A look at the seldom-screened John Frankenheimer film (with a Poltergeist-esque Goldsmith score) and more of the latest releases in this week's column:

http://andyfilm.com/2016/01/28/2-2-16-m ... rent-kind/

I started watching The Challenge online a few years ago -- someone had uploaded it so some website. Anyway, I only got about 20 min. into it and planned to finish it later, but I lost the web address (and it's probably a dead link by now anyway). Glad I can watch it "for real" at last!

Interesting about Bridge of Spies. Given its tepid box office revenues I assumed it was another slow, talky political "thriller" (bereft of thrills). Will have to check it out!

Yeah I actually liked it Paul. Good stuff as far as "modern Steven" goes

AndyDursin wrote:Yeah I actually liked it Paul. Good stuff as far as "modern Steven" goes

Just as long as it doesn't feature Daniel Day-Lewis launching into long, boring stories about his Uncle Chumley!

Paul MacLean wrote:

AndyDursin wrote:Yeah I actually liked it Paul. Good stuff as far as "modern Steven" goes

Just as long as it doesn't feature Daniel Day-Lewis launching into long, boring stories about his Uncle Chumley!

Would It Help?

Paul MacLean wrote:

AndyDursin wrote:Yeah I actually liked it Paul. Good stuff as far as "modern Steven" goes

Just as long as it doesn't feature Daniel Day-Lewis launching into long, boring stories about his Uncle Chumley!

Thank goodness, no!

This one really satisfied me and kept me glued from start to end. I can't recall the last time I've enjoyed a Spielberg film so much...probably AMISTAD come to think of it.

And not only that, but Thomas Newman wrote a fine score. I hate to think about life without Williams for Spielberg but this is the "good" Thomas Newman -- the SHAWSHANK composer -- and it's infinitely preferable to the likes of Zimmer or Desplat.

It's also hard to believe he's the same composer of SPECTRE when you hear this score. They sound like they've been written by two entirely different composers.

Mark Rylance is also tremendous -- though I think the fact he's only on-screen for roughly half (or slightly less) of the film could possibly hurt his Oscar chances.

AndyDursin wrote:A look at the seldom-screened John Frankenheimer film (with a Poltergeist-esque Goldsmith score)

Gave this a spin this morning, and it's pretty entertaining stuff, as far as unpretentious B-movie programmers go. Good fight choreography (by "Steve" Seagal!), well-performed and with a kick-ass Jerry Goldsmith score brimming with his usual "Orientalisms" and terrific action cues (although some of those action cues are obviously different takes than the ones selected for the soundtrack CD, which I've owned and enjoyed for the last fifteen years or so). It's no The Yakuza, but it's highly enjoyable for what it is, and I'm glad to have finally experienced Goldsmith's music in the proper context.

Movies like this are proof positive how low the art of film scoring has fallen in the 35 years since this was released...these days, a score like The Challenge would literally be the best score of the ENTIRE YEAR, whereas for Goldsmith, it was just one of six movies he did in 1982, a silly martial arts potboiler that he nevertheless applied his usual craft and thoughtfulness to and elevated enormously. Nowadays, even the most lavish and expensive studio blockbusters sound like the "composer" fell asleep at his sequencer and called it a day. Where's the melody, the interesting instrumental techniques?