R.I.P. composer Marvin Hamlisch.
R.I.P. composer Marvin Hamlisch.
R.I.P. composer Marvin Hamlisch.
R.I.P. composer Marvin Hamlisch.
An evening pause: You might never heard of her, but you will almost certainly recognize Liz Callaway’s voice, as she has been the singer in several of Disney’s animation features, including Anastasia (1997).
An evening pause: John Williams conducting a performance of his overture to the 1972 movie, The Cowboys.
An evening pause: Once, a long time ago, the concept of charity was something that you gave voluntarily, not forced upon you by the will of others.
A technical aside: If you listen closely to the soundtrack to Mary Poppins (1964), you will discover hints of the melody from this song sprinkled throughout. The composers clearly considered it a central theme on which they wished to link to the rest of the score.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An evening pause: I do believe the grasshopper sings the national anthem of the modern liberal, at the beginning of this cartoon from 1934.
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.
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.
R.I.P. Davy Jones, 66, of the Monkees has died.
An evening pause: From Mel Brooks’ classic film, The Producers (1968), a good description of how our modern government functions.
The top ten ways Hollywood can win its audience back.
As someone who spent almost twenty years in the movie business, I think Nolte hits the nail on the head. I also think Hollywood will not do any of the things he suggests, mostly because it would require them to abandon their elite, leftwing ideology that for the past thirty years has become the only thing too many Hollywood people care about.