many Universal TV shows of the 70s since then that when I see familiar backlots from those many shows figuring prominently here it just really makes the overall production look cheap compared to "Towering Inferno" (or for that matter to the "Airport" series which despite also being Universal, at least didn't give us the backlot in those films!). Plus, it has a totally dislikable group of lead characters all-around. Heston's character is really not all that better than Gardner's ultimately, and Bujold (who has zero appeal IMO) comes off as haughty and also more than a bit scheming (we find she pretends to be friends with Monica Lewis just so she could size up Heston for seduction). George Kennedy, who was so great as Patroni in all the Airport movies is totally one-note, one-dimensional, the Lloyd Gough suplot/character serves no purpose (so he won't build his buildings to earthquake specs. Big deal, a lot of good that means when the earthquake hits today!) and I didn't need to see Marjoe Gortner's psychopath. On top of that, director Robson overdoes the unfunny Walter Matthau cameo by having a constant lingering and repetitive cutback to him during the big quake moment totally ruining the mood of the scene. Is the audience supposed to laugh during the money sequence of the film when they should be on-edge? Just bad stuff all around.
-What this new viewing did was reveal for me how the best acting/story scenes in the film are the ones of the seismologists and the workers at the dam. If the script had focused here on the people trying to forecast the quake and then prevent catastrophe afterwards we would have had a far more interesting movie. Instead what we got was a dopey script all around about uninteresting characters more suited to some made for TV potboiler (and I have seen far better plots told in TV movies of this era). "Towering Inferno" certainly was not without its share of soap opera style characters/subplots but the actors in that film gave us likable characters (except for the obvious baddie in Richard Chamberlain) and better performances and also showcased the action better and with better F/X.
-It's been about five or six years minimum since I saw this. Boy, does this film just get worse and worse all the time.
Eric, you need to watch it in "Sensurround" to get the full effect!
Agreed, this is one of the great turkeys of the 70s, an obvious attempt to cash-in on the success of Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno -- even recruiting John Williams for the score (which, despite some tuneful moments, will not go down as one of his more stellar moments).
Earthquake is a cornucopia of bad moments, some funny -- like the "bent mirror" trick used to (unsuccessfully) depict a collapsing building -- and some genuinely disturbing -- like pretty much every scene with Marjo Gortner. Casting's a bit odd too -- weren't Ava Gardner and Lorne Greene about the same age in real life? Andy and I rented it in college (letterboxed laserdisc!) looking for some unintentional laughs, but other than Matthau and Kennedy's performances, it was pretty slim!
Lorne was about four or five years older. Of course he'd spent many years as an improbable father of Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker too! (at least on Galactica he was finally playing father to actors who were believably his children). But even more ludicrous is that Victoria Principal's "brother" in the film is Gabe Dell (one time member of the Steve Allen variety show troupe) who was 30 years older than her!
I've read on a defunct website on the movie (recoverable through archive.org) about the deleted scenes which at least explain the context for why Heston is so pissed off at Gardner (he finds she got an abortion a year earlier and lied saying it was a miscarriage) that he now wants to shack up with Bujold. That so, at the end to show him hesitating at first "do I let her drown or not" is really idiotic and another piece of bad direction by Robson.
For me, the ultimate bad moment is when the people in the elevator die and we get this horrible looking "freeze-frame" with red paint splattered on it (looks even worse on the big screen-saw this 1st run in Cleveland in December of 1974 at the Fox Cedar Center where my dad was outraged at paying $3.50/ticket but when I explained that the extra 50 cents was for the Sensurround equipment and then we heard it being used while standing in the lobby waiting to go in, he was intrigued).
I always felt that the finale with Heston looking up at Bujold and then going to save Gardner and ending up dying was actually him realizing that neither choice was that great and just killing himself so he would not have to choose between them (I know that is what I would do-neither woman was appealing whatsoever and Heston was pretty much playing a meathead, IMHO.
Oh yes, that's the cheesiest effect in the history of allegedly big budget disaster movies. All to show one disposable character how much of a bastard he is that he's gotten his comeuppance (but never mind his total irrelevance to the plot or the fact that a lot of other people die in the process. That's not the same as Richard Chamberlain's demise in Towering Inferno).
And Williams' score other than the Main and End Titles is indeed nothing special. That's why I don't think anyone has ever clamored for a new CD of it (if you have the original Varese CD you've basically got it all).
Williams' EARTHQUAKE score is one of his weakest IMO. It's incredibly dated in its approach and really does not compare well with the bulk of his filmography. Even amongst his other disaster outings it's vastly inferior to Poseidon and TI.
And the movie...YUCK. lol. I had nearly forgotten we watched it Paul -- I just remember the bit with Roundtree...wasn't he on a motorcycle? I bought the Blu-Ray but haven't watched it.
As I recall, EARTHQUAKE was in post long enough to enable Heston to make AIRPORT 1975 after he finished that but it still was released beforehand, so he had two disaster turkeys in one year!
Yeah, Heston after wrapping "Earthquake" jumped on a plane and then filmed his first scene for "Airport 1975" the next day at Dulles Airport. Ironically when I revisited that film a few years ago it held up better than I'd previously remembered (though Airport '77 in its longer TV cut is the best of the Airport sequels. We will say nothing about "The Concorde"!)
Roundtree totally disappears halfway through the film then we catch a brief glimpse of him looking nervously at the approaching flood and we don't get to see what happened to him!
If you can believe it, Universal actually commissioned a script for a sequel to take place in San Francisco and featuring Kennedy and Principal. Thank goodness we were spared that! (if only a similar fate befell "Beyond The Poseidon Adventure")
(at least on Galactica he was finally playing father to actors who were believably his children). But even more ludicrous is that Victoria Principal's "brother" in the film is Gabe Dell (one time member of the Steve Allen variety show troupe) who was 30 years older than her!