Alexandre Desplat Interview Part 2

Part 1 "How to Watch Movies... with Alexandre Desplat"

Part 2 Excerpts
Alexandre Desplat is the busiest composer in film but he made time to talk a few weeks back. My profile will be up at Tribeca Film in January but for now I thought I'd share a few unused excerpts from our conversation whilst Academy voters are presumably scribbling down his name on their ballots for Best Original Score. But will they vote for The King's Speech or The Ghost Writer? [We discussed both movies ~ coming in Part 3.]

We'll know which score the voters preferred on January 25th unless, who knows, maybe they'll both be nominated? A double dipping wouldn't be unprecedented in that category and considering Desplat's workload it's bound to happen eventually.

On Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
official soundtrack page

Nathaniel:  Is it difficult to take over something, a franchise, with ten years of pre-existing themes like Harry Potter? Did you have a lot less freedom?

Desplat: Well, John Williams, being one of the best composers of last 50 years, if not the last master of them all; I was more than happy to use some of his themes. The only theme that was meant to be reprised was "Hedwig's Theme" which has become kind of the Harry Potter main title. As I was starting work on the film I let my imagination go in many territories around this theme. When I was spotting the movie and started diving into the film it occurred to the director [David Yates], more even to me, that the theme did not have much left to do in this story because they're away from their school and the heroes are now grownups and this lovely world of fantasy is not their world anymore. So we used it two or three times early in the film almost to get rid of it, like they're getting rid of their childhood. It's part of their childhood to which they say goodbye. And the theme just vanishes for the same reasons.

On Process and Inspiration

Nathaniel: Is your process different for each film? How do you even begin the work?

Desplat: It differs for each film. The King's Speech I was shown the movie almost on its final cut. Some other films I get the script beforehand -- I got the The Ghost Writer script a year before. It's all very different which is good because you have to find different energies and different ways of getting inspiration. The main issue is how do you get excited, how do you get your cortex in movement? It could be from reading the script, it could be from seeing the images. Watching the images remains what I prefer because it has what the film has become. Reading the scripts it still belongs to literature so I am almost in favor of watching the first edit.

On Composing For International Cinema
I was struggling with a question about Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped (one of my favorite Desplat scores) and he saved me by predicting the question and jumping in.

Desplat discussing Benjamin Button with David Fincher

Desplat: You know the only difference is the language because the directors have the same obsessions. Even though they have their own grammar it's always the same vocabulary: closeup, wide shot, tracking shot, overhead shot, aerial shot, whatever. How many actors and the way you put them in the frame? So it's just a matter of communication for me to be able to translate in music what the director wants. Again, If the director has a strong point of view I enjoy the process that brings the music into his films. It's just a matter of spending time together, exchanging ideas.

I would always choose to work on a project that the story or the director resonates with me. With Ang Lee, Jacques Audiard or David Fincher, I found the same notion of exchange. These filmmakers have actually a huge cinephilia behind them. They know the history of cinema as well as I do. So we are in the same territory in a way.

Nathaniel: You're speaking the same langauge.

Desplat: Exactly.

On Oscar Ballots

You know I had to ask him about this.

Nathaniel: In addition to enjoying Oscar nominations, you've been a member of AMPAS for the past few years. When it comes time to judge other composers and fill out your ballot, what are you looking for?

Desplat: I want to see what the composer brings to the film that was not there -- what else is the score bringing? Is it just following the action or opening a dimension of emotion that only this score could create? That's what i'm looking for, to be moved and surprised.

And also I'm interested in the instrumentation, if the composer takes chances, puts himself in danger. Comfort has never been good to artists. I don't mean every day comfort. It's good to eat and have hot water but I mean the artistic comfort zone where you repeat yourself... [he spoke at length about why this happens and that you must avoid it]

Desplat admires Maurice Jarre's experimentations in the 80s.

So when Maurice Jarre in the early 80s stops doing orchestra scores and dives into the electronic and makes, with Peter Weir, almost a revolution in film scoring, that's a great move. I'm always impressed by these kinds of actions.

But at first I look at the movie. I'm trying to be like a sponge just waiting for the emotion to overwhelm me. And if the score is good, it will.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Oscar's Music Branch Might Need Some Fine Tuning.

As you may have heard the Academy's music branch has made some rulings about this year's original score eligibility issues. Variety reports that Clint Mansell's Black Swan score (too much Tchaikovsky), Carter Burwell's True Grit score (too many Protestant hymns), and The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter scores (too many pop/rock songs) are officially out of the running.

All of these rulings make sense if you skim the surface, but as is usually the case with eligibility rulings, they make less and less sense the more you think it over or the more you notice the inconsistencies in Oscar rulings. The King's Speech, which has an original score by the brilliant Alexandre Desplat, but uses a lot of Beethoven for its finale was not ruled ineligible. And a few years back Gustavo Santaoalalla won the Oscar for Babel despite quite a lot of music used in the film that he didn't write.

The larger problem is simply that film scoring has changed quite a lot over the years and it's rare now to hear a movie, that doesn't use a mix of pre-existing and new material. Oscar might want to think of a way to incorporate the changing aural landscape of movies into their awards. Should Mansell and Burwell be penalized for doing right by their film's? Should Jonny Greenwood, who wrote one of the best and most innovative scores of the past decade  (There Will Be Blood) have been ruled ineligible because he was smart enough to use some previously written stuff of his own with new stuff that worked so perfectly for the movie?

But back to this year: How exactly do you do a psychological riff on Swan Lake without using Tchaikovsky and why on earth wouldn't you use Protestant hymns for True Grit. We suspected when we broke the news online that Burwell was planning on hymns for the score, that it would feel just right in the movie and it does.

One score that might be snubbed (Eek!). One that just might win.

So where does that leave this year's Oscar race for Best Original Score? It was never a done deal that Clint Mansell would be nominated for Black Swan despite the critics awards. Oscar's music branch is notoriously insular and Mansell, one of the movie's most provocative composers, has been shunned before for brilliant work. Who is to say whether his luck would have changed this year? The other film winning "best music" awards is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's The Social Network but that's always felt like a long shot for a nomination, however deserving. It will be quite a shocking new time in AMPAS history if they embrace it. It's so very different than what they embrace.

Score prizes for far this year.

• The Social Network won 4 prizes (Boston, LA, St. Louis, Vegas) 
• Inception won 3 prizes (D.C., Houston and Golden Satellites)  
• The Ghost Writer won 2 prizes (LA, EFA)
• Black Swan won 2 prizes (New York Online and Chicago)
• Never Let Me Go won 1 prize (San Diego)
• films that have been precursor-nominated: The Fighter and True Grit (both now disqualified), I Am Love, Burlesque, The King's Speech, How To Train Your Dragon, Alice in Wonderland, Tron Legacy and 127 Hours.

What kind of future do you see for Oscar's Original Score category?
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How to Watch Movies (With Alexandre Desplat)

I'll be sharing a two part interview with the three time Oscar nominated composer Alexandre Desplat soon but I thought I'd give you this off topic teaser during this week of heavy awardage. It's a handy salve.

During our conversation, I broached the topic of Desplat's time on the Cannes jury this summer and I asked a rather awkward question about how he judged the films, implying that he has a different experience than the rest of us being regular ol' moviegoers, since he's part of the production process and constantly seeing movies in unfinished form.

"Well, I've been to the movies before," he began and we both laughed suddenly at the obviousness of it.  Of course!

He went on to tell me about his teenage cinephilia. He'd go to 5 to 10 movies a week before he started writing music. He dropped several wondrous names of filmmakers he "watched and chewed" (I love the phrasing!) from Kurosawa, Ozu, Monicelli, Scola, Coppola.

"So I arrive on a jury like Cannes with only one thing in mind: wanting to be surprised and watch with a very wide open mind because each cinema is different, because each director is a different person. And whether a film comes from Asia, Europe or America, all these cultures have something different to offer. I look at the film like a child with an educated brain. I try to be surprised and happy and enjoy the moment. That's the only way to do it I think."

But he added one more perfect thing.

"And also: watch movies with benevolence. When you're a young man or a young woman -- 18 to 25 -- your judgments are always a bit tougher. You learn through the years how difficult it is to make a movie not only on the artistical level, it's a difficult task in every way. Watch movies with more respect and benevolence."

Beautifully stated don't you think? And a damn good reminder during awards season when opinions can get so heated and the politics of it all can sometimes overshadow our deep love of movies.  Let's all watch movies like children with educated brains, with respect and benevolence. Let's be ready to be surprised and happy. Let's enjoy the moment.
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Never Let (This Piece of) Me Go

It's hard not to lose your heart a little to Never Let Me Go at the start. Carey Mulligan, making good on that An Education promise, stares through you with big caring soulful eyes. She even confirms that look with dialogue about being a "carer". Andrew Garfield stares back, through glass, with an uncomplicated smile on his face. He's prone on an operating table and obviously in need of her caring. Never Let Me Go uses a definitive plea as title. Not to be to cruel when faced with so much neediness but can we do some haggling first? May we keep parts of you and discard the rest? Never Let This Piece of Me Go? Consider it a deal.

Cathy H, Tommy D, and Ruth ???

I'd personally like to keep the actors. I've even written up a "Best in Show" column on Andrew Garfield for Tribeca Film. The set decoration has its moments, too. I'll even keep the screenplay so long as I can jettison at least a third of Cathy H's redundant narrated bits and a truly atrocious final speech which ruins the heartbreak of the scene preceding it. You know the type of final speech I'm talking about "Let me spell out the theme for you in case you were two hours late to the movie or took a really long bathroom break." The narration is actually a bit baffling for a film that does, in fact, trust you to fill in some of the blanks. If you're trusting the audience to infer meaning on several occasions, haven't you already decided your audience is a smart one?

More than any film this year, I want to fuss with everything. The first donation needs to be Rachel Portman's score. Give that away immediately. One can half imagine the creative meetings "This is the climax of the film. Make it important." ...only they forgot to mention which scene. The score even treats transitional bits like cars pulling up to buildings as perfect moments to remind you that this is an ominous dystopian tale that is Breaking Your Heart. For all of the inherent power in Never Let Me Go's compelling premise, clever images and nuanced performances -- that seems to be the exhausting directorial mantra for the entire creative team: 'this is the climax, make it important!' But not every scene can be a climax - just as with life, they only happen once. C+

Related Articles
"Best in Show" Andrew Garfield
A Second Look at An Education
Oscar Predictions
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Breakfast With... Alexandre Desplat (Magnificent Film Score Repurposed.)

Press play for the musical accompaniment to this post.

Have any of you seen the new "wake up" commercial for Quaker Oats? It's one of those commercials that would look right at home during the Olympics, as it's full of gorgeous images of Americana, sunrise, sports and other daily wholesome endeavors like the building of skyscrapers. If I hadn't been looking away from my telly when it aired, I doubt I would have made the connection but the entire commercial is scored to the opening theme of Birth (2004). Alexandre Desplat is arguably the best movie composer working so why shouldn't his scores live on past their movies?

The commercial voiceover goes like so...

Wake up America. It's morning and morning is amazing: it's when we charge into the future, when we blasted off for the moon, scaled the heighest peak, and flew for the very first time. Morning starts and changes everything. It's a clean slate, a fresh start.

So come dreamers and trailblazers, champions ...come builders. It's morning. Wake up and be amazing.

Does your breakfast make you amazing?

You know what's amazing, oatmeal eaters of the world? Watching Nicole Kidman as Anna fall under the spell of a 10 year old boy who may or may not be her dead husband reincarnated. That's what's amazing. Though, I have to admit Anna's "trailblazing" does not exactly provide her with a clean slate or a fresh start.

And she does need to wake the hell up.


Wake up Anna. Wake up.
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Bridget & Demi

Actors on Actors

[looks at tv screen]
[trashy girl on television: "At ten pounds it's really heavy for such a small gun."]

"Demi Moore."

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Heh. Have you ever wondered how celebrities feel when they're referenced in pop culture, sometimes mockingly?

In related news: Bridget Fonda is so fantastic as "Melanie" in Jackie Brown (1997) that it makes you wonder why she retired a few years later when she was only 37.


I vote for Mr. Bridget Fonda, Danny Elfman, to take a few years off -- Lord knows he could use it -- and let Bridget Fonda be the breadwinner for a change.
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Top Ten: New Academy Members 2010

it's not Tuesday but it's time for a Top Ten anyway... as this is yesterday's news already!

AMPAS used to hide their membership roster like the vote tallies but in the information age, they've opened up. Now we get to see the whole list of new invitees each year. I wonder how they keep they're membership around 6,000 given how many people they invite annual. Maybe enough people reject the offer, stop paying their dues, or pass from this mortal coil each year to balance it out?

You can read the full list of recipients at Indiewire, but as is the Film Experience tradition, we like to pinpoint the newest (potential) members whose future ballots we'd most like to see. So let's have at it.

New Academy Member Ballots We Most Want To See

10 Bono & The Edge (music)
They're two separate people but we'd like to imagine them filling out their ballots together inbetween sets. We'd like to also imagine that they'll have better taste than the rest of the often confounding music branch.

09 Bob Murawski (editor)
We love his work on The Hurt Locker and the Spider-Man films and he's a fellow Michigander. Extra points for that. Plus editing happens to be the most fascinating category in terms of how one judges it? How do you know how well an editor is doing if you can't see all the unused footage? And are they really that obsessed with just choosing the movies they love as their nominees or are their individual ballots so very individual that only the absolute common denominators are able to rise up to snag nominations, the common denominators being the pictures people love most, regardless of editing skill (i.e. Best Picture nominees)

08 Laura Rosenthal (casting director)
It's the job I'm personally most jealous of in Hollywood. I assume the casting directors can only nominate in the Best Picture category but in a way, shouldn't they have a say in all four acting categories? Their very business is studying actors and deciding who is best... for the part. Some interesting things on her resume: The Messenger, Chicago, I'm Not There, Far From Heaven and Savage Grace. It's worth noting that this woman was smart enough to give Samantha Morton her first two American gigs (Sweet and Lowdown and Jesus's Son)

07 Janet Patterson (costume designer)
Her filmography is short but damned if her accomplishments aren't tall. Consider: Peter Pan, The Piano, Oscar & Lucinda, Bright Star, Holy Smoke!, The Portrait of a Lady. She should already be an Oscar winner by now but after four nominations, it's nice that they're extending an offer. Strangely, the Academy's costuming branch is so small that last I checked it wasn't even listed among their categories. Are there really more makeup artists in AMPAS than costumers (click here and scroll down to bottom of page). If so, why? But then again, maybe my numbers are out of date.


06 Peter Sarsgaard (actor)
He finally wore down their resistance. That Shattered Glass (2003) snub still stings years later. He works a lot and even if we're starting to want him to truly surprise us again (we fear he's going to become a Ben Kingsley i.e. a great actor who shamelessly phones it in for too many paychecks) we like him. Who will he vote for? Besides Maggie & Jake.

05 Adam Shankman (director)
He's had experience in producing, acting and directing and was a key player in this last Oscar ceremony. We don't mean this in a judgmental way but he strikes us as the type that will vote for his friends. But he seems to have so many of them that won't he have to snub most of them each time he votes? Does having a million friends, mean voting for your friends doesn't really compromise your ballot? Now, Academy members can only nominate in the category of the branch they're invited to join (as well as Best Picture... then they can vote for the winners in most other categories when the final ballots go out). So this means that he'll be able to have his say at who did the best directing job each year. We love Hairspray and we don't begrudge him Academy membership -- he's a serious power player -- but as a director? Wouldn't he be a better fit for the producer's branch?

04 Zoë Saldana (actor)
This All American beauty (of Dominican/Puerto Rican descent) was probably invited due to those back-to-back blockbusters (Avatar, Star Trek) but if you stop to consider that she's acted opposite everything from green screens (Avatar and the like) to wood (Britney Spears, Crossroads) and on to A grade thespians like Johnny Depp and Sigourney Weaver she probably knows a thing or two about the acting process in all its iterations. And having recently singled out Tang Wei in Lust, Caution as one of her favorite performances, we know the girl is discerning and willing to look beyond Hollywood for "best". AMPAS could use more of that. We would love to see her nomination ballot in all four acting categories this coming January.

03 Jacques Audiard (director)
This French auteur's last three features Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet have all crackled with intelligence, electricity, fine acting and interesting choices. Now being great at something is not the same thing as being great at judging it... but it surely can't hurt. We're always curious about AMPAS's foreign outreach. How many of them say yes to membership and when they do, how international are their ballots compared to, say, Ron Howard's... or Adam Shankman's for that matter?

Audiard directs with his hands.

02 Vera Farmiga (actor)
Her breakthrough, critically speaking, came when she won the LAFCA Best Actress prize for Down to the Bone (2004). Incidentally that film was directed by Debra Granik, who's currently helping Jennifer Lawrence break through with Winter's Bone (2010). Will more actresses line up to work with Granik? That'd be a smart move. It took the Academy another five years to notice Farmiga. Given her frequently fine rapport with male co-stars, we're actually more curious about how she'll vote for the male acting categories than her own. We know she loves Michael Fassbender so... points for that. But the real reason she's ranked so high is those crazy eyes. What do they see? We like to theorize that people with crazy eyes are actually crazy. And crazy is way better than same ol' same ol' when it comes to awards balloting.

01 Mo'Nique (Actor)
Admit it, she'd top your list too. On account of what the hell would that ballot look like? Her already legendary performance in Precious showed previously hidden depths so maybe she'll be able to see it in others, too? In addition to her being an atypical Oscar winner (they don't usually go for female comics) we're intrigued by whether or not she'll take the process seriously given that when last year's race first began she seemed famously disinterested. Will that initial skepticism make her one of those types that just votes for her friends, or doesn't vote at all or even refuses membership? Or will she just crack herself up like she does onstage while she scribbles down outlandish performances? Or did the Oscar journey, which culminated in that beautiful shout out to Hattie McDaniel's history-making win for Gone With the Wind (1939), convert her to the importance of the legacy of Hollywood's High Holy Night?
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The rest of the lists if you're curious [source]

Actors:
 Tobin Bell (Saw), 
Miguel Ferrer (Traffic), 
James Gandolfini (In the Loop), 
Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air), 
Mo’Nique (Precious), 
Carey Mulligan (An Education), 
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal), LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Mother and Child), 
Peter Riegert (Traffic), 
Sam Robards (American Beauty), 
Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, pictured left), 
Adam Sandler (Funny People), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious), Shaun Toub (Iron Man), 
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds), 
George Wyner (A Serious Man)

Animators:
 Ken Bielenberg (Monsters vs Aliens), Peter de Seve (Ratatouille), 
Steve Hickner (The Prince of Egypt), 
Angus MacLane (Toy Story 3), 
Darragh O’Connell (Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty), Simon Otto (How to Train Your Dragon), Bob Pauley (Toy Story 3), 
Willem Thijssen (A Greek Tragedy)

Art Directors/Set Decorators/Production Designers:
 Kim Sinclair (Avatar), Dave Warren (Sweeney Todd), Maggie Gray (The Young Victoria), Douglas A. Mowat (The Sixth Sense), 
Caroline Smith (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus), 
Kirk M. Pertruccelli (The Incredible Hulk), 
Edward S. Verreaux (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra)

Cinematographers:
 Barry Ackroyd (The Hurt Locker), 
Christian Berger (The White Ribbon, pictured left), Hagen Bogdanski (The Young Victoria), 
Shane Hurlbut (Terminator Salvation), Tom Hurwitz (Valentino The Last Emperor), 
Dan Mindel (Star Trek), 
Tobias Schliessler (Hancock), 
Stephen Windon (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift), Robert Yeoman (The Squid and the Whale)

Costume Designers:
 Catherine Leterrier (Coco before Chanel)

Directors:
 Juan Jose Campanella (The Secret in Their Eyes), Lee Daniels (Precious), 
Claudia Llosa (The Milk of Sorrow), Lone Scherfig (An Education)

Documentary:
 Nancy Baker (Born into Brothels), 
Rick Goldsmith (The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers), Davis Guggenheim (It Might Get Loud), Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water), 
Cara Mertes (The Betrayal), 
Frazer Pennebaker (The War Room), 
Julia Reichert (The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant), 
Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me)

Film Editors:
 Robert Frazen (Synecdoche, New York), 
Dana E. Glauberman (Up in the Air), Joe Klotz (Precious), 
John Refoua (Avatar)

Live Action Shorts: 
Joachim Back (The New Tenants), 
Gregg Helvey (Kavi)

Makeup Artists and Hairstylists:
 Kris Evans (X-Men The Last Stand), 
Jane Galli (3:10 to Yuma), 
Mindy Hall (World Trade Center), Joel Harlow (Star Trek), Jenny Shircore (The Young Victoria, pictured left)

Music:
 Christophe Beck (The Hangover) 
T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart), 
Brian Tyler (Fast & Furious)

Sound:
 Frank Eulner (Iron Man 2), Adam Jenkins (I Love You, Man), Tony Lamberti (Inglourious Basterd), Dennis Leonard (The Polar Express), 
Tom Myers (Up), 
Paul N.J. Ottosson (The Hurt Locker), Resul Pookutty (Slumdog Millionaire), Gary A. Rizzo (How to Train Your Dragon), Michael Silvers (Up), Gwendolyn Yates Whittle (Avatar)

Visual Effects:
 Matt Aitken (District 9), Karen Ansel (Angels & Demons), 
Richard Baneham ( Avatar), Eric Barba (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Paul Debevec (Avatar), Russell Earl (Star Trek), 
Steve Galich (Transformers), 
Andrew R. Jones (Avatar), Dan Kaufman (District 9), 
Derek Spears (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), 
Steve Sullivan (Avatar), 
Michael J. Wassel (Hellboy II: The Golden Army)

Writers:
 Neill Blomkamp (District 9), Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker), Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious), Nick Hornby (An Education), Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek), 
Tom McCarthy (Up, pictured left. He's also an actor), Roberto Orci (Star Trek), Terri Tatchell (District 9)

At Large, Executives, Producers & Public Relations
 Christopher W. Aronson, 
Jim Berk
, Philippe Dauman
, Sheila DeLoach
, Donald Peter Granger
, Nathan Kahane
, Andrew Karpen, 
Ryan Kavanaugh, 
David Kosse
, David Andrew Spitz
, Emma Watts, Stephanie Allain, Gregory Jacobs, Jon Landau, Marc Turtletaub, Glenn Williamson, Dwight Caines, Suzanne M. Cole
, Tommy Gargotta
, Sophie Gluck
, Josh Greenstein
, Pamela Levine
, Wendy Lightbourn, 
Michele Robertson, 
Tony Sella, Darcy Antonellis and John Lowry

Which ballots do you want to see?
Do you think anyone will reject the offer?
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"we have 12 vacancies. 12 cabins, 12 links."

<-- poster for The American. I like. Do you?

links
Word Smoker I love this piece on Tangled and its evocations of "tentacle porn".
Some Came Running a piece on Cyrus which is quite a funny if inconsequential movie. Glenn Kenny is so fun to read.
Movie|Line Nicolas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising) on Wonder Woman and what he'd do with her in a movie. This is a pretty intriguing interview. I would love them to give this project to someone who has an idea, you know. Not just another generic superhero movie.
The Awl proclaims Toy Story 3 "totally bonkers" and the best movie of the year. Good piece
The Wrap I didn't know this: Influential guilds are rallying to have IMDb lose those birthdates, claiming it leads to ageism in a youth-obsessed business.
/Film A Toy Story short coming next year? Oh Christ Almighty. What happened to going out with a bang?

Psycho is 50
I really meant to commemorate it myself but until I do...
WSJ great piece on Psycho (1960) and the Bernard Hermann score
Sunset Gun "50 Years and a Remake Later". I love discovering that cinephiles I respect are also fond of the Gus Van Sant recreation. Throw your stones elsewhere I'm not the least bit embarrassed about it. I like cinematic experimentation.

and here's a YouTube video on shower scene parodies/homages/ripoffs (hat tip to JA)



off-cinema
Sociological Images fun art project visualizing "masculine" images through "feminine" processes. We need more of this since Toy Story 3, though often brilliant, continues Pixar's little boys rule / girlie things not as cool messaging.
Us Magazine Ryan Kwanten is writing a sex guide book. Anyone who has ever watched his sex scenes on True Blood will surely buy it. Best Seller!
Boy Culture Is Queen Latifah softening her stance about coming out?

finally, Rob Will Review top ten Glee performances season 1. But I really must take exception with Kurts coopting of "Rose's Turn" not being on the list. That's just crazy talk.

p.s.
I find it very annoying --and I wonder if any of you have noticed -- that blogger no longer has accurate comment counts. It's very annoying because I read every comment and if it's lying to me about when you're commenting, I might miss some. grrrr.

A New Link State of Mind

Eddie on Film is hosting a John Williams blog-a-thon. That man just doesn't get enough attention you know obviously I'm joking a few pieces are already up. More to come
ONTD hilarious bit on public reaction to celebrity sightings. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal
Towleroad watch Sex & The City 2 in 60 seconds. Teehee
CHUD '50 Cent about to win Oscar' through the weight loss gimmick!
Arts Beat fans ask The Lovely Laura Linney questions. Our very own par3182 gets one in. Yes, that's right. I'm claiming TFE readers / frequent commenters as my own. You are all mine mwahhh haha ha ha


The L Magazine how have I never heard of this Liza Minnelli/Vincent Minnelli movie A Matter of Time (1976)? Is there a leak in my brain where I keep Liza?
Noh Way "How Carrie Got Her Groove Back." I suspect this is the most positive review of Sex & the City 2 that you'll read
The Stranger "Burkas and Birkins" I suspect this is the most negative review of Sex & the City 2 that you will read.
NY Magazine Joan Rivers doesn't hold her tongue

I feel so totally forgotten. The fucking New Yorker did this big piece on the genius of Rickles, who is brilliant but who hasn’t changed a line in fifteen years. Meanwhile, I am totally ‘old hat’ and ignored while in reality I could still wipe the floor with both Kathy [Griffin] and Sarah [Silverman].

...and sure is pushing this new documentary. I smell an Oscar nomination in January. Not for Joan Rivers exactly (she didn't direct it) but still.

Carter Burwell on Scoring the Coen Bros True Grit

more from the Nashville Film Festival

As an addendum to the "We Can't Wait: True Grit" post, I thought I'd share a few notes from my favorite special event at the 2010 Nashville Film Festival "Carter Burwell: One on One". Throughout the event last night, acclaimed film composer Carter Burwell spoke frequently about his work with the Coen Bros. He counts Miller's Crossing (1990) as his favorite working experience ever because he was given three months rather than the common three to six week time frame. When asked for a favorite score from his own career he offered up only "I like Fargo but I don't really have favorites."

The audience at the well attended event seemed especially intrigued by any hints as to what the soundscape for the upcoming True Grit (2010) might sound like.

"We don't always see eye to eye." Burwell noted when discussing his 14th collaboration with Joel and Ethan Coen. But when it came to the conception of the True Grit score "We both had the same idea at the same time: Protestant hymns." The composer went on to explain that the lead character, Mattie Ross (to be played by Hailee Steinfeld) was so convinced of her own righteousness that they all thought Protestant hymns would be a fine way to play with her misplaced rectitude.

He is just beginning preliminary work ("research mode") while True Grit films in Santa Fe and warns that sometimes the early concept isn't what they end up going with at all. You might not hear any Protestant hymns in other words. But it's their early shared concept. "I like having a concept". He's currently looking for appropriate hymn recordings but griped that "they all sound too sweet." He has an idea for a sort of call and response feel to the theme, a solo instrument echoing back since Mattie is marching off alone, determined into dangerous territory to find her father's killer and recruiting others to join her.

Did he feel any pressure to conform to the sounds of classic Western film scores? No pressure at all. When asked about the 1969 film he reconfirmed that this is not a remake. "We're trying to go back to the book as much as possible and ignore that film."


In case you missed any of the "We Can't Wait: Summer and Beyond" series, here they are: The "orphan" picks Nathaniel (Burlesque), JA (Love and Other Drugs), Jose (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), Craig (What's Wrong With Virginia?), Robert (True Grit) and Dave (Brighton Rock); Team Film Experience Countdown #12 It's Kind of a Funny Story, #11 Sex & the City 2, #10 Scott Pilgrim vs the World, #9 Somewhere, #8 The Kids Are All Right, #7 The Illusionist, #6 Toy Story 3, #5 Inception, #4 Rabbit Hole, #3 Never Let Me Go, #2 Black Swan and #1 The Tree of Life.

Tell Me Alexandre ...?

I hope to be interviewing Alexandre Desplat shortly and thought I'd enlist your help, dear readers. I can read music and play the piano but that's about the extent of my musical ability / knowledge. What would you ask the arguably busiest film composer? He's up for an Oscar this year for Fantastic Mr. Fox (his third nomination) with a trail of brilliant scores already behind him. There's so many to love I bet none of you will have the same favorites. Mine are Birth (2004) and The Painted Veil (2006) thus far... but there's yet more to come next year.

What would you ask him... and which other composers do you love?