AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:09 am"Flying Dreams" is also a pretty song and the moment when Mrs. Brisby levitates the box out of the muck lead Theo to spontaneously applaud -- that was the best moment!

Glad Theo liked NIMH, which as I've said before is my favorite movie. Goldsmith's scoring for your cited scene is one of the most beautiful things he's ever written.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:09 am THE NEVERENDING STORY
Watched the short cut. Visually dazzling and also very strange. Even after all these years I'm still unsure what to make of it. Some brilliant moments, but disconnected and odd at the same time. Theo loved the flying dragon (unsurprisingly), was a little scared in other moments.

My frustration with The NeverEnding Story is that the she shorter international cut flows better than the slower German cut (which doesn't really contain any footage that adds to the experience -- and the "cloud" title sequence of the international cut is nicer than the dull black screen of the German). However, only the German version contains Klaus Doldinger's sore intact. I hate Giorgio Moroder's replacement cues. I suppose I could understand the "logic" of the studio wanting a more pop-oriented soundtrack (shades of Legend) -- but why replace only portions of Klaus Doldinger's score? And from an artistic perspective, why replace it at all? Doldinger's music for flight to the the Ivory Tower is heavenly and lyrical; Moroder's is mundane underwhelming.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
I don't know why it surprises me how perfect this movie is, every time I go to watch it. There isn't a moment that's out of place or a scene that doesn't work -- Theo was a little scared by the intensity (I was the same 1st grade age when my parents took me to see it), but when I went to resume the movie's 2nd hour (we broke it into two parts), he wanted me to replay the truck chase sequence because he thought it was so cool.

I first saw Raiders a week before it officially opened -- there was a one night "sneak preview" at our local mall. Other than the time period and that it starred Harrrison Ford and had something to do with the Ark of the Covenant, nobody had any idea what to expect. Though the fact it was Lucas collaborating with Spielberg certainly whetted appetites.

But I can't you tell how awesome it was to see that movie for thirst time with no preconceived notions. All those great, memorable scenes -- the bar fight, the moment when Indy discovers Marion is alive (I was so caught-up in the film I thought she was really dead!), the "coat hanger" gag, the snake slithering out of the skull's mouth (!), the truck chase, etc., etc. Raiders may well have more great moments than any movie ever made. And I'd also say that, in tone, Raiders was really more a continuation of the spirit of the first Star Wars movie than Empire even was.

The climax when they pry open the Ark -- I don't think anyone was expecting that (I certainly wasn't). In fact I thought when Indy and Marion boarded the ship, that was the end of the movie! Indeed, you could have ended it there, and Raiders would still have been a terrific film.

We finally got through an episode of THE INCREDIBLE HULK!

I started at the beginning with the first 'regular' episode -- the ROCKY rip-off where Martin Kove does his best Stallone imitation. Theo was previously a bit freaked out by the Hulk's transformation when I showed him clips in the past but this time he got into it.

Didn't remember/wasn't aware of the drug trafficking angle in this one though -- he asked what the white powder was and I had to explain it's something that makes people ill and he'd "learn about it in school in a few years." When Banner tasted it, he asked if he would die...anyways, I wasn't ready for a talk about drugs with a 1st grader just yet so I moved on fairly quickly lol

An energetic episode though. The bit where the Hulk crashes the stage was effective, the resolution to the plot (this "Rocky" is definitely not a "contender" in the ring) was satisfying, and the bit where some promoter sitting in the front row asks the Hulk if he'd be willing to join his league was quite hilarious.

Theo wants to know when the Hulk will use "his powers like in the AVENGERS" (he's seen the Lego version, so he knows the plot, even if he hasn't seen the actual movie) so I had to explain this is happening a long time before THE AVENGERS and the Hulk is out to "help people", that there aren't any "super villains" here. Also that this isn't a movie, but a TV show, where every week there's a new adventure with new characters. I'm not sure he's totally "gotten that' yet, but he was like "oooohhhhh" when I showed him the clip of "next week's episode" with David working at the zoo (I assume that one is safe for kids? I'm going to skip the "child abuse" show for now).

DENNIS THE MENACE (1993)

I had seen this only once, a few weeks after high school graduation, and now as a parent, it was pretty much how I remembered it: a well produced kiddie flick that felt like John Hughes' HOME ALONE leftovers, grafted onto the Hank Ketcham characters with some charming scenes and a nice performance from Walter Matthau. He's terrific as Mr. Wilson, with Joan Plowright supportive as his wife, and the scenes between them and Mason Gamble as Dennis are cute -- even though Gamble gives a Maculay-like "manufactured" performance that isn't in the same league.

Neither is the movie, which moves from one sight gag to another in an inartful if appropriately comic strippy-way (the characters of Dennis' parents, including Lea Thompson as Dennis' mom, are useless throwaways), which might have been OK had Hughes not been hellbent on recycling the Home Alone thieves by way of Christopher Lloyd's slimy villain Switchblade Sam. He's there just for the slapstick ending, which isn't executed with nearly the finesse that Chris Columbus brought to Home Alone, and also adds kind of a slimy component to an otherwise squeaky clean kids movie.

It's a questionable plot mechanic because it detracts from the Dennis/Mr. Wilson dynamic. That element works so well you wonder why the film keeps drifting away from it, making this a glossy studio product -- funny enough to make this a moderate hit with our 1st grader --that's also a half-baked effort from the Hughes factory, which by 1993 was dwindling by way of its producer's declining interest in making movies in the first place.

I will say Jerry Goldsmith was never that adept at "comedy" scoring, and some his works during this period are grating (I.Q., FIERCE CREATURES). This score is at least much more palatable than those -- it tries hard to underscore "the comedy", but the main theme is infectious (I'm not always sure if it's in a good or bad way) and it has a really nice emotional section at the climax. Overall it was better than I remember, which is typical of a lot of things from the '80s/early '90s that I was disappointed with once upon a time.

We watched Dennis the Menace not too long ago...I think we are in agreement. The Walter Matthau stuff is great, but Christopher Lloyd doesn't belong in a Dennis the Menace movie. Should just be the kids and Mr. Wilson. I also like the cinematography in the movie- everything looks like it was shot in a real neighborhood, in real houses- nothing screams "fake!" like so many kid's movies do these days.

The score is pretty good- I like the family/heartwarming theme, and the main theme (although a close cousin of The Great Train Robbery) is fairly memorable. One of Goldsmith's better comedy scores.

DRAGONSLAYER

I might've been jumping the gun a little on this from a parental perspective but after GODZILLA VS. KONG I figured -- hey why not, plus the kid loves dragons. The good news is -- Theo got through it and enjoyed the final part. The bad news -- I had totally forgotten just how dark, literally and figuratively, this movie is! He said he liked it, but I had forgotten about "the lottery" and there are some outright killings in this movie -- not just guys who "die in the line of fire" -- that I had to answer some questions about.

This is one of those weird instances where I like a film -- and I'll even rewatch it again at some point -- but can recognize its shortcomings. As in, for a movie that was definitely aimed at the same market as STAR WARS (hence all the kid-merchandizing this had, like the Random House "Storybook" I owned when I was Theo's age), why is this movie SO unrelentingly grim? Poor Peter MacNicol's sorcerer Obi Wan is killed right off the bat. The old man who helps him is then ruthlessly killed (really for no good reason). MacNicol can't save the King's daughter -- whom the baby dragons literally tear apart in a scene so gory it's a wonder there wasn't a PG-13 years before "Temple of Doom." The religious angle is interesting but not all that fleshed out -- the demise of pre-Palpatine Ian McDiarmid seems unnecessarily nasty -- which leads to the movie's total lack of humor being a real problem.

Then there's Alex North's score, which I found to be more perplexing this time around. This score is so dense, SO heavy -- Theo actually covered his ears at one point, not because he was scared, but because the score was so noisy! I really do appreciate the score's richness, but at the same time, I can also understand why the studio wanted it replaced. There's not enough levity, not enough of a respite in its unrelenting tone -- the one cue when MacNicol and Caitlin Clarke have a nice moment and North works in the rejected 2001 material is just lovely, but you wish there were more cues (and moments) like that. I agree with Paul, it actually reminded me at times of Leonard Rosenman's work in a few places (I wonder if the movie was temped with his Lord of the Rings), but it's very brittle, and kind of accentuates the movie's grim tone and humorlessness. Of course I would instantly take it over anything remotely written today (and in North's defense some of his music wasn't used or moved around as memory serves), but in the context of a movie from 1981, there were other composers out there at the time who could've written something that supported the movie better and didn't dwell on the heaviness.

And yet -- the movie is still thoroughly compelling. I remember ragging on MacNicol and Clarke in the past, but actually, they're both pretty good in this movie. Without American leads this film would've had no "waypoint" into the U.S. market at all, and MacNicol tries to inject some "humanity" here without the underlying material giving him a real chance to do so. Clarke, who didn't act a whole lot and passed away back in 2004, was also much better than I recall.

And the last 30 minutes -- they're just dazzling. The choreography of the "Dragon's Lair" sequence, from the creature's design and movement to the overall scale (no pun intended) of the last set-piece -- it's phenomenal, though even there, I'm not sure North's underscore for the climax worked. There's no heroic flourish to the Dragon's demise or a good deal of suspense in building that moment up from a musical standpoint. Visually and from an ILM perspective, though, it's brilliantly executed and still works gangbusters.

The location shooting is also gorgeous, though I found the cinematography (at least in this transfer) a little erratic. With a lot of low light and varied conditions, there's probably a limit to how good this might look even in 4K -- though the current HD master you can see on Vudu and Itunes (it's been $5 for purchase a whole bunch of times) is really excellent and the sound design is superb. It makes the film watchable in a quality format again, which for many years it wasn't (my first viewing of this was on VHS and I can only imagine how ugly and dingy a pan-and-scan crop job of this would've been).

Overall DRAGONSLAYER is one of those movies that isn't going to appeal to everyone -- but if you get into it, it functions well as a dark period fantasy, and the last third is great. At the same time, I recognized that this really could've benefitted from a rewrite. There are all kinds of places where this screenplay could've been lightened up with some natural humor -- and other moments that miss developing MacNicol's "quest" -- but the movie misses the mark in that regard. It's as if Matthew Robbins was mostly concerned with exposing the audience to the rain, mud, dirt and grime of its medieval setting and its unlikeable characters, with some ill-defined religious and sexual commentaries that feel a little too much like they're out of the 20th century -- at least until the dragon appears and the film kicks into another gear.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 1:26 am As in, for a movie that was definitely aimed at the same market as STAR WARS (hence all the kid-merchandizing this had, like the Random House "Storybook" I owned when I was Theo's age), why is this movie SO unrelentingly grim?

No question there are some "edgy" moments in the film. There is also the (albeit quick) shot of Caitlin Clarke skinnydipping! Ok, they had to reveal she was really a girl disguised as a boy, but it could have been depicted without nudity. On the other hand, this was the same era as The Blue Lagoon and Flash Gordon, when racy imagery was slightly less taboo!

The passing of the age of "pagan magic" to that of Christianity was an interesting angle (curiously Excalibur -- released the same year -- also touches on this theme). But it is isn't as articulately addressed as it could have been. Also, Ian McDiarmid's fanatical priest, whose cries of "This is no dragon! This is Lucifer!" would seem to be a statement that those who practice "the new religion" are ignorant and foolish.

I really do appreciate the score's richness, but at the same time, I can also understand why the studio wanted it replaced.

Interesting. I never knew that.

I think North's score is highly effective at times -- particularly the main title, and the subtle (yet powerfully haunting) cue for Ulrich's reminiscence about the past when dragons dotted the skies. But I agree, its stridence is excessive. It never strives to be lyrical -- when there was room to do so in places (the film does, after-all, take place in a "magical world").

I missed the "sense of wonder" you got in scores like The Dark Crystal, Legend and Williams' Harry Potters. It's too bad they didn't seek-out Miklos Rozsa, since they clearly wanted a "golden age" composer.

The location shooting is also gorgeous, though I found the cinematography (at least in this transfer) a little erratic. With a lot of low light and varied conditions, there's probably a limit to how good this might look even in 4K -- though the current HD master you can see on Vudu and Itunes (it's been $5 for purchase a whole bunch of times) is really excellent and the sound design is superb.

Is the VUDU transfer HD? I admit I only sampled a few minutes of the VUDU version, but it looked like the same one used for the DVD -- to me anyway.

Interestingly, Derek Vanlint only ever shot two films -- this and Alien. He was actually hired by John Boorman to shoot Excalibur, but quit after two days. Vanlint metered incorrectly when shooting Excalibur's opening battle scene and everything came-out black, which necessitated a re-shoot the next night -- which he again metered wrong and came-out black! He was so demoralized by his screw-up he departed the production, and decided to go back to shooting commercials (where he'd already been working in for years). It's a shame, I thought Vanlint was one of the best.

Overall DRAGONSLAYER is one of those movies that isn't going to appeal to everyone -- but if you get into it, it functions well as a dark period fantasy, and the last third is great.

Agreed! For all its faults, it remains an engaging experience. Great use of locations too -- many of which I've visited (and they look that amazing in real life!).

Alex North scores for the most part are incredibly dense, and I find DRAGONSLAYER to be no exception. His music can be so moving at times, and at other times I just want to turn it off. Lol...I don't remember much of the movie...I think I have only seen it once or twice (this was not a movie either of my parents would have been willing to sit through). I DO remember Siskel and Ebert reviewing the film, and I don't think either were fond of it (if I remember correctly).

Edit: my memory failed. Lol...

The movie did receive a lot of good reviews -- in spite of the disappointing box-office. I still am confounded by just how incredibly "grim" it is. Not what you might expect from the Disney/Paramount co-production this one had!

I need to relisten to the soundtrack again, because North complained as to how they treated some of his music.

Is the VUDU transfer HD? I admit I only sampled a few minutes of the VUDU version, but it looked like the same one used for the DVD -- to me anyway.

It's definitely a high-def master and has a lot more detail than the DVD. I don't know how new this master is, though, but the soundtrack is encoded as Dolby Digital+ and only new-ish masters tend to be encoded in that format.

The movie is kind of rough in appearance though overall. Certain scenes look great, some interiors look inconsistent in terms of lighting and color saturation.

The passing of the age of "pagan magic" to that of Christianity was an interesting angle (curiously Excalibur -- released the same year -- also touches on this theme). But it is isn't as articulately addressed as it could have been. Also, Ian McDiarmid's fanatical priest, whose cries of "This is no dragon! This is Lucifer!" would seem to be a statement that those who practice "the new religion" are ignorant and foolish.

That's the sentiment I got out of it. I wonder if some of it was cut, because what they were trying to say wasn't entirely clear -- there's a villager who one minute is wondering about the "holy man who just arrived" (he's talking about McDiarmid, but this isn't shown on-screen). Then, after McDiarmid is fried, the same villager has "taken up his mantle" as the new holy man. It seems as if -- like the King "slaying" the beast at the end -- the commentary is Christianity is ignorant/foolish in the same way, though Clarke is also wearing a cross near the end (I believe?) which her father asks her about before she and Galen leave the village.

Just kind of muddled.

But I agree, its stridence is excessive. It never strives to be lyrical -- when there was room to do so in places (the film does, after-all, take place in a "magical world").

That's entirely how I felt. Even if the score had been reworked in a few key places it wouldn't have been so noticeable, but ultimately -- as effective as it is -- it also highlighted the film's shortcomings. I'd almost bet it would've been replaced had it been written just a couple of years later.

Agreed! For all its faults, it remains an engaging experience. Great use of locations too -- many of which I've visited (and they look that amazing in real life!).

I was thinking of that while I was watching it -- and I can see why you'd WANT to visit them. Just spectacular!

I watched Dragonslayer on Prime some six months back, and agree that it's a technically-sound fantasy production that's just not very fun. It lacks the warmth and humor of films like Dark Crystal, Secret Of NIMH or Ladyhawke (or even the so-bad-its-funny excesses of Legend), and while I "appreciate" Alex North's skills as a composer, I must confess I own very little of his music on CD, as it's so relentlessly dense. It's obviously a million miles superior than anything being written today, of course, but his "cerebral" music is kind of perfectly matched to the dour, heavy tone of Dragonslayer, this grim tread of elaborately-layered textures applied to this visually-stimulating but emotionally distant fantasy effort. I probably would have been alternately bored stiff and disturbed by the film had I seen it when it was first released, and viewing it now as a product of the day, I can appreciate how well-made it is (the dragon "go-motion" is amongst the best of the period), yet find it lacking in the kind of whimsical charm that the best fantasty adventure movies should possess.

This is what North originally wrote for the climax and the end of the movie -- I'd have to see it matched up to see how it might've worked but, listening in again, I think it would've been better to stick with what North wrote. Maybe.

He was trying to use the love theme over the final confrontation -- in the final film, they took this out and reused the "Dragon theme" instead which wasn't very heroic and didn't work dramatically. Still I don't know if using the waltz-like love theme here was a wise move either -- it just seems strange. I'd want to see it attached to the film to see how it played.

What I DO like much better about North's intentions were his original end credits. In the finished film, a full statement of his rejected-2001, romantic love theme (intended to be played as heard here) was chopped up to accommodate a reprisal of the noisy "trek music" the filmmakers tracked when the end credits start rolling. I didn't care for that at all, and North was definitely right on the money there in what he originally wrote (the strongest part of his score).

On the whole though...I think this score, by 1981 standards, probably should've been replaced.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 12:06 pm This is what North originally wrote for the climax and the end of the movie -- I'd have to see it matched up to see how it might've worked but, listening in again, I think it would've been better to stick with what North wrote. Maybe.

The music re-editing in the climax is sloppy I agree. And the use of the "trek music" is too lighthearted and silly to conclude the film.

On the whole though...I think this score, by 1981 standards, probably should've been replaced.

Don't ever say that on the FSM board -- you'd be roasted alive for being "stupid" and be told "Not everything has to sound like John Williams!"

I do like North's score -- in fact it's actually one of the few North scores I own -- but it was not the ideal accompaniment for the film. I'd rather Jerry Goldsmith had done Dragonslayer instead of Outland. Or Elmer Bernstein done it in lieu of Five Days One Summer. My guess is that Barwood and Robbins wanted a real "golden age" composer. Had Herrmann lived, I'd be willing to bet he'd have been their first choice.

Oh I like the score, I own it also -- I just think there were better options in 1981 and it hurts the movie probably more on balance than helps it.

I don't know where I read that it was going to be replaced. Jeff Bond's notes in the LaLaLand CD say that "not everyone liked it" and I am positive I read somewhere that they had to "fight" to retain it. North was hired because of having worked with producer Howard Koch beforehand but North also made some comments like there was "no compassion" in the movie. Either way it seems like the kind of thing that would've been replaced in a couple of years when studios starting meddling more and more.

I can't imagine that it wouldn't have been mentioned in test screenings either, in a negative way.

Monterey Jack wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 11:35 am ...while I "appreciate" Alex North's skills as a composer, I must confess I own very little of his music on CD, as it's so relentlessly dense. It's obviously a million miles superior than anything being written today, of course, but his "cerebral" music is kind of perfectly matched to the dour, heavy tone of Dragonslayer, this grim tread of elaborately-layered textures applied to this visually-stimulating but emotionally distant fantasy effort.

Yeah, I too find much of his work "dense". I love Spartacus -- the film -- but have never had much desire to buy the score itself. Other than Dragonslayer I only have the one or two North scores Elmer Bernstein recorded for his "Film Music Collection" series -- and I only own those because they just happened to come with the box set.

This discussion makes me want to listen to DRAGONSLAYER again...lol...

I have several North scores. I do not have the complete SPARTACUS score (I personally felt that Varese mismanaged that set by including the extra material few wanted), but I do have the complete CLEOPATRA score. Whenever I think of listening to it I end up turning it off more often than not and instead listening to Newman's and Herrmann's THE EGYPTIAN. I am not sure why...lol...anyway, I am off to listen to DRAGONSLAYER.