Enough about the movie. Hans Zimmer has done a very good job considering the crap he had to work with; I happen to think Zimmer scores really awful films, giving them scores they do not deserve, with few exceptions. His score is fun, a combination of his band-like scoring of late and orchestra. Most notably, probably what people are going to talk about or complain about, is the appearance of his "Journey to the Line" theme near the end of the picture, sounding even more like the impressive original than anything for Black Hawk Down. This is fine for me since it's my favourite theme of his, so it's nice to hear a new rendition of it. However, I think he should broaden his horizons instead of falling back on that theme when he can't think of anything better. On the other, it's possible he didn't do this cue, which will be evident when the CD comes out which appears to contain only Zimmer cues for a change. Anyway, overall, great new score from Hans Zimmer. Aside from the Thin Red Line reference the score is completely original, an interesting work.

Speaking of HZ, Cabin Fever had some Ring sounding action music. By the way, Cabin Fever is phucking hilarious! I don't know if it's good or not—I'll have to think about that some other time—but I laguhed through the whole film; go see it if you wanna laugh!

WATCH!
As a director has no idea how to piece together 2 shots in a row!

REVEL!
As actors go completely out-of-control and out-of-character!

CHECK!
Your watch and wonder when it will end!

SCRATCH!
Your head at the multitude of non-endings and pointless characters this film is stuff with!

Just as horror was seeing a resurgence, CABIN FEVER comes along to, and I qoute Burt Wilson, operator of Uneeda Medical Supply, hit it in "the ****ing brain!!"

Clayton

Windtalkers is an awful film. Since I am North American Indian I felt a little personally offended by some of it's material and the stereotypical roles Native American actors get. I have to admit though, the Director's Cut DVD is one up from the theatrical release, but still incredibly flawed, which is a shame, I had such high hopes for that film. I'm still amazed that there are people who likes this movie, it has such bad structure that even if you remove politics from it, it doesn't even have a workable story, and is poorly delievered. I think John Woo is an excellent director with the right material, like his new film Paycheck looks more up his creek. And the "new" approach he took to Windtalkers was atrocious, all that hand-held camera crap, it's been done before and REALLY didn't work to make exciting or breathtaking action. I have to hand it to him, though, I am constantly impressed by the care he takes in creating good continuity, that no other Hollywood action director is able to match: just watch the scene were Cage dives from throwing an explosive pack into a Japanese gun position—nice execution.

Second, I have it on good authority that the electronica track on the Matchstick Men CD is not Zimmer, but Zanelli. That said, I think it's a really unique score for Zimmer, and again testament to his versatility.

Also of note, one of the composers for Cabin Fever (Nate Barr) is an old assistant of Zimmer's. Hooray for trivia.

I guess I can understand Sean. I agree that Ridley Scott hasn't done anything up to par with those films. Gladiator had some nice stuff in it, but there was a lot of crappy stuff in it that destroyed the nice shots (if that made sense). Black Hawk Down had like 5 good shots in it, and they were all in the trailer.

IMO, Black Hawk Down is a bloody mess. On that 3-disc DVD Bruckheimer admits that all he knew about Somalia is what he saw on CNN, and it shows. CNN should be handled with kid gloves, it isn't good to learn anything historical from it. Scott seems to be equally inept with the subject as well. It seems they may have just skipped through Mark Bowden's excellent book. HZ should have just tossed those losers some tracks from the Director's Cuts CDs for the score. But, Black Hawk Down, IMO, is one of his best.

Kosta, which track on the CD is the "electronica" music? You mean The Thin Red Line kinda cue? Didn't Zanelli do one sorta like that for Director's Cuts "Drama", as well?

Now, I saw the film tonight. A pretty good movie, but where in the hell is his score! Basically none of my favorite cues are in the film! No "Flim Flam," NONE of the gorgeous accordion-laden La Dolce Vita homage on the later half of "Weird is Good" (which I find to be just dreamy), most of "Ticks and Twitches," most of "Noisy Parker," NONE of "Pygmies," NONE of "The Banker's Waltz," (the theme makes no appearence) and only precious little of "No More Pills" is used, in bits and pieces. The "Amarcord" homage, "Carpeteria," is mixed in very, very low, almost un-noticeably. Now, I just find this to be brilliant, beautifully realized music that I absolutely adore...like Nino Rota, it's a wonderful mix of jazz and Italian pop, but Zimmer did some other things that Rota wouldn't have used that worked extremely well. I think I was mostly disappointed at the fact that all of this good music didn't find it's way into a movie, and what was there was mixed in rather low. In any case, I'm glad Zimmer composed so much for "Matchstick Men" because it has become one of my favorite scores, but it's just disappointing that so little was used in the film, when had this been composed for a film by myself, I would've relished such wonderful music, and used it to it's fullest. Anybody know what happened? Was it Ridley Scott changing his mind a hundred times?

Dylan

Clayton

"I believe some of the score was actually used to sound like it was on the radio."

Well, yes, it makes perfect sense, since this is also what Rota did, but really, the only cue mixed in "radioly" was "Carpeteria," which is a dreamy theme that could've been utilized more expansively, not just in the waaay back on a radio. The choice of this kind of music for "Matchstick Men" is a bit of a mystery to me anyway, since most of the music doesn't capture the story even slightly. Listening to the score in the film, I don't believe I would've rushed out to buy the CD, I'm afraid, but thank god that wasn't the case because I would've missed out on something tremendously and immeasurably appealing to me.

I watched the featurette on the DVD. It looks like Ridley Scott saw the film as a comedy at first, and for some reason temp-tracked it with Rota's "La Dolce Vita" (though again, I don't believe Rota's style was really the right approach for this film to begin with). Then, Zimmer composed a wonderful, lovely variation of the Dolce Vita theme, changing it just enough so that it's his own, then of course he composed a lot more of the same kind of music. Well, in the docu, Scott realized later on in the production that it was less of a comedy...they didn't say this, but it's obvious that he removed most of Zimmer's score, looped other tracks a few times, and used bits and pieces here and there. And of course, the Dooley variation on the "Journey to the Line" theme, which made everything even more puzzling (was "Banker's Waltz" originally going to be put there? Where in the hell is "Banker's Waltz?" I think it's the greatest thing Zimmer has ever composed and it's not used!).

All in all, ignoring the way it was used in the film, it's a wonderful score, one of my all-time favorites.

Dylan

Dylan, about "The Banker's Waltz": I remember what Zimmer said and wrote about the "Gladiator Waltz" and never quite saw how that piece, one of his best (IMHO), worked as a waltz until I heard "Banker's Waltz." The connections between that and Gladiator are easy to grasp, in the sense of the waltz-motif, but they sound nothing alike musically. So, I found that aspect interesting, though I don't find the piece as astonishing as you did. For a part of the Thin Red Line theme listen "Wierd is Good", during the middle half of the track—it's like goofy Thin Red Line or something of the sort.

Hadrian, I think you should look for it. There's so much music here that's not in the film that you won't even find yourself associating this album with the movie once you start going into it, at least that's what I predict.

I don't remember a goofy (or Rota-esque) take on "Thin Red Line," as much as I've listened to that (excellent) track, so I'll have to listen to it yet again here soon.

Dylan

Track 5: 02:51 to 04:08

It sounds like The Thin Red Line ran into As Good As It Gets and Pacific Heights. But, that's just my opinion. And agree with you about "No More Pills", it's awesome! It reminds of what Zimmer did on An Everlasting Piece, recaping the entire score in one big track, very cool!

quote:

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Originally posted by sean:
Hadrian, would you agree with me that the "Journey to the Line" stuff in the film was done at the last minute due to Scott's uneasiness of the path the film should take (therefore, dropping the more appropriate "Banker's Waltz")? See, I can't really see HZ using that theme that way it was used (even if Dooley did the cues), unless he was in a huge crunch for time.

NP: Star Trek VI DVD

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First off, you wrote wonderfully about the Matchstick Men score, and I feel you really grasped the music perfectly. I'm glad that you love it, as we need as many fans of this score as possible

The "Pygmies" track was not in the film at all, that theme is nowhere to be found, and it's a sad loss. I had virtually every note of the score memorized before I saw the film, which is why I was disappointed that pretty much all of my favorite cues weren't used. Anyway, it's still too bad that this music will never find a proper home in a film, but at least it was released so we can all enjoy it.

Dylan

quote:

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Originally posted by mlw:
Why do all presumptuous would-be comedies have to have fake Rat Pack music?

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But back to the subject here, I think something like the James Bond theme is closer to "Rat Pack music" than anything from "Matchstick Men."

We have a word for this, and it's not "inspired" by, it's too similar for that. No, we call it stealing. Fine, Ridley used them on his temp track, but that's not an excuse. It's just plain lazy of Zimmer.

Accordion and techno beats haven't been put together too often before, with these two exceptions, but that's only what I know of. But still, Zimmer also added the element of Nino Rota, and created something truly unique. This is another reason though why it's too bad that the only parts of Zimmer's score that showed up in the film were mostly snippets of "Weird is Good" (which again, sounds very much like "Santa Maria," but more orchestral). If you were to hear Zimmer's more thematic material with this kind of orchestration, it's only on the album and didn't end up in the film, but I think there's a chance you'd be very impressed with how fun spirited it is and how attractive this orchestration can be with full-blown, fun-spirited, breezy themes. Or perhaps you wouldn't be impressed. But in any case, thanks for posting.

Dylan