Joe Hisaishi – The Path of the Wind from My Neighbor Totoro
An evening pause: One of Joe Hisaishi’s most beautiful film melodies, “The Path of the Wind,” from Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece, My Neighbor Totoro.
Tag: movies
Bugs Bunny – Hare Tonic
An evening pause: “He don’t know me very well, do he?”
Carole King – Tapestry
An evening pause: Carole King performs and is interviewed for the 1982 documentary One to One.
Joe Hisaishi – theme from My Neighbor Totoro
An evening pause: Composer Joe Hisaishi conducts and plays piano in this live performance of his music from the animated film, My Neighbor Totoro.
I just watched the film again with family, and my opinion of it only grows with each viewing.
“I have never felt more like a nerd in my life.”
“I have never felt more like a nerd in my life.”
A great heart-warming story.
Richard Rogers – Edelweiss
An evening pause: From The Sound of Music (1965). The context: The Nazis have taken over Austria, and plan to arrest Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp and his family at the end of this concert. This lovely song, Edelweiss, is initially sung by von Trapp as a farewell to his nation. As the song unfolds, however, it becomes instead a song of defiance against the Nazis, by the von Trapps and the audience.
Always, always, we must stand for freedom.
Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time
An evening pause: The 1984 Grammy performance.
A very merry unbirthday to you!
An evening pause: Truly Walt Disney’s most frenetic and surreal animated films.
Twinkle twinkle little bat,
How I wonder what you’re at.
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
Henri
An evening pause: “The monkey mocks me with each flip.”
Only those who have explored deeply into the avant-garde French film world will truly understand this classic.
Rod McKuen – Jean
An evening pause: This Rod McKuen song, “Jean,” performed here live by him on the Johnny Cash Show on February 4, 1970, was originally the title song for the wonderful movie The Prime of the Miss Jean Brodie (1969), starring Maggie Smith.
The Little Mermaid – Part of That World
An evening pause: Sometimes, it is our dreams and hopes that matter the most.
The Black Stallion
An evening pause: The central sequence from the 1979 movie, The Black Stallion, when the shipwrecked boy Alec succeeds in taming the shipwrecked Arabian horse. The combination of Carmine Coppola’s music and Caleb Deschanel’s photography in this sequence is unmatched.
Ennio Morricone: Gabriel’s Oboe and theme from Cinema Paradiso
An evening pause:
Kitaro – Cosmic Love
An evening pause: The images are hokey, but the music is sublime: Cosmic Love by Kitaro.
“The Grasshopper and the Ants” – Disney’s Silly Symphony (1934)
An evening pause: I do believe the grasshopper sings the national anthem of the modern liberal, at the beginning of this cartoon from 1934.
Mitch & Mickey – A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow
An evening pause: From the movie A Mighty Wind (2003), a wonderful and funny pseudo documentary about the 1960s folk era. The folk team of Mitch & Mickey never existed, but this song is superb, made even more poignant by the story.
Cleopatra enters Rome
An evening pause: As today is the Ides of March, I am always reminded of Julius Caesar. With that thought in mind, here is a clip from the 1953 movie, Cleopatra, staring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, and Richard Burton. The movie overall isn’t very good, though the first half with Rex Harrison playing Julius Caesar is worth watching, partly because of Harrison and partly because it is very clearly inspired by George Bernard Shaw’s play Caesar and Cleopatra.
That first half also includes the scene below, when Cleopatra enters Rome, bringing with her her son by Caesar. A more classic example of late Hollywood spectacle would be hard to find. It is silly, absurd, impossible, and yet totally engrossing. And it was done with no computer effects. When Hollywood PR used to say a movie had a “cast of thousands,” they really meant it.
One of the many reasons I am no longer in the movie business.
One of the many reasons I am no longer in the movie business.
Davy Jones of The Monkees has died
R.I.P. Davy Jones, 66, of the Monkees has died.
Aladdin – A Whole New World
An evening pause: “Don’t you dare close your eyes!”