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Alienł is a masterpiece!!

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Author	Topic: Alienł is a masterpiece!!

Drixorial Oscar® Winner	I really didn't care for this score too much when I bought it. But I popped this sucker on and laid down in bed and just let my self get sucked in. What a ride! Right from the opening cue the dissonant noise mixed with soft, beautiful choiral cues is very dissonant yet beautiful at the same time. The 'theme' for the face huggers heard in Bait and Chase can really make your heart leap out of your chest and give you the absolute shivers. Moving on to Lento which is probally one of my favorite cues on the CD has some gorgeous soprano work that was really effective of not only underscoring the sad funeral for Hicks and Newt but at the same time potraying the potentinal future danger as well. AWESOME CUE! I can type for hours about this stuff, but it's early so I'll be on to type later, with that said though, Alienł is starting to become one of my absolute favorite scores. NP: Alienł - Elliot Goldenthal (the man is a sick twisted genuis!) [Message edited by Drixorial on 04-22-2001]
posted 04-22-2001 05:38 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	I find the Alienł score very hard to listen to, but that doesn't say anything about the quality of the music. It's one of the best scores there are, and for me it's one of those that, while they're still great on CD, have to be heard in the film to be fully appreciated (see/hear also Planet of the Apes and The Fury). I have to get Titus soon - I've never heard it, but I've heard enough about it. NP: Nothing yet, but I've been meaning to play Alienł since yesterday!
posted 04-22-2001 07:17 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	PS: I love the film, too, and consider it as good as Alien. NP: Alienł (Elliot Goldenthal)
posted 04-22-2001 07:22 AM PT (US)

Greg G Phillips Oscar® Nominee	Yes, I have always liked this score. I got it, like I always do with my collection, BEFORE I ever saw the movie. I have always been moved by it. Like yourself, I love the intermingling of the boy treble and the "other worldly" scoring of Elliot Goldenthal. My favourite cues are Agnus Dei, Lento and Adagio. In Adagio particularly, the hair on the back of my head always stands when the music develops to teh crescendo and then the timpani - brrrr - excellent stuff. Unlike many others, I feel that Alien3 was pretty good from a visual sense, but unfortunately, I have not acquired any further Goldenthal scores.
posted 04-22-2001 02:10 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	Absolutely everything Marian said, INCLUDING the quality of this vastly underrated movie. I hope David Fincher will be allowed to get around to reconstructing his original cut someday -- as fine as the finished product is, Fincher's first version was even more challenging (I haven't seen it obviously, but going by the scripts ... man! It's a tribute to Fincher that the movie makes so much sense in its final version DESPITE the cuts he had to make.)
posted 04-22-2001 03:30 PM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	I knew I could count on you, Rocco! NP: Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra (Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan)
posted 04-22-2001 03:56 PM PT (US)

André Lux Oscar® Winner	ALIENł is indeed an outstanding score. I think it's on the same level as Goldsmith's ALIEN - specially if you consider how lame the movie actually is, with all those stupid bald prisioners running around like dorks while preaching some ludicrous religious gibberish... I wonder what this "Director's Cut" of ALIENł could have done to save this embarrassing movie... Or course, nexto to ALIEN RESSURECTION this one can be considered a masterpiece!!
posted 04-22-2001 05:27 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	Andre ... I could only hope that a restored ALIEN3 would change your mind about it. But then, you can't even appreciate STARSHIP TROOPERS! I guess there is no hope Marian: if you remember, TITUS made my short list for best scores of 1999 -- BEFORE I'd seen the picture! It's only better WITH the movie, but the album alone (if one is willing to cock one's ear in Goldenthal's direction) is so amazing that one can hardly ignore its brilliance. Well, the Academy did, but we know that the ACADEMY is like ... TITUS is an oddball of a movie, but well worth watching, for the beautiful designs, photography (Luciano "Suspiria" Tovoli!!!!), and some really smashing performances, particularly by Anthony Hopkins (who has coasted on his own popularity a lot in recent years, but acquits himself beautifully here), Jessica Lange (who doesn't have a lot of great stuff to do, but is terrific nonetheless), and in particular Harry J. Lennix as the deliberately, proudly evil Moor. He would certainly have made by short list for Best Supporting Actor had I seen the film before making the list. On balance, he might even have won. I've probably seen Lennix in a dozen other movies in interchangeable roles, but he really shines in TITUS. The fact that the original Shakespeare play isn't THAT great, and the overall movie too long almost by half, doesn't quite matter in the face of what we WERE rewarded with.
posted 04-22-2001 06:38 PM PT (US)

André Lux Oscar® Winner	On the contrary. I do apreciate STARSHIP TROOPERS. It's by far the greatest involuntary comedy ever made! I think it's even more hilarious than PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE!! I mean... PLAN 9 was a Z movie. What's their excuse on STARSHIP??? But I can't say the same about ALIENł, which is a pretty boring movie on its most, except for the death scene of the leader of the bald heads. I love the way he keeps talking and preaching even with the Alien riping his chest out!! One of the greatest moments in the involuntary comedy history! Definitly agree about TITUS. In my (not so) humble opinion is Goldenthal's best to date - and I really like the man's works! [Message edited by André Lux on 04-22-2001]
posted 04-22-2001 07:19 PM PT (US)

Shaun Rutherford Oscar® Winner	Who was the one saying some years ago that Verhoven and the writer (Neumeier?) deliberately set out to make the worst studio movie they could? Something like that, but it explains the awful, awful cast. As for the film itself, it's a hilarious satire, but I don't want to dig up old corpses. Shaun
posted 04-23-2001 12:49 AM PT (US)

Quill Oscar® Winner	I absolutely love about 2/3 of Alien3...but there are some crass pieces that make it difficult to listen to straight through. The choral pieces are by far the best. I'm with Andre on this...what a silly movie. Too bad they didn't produce the original screenplay...but then again, Ripley was only in it for about 5 minutes. I can hear the studio now, "Better to have religious baldies trying to rape Sigourney than have no Sigourney at all!"
posted 04-23-2001 07:33 AM PT (US)

Pete M Oscar® Winner	Just wanted to add that I too really loved Goldenthal's Alien3 (how do you do that supertext). It took a few listens for me to get into it (when I first heard it, I couldn't remember it from the film, & it was like - eeeeurrgh, what on Earth is this I have bought), but it has really grown on me. I really like the film, flawed as it clearly is. That's actually one of the best things about Alien Reseurrection - it shows how goood Alien3 is. It's a shame that the boy soprano didn't make it into the final cut of the movie. I also wish that the bit scoring when the Company ship arrives towards the end was on the CD. Some really good stuff. But I think that's a bit like complaining about the missing stuff on the Resurrection CD, when all I want is about 5 seconds, the bit when Ripley runs & jumps onto the Betty (also near the end, great stuff). The Alien3 CD is pretty representative, & a fine presentation of the score.
posted 04-24-2001 06:57 AM PT (US)

JJH Oscar® Winner	I actually like the Alien3 as a film. It has a certain claustrophobic quality that I like. And hey, it's not any more or less silly than the others. I'll dig up old corpses! Starship Troopers is indeed a good film. Al the casting decisions were made with maximum cheese in mind -- how else can you explain the presence of Sue Ellen Mischky, heiress to the O'Henry candy bar fortune? And some uptight people would have you take this as a serious film...
posted 04-24-2001 09:05 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Oscar® Winner	quote: Originally posted by JJH: And hey, it's not any more or less silly than the others. Yep. Though I'd say #1 and #3 are more intelligent or less dumb than #2 and #4. But I like all of them. I also about Starship Troopers. As a satire, it's very good. And as an action flick, it's also fun - which is quite disturbing, but that's the purpose. Pete: On German PC keyboards, you can get the ł by pressing Alt Gr and the 3 key. Don't know about English keyboards. NP: Gustav Mahler: Kindertotenlieder (Janet Baker, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein)
posted 04-24-2001 09:17 AM PT (US)

Quill Oscar® Winner	Did I hear someone say that Aliens is dumb...and Alien3 is more intelligent. Ummm... The first two films are classics, and each succeed on entirely different levels. Alien3 tried poorly to mimic the first film's intensity, while Resurrection tried a hybrid of 1 and 2 combined with silly antics. I love sci-fi so I enjoy watching all of them (the DVD set is very nice BTW)...but the legacy of the first two films will live on forever. How was that for melodramatic!
posted 04-24-2001 11:14 AM PT (US)

André Lux Oscar® Winner	ALIEN a silly movie? Nonsense. Maybe a simple movie, but never silly. Silly is movie that shows bugs throwing a huge asteroid hundreds of light years through space to hit planet Earth, which doesn't even have a decent sensor to detect huge menacing asteroids. And them send thousands of mindless G.I.Joes to battle the bugs hand to hand while they could just blast the entire planet with one nuclear bomb... Or a movie that loses precious hours of screen time showing a bunch of idiotic bald heads (which we already now will be all killed) preaching some ludicrous and uninteresting religious nonsense. But I've heard that some people consider this kind of movie to be "genius"... Ah, from what I've heard the ridiculous cast of STARSHIPTROOPERS was chosen because the studio refused to give them suficient money to bring hot shot stars, like Arnold Shwarkapoff and others Verhoven wanted first. I read this on one of his interviews when that ludicrous bomb was released.
posted 04-24-2001 02:05 PM PT (US)

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