In a darkened movie theater...

In a darkened movie theater, you can't see the little sooty cloud of grumpy that hangs over my head during some trailers. But it's there. Oh, it's there.

One thing that really irks me about movie trailers: the use of scores from other movies to underpin film snippets in said trailers. Given that scores can't be completely finished until the film itself is basically in the can, I understand that the score from the new movie is probably not yet entirely complete at the time when trailers are produced and distributed. But, honestly, I don't care.

Maybe I'm extra irritated by this practice because it seems that trailers most frequently borrow from the Gladiator soundtrack - which means that a) I'm really familiar with the music so my ears pick it out very quickly and b) I smirk that another movie is trying to ride on the emotion-manipulating success of this particular score. Yes, the first time around, this score *was* pretty or rousing, depending on which of the two standard 10-second musical quotes the studio's trailer producers always seem to go for. (The pretty/ethereal/haunting themes would be drawn from either "The Wheat" near the beginning of Gladiator or "Now We Are Free," both sung by Lisa Gerrard. The rousing theme is usually extracted from "The Battle" that supports the opening Roman v. German battle-in-the-snow sequence.) I really liked this score for Gladiator (as did the Academy, not that it matters), but get over it and create some new music already. Curious what spawned this diatribe? I just saw the trailer for The Golden Compass and it includes the (you guessed it) ethereal music from "Now We Are Free" towards the end of the trailer.

Another while-I'm-on-the-subject annoyance is when a film's actual score sounds like a cheap imitation of the Gladiator score (see Kingdom of Heaven and Troy for this infraction). My irritability-meter tends to start rattling when I feel that the "Lisa Gerrard-esque vocals + action sequence = we've got the audience's emotions in a vice grip" equation got run through the take-something-kinda-cool-and-fresh-and-run-it-into-the-ground grist mill, followed swiftly by several-too-many trips around the if-it's-not-broken-don't-fix-it machine*. Blargh.

*Don't ask me what one of these looks like, although I'm curious what other people's visual would be on this.

piano

As my fingers nimbly scale up and down the computer keyboard, as I listen to piano music over inadequate speakers, I am struck by a pang that I interpret as a wish that I had continued to take piano lessons instead of stopping after 8th grade. I cannot complain too bitterly: issues of time management and attending school out of town legitimately crowded piano out of my schedule since I prioritized ballet and volleyball and I do not regret sticking with those activities. I also wish that my piano instructor would have started to give me weighty pieces instead of crap infantile arrangements, a situation that left me frustrated and insulted, especially later on.
In the end, there's no way I'm going to buy a piano so I'm stuck this way - fantasizing while rapidly clacking on the keyboard and lamely executing whatever would be the piano equivalent of air guitar while waiting at stoplights in the car.

Do you have discerning taste?

My friend Sid posted this link earlier and I think the set-up of the social experiment is really fascinating, although the results are not surprising. Joshua Bell plays as a street performer

NPR's Song of the Day

Tom Waits is big in Japan... and in public radio apparently.

NPR's Song of the Day, 01.02.07: "Lie To Me," off of the new album, Orphans.

Listen to NPR's piece, "Tom Waits: The Whiskey Voice Returns" on All Things Considered, 11.21.06.
Listen to NPR's piece, "Tom Waits: Rock Classics, with a Gravelly Rasp" on World Cafe, 12.15.06.
Listen to NPR's piece, "Tom Waits Fights to Stay Out of Advertising" on All Things Considered, 05.06.05

Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis

Last month, Tom Waits released a new 3-disc collection entitled Orphans. I haven't heard it yet, but I believe I plan to make it my own. Listed below are some reviews that I've read of the album and they basically make me want to jump in feet-first. Thanks to DMK for pointing out that on this album Tom does a rendition of Disney's "Heigh Ho." If that doesn't have potential for multi-layered oh-so-wrongitude and oh-so-rightitude, I don't know what does.

Reviews of Orphans:
Boston Globe
Chicago Tribune
Harp
New York Times
Rolling Stone
South Coast Today

Harp's December 2006 Tom Waits article/interview

One of my favorite old stories of Tom's is listed at the very end of this
random yarn-spinning from Tom back in 1993. Here's to growing stronger and stranger every day.

Film Scores

Back on 1/22/06 I posted on my former blog that film soundtracks/scores comprise 35% of my cd collection. I suppose my reasoning for that purchasing pattern is that I want to be reminded of films that I've enjoyed and a good score will transport the listener to the specific headspace and heartspace occupied by the film it represents since it should be intimately tied to the generation of that same emotional space. I say "score" because I think that while some compilations of songs used in a film (what I call soundtracks, such as that used for "Great Expectations") can be evocative in this way, it is harder for them to be quite as successful as a score composed specifically for a film and intended to tightly correlate.

Scores can also be manipulative of their audience because of this. I read an article about "Gladiator" (one of my favorite movies) in which the director was quoted as saying that he chose Lisa Gerrard to work on the score in order to create an emotional backbone to the story and specifically to draw female viewers into the rather violent storyline (and presumably to rake in more cash at the box office as a result). Music is a useful storytelling shorthand when executed successfully, so scores can be a way to gloss over some shortcomings in the writing or acting. They cannot save an inherently flawed script or inexpertly-helmed directorial effort, but it can elevate a sword-and-sandals epic or space opera or fantasy to something more.

This all makes me wonder about the most recent movie I've seen that has captured my attention temporarily. The score for "Casino Royale" is perhaps trying to be emotionally manipulative, or perhaps it is attempting to elevate itself. The string-reliant romantic themes are not as corny as those of the old Bond flicks, but then, the romance in this movie isn't as corny either so it is appropriate within its own context and I don't feel badly manipulated or "tricked" into liking the film. The composer lapses into some generic action music, but the opening sequence with the construction-site parkour chase is pretty craftily scored, sonically tied to the location albeit in a somewhat trite or obvious way (drums symbolizing Africa? wow, that's original). But it works, so I'm not complaining. I think the mysteriously suspenseful current running through parts of the film is also supported well in the music. But really, what is suspenseful music? What is generic action music or corny romantic music? It is sort of fascinating that as humans in a certain culture, we can pick up on those cues intended by the composer and director. We do have a sort of common musical vocabulary from which emotional messages are created, delivered, and received. As someone interested in languages, this in intriguing to me.

And, superficially (it all comes back to superficiality with Bond, doesn't it?), who doesn't like to strut around with the Bond theme in her head? Adds a rather devastatingly dashing straight-from-the-catwalk swagger to my gait. It's like I'm Bond and the Bond girl, all in one.