#Clint Eastwood war film soundtrack

[greensparty]

Movie Review: Ennio

Italian music composer Ennio Morricone (1928-2020) was one of the greatest musicians of all time. Without a doubt! He composed the score for over 500 films. That’s not a typo! At the 2016 Golden Globe Awards, Quentin Tarantino accepted the award for Best Music Score on behalf of Morricone for the score to QT’s The Hateful Eight and he said of him:

“As far as I am concerned is my favorite composer! When I say favorite composer, I don’t mean movie composer, that ghetto. I’m talking about Mozart. I’m talking about Beethoven. I’m talking about Schubert. That’s who I’m talking about.”

I fully agree. He’s not just one of the greatest film composers of all time, but music composers! It is so hard to choose the highlights of such a rich and robust filmography and discography, but if I had to choose, I think his score for Sergio Leone’s westerns A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (which I watched in my Directing class in college and did a whole paper on FYI) are all time capsule worthy! That director / composer collaboration was among the greatest in history. Other favorites of mine include The Battle of Algiers, Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, Samuel Fuller’s White Dog, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables and Casualties of War, Phil Joanou’s State of Grace, Bugsy, and In the Line of Fire. But it was QT who finally got Morricone an Academy Award for Composing (he had received an Honorary Award in 2007) for scoring The Hateful Eight. Prior to this collaboration, QT used various Morricone pieces in the soundtracks to Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Death Proof, Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood. I got my copy of Hateful Eight soundtrack on vinyl!

movie poster

Director Giuseppe Tornatore worked with Moriccone a ton on thirteen films he directed since 1988, notably his love letter to film Cinema Paradiso (read my 2021 blu-ray review here), which had so many beautiful themes and ideas tied together by Moriccone's score. Tornatore had a great working relationship and friendship with Moriccone and made this comprehensive documentary Ennio that premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival and was recently released in the U.S. including Coolidge Corner Theatre.

The doc is filled with a ton of Moriccone himself telling his story and tons of anecdotes. There's a ton of archival footage and lots of clips from films. Featured interviewees include Clint Eastwood (start of a lot of the Leone films), QT, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone, Joanou, Dario Argento and Tornatore himself. There's also a ton of musicians represented including Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Quincy Jones, Bruce Springsteen (he grew up a fan), James Hetfield (Metallica covered his music live on numerous tours) and more.

the maestro at work

This is very much a doc about film history based on the sheer amount of films he composed and at times it borders on hagiography, but at its core it is about a legend who deserves the documentary treatment. I also commend Tornatore for not turning this whole film into a doc about his own relationship with him, but more just putting himself into the pantheon of work. There was quite a lot I learned, including how he almost scored A Clockwork Orange for Stanley Kubrick, but wasn't able to due to scheduling. In the end we're lucky this doc was made when Moriccone was alive to tell his story. Expect this to be shown in both music and film classes for years to come.

for info on Ennio

3.5 out of 5 stars

[yestolerancepro]

Tolerance Project Extra

The Good The Bad and the Ugly Part one Creating the Definitive Spaghetti Western

Introduction

Welcome to the first part of an extended edition of a blog I wrote about the good the bad and the ugly. This first chapter covers the making of the film from the casting where the title comes from and did the man with no name really have no name at all Part 2 covers the filming locations and the soundtrack

Part 3 will cover the lost sequel and what links the film to the Tolerance Project

Background

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, literally "The good, the ugly, the bad") is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Cleef as "the Bad", and Eli Wallach as "the Ugly".[9]

Slash film published an article on their website went ranked every film directed by Sergio Leone titled Every Sergio Leone Movie Ranked Worst To Best click here to read it https://www.slashfilm.com/954839/every-sergio-leone-movie-ranked-worst-to-best/ 

 Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film's sweeping widescreen cinematography, and Ennio Morricone composed the film's score, including its main theme. It was an Italian-led production with co-producers in Spain, West Germany, and the United States. Most of the filming took place in Spain.

The film is known for Leone's use of long shots and close-up cinematography, as well as his distinctive use of violence, tension, and highly stylised gunfights. The plot revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in a buried cache of Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of the American Civil War (specifically the Battle of Glorieta Pass of the New Mexico Campaign in 1862) while participating in many battles, confrontations, and duels along the way.[11] The film was the third collaboration between Leone and Clint Eastwood, and the second with Lee Van Cleef.

The Perfect Spaghetti Western

The Collider film recently published an article called 25 films that are perfect from start to finish the Good The Good the Bad and the ugly was on this list at number at number 9 this is what they had to say:

An iconic Western that stands as one of the best movies of the 1960s (Western or otherwise), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is riveting, exciting, and ridiculously entertaining for its lengthy runtime of nearly three hours. The three characters referred to in the title are all relatively selfish, albeit differ when it comes to the brutality of their actions, though all three have the same goal: finding a buried stash of gold somewhere in the desert while the American Civil War wages around them.

It's the most popular film directed by Sergio Leone, and might also be his best, functioning as a Western, a war film, a buddy comedy (at times), and an epic adventure movie all at once. With its memorable characters, quotable dialogue, unforgettable music (Ennio Morricone strikes again), and bursts of intense action, it's a rousing success from beginning to end. Even if you don't ordinarily like Westerns, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the absolute definition of a must-watch.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was marketed as the third and final instalment in the Dollars Trilogy, following A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More.  Click here for trailers for both of those films

firstly a fist full of Dollars

 click here for a trailer for a few Dollars more

Further Watching

To watch a video documentary called 20 things you didnt know about the Good the Bad and the ugly from the Just Westerns Youtube click here

Further reading

An article on why the second film in the Dollars trilogy for a few Dollars more is the underdog masterpeice in the Dollars trilogy to read it click here This 59-Year-Old Sergio Leone Western is Still His Most Underrated Movie (cbr.com) thanks to the CBR film website

The Screen Rant website ranked the Dollars trilogy in order of merit you can read their article All 3 Dollars Trilogy Movies, Ranked Worst To Best  by clicking here : https://screenrant.com/dollars-trilogy-movies-ranked-worst-best/

The film the good the bad and the ugly was a financial success, grossing over $38 million at the worldwide box office, and is credited with having catapulted Eastwood into stardom. Due to general disapproval of the spaghetti Western genre at the time, critical reception of the film following its release was mixed, but it gained critical acclaim in later years, becoming known as the "definitive spaghetti Western".

To learn what the term spaghetti Western" actually means read this rather useful article by the Screenrant website by clicking here

Casting

The trio the Good The Bad and the Ugly of the Title !!

Clint Eastwood as 'Blondie' (the Man with No Name): The Good A taciturn, confident bounty hunter who to find buried gold teams up with Tuco and Angel Eyes temporarily. Blondie and Tuco have an ambivalent partnership. Tuco knows the name of the cemetery where the gold is hidden, but Blondie knows the name of the grave where it is buried, forcing them to work together to find the treasure. Despite this greedy quest, Blondie's pity for the dying soldiers in the chaotic carnage of the war is evident. "I've never seen so many men wasted so badly," he remarks. He also comforts a dying soldier by laying his coat over him and letting him smoke his cigar. Rawhide had ended its run as a series in 1966, and at that point, neither A Fistful of Dollars nor For a Few Dollars More had been released in the United States. When Leone offered Clint Eastwood a role in his next movie, it was the only big film offer he had, but Eastwood still needed to be convinced to do it. Leone and his wife traveled to California to persuade him. Two days later, he agreed to make the film upon being paid $250,000[13] and getting 10% of the profits from the North American markets—a deal with which Leone was not happy. In the original Italian script for the film, he is named "Joe" (his nickname in A Fistful of Dollars), but is referred to as Blondie in the Italian and English dialogue.

Did Clint Eastwoods Man with No name actually have a name Dollars Trilogy Mystery Explained

Clint Eastwood's poncho aficionado gunslinger is known by at least three different names in the Fistful Of Dollars trilogy, so why is he dubbed "The Man with No Name?" Eastwood was far from the first choice for the lead in The Magnificent Stranger - later retitled A Fistful Of Dollars - with bigger names like Henry Fonda and James Coburn passing. The screenplay already subverted the traditional image of the "heroic" cowboy, with Eastwood's character being shown to shoot first and lie and cheat to achieve his goals.

Eastwood himself brought the final touch of trimming his dialogue to the bare minimum, which made his gunslinger more mysterious. Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy was hugely influential on futures Westerns, bringing a more violent, cynical edge with injections of dark humor to the genre. "The Man with No Name" is arguably the most iconic anti-hero in all of Western cinema, but it should be noted that the three films are only loosely connected. This might account for why the "Man With No Name" actually goes by several names throughout the series.

Clint Eastwoods Man with No Name might be called Joe

The screenplay for A Fistful Of Dollars featured a brief opening scene that was later cut. It revealed Eastwood's character was a Confederate sergeant named Ray, and he's shown stealing his signature poncho. This was wisely dropped as having the "Man With No Name" suddenly appear with no backstory only added to his mystique. That said, one of the few friendships he forms in the story is with the local undertaker Piripero (Joseph Egger), who calls Eastwood's protagonist "Joe." Eastwood himself is also credited as "Joe" in a Fistful Of Dollars credits.

On the other hand

That said, Eastwood's gunslinger never actually says his name is "Joe," which is likely a nickname Piripero has given him in lieu of his actual name, as in "Regular Joe." For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly further suggest Joe isn't his real name. In the former, he's dubbed "Manco" by other characters. This is definitely a nickname and translates to "one-armed," referring to his shooting style. In The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Eli Wallach's Tuco refers to him constantly as "Blondie," in reference to his light hair.

Joe" was almost certainly a placeholder for the character and it's worth noting that Fistful Of Dollars blatantly copied Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa. This Japanese samurai film sees a wandering ronin (Toshiro Mifune) arrive at a village caught between feuding gangs, and he plays both sides against one another for his own gain. A Fistful Of Dollars and Yojimbo share the same plot beats, and in the latter, Mifune's ronin gives his name as "Kuwabatake Sanjuro," which translates to "Mulberry field" and "30 years old"; this in reference to a nearby field and his actual age. Fistful Of Dollars no doubt "borrowed" this conceit from Kurosawa's film too 

While the Dollars trilogy is only tangentially connected, it's clear The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (which almost replaced Eastwood with Charles Bronson) was designed as a prequel. A key moment towards the finale sees Eastwood's "Blondie" discover his trademark poncho, which he takes from a dead soldier. Whether "Joe" was ever intended by the filmmakers as the true name of Eastwood's anti-hero was later retconned by For A Few Dollars More, where he's only ever referred to as "Manco." The concept of the "Man With No Name" was actually a creative piece of marketing by the trilogy's American distributor, United Artists.

As a way to link the three Leone Westerns, the trailers and marketing referred to Eastwood's loner as the "Man With No Name." This gave a mythic quality to him, and even though this descriptor is never used in any of the Dollars films, it soon became the title viewers knew him as. It's an archetype that the actor would revisit in some of his later Westerns too. His titular characters in High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider go by the names "The Stranger" and "The Preacher" respectively, with both projects adding a supernatural edge to the concept.

Eli Wallach as Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez (known as "The Rat" according to Blondie): The Ugly,

A fast-talking, comically oafish yet also cunning, cagey, resilient, and resourceful Mexican bandit who is wanted by the authorities for a long list of crimes. The director originally considered Gian Maria Volonté (who portrayed the villains in both the preceding films) for the role of Tuco, but felt that the role required someone with "natural comic talent". In the end, Leone chose Eli Wallach, based on his role in How the West Was Won (1962), in particular, his performance in "The Railroads" scene. In Los Angeles, Leone met Wallach, who was skeptical about playing this type of character again, but after Leone screened the opening credit sequence from For a Few Dollars More, Wallach said: "When do you want me?" The two men got along famously, sharing the same bizarre sense of humor. Leone allowed Wallach to make changes to his character in terms of his outfit and recurring gestures. Both Eastwood and Van Cleef realized that the character of Tuco was close to Leone's heart, and the director and Wallach became good friends. They communicated in French, which Wallach spoke badly and Leone spoke well. Van Cleef observed, "Tuco is the only one of the trio the audience gets to know all about. We meet his brother and find out where he came from and why he became a bandit. But Clint and Lee's characters remain mysteries." In the theatrical trailer, Angel Eyes is referred to as The Ugly and Tuco, The Bad. This is due to a translation error; the original Italian title translates to "The Good [one], the Ugly [one], the Bad [one]"

Lee Van Cleef as 'Angel Eyes': The Bad

A ruthless, confident, borderline-sadistic mercenary who takes pleasure in killing and always finishes a job for which he is paid, usually tracking and assassination. Originally, Leone wanted Enrico Maria Salerno (who had dubbed Eastwood's voice for the Italian versions of the Dollars Trilogy films)[19] or Charles Bronson to play Angel Eyes, but the latter was already committed to playing in The Dirty Dozen (1967). Leone thought about working with Lee Van Cleef again: "I said to myself that Van Cleef had first played a romantic character in For a Few Dollars More. The idea of getting him to play a character who was the opposite of that began to appeal to me." In the original working script, Angel Eyes was named "Banjo," but is referred to as "Sentenza" (meaning "Sentence" or "Judgement") in the Italian version. Eastwood came up with the name Angel Eyes on the set, for his gaunt appearance and expert marksmanship.

Next week The Locations of the Good the Bad the ugly The Music of the good the bad the ugly

Pictures

Poster for the Good the Bad and the ugly

Posters for the other films in the trilogy a fist full of Dollars and a few Dollars more

Clint Eastwood as the man with no name

 Eli Wallach as Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez (known as "The Rat"

Lee Van Cleef as Angel eyes

Notes 

Thank you to the following websites for their articles and their content Wikepedia for the background to The Good the Bad the Ugly Collider Screenrant Slash film and You Tube for the video documentaries and Google Images for the pictures

[machetelanding]

[crymeariverontheradio]

River's Radio 7/17/2022: Spaghetti Western

Soooo idk if you all know the bizarre history of Spaghetti Westerns.

Westerns(for anyone who doesn't know) are movies centered around the setting of the American West, usually around the 1860-ish area, revolving around such characters as Cowboys, native Americans, bounty hunters, outlaws, soldiers, and Mexican-American settlers.

However, Spaghetti Westerns are Western movies that are written and directed by Italians, primarily, filmed and produced in Europe, particularly Spain, because of the climate and geography, which also had a lot of room to experiment with storytelling and plot and film, trying new and interesting things.

Anyways, one of the most famous is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, directed by Sergio Leone, and starring Clint Eastwood.

One of the things I love about this movie, beyond the sheer experimentation that it takes with scene movement and the creativity with the filmmaking, is the soundtrack. It's really incentive, and extremely fun to listen to!

Here are my favorite numbers from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly soundtrack, by Ennio Morricone!

Main Theme

This one is just riding a horse through the badlands, a gun at your hip, chewing on a cigar, thinking about where you're going, forgetting where you're coming from. And the "ayayayayaaaa waa waaa waaa" is based on the sound wild coyotes make. It's just... A good vibe, especially if you like atmospheric tunes!

The Ecstasy Of Gold

You've heard this one before. It is featured all of the time. It is featured in a lot of Dolce and Gabbana ads, and then I think Taco Bell? Idk. Lots of ads sample this, and it's just an iconic piece of music. Repetitive, determined, and rushing, almost, searching. Just like the scene where it's from. The character(Mr. Ugly), runs, breathless, aimless, through an endless, neverending, cemetery of civil war soldiers, searching for where the gold is buried. I won't spoil the story, but this is him, dehydrated and desperate, looking for the treasure that's kept him going for the entire movie.

The Trio

FACE OFF!!! FACE OFF FACE OFF FACE OFF!!! One of the most iconic scenes in this movie is the duel, one of the final moments of the 2 hour plus movie where three men stand in a circle and the cameras slowly move in closer and closer on them, until the finale of them when the guns go off. This is a dramatic, important, loud piece of music. It's really good, and it sticks in your chest and makes you sit on the edge of your seat, waiting for the moment when everything grinds to a halt and goes out with a bang, much like how 10 Duel Commandments from Hamilton works, the moments leading up to a showdown highlighted and sharpened down into a song that makes you feel emotions. Good vibes, no?

BONUS LANA DEL REY THE TRIO REMIX

It's worth it. If you liked the last song, try vibing with this one. It's a really short, really fun remix of a piece from The Trio. And the beat drop gets me every SINGLE. TIME.

[au10]

Eastwood

So I watched all the westerns by Eastwood. Below you’ll find my list of what I’d say are his best to not necessarily worst just not great. Keep in mind that this list is just my opinion and yours very well may differ and hey that’s great. Also keep in mind there will be spoilers but to be fair the majority of these movies are older than me. I would also like to point out that I didn’t view Rawhide as I really didn’t seem like something I’d like. The list is as best as I can tell are all of his westerns. Some are kind of iffy as I don’t consider them a western. 

http://most-wanted-western-movies.com/clint-eastwood-westerns/

1.”Unforgiven” 1992

 My original pick was going to be “For a Few dollars more”. I re-watched Unforgiven again and have decided that Unforgiven is his best western. Made in 1992. It features Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman and Richard Harris. There might even be more stars but those are the ones that stood out to me. The plot basically goes like this. William Munny a ruthless killer back in the day settles down with a woman who changes his life. He gave up his killer ways. The wife is already dead when the movie starts and Munny stays on the good path for lack of better phrasing. I don’t want to spoil to much more but needless to say a large bounty put on some ruffians leads to some nice action. 

I love the soundtrack to this movie. Well at least one song in particular and that’s Claudia’s theme. You can YouTube if you wish. I think it’s really great. 

A couple of quotes that I enjoyed. 

“ I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done to Ned”

.”It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.“

2. “For a few dollars more” 1965

 This is the sequel to a “Fistful of dollars”. It’s part of the famous dollar trilogy movies. Made in 1965 Eastwood portrays the man with no name. I really like  Lee Van Cleef as Col. Douglas Mortimer. It’s a revenge type of western. Both Cleef and Eastwood characters are pretty much bounty hunters. Cleef has an entirely different motive for his actions though. They seem to have great chemistry together too. I also like the dialogue between them as well. Clint Eastwood's character calls Lee Van Cleef's character "old man", while Van Cleef's character calls Eastwood "boy". Once more I love the music plays when the pocket watch is opened up. 

3.” A fist full of dollars.” 1964  

The beginning if you will of the the man with no name trilogy or dollars trilogy which ever you prefer. The dollars trilogy is what you call a spaghetti western. “ Spaghetti westerns were not rated highly due to their low budgets, over the top violence and inferior art work. But, these Spaghetti Westerns changed that perception forever. Director Sergio Leone gave one after another hit and this trilogy made Clint Eastwood a mega star. “ Some people don’t like them or they find them to corny. Each to their own. I loved the movies. My father pointed out to me one of the things that bugged him was the constant camera cuts to the other characters in the film. It especially focuses on their eyes. I never noticed it until he pointed it out. I do love the scene where he confronts the bullies/bad guys. On his way to them. He passes by the undertaker and tells him to get three coffins ready. After the shootout he passes back by the undertaker and tells him my mistake 4 coffins.

4. “The Good, The bad and the Ugly.” 1966 

The last of the dollars trilogy. A lot of people will say that this is the best of the three movies. Like the previous  film it also stars Lee Van Cleef. This time though he is one of the villain’s. It’s a good movie. I enjoyed  Eli Wallach as Tuco. Once more you have the music on point with  The Ecstasy of Gold. I heard that song years earlier when Metallica would use it. My last thought on this trilogy is I do love how Eastwood is always smoking those little cigars. I have read though he actually hated them.

“ You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig. “

5. “Two Mules for Sister Sara” 1970

This one is a film I really liked. It doesn’t seem to be as serious as the previous I’ve listed above. It actually has quite a few comedic moments in it. I think one of the best parts of the movie is after Hogan (Eastwood) saves Sara from impending doom. She gets dressed and comes back out in her nun gear. Once Hogan realizes she is a known his expression is great then he exclaims “Jesus Christ”. I noticed this movie had blood in it. A lot of the earlier ones don’t. One guy gets his arm cut off and one takes a machete to the face. It’s a good movie and I enjoyed it. I should note the soundtrack or at least one song they play over at times in the film is a play on the title. It sounds like a mule actually braying. Pretty nifty. 

6. “Pale Rider” 1985

Another good movie. Eastwood is just known as the preacher in this movie. He helps out a prospect town from becoming a mining town. When the prospectors will not give up their land. A marshal and his deputies are sent in to get prospectors out. It’s hinted at that the marshal may know the preacher form the way he reacts after told his description. This is definitely one of my favorites though. It does get a little weird with the preacher having intercourse with a guy’s girlfriend. The action is great though. It should be noted that it’s been told that Eastwood’s charter is a ghost in this film. Richard Kiel is in this movie as well. He is a well established actor. Most likely known for playing Jaws in Moonraker. 

7. Outlaw Josey wales 1976

A lot of people like this movie. It’s Eastwoods only PG rated western. It’s once more a revenge type western. Josey’s family is murdered by the Union army and he joins a confederate group to get his revenge. I think one of the best parts in the movie is when Josey shoots the rope holding a ferry going across the river. Some of the Union soldiers horses fall into the river preventing them from reaching Wales. This movie is said to be George Strait’s favorite. I did find it funny that the old man in charge of the ferry was playing to both sides. If you were a Confederate he would sing “Dixie” if you were a Union solider he would sing “Battle hymn of the republic” Ever the opportunist I suppose. 

"Well Mr. Carpetbagger, we got something in this territory called a Missoura boat ride!"

"Well are ya' gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?"

8.”High plains drifter” 1973

This movie could be almost a part of the man with no name trilogy. It’s just not as good. I liked the midget character named Mordecai . He is one of the best in the movie and funny. This is one of the movies where it’s possible that the stranger (Eastwood’s character) could be a ghost. Some people say he is the sheriff’s brother. Eastwood has said that himself. Then again some people say he is the ghost of the sheriff himself. It’s up to the viewer and how you choose to interpret it. This movie also marks the first movie Eastwood directed that was a western.

“You're going to look pretty silly with that knife sticking out of your ass.“

9. “Hang’em High” 1968

This was Eastwoods first major role in America. The Dollars trilogy had yet to come out over here in America. Jed  (Eastwoods character) is wrongfully hanged by a posse. He naturally seeks revenge after being rescued. He becomes a Marshal and winds up bringing some of the posse to justice. It also stars Pat Hingle. I really only know him from Tim Burton’s Batman. He played Commissioner Gordon. 

10. “Joe Kidd” 1972

To be honest with you this movie really doesn’t do anything for me at all. It’s not a bad movie but it’s not one that really captivates me either. It stars Robert Duvall as a rich/wealthy landowner trying to push Mexicans off of their land. He hires Eastwood’s character named Joe Kidd. It does have some decent moments. A pretty cool scene shows Kidd taking out a gunman upon a rock. The final fight is also pretty neat where Kidd drives a train through the bar.

Honorable Mentions: 

1.”Bronco Billy” 1980

This movie was on the list and I viewed it. I liked it. Eastwood plays a carnival showman. It’s your typical story of guy and girl don’t get along. Then as the movie progresses they start to get along and wind up with one another. It’s not a western but it has the theme. It does have  Scatman Crothers in it as Doc. Throw in a crooked lawyer and a crooked husband and this is the movie you have. 

2. “Paint your wagon” 1969 

This set during the gold rush. It is a musical though and you can get the soundtrack on itunes. I heard about this movie from The Simpsons years ago. It doesn’t have a western feel to me. Eastwood plays Pardner. It’s a cool little musical. It’s an interesting movie though. A Mormon has two wives and he sells one. Well Pardner and his partner Ben rum son played by Lee Marvin buys her. Elizabeth the wife that was purchased basically has two husbands. It’s really a good movie. My favorite song being “Wand’rin Star”

3. “The Beguiled” 1971

They had this movie on the list and there again I witched it. It’s certainly not a western. It’s okay. Eastwood kind of plays a bad guy in it but only to survive. Set in the Civil War era. He is an injured Union solider rescued by a little girl. She takes him to an all girls school. It should be noted that this is the only movie in which a character portrayed by Eastwood dies. 

[daleisgreat]

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

A movie podcast I listen to, The Big Picture, did a recent episode on the 10th anniversary of 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (trailer). Coincidentally enough, that film remains in my backlog box all these years later, so I made sure to re-watch it before giving that podcast a listen. For those unfamiliar with this film, it is based on a series of six graphic novels of the same name by Bryan Lee O’Malley released between 2004 and 2010. The basic gist is that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) falls for newcomer to town, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). In order to win her over Pilgrim has to defeat Ramona’s “Seven Evil Ex’s.” Scott spends the rest of the film exploring Ramona’s mysterious past and dueling her ex’s while practicing with his band, Sex Bo-Bomb, as they progress through a battle of the bands tournament. Sex Bo-Bomb is one slick act! Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) is the doom-and-gloom frontman of the band. Kim Pine (Alison Pill) is a 2010 take on Daria and effectively nails her vintage expressionless glares and blunt quips. Young Neil (Johnny Simmons) is the affable, DS-loving, always ready alternate for Sex Bo-Bomb. Their #1 fan and also other girlfriend of Scott Pilgrim is one Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Knive’s arc is probably my favorite of this ensemble cast as her journey from adoring fan and girlfriend to her final destination is a fascinating quest to see develop and a faithful translation from the books.

I first heard of the books on the videogame podcast, Team Fremont Live where they reviewed the first book and their breakdown of it caught my attention when they dissected all the nonstop videogame references that are peppered regularly throughout it. The film captures that imagery to a T where it feels like Pilgrim is living in a real life videogame. In this world suspending disbelief is required because it is jam-packed with extraordinarily choreographed battle scenes, makes anyone capable of instantly pulling off bombastic martial arts moves in the blink of an eye without any training whatsoever, and quirky little animations of objects like Mario Bros.-esque coins and pixelated items inserted throughout that any videogame fan will pick up on. The fighting game fan in me popped a little each time a thunderous “KO” blared out each time Pilgrim emerged victorious after an evil ex duel. As a lifelong fan of videogames, it was fun picking up on all the references and Easter eggs in the background throughout. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World hit at an interesting time where Michael Cera was the only established star at this point in 2010 and was riding the last wave of critical success coming off of Arrested Development, Superbad and Juno. Brandon Routh is noteworthy appearing here as one of the evil ex’s after flaming out in his single appearance in a Superman film. However, a few other stars are here right before they exploded into bigger success like the aforementioned Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Chris Evan is here as another evil-ex shortly after his two Fantastic Four films, but a year before donning the Captain America costume for the first time. Anna Kendrick is here in a small role as Scott’s sister Stacey while in the midst of her initial Twighlight run. Finally, Brie Larson is here as Scott’s evil-ex, Envy Adams and she is the lead for her band, Clash at Demonhead in my personal favorite musical performance of the film as they belt out “Black Sheep.”

It is worth repeating that I highly recommend suspending all disbelief going into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and simply roll with it. The battle scenes are a hoot to take in and feature a ton of CG that holds up well ten years later. It is also worth pointing out this film is part absurd videogame battles, part early 20s love triangle drama and to a lesser extent part musical with several performances from Sex Bo-Bomb and other bands throughout the film. Director Edgar Wright tracked down a few bands to play the tracks for some of the featured bands in the film such as Beck performing the handful of Sex Bo-Bomb songs in addition to a slew of other tracks from artists like The Rolling Stones and Blood Red Shoes that perfectly supplement the outlandish tone of the film. It is not too often on here I recommend hunting down the soundtracks for a film, but the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World I wholeheartedly recommend! I think the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World BluRay may have set the record for amount of extra features for a single film in the near seven years of movies I have covered on this blog. A rough tally on my notes gives an approximate sum of nearly five hours of bonuses, and then four feature length commentary tracks on top of that! I will not detail every bonus, but will give some highlights of the ones that stood out for me. There is just under a half hour of deleted scenes with or without commentary from Edgar Wright. Most of them are extended scenes from the first act to trim out excess background info, but an alternate ending is what stood out the most that Wright explained he changed because it did not go over that well in test screenings. I can always appreciate a good blooper reel, and an excellent 10 minute reel is compiled here that I would rate right up with the stellar ones in the Marvel films.

There are three features grouped together in the ‘Docs’ section of the extras tallying up to a little over an hour. If you only had time for one of the five hours of bonuses I would go there because that has the core making of documentary which breaks down collaborating with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley, nailing the casting, detailing the extensive stunt training and interviews several of the bands about being featured in the soundtrack. Speaking of the soundtrack, there are four music videos included. Definitely check out the four minute animated short, Scott Pilgrim vs. Animation that is essentially a prequel to the film that dives into Scott and Kim’s former relationship. There are 12 ‘Video Blogs’ totaling 45 minutes that are raw on set interviews with the cast and crew between takes that sees the crew up to all kinds of mischief to kill downtime. This BluRay easily has the largest photo gallery of any home video I have covered with several hundred photos. One gallery is labeled ‘storyboards’ but each storyboard panel is nearly identical to the excellent quality of the art in Bryan Lee O’Malley books so that is essentially a free comic book adaptation of the movie buried in the extras! I experienced all four of the commentary tracks in one re-watch of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World via jumping around to a different commentary about every five minutes. Edgar Wright is on two of them, one with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley and writer Michael Bocall and the other with photography director Bill Pope. The other two commentaries are split among nine cast members, with Michael Cera and the rest of the leading cast on one and the ancillary cast members on the other cast commentary track. Wright has tons of nonstop insight and production facts on his tracks, and the cast tracks are have a lot of fun anecdotes such as Cera failing at trying to get additional people on the commentary via phone call. On top of the commentary I had on during my re-watch was also a factoid subtitle track to really take in the extra features. Despite going on now for three paragraphs about the bonus features, I think I only touched on about half of what is available, and it is truly astonishing to see how much they crammed into one BluRay disc.

A part of me thought going into this that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World would not hold up after 10 years. I would chalk that up to thinking I may have got easily won over with all the hype from being vastly into the books back then and being too caught up into the build to the film’s initial release. I can put those reservations to rest thankfully as I immensely enjoyed this ode to videogame fandom as much as I first did in 2010. Throw in a plethora of extra features to last all year to make Scott Pilgrim vs. the World one of my highest recommendations yet! If you want even more commentary from me about this film than below I have embedded the podcast I originally recorded 10 years ago shortly after seeing the film on its opening weekend. I bring on a couple other special guest hosts that are also ardent Scott Pilgrim fans and we review the film, soundtrack, the books and the videogame. Enjoy!

I brought on a couple other Scott Pilgrim experts on as guest hosts on my podcast to review the film, books, videogame and soundtrack shortly after they all released 10 years ago. Check it out in the embed above for more Scott Pilgrim goodness or click or press here to queue it up for later. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild The Wizard Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[honeylikewords]

Talk to me about all the mandalorian.

THANK G O D 

OKAY SO HERE I GO

MAJOR WARNINGS FOR POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR THE MANDALORIAN BELOW! I’m going to do my best not to spoil anything too important, but if you want to be totally safe, here’s your warning!

So! I have a lot of feelings about it! First and foremost, I really enjoyed this first episode; I watched it three times, and noticed new stuff every time!

One of my most major takeaways is how noticeably more “western”-like this series is; the entire Star Wars series is very inspired by westerns and is very much about “space cowboys”, but The Mandalorian definitely is very reflective of being a spaghetti western. I likened it to the Dollars Trilogy and specifically matched the character of the titular Mandalorian to the Man With No Name, the Clint Eastwood character who starred in all three of the films comprising the Dollars Trilogy (The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly and more). 

Like that Clint Eastwood character, the Mandalorian speaks very little, has no canon name (so far), is of mysterious, roaming origins, is covered from view (in place of the hat and serape, the Mandalorian has his helmet and cape), and seems to be a neutral character with heroic and villainous qualities alike, but having some soft spots, as many stoic, masculine figures of westerns are wont to have. The Man With No Name is also, himself, a bounty hunter. 

Hell, even that shot he takes during the finale of the bar fight? He poses just like Clint Eastwood. 

The music and opening bar scene are also INCREDIBLY western-y. I loved it. The moment the Mandalorian stepped onto screen, it was all shivers and joy. The music really adds to the experience, with those flute-y, wavering notes, and the intensity of the opening theme. When I was re-watching the episode for the third time with my little brother, I noticed him start to unconsciously move his head to the intense beat the opening lays down, and it was a really cool testament to how entrancing the soundtrack is, and how it adds to the immersion and, well, badass-ery of the episode. 

Also, throwaway note, I love how they canonize “life day”, now, from the Star Wars Holiday Special. Oh, the infamous special… wherein the animated sequence featured Boba Fett using a weapon very similar to the Mandalorian’s current one! The pronged rifle wasn’t really seen anywhere else, as far as I know, so I like to think it’s an intentional, tongue-in-cheek nod to that Special.

I also have to talk about how amazing Pedro Pascal’s acting is for this. His face is covered, his whole body is covered, and yet he’s able to convey so much emotion through tiny gestures; even things down to using just his pinky to point at a droid while he’s holding a gun, he’s got nailed. His body language and vocal choices (when he does choose to speak) say leagues about our character without ever having to say anything, and it tells us even more when he chooses to stay silent. I think Pedro Pascal is doing a fantastic job; I’m in love with this character already!

It’s pretty clear that our Mandalorian isn’t going to be a super bad guy. Just from what we have in the first episode, it’s pretty transparent that he’s not a big fan of the Empire, and was likely a victim of theirs, in some way or another. I don’t want to say anything too definite– I certainly don’t expect our Mando to become some great hero of the Resistance– but I do think that we can extrapolate that he has pretty negative feelings about the Empire and its businesses from what we see of him, from his rejecting Empire credits as payment (instead taking half of what he’s owed in a different currency, forgoing the other half entirely just on principle, it seems) to the melting of the Empire symbol away from a slab of his people’s specialized ore, to his clear hesitation when entering the room of Stormtroopers and speaking with the man wearing the Empire-symbol medal. 

There’s also the scenes wherein he offers the old man extra payment, saying “please, you deserve this”, being more gentle with an animal and successfully taming it, and That Thing He Does At The End (which is a major spoiler but certainly changes the entire game!), all of which show that he definitely has a softer side to him. That’s not to say he’s going to be a perfectly noble man, but I do believe he’s going to be a good guy for us to root for, even if he’s played a little “morally grey” (like Han in the first film). 

I also like that he’s not played to be perfectly perfect at everything. Him struggling to learn to ride a blurrg was actually really endearing, and performing the aforementioned taming of the blurrg was, likewise, very sweet. Seeing him fall on his ass and grumpily storm off to ask if he could rent a speeder was so fun, and allowed us, the audience, to see him a little bit more humanly; sure, he’s efficient and capable, but he isn’t automatically awesome at everything. Sometimes, things go wrong for him, and that makes him more relatable and less pedestalled and statuesque.

It was also cute to see him getting frazzled during the shootout and while also trying to keep IG-11 under control. He still had mastery and command over his situation, but I loved how so much more emotion came into his voice and he was clearly expressing way more widely, shouting and grumbling and snarking and just generally allowing himself to be more emotive. It was kind of adorable!

Also the “I can bring you in warm… or cold” was… ooh boy.

Anyway.

I could definitely spin a lot of yarns based on what we’ve seen, and I do think I know where things are going, or what certain lines or details in the episode might connect to, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself or accidentally spoil anything. I want to go into this wide-eyed and excited, and I’m ready for what comes next!

I can’t wait for the next episode to come out this Friday so I can unpack even more!

[irishrebelvoice]

Kelly's Heroes - Burning Bridges (Movie Soundtrack)

Kelly’s Heroes – Burning Bridges (Movie Soundtrack)

Kelly’s Heroes is a 1970 war movie about some opportunism within the US army as they discover a massive cache of gold being guarded by the SS. The enterprising individuals, led by Kelly – played by Clint Eastwood – set out to try to acquire the precious metal for their own use.

Although it’s a solid war movie with plenty of action, it’s also fairly tongue-in-cheek. There is a strong cast with the…

[aintitfunkynow]

2023 Eastwood Project #19 - Two Mules For Sister Sara (1970) (2/1/23) Actor. Director Don Siegel finds the sweet spot between the Leone movies and his American films. Clint has the beard, the vest and the cigarillo back along with a Morricone soundtrack. Siegel understands the humor from the Italian films. It's also a subtle anti-war film against our fighting in Vietnam. Clint and Shirley MacLaine have better chemistry than I would have imagined. https://www.instagram.com/p/CoJLcgjsfvNxL_6ntTfewPmy7RIeJujmLPcCx80/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[biblioflyer]

Hi there Tumblr, this is a narrated version of a short monologue about fandom discourse and a statement of intent. I’m experimenting with a few different platforms for publishing essays. The full text minus some improvisation is as follows:

Did you see that latest show, movie etc. that everyone hates with an incandescent passion and other people loved uncritically? Were you just sort of “whelmed” by it?

Was Captain Marvel just sort of okay? Not the pinnacle of the MCU but definitely watchable. The choice to have a sort of “Clint Eastwood” laconic and minimally emotive character was a valid choice even though it forced the film to rely on flashbacks and musical cues to convey the character’s emotional state. Maybe Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley is an example of a woman pulling off this style well and Brie Larson missed the mark?

If you’re aware of your own aesthetic biases, don’t project them onto other people, and generally find it frustrating when people conduct themselves boorishly online when talking about their fandoms, you’ve come to the right place!

Fear not, the Captain Marvel reference is bait. I have more complex thoughts about what works and what doesn’t regarding the character and the movies, and very little interest in how the actress conducts herself in interviews. A problematic relationship with fandoms is not not a problem but at the same time, let's give credit where credit is due in this messy, chaotic, and frequently venomous internet of ours it is often very challenging to identify the thoughtful, constructive critiques amid the pile of accounts with portraits of predominantly white men repeatedly typing Feminazi.

The good faith critiques are there! These aren’t flawless productions and there are still healthy, respectful ways to take issue with art but there are also a lot of trolls and I think we ought to put on our psychic armor and be mature enough to recognize when the people associated with these projects call out people who are behaving problematically, it’s probably not about you unless you’re the person arguing in bad faith! When the targets of criticism and harassment “clap back” we should apply the same “reasonable person” standard to their reactions that we would want them to apply to those of us who are approaching this from the position of wanting the stuff they enjoy to be better.

Yet if you hate, loathe, despise Brie Larson or Captain Marvel, want the film eradicated from canon or the part to be recast, this is not for you. This blog is dedicated to people who want to talk about their fandoms starting from a place of appreciation for the blood, sweat, and tears that go into these works. Chill out dude (and statistically speaking, yeah you’re probably a dude) it's just a movie and Brie’s a person with feelings too. If you think Megacorporation X needs your feedback on why they have made a terrible misstep, you can take more than 5 seconds to think through your commentary.

Edit: (This isn't in the narration, sorry. Might get updated someday.)

Did a rewatch of Captain Marvel for an essay on where to go with the character in The Marvels, and you know what? I didn't dislike the movie when I first saw it, but its aged like fine wine. With all the discussion about gaslighting, "cults" and diasporic peoples that I've absorbed since it first came out, not only is it a fun romp, I'd say its comparable to Civil War in how it plays with identity, loyalty, and the dehumanizing messiness of war. Killer soundtrack too.

[ryanmeft]

Three Movies That Deserve Criterion Editions, 5-27-2018

Crime films are among the most popular genres. Yet, while slick, stylish fare like the Ocean’s series or Fast and the Furious draw the greatest share of box office revenue, real-world crime is more often ugly, vicious, and not the least bit sexy, something this week’s films know all to well. Note that my predictions for whether these will ever be on the Collection are based entirely on my own gut feeling.

A Simple Plan (1998)

A morality play about the corroding effects of money on the souls of men, Sam Raimi’s sadly forgotten crime film owes a debt to Fargo and Of Mice and Men. It strikes its own identity by setting a tale as dark as night against wholesome midwestern living in a winter wonderland backdrop. A bag of money literally falls out of the sky, and three men, two of them brothers in fact and two others in blood, make a pact to ensure they keep it. Predictably, things go wrong. One of Raimi’s genius touches that sets this apart is in casting the wonderful, too-rarely-seen Bridget Fonda as someone you think will be a cliche womanly voice of reason, but turns out to fall quite as easily as the men. Between the performances of her, Billy Bob Thornton, and the recently late and greatly missed Bill Paxton, this shifty, bloody story without a shred of the relieving dark humor of the Coen’s masterpiece is a disquieting look into nature’s scariest animal.

Chances of seeing it: 50%. This one is hard to say. The only time I can find mention of Raimi at Criterion’s site is pondering whether he saw the early camp horror film Equinox before making Evil Dead. The Collection has quite a few overlooked noir classics from the heyday of the genre, and it’d be great to add in a more modern take, as well.

The Proposition (2005)

“...plays like a western moved from Colorado to Hell,” said the late Roger Ebert. He wasn’t blowing smoke. American westerns in the good old days always had to have a clear good guy and a clear bad guy, and even the darker spaghetti westerns popularized by Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood weren’t quite as blood red as advertised. John Hillcoat’s film about a savage outlaw sent to kill his savagely deranged older brother so that his mentally challenged younger brother might be spared the rope is, to put it mildly, not fucking around. Set in late 19th century Australia, this is a place populated by the merciless, idiotic, delusional and cruel, but never in any measure the heroic. The protagonist participated in a crime so heinous that to portray it in anything but the sporadic glimpses we get might make even the strongest stomachs sick, but at some point you realize he is simply one of many terrible results of a world that seems run by demons. Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson and Danny Huston give performances tinged with terror both experienced and inflicted, we get a small-but-wonderfully-touched role from the greatly missed John Hurt, and the entire thing is backed by a moody, dusty score from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

Chances of seeing it: 50%. This one already has a Blu-Ray release, but given you’ll never see anything else like it from the typically tradition-beholden western genre, it deserves to be on the Collection, rather than languishing away on an edition most will likely never come across. Oh, and Criterion, if you do this? See if you can get the soundtrack as a supplement. It’s amazingly gorgeous and haunting for such a bleak film.

Hard Eight (1996)

Unless you were actively looking for it, chances are slim you’ve seen Paul Thomas Anderson’s first feature film. Unlike most of his later filmography, it does not attempt to analyze human nature or break the rules of movies. Instead, it’s simply---and I use that world lightly---an update of the classic noir formula made appropriate for the much less idealistic 90’s. Just as The Proposition took westerns and truly made good on their promises of bleak and hopeless worlds, so Hard Eight does with noir, taking out any semblance of a hero---even Jake Gittes would be a hopeless romantic here---and in their place giving us pimps, hookers, pushers, an all-around soot-blackened rainbow of desperate people. From the moment a stranger offers a drifter a leg up in life, the film never quite zags the way you expect. Even in this, his first outing, the strength of Anderson’s talent managed to attract a cast any director would envy, including John C. Reilly, Samuel L. Jackson and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The standout performances, however, belong to the severely underrated Philip Baker Hall as an altruistic old man with a secret, and to a pre-Goop Gwyneth Paltrow playing hard against later type as a drug-addicted hooker. It would be almost two decades before Anderson again made a film about such “ordinary” subject matter, but as proven with last year’s Phantom Thread, ordinary is such an elusive word when here applied.

Chances of seeing it: 80%. I’m rolling the dice here. Do you know why? Because after spending years in limbo, Anderson sort of kind of said he was working on a Blu-Ray release in an AMA about Phantom Thread. Someone in the conversation even asked if it was going to be Criterion, and it damn well better, because after a half century of waiting they’re just about the only ones who can do this thing justice.

That’s all for this week, guys. I have no teases this time for anyone who might like to predict these, as I haven’t decided what I’m going to cover next time yet. It’s a toss up between the best of Michael Bay and the Star Wars Christmas Special. See you next time.

[hadarlaskey]

RIP Ennio Morricone – Eleven essential compositions

This morning, at a hospital in Rome, the great Italian composer and musician Ennio Morricone passed away at the ripe age of 91. The instant that the sad news broke, social media channels were flooded with an outpouring of sympathy for the most esteemed name in film scoring, each message of condolence complete with its poster’s choice for their favorite Morricone soundtrack cut.

It’s striking how varied the picks have been, a testament to the longevity and prolific nature of the late great’s discography. Over a staggering eight decades, he worked at a consistent pace for an eclectic host of collaborators, from the Spaghetti Western classics of Sergios Leone and Corbucci to the bloody fever dreams of Dario Argento to Stateside productions headed by John Carpenter, Brian De Palma, and Quentin Tarantino. And while his death inspires the expected twinge of melancholy, we can also take this as an opportunity to survey the vast body of work this peerless artist leaves behind.

Below, we’ve assembled a brief playlist of 11 choice cuts covering the breadth of Morricone’s expansive oeuvre. Given that he worked on hundreds of films, consider this a jumping-off point…

1. ‘Concerto No.1 for Orchestra’, 1957

Morricone began his career in what some call “absolute” classical music, composed for its own free-standing sake rather than for soundtracking purposes. He started writing for voice and piano in the ’40s, before he was even out of his teen years, building a foundation of orchestral knowledge that would factor prominently into the opulence and diverse instrumentation of his later work. Below, we have one of his more expansive and ambitious ‘absolute’ works from this early period, characterized by the same tone of palpable tension – dread, even – that would come to be his trademark.

2. ‘The Ecstasy of Gold’ – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 1966

Morricone got his feet wet in film during the ’50s and early ’60s as an arranger, devising the orchestration for other composer’s scores. He got his first “Music By” credit all his own in 1961 on the film The Fascist, a politically charged military drama, and made his way to the world of Spaghetti westerns that he would come to call home with Gunfight at Red Sands two years later.

He fully arrived with his career-defining work on Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, in particular his triumphant backing to its final chapter. As Eli Wallach’s bandito Tuco searches for a cache of hidden gold, we hear the wailing of singer Edda Dell’Orso, a melody that gets a refrain later on in the Mexican standoff against Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name. The grandiose, cathartic uplift has made this Morricone’s most well-known and oft-alluded-to pieces; the jackasses of Jackass used the tune to open their second feature film, for just one example.

3. ‘Navajo Joe’ – Navajo Joe, 1966 

While the names of Morricone and Leone would eventually come to be seen as somewhat synonymous with one another, the musician got around during the ’60s and ’70s. He was credited with a dumbfounding fourteen feature credits in the year 1966 alone, three of them bona fide all-timers: the one cited above, his brisk military marches for Gillo Pontecorvo’s immortal war film The Battle of Algiers, and the selection below.

He went to more experimental places for Sergio Corbucci’s racially problematic shoot-em-up, in which Burt Reynolds portrayed a Navajo warrior fighting off marauders threatening his tribe. The primal screaming that opens the track – memorably interpolated in Alexander Payne’s Election as a leitmotif of deep-seated rage – speaks to Morricone’s spirit as a self-professed experimentalist, always on the hunt for unfamiliar sounds that he could integrate into his work to make it unlike anyone else’s.

4. ‘Rotativa’ – Per un pugno di samba (with Chico Buarque), 1970

As his fame in Italy’s booming film industry grew, Morricone never allowed himself to lapse into a creative rut, or grow distant from his roots in the concert hall. To that effect, he joined forces with the Brazilian guitar virtuoso Chico Buarque for an album that bridges the gap between his soothing, gentle bossa nova/samba stylings and Morricone’s symphonic might.

It’s a demonstration of their shared versatility, a unique talent to slip into any genre or musical tradition and recognize the building blocks required to fit in perfectly. Buarque and Morricone would go on to release two more record together after the millennium, a touching illustration of the widespread respect and admiration Morricone commanded among his peers in all stripes of music.

5. ‘Piume di Cristallo’ – The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, 1970

By the time the ’70s rolled around, everyone in the Italian film biz wanted a piece of Morricone, a popularity that brought him to unexpected places, including the bloodstained glass interiors of Dario Argento. The maestro of giallo, the Italian movement of lurid cheapo slasher pictures, enlisted Morricone for his career-best Animal Trilogy comprising The Cat O’ Nine Tails, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, and the high-water mark The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.

Delving into horror opened up new realms of eerie, inhuman noise for Morricone, who opened the title track with little more than tinkling chimes, creepily intimate cooing, and a thin organ line to back it. While Argento’s more known for his team-ups with the prog-rock band Goblin, Morricone still had a significant role in codifying the singularly unsettling sound of giallo.

6. ‘Regan’s Theme (Floating Sound)’ – The Exorcist II: The Heretic, 1977

Morricone made his mark on Hollywood in the magic year of 1966, with some uncredited contributions to John Huston’s biblical epic The Bible: In the Beginning. He would come to land more high-profile American gigs in the years to come, though he would become famous for his reluctance to leave Italy, or develop any fluency in English.

While John Boorman’s sequel to the hall-of-fame horrorshow The Exorcist has been largely (and, for the most part, rightly) pilloried, even the severest critics can agree that Morricone’s score represents the most redeemable component of the film. Bringing his slinking giallo guitars across the Atlantic, he sets the scene with the utmost eeriness, a slow-rolling mist preceding the great demonic hurricane the film will whip up.

7. ‘Days of Heaven’ – Days of Heaven, 1978

When viewers think back on the music of Terrence Malick’s epic of divine ruin in the heartland, they most likely remember the opening credits set to the cascading Aquarium movement from Camille Saint-Saëns’ ‘Carnival of the Animals’. But Morricone shared the proper Music By credit with guitarist Leo Kottke, the two of them bringing a magisterial sweep befitting the biblical proportions of Malick’s story.

The music attests to Morricone’s unique ability to disappear into setting; whether through melody or arrangement, we can perceive time (1916) and place (the Texas panhandle). While he never occupied an especially major place in the American arthouse, working mainly in Europe and in a mixed bag of Hollywood productions (for every The Untouchables, there’s an Adrian Lyne’s Lolita), he delivered a true masterpiece when called on by Malick.

8. ‘The Thing (Theme)’ – The Thing, 1982

A composer who begins his career as mature and fully-formed as Morricone runs the risk of stagnating as the years go by. It’s not easy to continuously evolve as an artist when you work for nearly an entire century, but to Morricone’s credit he constantly challenged himself to push outward into new territory. There’s something revelatory about his accompaniment to John Carpenter’s monster mash down in the forbidding tundras of Antarctica.

He achieved an indelible iciness by going minimal and adopting the emergent synthesizer, emitting an electronic pulse that throbs like a computerized heartbeat. While not typical of the Morricone corpus, this has turned into a point of entry for many young cinephiles, stricken by the exceptional score and rushing to google what else the composer’s done.

9. ‘Serene Family’ – Disclosure, 1994

One of Morricone’s more unlikely jobs paired him with Barry Levinson on this 1994 erotic thriller, a film best described as “of its era”. (Business executive Michael Douglas must clear his good name from the false sexual harassment accusations of vindictive ladder-climber Demi Moore. A different time!) While the track list boasts some great titles – give a listen to ‘Unemployed!’ or ‘Sex, Power, and Computers’ – the opening number stands out for showing Morricone’s softer side.

Without sacrificing the rich string lines he so adores, Morricone spins an image of domestic tranquility between a family soon to be torn asunder by scandal. It can be helpful to think of Morricone as an outdoor composer trying to bring his style inside, taking on a dialogue-driven drama as a departure from his usual work in bigger, more kinetic pictures. He manages both stances with grace.

10. ‘L’Eau, the One’ – Dolce and Gabbana campaign, 2009

Morricone did his fair share of ad work, packaging little minute-long snippets of his music for the likes of Telecom Italia and pasta manufacturer Barilla. (It pains me that I can’t find a YouTube clip of the Italian Chef Boyardee commercial Morricone did in 1990, in which little Hector Boyardee  vows to become a great chef and make delicious food for all the children after a teacher ladles him a serving of unsatisfactory polenta.)

A 2009 campaign for Dolce and Gabbana featuring Scarlett Johansson as an international screen idol sitting for a sexy interview nearly tips into self-parody, as if she’s doing her best impression of Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita. Morricone’s in on the bit, his swooning violins and piano plinks emulating the glamour of Old Hollywood. This was part of what made him such a great, enduring talent: the ability to see what each individual assignment called for, and adapting to fit it.

11. ‘The Last Stage to Red Rock’ – The Hateful Eight, 2015

The final stage of Morricone’s career saw him easing up on his incomprehensible rate of output, easing into his station as an elder statesman of film music. To such worshipful filmmakers as Quentin Tarantino, who tapped Morricone for the foreboding Hateful Eight score that won the master his only non-honorary Oscar, he was a living allusion.

Inserting him in a Western tucked away in snowy wilderness serves as a double nod to his past work on spaghettis and The Thing, suggesting that present-day Morricone can be used as a reference to himself. (Tarantino has been a longtime booster, dropping samples into Kill Bill, Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, and Django Unchained.) Unlike so many geniuses, Morricone lived to see his legacy borne out, an influence that’s shaped the last sixty years of Westerns and other action pictures. He’s in a class by himself.

The post RIP Ennio Morricone – Eleven essential compositions appeared first on Little White Lies.

source https://lwlies.com/articles/ennio-morricone-best-compositions/

[pigballoon]

The Beguiled

(Sofia Coppola, 2017)

It’s something to see how two different filmmakers can adapt the same book, change very little, use much of the same dialogue, and yet come away with two completely different movies. In 1971, Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood, just before unleashing Dirty Harry, adapted Thomas P. Cullinan’s A Painted Devil for the screen, and produced a movie that while full of various little subtleties, and lined with some grander subtext, essentially on the surface produced a horror movie for men, riffing on the grand old idea of how hell hath no fury, etc.

Born that same year was Sofia Coppola, and over 40 years later she reintroduces the story to society, only this time it’s not a movie catering to straight white men in an era where they find the walls closing in around them, and a society less ready to stand for their crap, but a movie for women, and the perils to which they can so easily fall victim.

Indeed, Coppola removes a lot of the aforementioned subtleties in Siegel’s movie, producing instead a far more black and white tale of one cad, and all the innocents at his mercy. In doing so, while obviously unable to eradicate some of the ideas inherent in the story, primarily of the potentially destructive effects of isolation on a community, it also completely transforms, sometimes intentionally, sometimes I think not so much, a fair deal of what that movie did, and comes out with what while still entirely worthwhile in its own way, is a far simpler, more straightforward movie.

In doing that, one of the things it does is rob Nicole Kidman of so much of the ambiguity that allowed Geraldine Page to knock this role out of the park. Kirsten Dunst fares far better, giving another in her recent line of gloriously low key turns, knowing just where to look when, knowing how to inject each line delivery with just the right inflections at just the right points to radiate complete and utter fragility. Colin Farrell is blessed by the fact he isn’t required to put on an accent, and blesses the movie with the fact that without seeming to do much at all, he effortlessly projects precisely the qualities his director needs him too. Elle Fanning too continues to round out her filmography, and like the others manages to reflect a lot while doing a little.

That goes for this Beguiled overall, Coppola’s movie is in true (mostly) Coppola fashion a very quiet movie in comparison to Siegel’s more heart on its sleeve melodrama. That low key approach to such bombastic material is a nice touch, and probably Coppola’s greatest move on this project, transforming it from what could easily be all out black comic absurdity into something that better channels the innocence and naivety that aids her in making her point.

I just can’t say that I like a lot of the alterations that she makes. Altering a piece of material to communicate different feelings is fine, but when some of your changes make your movie less interesting without doing much to make up for what’s lost, it’s tough to say they were worthwhile. Other aspects of the story she attempts to be adapting in different ways, only to go nowhere with them. Siegel filmed characters constantly fretting about the nearby war, in more cinematic fashion this version replaces said verbalization with a gorgeous ambient soundtrack of cannonfire in the distance. Only that’s it, it doesn’t seem to spend any time at all detailing said wars impact on its characters psychologies. The final dinner scene also removes a moment of eating that alters the movies ending more than you can ever imagine a character not eating something could ever transform a film.

Ultimately, while it is always nice to see a filmmaker like Sofia Coppola reappear, and keep the family name alive and well, and it’s doubly nice to see so personal a filmmaker able to operate on a level of production that she hasn’t been able to in a decade, and while The Beguiled certainly fits comfortably into her pantheon of explorations of the effects of varying kinds of loneliness and isolation on young women, it probably works a lot better if you avoid seeing the previous screen incarnation of the story, because all this one really ultimately has on that one are a more lifelike pet turtle, and in true Sofia Coppola fashion, courtesy of the magical lensing of Philippe Le Sourd, some of the most gorgeous imagery you’ll see in a movie this year.

[bansheefunk]

Just watched: A bunch of pirated DVDs I found around the house.

8 nov '18, night I haven't watch a DVD in years but somehow this bulk found a way to my home, mostly from my sister, I think she saw these movies on her laptop but I didn't had a way to even play them. My sister ditched her old laptop, I took it, installed Windows 8.1 and I released that I can use it as a media player with ease, immediately these old DVDs came to my mind so I decided to actually watch them for the first time. Having physical media on my hands after so long feels super nostalgic. actually interacting with the movie as an object is an unique feeling we've lost, I've yearned for it and this has made me so happy.

The Baron of Arizona (1950) I have to admit I saw this movie last week but didn't feel like writing anything about it. My first thought was "This is the count of montecristo but backwards" because it's about a man who organizes a complex plot to better his life but as the movie goes on this persists showing that his well being is ruining the lives of other people. Is not a movie that challenges the viewer but it's a ruse so outlandish it makes for it.

The Steel Helmet (1951) I should point out these criterion movies I have are from a collection of the early films of Samuel Fuller, Who is Samuel Fuller? I don't know really. This movie was produced while the korea war was still gong on and you can tell they could not film on location. I'm very undecided if this movie is propaganda or not, it may even be sincere on it's language of support but if it's not then it fails terribly, it's too soft on its criticism and makes no attempt to show the worst parts of war or trying to humanize the enemy. This movie bothers me, I don't want to think it's sincere propaganda but offers really little out of it. After watching this movie I decided to write these impressions, it's trip worth going across.

15 nov 18, night I Shot Jesse James (1949) I didn't work!. my computer wasn't even able to read it! Cue Family Guy skit about the goodness of physical then it doesn't work.

Heat (1995) My first reaction was seeing this movie's play time and going all '3 fucking hours!' in disbelief. When I finally sat to watch it I was very surprised, all these big name actors, how come I never heard of this movie before? Possibly because it was never on TV because of '3 fucking hours!' Soon enough I was very charmed. this movie is well made and there is no other way to put it, everything from the photography to the performances everything deliverers the right point, like eating food at the exact temperature that you like adding more to the experience. When I first started watching I didn't release this movie was from 1995 and there is nothing in the movie that sets it on such year giving an authentic atemporal feeling. Still there is something grand about this movie, like if this was the top of what hollywood schlock could aspire to be, this is still a crime movie after all but a damn good one and I feel bad I never saw it before.

20 nov '18, night Skyfall (2012) I'm not the biggest James Bond fan, I've seen some of the movies when they're on TV, saw casino Royale on theaters and I'm familiar with the lore. I'm not a casual but I can't spout mindless trivia. The movie was quiet long, two and a half hours but it was so well photographed, why does this type of schlock always look so good? This entry tried to be a game changer for the franchise, we get new characters in the old roles, new offices for the M16 and they try to give Bond some character, it's all acknowledged and it's so strange because on the Bond films I've seen they don't pretend the new actors took over the previews one. Giving Bond some depth really disgusted me, Bond has mostly been like Tintin or Link, a blank slate for the viewer but now that Bond is a scotsman from a wealthy family and an orphan I don't like him so much but beside that I can't hate this movie, it's just schlock for those who like schlock and doesn't try to e anything but schlock and I respect that. I also want to complain that once I was done with this movie the plastic bag where it came from was nowhere to be found, I'm frustrated about having to look up a freaking plastic bag just for this.

26 nov '18, night Max Payne (2008) When I started to watch this movie I thought it was good, the right balance of style, action, drama and grit. When I sat to watch the second half the sound started to go off but I fixed it switching the language but this cycled continued and the audio laster shorter and shorter times until I hat to sit on front of the laptop and changing the language each minute, it was awful and by the end when I got a montage of what we saw 20 minutes ago but with different cuts  felt offended, I felt like if the movie wanted to waste my time and overall any joy or good opinions I had were extinguished, maybe some other time I could had enjoyed this better but not I only feel a Family Guy gag mocking me for trusting a DVD that had lived in a plastic bag for years.

30 nov '18, night Serpico (1973) My first reaction to this movie was "What a fucking boomer and his boomer booms" but our main character grew on me and I started to empathize with him, he's a pure soul, too pure for this world but strong who fought for what he believed and for a better world, it's really a touching drama and hard to hate. A thing that fascinated me was the mise en scene, everything looks old, like if it was already old when the movie was shot but I know all that stuff was new I'm just used to see every prop after years and years of use. And I loved the way everything in the city looked, it felt like it had a sad story to tell. This is a good move that won me over after having a bad first impression.

5 nov '18, night Blue (1993) I started seeing this the night I finished Serpico, I thought I could watch the first 10 minutes but the dvd died before that, I thought I was set for another bad disc but few days later I tried again, skipped around and managed to get the movie running tho there are like 6 minutes missing at the beginning, I didn't mind them but as the movie went on I released that I missed something important stuff, I didn't got what it was supposed to be but the negative space stays with me. This movie is a damn good movie and there is no other way to put it, everything is too well done and the only thing I feel is left behind is the soundtrack but that is just me being tires of all soundtracks sounding the same but it's used so well it charms for different reasons. This is a very slow and thick character drama and examination, is the kind of movie I wish I could make, the kind of story I wish I could tell.

10 dic '18, night Red (1994) Is hard to talk about this movie, so many things go on yet it doesn't feel rushed or cramped, it a human story realistic but yet has that edge that reminds you it's pure fiction. Its a roller coaster of emotions but feels so serene. All honest I feel Blue is above Red but I can't wait to see white.

14 dic '18, past midnight White (1994) I don't have much to say about this one, it took me by surprise that most of it was in polish, I didn't expect one of these movie to be set in poland like this but still has ties to france. all the movies in this trilogy tell a human story that also has something that bents it and requires some suspension of disbelief, they're not fantasy but they're like a urban legend or a very distorted real account. Right now I think in order of quality they're Blue > White > Red which is also the order that came out, maybe watching them out of order really affected how do I think about them.

21 dic '18, night Cry baby (1990) When I saw the cover I expected a drama, a greaser crying just summoned he image of a post war hollywood drama like Blackboard Jungle, Picnic, The Lost Weekend or the obvious choice rebel Without A Cause. I pop the movie in and I'm greeted a a dumb comedy wrapped in some many layers of irony the core is completely lost, I can tell is a comedy but only one joke made me laugh, none of the songs stuck with me and overall the only thing the movie leaves on me is a slight ironic 50's nostalgia. When I was done with the film I told my sister about it (She own the DVD after all) and she said this movie was too tame for a John Waters film, the guy who made Pink Flamingos also made this and that was so shocking. This movie is just strange on the inside and the outside.

29 dic '18, night The Breed (2006) This movie is so bad it only survived by sharing a case with a good movie, I found this crap in the same case for two Clint Eastwood movie, I never heard about it before and after finally watching I can see why. Supposedly this is a horror movie but everything it sets out to be fails on its task, the first thing I found jarring was the photography, is very warm and mellow, in no point does this look like a horror movie and always looks like a romance or an R&B video. The second big issue are the dogs, the dogs are the monster of the movie and they just don't rub me in a bad way, the movie fails to show dogs in a scary or aggressive manner and some scenes that are supposed to be scary are actually kind of cute, these dogs are adorable no matter how much they bark, as the movie went on I released the dogs didn't stand a chance, tons of dogs get hurt or killed while we only get two humans dead and a third from an accident were a dog also died. This movie is bad, a legitimate 4/10, goddammit.

7 ene '18, night Unforgiven (1992) I can't say much about this movie beside that it's damn good, I'm unsure why but I think it has the right balance between, character development, action and drama but I may be wrong. Also the photography is very crispy I can't believe this movie is from 1992, I thought it was from 2002 the first time I popped the DVD in.

10 ene '19, night The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) Another really good movie. I'm very charmed by the sense of adventure, things happen out of nothing and some of them go away just like that, there is a sense of restlessness across the movie and that drives it, we feel the character's pathos and march with them without feeling the same danger and it's that chaotic feeling what makes this movie feel so human, things happen up and down like in life and not like in movies where things happen to move the story, the characters were the ones moving and things happened to them. Also both of the Clint Eastwood movies had several things in common, both start with Eastwood's characters as simple men who have to take arms for money and war respectively, both feature a younger sidekick who gets tired with the violence and an overall feeling that the violence we're seeing is not the way things should be, I'm sure these movies were packed together because of that and I really like that message. These are all the DVDs that are around the house, I should catch up with some cartoons now, I want to take a picture of the DVDs but as the moment I'm writing this I don't have a camera, it'll be a while before I can publish this.

[blackkudos]

Irene Cara

Irene Cara (born Irene Cara Escalera; March 18, 1959) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is best known for her roles as title character Sparkle Williams in the 1976 film Sparkle and Coco Hernandez in the 1980 film Fame, earning her a Golden Globe nomination, and her recording of the song "Fame" became an international hit. Cara won an Academy Award in 1984 in the category of Best Original Song for co-writing "Flashdance... What a Feeling", which also became an international hit.

Early life

Cara was born in The Bronx, New York City, the youngest of five children. Her father, Gaspar Escalera, a factory worker and retired saxophonist, was Afro-Puerto Rican, and her mother, Louise, a cinema usher, was an American of Cuban descent. Cara has two sisters and two brothers.

At the age of three, Irene Cara was one of five finalists for the "Little Miss America" pageant. She began to play the piano by ear, then studied music, acting, and dance seriously, first having dance lessons, aged five. Her performing career started on Spanish-language television, professionally singing and dancing. She made early TV appearances on the Original Amateur Hour (singing in Spanish) and Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show. In 1971–72, aged 13, she was a regular on PBS's educational program The Electric Company. As a child, Cara recorded a Latin-market Spanish-language record and an English Christmas album. She also appeared in a major concert tribute to Duke Ellington that also featured Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Roberta Flack.

Career

Cara appeared in on-and off-Broadway theatrical shows including the musicals Ain't Misbehavin', The Me Nobody Knows (which won an Obie Award), Maggie Flynn opposite Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy, and Via Galactica with Raúl Juliá.

Cara was the original Daisy Allen on the 1970s daytime serial Love of Life. Next came her role as Angela in romance/thriller Aaron Loves Angela, followed by her portrayal of the title character in Sparkle. Television brought Cara international acclaim for serious dramatic roles in two outstanding mini-series, Roots: The Next Generations and Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones.

John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 28, named her one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1976"; that same year, a readers' poll in Right On! magazine named her Top Actress.

Cara graduated from the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.

Fame and international acclaim

The 1980 hit movie Fame, directed by Alan Parker, catapulted Irene Cara to stardom. Cara was originally cast as a dancer, but when producers David Da Silva and Alan Marshall and screenwriter Christopher Gore heard her voice, they re-wrote the role of Coco Hernandez. As Coco Hernandez, she sang both the title song "Fame" and the film's other single, "Out Here on My Own." These songs helped make the film's soundtrack a chart-topping, multi-platinum album. Further history was made at the Academy Awards that year: it was the first time two songs from the same film were nominated in the same category and both sung by the same artist. Thus, Cara had the opportunity to be one of the few singers to perform more than one song at the Oscar ceremony; "Fame," written by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, won the award that year.

Cara earned Grammy nominations in 1980 for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical. Billboard named her Top New Single Artist, while Cashbox Magazine awarded her both Most Promising Female Vocalist and Top Female Vocalist.

Asked by Fame TV series' producers to reprise her role as Coco Hernandez, she declined so as to focus her attention on her recording career. As a result, Erica Gimpel assumed the role.

Post-Fame career

Cara was slated to star in her own sitcom, Irene, on NBC in 1981. Even though the pilot aired and received favorable reviews, the network did not pick it up for its fall season. It also starred veteran performers Kaye Ballard and Teddy Wilson, as well as newcomers Julia Duffy and Keenen Ivory Wayans.

In 1983, Cara appeared as herself in the film D.C. Cab, which is a film about a group of cabbies. The movie stars Mr. T. One of the characters, Tyrone played by Charlie Barnett, is an obsessed Cara fan who decorated his Checker Cab as a shrine to her. Her contribution to the film's soundtrack, "The Dream (Hold on To Your Dream)" played over the closing credits of the film, and proved to be a minor hit, peaking at No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1984.

In 1982, Cara earned the Image Award for Best Actress when she co-starred with Diahann Carroll and Rosalind Cash in the NBC Movie of the Week, Maya Angelou's Sister, Sister. Cara portrayed Myrlie Evers-Williams in the PBS TV movie about civil rights leader Medgar Evers, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story; and earned an NAACP Image Award Best Actress nomination. She also appeared in 1982's Killing 'em Softly.

In addition to her music and film work, Cara also continued to perform in live theatre during this period. In the summer of 1980, she briefly played the role of Dorothy in The Wiz on tour, in a role that Stephanie Mills had first portrayed in the original Broadway production. Coincidentally, Cara and Mills had shared the stage together as children in the original 1968 Broadway musical Maggie Flynn, starring Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy, in which both young girls played Civil War orphans.

In 1983, Cara reached the peak of her music career with the title song for the movie Flashdance: "Flashdance... What A Feeling", which she co-wrote with Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey. Cara penned the lyrics to the song with Keith Forsey while riding in a car in New York heading to the studio to record it; Moroder composed the music.

Cara admitted later that she was initially reluctant to work with Giorgio Moroder because she had no wish to invite further comparisons with another artist who worked with Moroder, Donna Summer. But the collaboration paid off and became a hit in several countries, garnering numerous accolades for Cara. She won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Song (Oscar), 1984 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, 1984 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and American Music Awards for Best R&B Female Artist and Best Pop Single of the Year.

"Flashdance..." was re-recorded by Cara twice. The first time was in 1995 as a track in the original soundtrack for the movie "The Full Monty"; the second time was in 2002, as a duet she recorded with Swiss artist DJ BoBo.

In 1984, she was in the comedic thriller City Heat, in which she co-starred opposite Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and sang the standards "Embraceable You" and "Get Happy." She also co-wrote the theme song "City Heat", which was sung by the jazz vocalist Joe Williams. In May of that year she scored her final Top 40 hit with "Breakdance" going to #8. The follow up, "You Were Made for Me" reached #78 that summer but then she never charted on the Hot 100 again. In 1985, Cara co-starred with Tatum O'Neal in Certain Fury, an exploitation underachiever about two troubled young women who flee a court hearing and are mistaken for killers. In 1986, Cara appeared in the film Busted Up. She also provided the voice of Snow White in the unofficial sequel to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Filmation's Happily Ever After, in 1993. That same year, she appeared as Mary Magdalene in the record-breaking anniversary tour of Jesus Christ Superstar opposite Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, and Dennis DeYoung.

Along with her career in acting and hit singles, Cara released several albums: Anyone Can See in 1982, What A Feelin' in 1983, and Carasmatic in 1987, the most successful of these being What A Feelin. In 1985 she collaborated with the Hispanic group Hermanos in the song "Cantaré, cantarás," in which she sings a solo segment with the Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo. She also released a compilation of Eurodance singles in the mid to late 1990s entitled Precarious 90's. Cara recently contributed a dance single, titled "Forever My Love", to the compilation album titled Gay Happening Vol. 12, in 2006.

Cara has also worked as a backup vocalist for Vicki Sue Robinson, Lou Reed, George Duke, Oleta Adams, and Evelyn "Champagne" King. Cara toured Europe and Asia throughout the 1990s, scoring several modest dance hits on European charts, but no US chart hits. Cara received two prestigious honors for her career in March 2004, with her induction into the Ciboney Cafe's Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award presented at the sixth annual Prestige Awards.

In June 2005, Cara won the third round of the NBC television series Hit Me, Baby, One More Time, performing "Flashdance (What a Feeling)" and covered Anastacia's song "I'm Outta Love" with her current all-female band, Hot Caramel. At the 2006 AFL Grand Final in Melbourne, Cara performed "Flashdance (What a Feeling)" as an opener to the pre-match entertainment.

As of 2016, Cara divides her residence between New Port Richey, Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She works with her band Hot Caramel, which she formed in 1999. Their album called Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel was released on April 4, 2011. Cara appeared in season 2 of CMT's reality show Gone Country,.

Personal life

Cara married stuntman Conrad Palmisano in Los Angeles in April 1986 and they divorced in 1991.

Wikipedia

[thezachrogers]

The top 50 films of 2016 cont...

(added 9 more films, top 59) - revised 4/3/2017 *chuckle* *chuckle*

Okay, Okay, I see what’s happening yeah, you’re face to face with greatness…

Ladies and gentlemen, the TOP 25 FILMS OF 2016 (from what I saw)

32. Florence Foster Jenkins 4 Stars (86% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7/10 on IMDB)

31. Paterson 4 Stars (95% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.6/10 on IMDB)

30. La La Land 4 Stars (93% on Rotten Tomatoes 8.9/10 on IMDB) Watch it on Redbox, not worth spending your hard earned money in the theater.

29. Kubo and the Two Strings 4.5 Stars (97% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8/10 on IMDB) This was one of the darkest animated theatrical films I have ever seen; more so than The Nightmare Before Christmas. The voice acting cast is definitely the most A List of the year with Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, and Ralph Fiennes. The kids need to be a little older to watch this one. 

28. Disney’s Queen of Katwe *family film* 4 Stars (92% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.3/10 on IMDB) 

27. Fences 4.75 Stars (94% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8/10 on IMDB) 

I ranked this film so low because I did not necessarily like it. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis both gave outstanding performances and most likely one of them, if not both will win the Golden Globe and/or the Academy Award. The content of this film was super dark and there really wasn’t a story; just a whole lot of dialog. I imagine it would be a better Broadway play (as seen above) than a movie. It is rated PG-13 but families, if you want to see this film, it is not for the kids. There were two families in the theater I watched this in and the film has a constant use of the n word. Kids do not need to see this. Wait for rental for this one, not worth seeing in theaters.

26. Captain Fantastic 5 Stars (82% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.9/10 on IMDB)

Incredible movie about modern hippy living. I unfortunately know someone who lives like this with his family and it is so sad to watch these people’s lives unfold. The world is progressing, not regressing and this film reveals the harsh realities of what these families go through. These people are not happy, they are just running from what is in front of them, the kids get little glimpses of what REAL LIFE is like and they want more, and that is okay, yet the selfish parents don’t let these kids have the opportunity to have any sort of reality and attainable success. I hate knowing that people actually live like this. I love that this movie brings awareness to it. Keeping kids from medicine and starving them IS CHILD ABUSE. Period. There is no way around it. This movie is rated R for language.

25. Sing Street 4 Stars (95% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8/10 on IMDB) now on Netflix

24. Loving 4 Stars (89% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.1/10 on IMDB)

23. Eddie the Eagle 4 Stars *family film* (80% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.4/10 on IMDB) now on HBOGO

22. Blood Father 4 Stars (89% on Rotten Tomatoes, 6.5/10 on IMDB)

21. Hunt for the Wilderpeople 5 Stars (97% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.9/10 on IMDB) 

Feel good movie of the year. Was definitely a sleeper. Beautiful Cinematography of New Zealand and Sam Neil’s best performance to date. Watched this film on New Year’s Eve and I am glad I did! Now available on hulu and redbox!

20. The Edge of Seventeen 4 Stars (95% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.5/10 on IMDB)

19. Deadpool 4 Stars (84% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.1/10 on IMDB) From 15 to 1, these are all the movies you should have seen in theaters or missed out on. If you can catch ANY of the below films in theaters, DO IT. #rantover. Anyways, this is an R Rated Comedy. Fortunately, I watched a limited censored version on FXX. But I'm telling you, go read the parents guide on IMDB. Again, parents this is an R-Rated comedy for graphic violence, language, and full on nudity, DO NOT LET YOUR KIDS TO SEE THIS!

18. Sully 5 Stars (86% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.6/10 on IMDB) Watched this on Redbox last week, one of the five films I wish I saw in theaters in 2016. Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood definitely got snubbed of Golden Globe nominations. One of Hanks’s best performances. Shove it in there with Forrest Gump, Captain Phillips, Saving Private Ryan, Philadelphia, Bridge of Spies, Cast Away, Saving Mr. Banks, Catch Me If You Can, The Green Mile, Big, Apollo 13…never mind.

17. Deepwater Horizon 4 Stars (84% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.3/10 on IMDB) On DVD Jan. 10

16. Arrival 4.5 Stars (94% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.3/10 on IMDB) Interstellar and Inception made love and conceived Arrival. What a freaking movie. Amy Adams is currently nominated for the Golden Globe, I don’t know why for a Sci-Fi film, but its probably because of Denis Villeneuve’s directing. This movie has me so amped up for Blade Runner 2049 and the second installment in the Sicaro franchise. See this movie while it is still in theaters and let your mind be blown!

15. Manchester by the Sea 5 Stars (96% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8/10 on IMDB)

Read review here.

14. Disney/Pixar’s Finding Dory 5 Stars *family film* (94% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.5 on IMDB) 

It’s the sequel to Finding Nemo, do I need to say anything else?

13. Marvel’s Doctor Strange *family film* 5 Stars (91% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.9/10 on IMDB) I have this filmed currently ranked #3 out of the 14 Marvel films. It is Benedict Cumberbatch at his best. Might be the most psychedelic movie I have ever watched. GO SEE IT IN THEATERS IN IMAX 3D NOW

12. Disney’s The Jungle Book *family film* 5 Stars (94% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.6/10 on IMDB) Jon Favreau is a freaking genius. A-List Ensemble voice cast is superb. You will fall in love with Neel Sethi (Mowgli) and be in awe of the beautiful imagery in this movie. One of the best movies I saw in theaters in 2016. Now available to watch on Netflix.

11. Hell or High Water 5 Stars (98% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.8/10 on IMDB) Hate that I missed this one in theaters. I like to call this one “The Finest Hours 2″ since Chris Pine and Ben Foster are a duo in this film as well. This is a thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire movie. Rent on Redbox immediately!

10. Everybody Wants Some!! 5 Stars (96% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.1/10 on IMDB) 

Another movie I missed in theaters. 2016 was such a great year for sleeper comedies. So many underrated comedies and too many overrated comedies came out in 2016. This is Richard Linklater’s 80s College follow-up to the 70s High School cult classic Dazed and Confused. Definitely a lot of great up and coming stars in this film. In about 15 years we will look back at some of these actors’ careers and this is the film that will be their launching pad, I guarantee it.

9. Lion 5 Stars (86% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.1/10 on IMDB)

8. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story 5 Stars *family film* (85% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.1/10 on IMDB)

My favorite movie of 2016, obviously. This film is also my #2 favorite of the nine Star Wars theatrical films falling to The Empire Strikes Back. I was never old enough to experience the original trilogy in theaters and I think this was the closest I will ever get to that. It took me back to that world of the 1977 original film. Rogue One takes place just moments before the original 1977 film. Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin (1977 original characters) play major roles in this film which is the biggest takeaway of this movie. Other cameos of older characters from both the original trilogy and the prequel trilogies will make all the fanboys go nuts. Go see this movie now before it leaves theaters. I know I will.

7. The Revenant 5 Stars (82% on Rotten Tomatoes and 8/10 on IMDB)

The most gruesome and realest film I have ever seen. This 3 time winning Oscar film is deserving for every award and nomination. The role of Leonardo DiCaprio’s career, he goes on a manhunt for the man who murdered his son, based on a true story during the post colonial times in America. This is a buyer for blu-ray.

6. Eye In the Sky 5 Stars (95% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.3/10 on IMDB)

Alan Rickman’s final film of his career (rest in peace). This realistic modern warfare drama is all about the hardships of drone warfare. It’s not as simple as pulling a trigger and flying a ship from a cubicle. Go rent this one on redbox now.

5. Captain America: Civil War 5 Stars *family film* (90% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8/10 on IMDB)

Clearly Marvel does not have enough good villains to spread across their cinematic universe, so they had to do a third Avengers film and title it as “Captain America”. This is the film we all wish Age of Ultron was. More Vision plus we got Ant-Man and our new Spider-Man! Great buyer for bluray. Hands down the best MCU film so far in the franchise.

4. Disney’s Moana 5 Stars *family film* (95% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8/10 on IMDB)

2016 was just Disney’s year. 16 films and they were all outstanding. Moana shines as one of Disney’s best animated films to date. Dwayne Johnson is now in the family as one of Disney’s best and most lovable characters. All brand new and original music from Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda. I cannot get this soundtrack off repeat since I saw it. Go see this film with the entire family now!

3. The Nice Guys 5 Stars (92% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.4/10 on IMDB)

One of my top three all time favorite comedies. It is now up there with Wedding Crashers and Dumb and Dumber. Ryan Gosling and Russel Crowe together in a comedy!? I know, I know, but it works. Filmed in Atlanta, this buddy comedy takes place in the 70s during the rise of the porn industry about a murder of young porn actress. Co starring Kim Basinger and Matt Bomer. Rated R for Mild Nudity and Violence. That’s really it though, no sex scenes and not much graphic language, just a bunch of laugh out loud hilarious dialog between the two costars. ANOTHER ONE I MISSED IN THEATERS! Go rent on Redbox now!

2. Hacksaw Ridge 5 Stars (87% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.2/10 on IMDB)

Read review here.

and the best film of 2016 is…

1. Disney’s Zootopia 5 Stars *family film* (98% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.1/10 on IMDB) I have a new all time favorite animated movie. It’s called Zootopia. This really was just Disney’s year. This movie is filled with adult relatable humor with Breaking Bad and The Godfather references. Anybody will love this film. I bent over laughing, I cried, I sat on the edge of my seat, this was the movie Sing wishes it was, but it just wasn’t. Now available on Netflix, this movie will forever be on “My List” Well that’s it everybody, that’s my top 50 of 2016. Please don’t crucify me for not seeing Manchester by the Sea or Hacksaw Ridge, I know, I know, I will see them soon. Stay tuned for my 2016 worst 10 and the movies to keep away from that I know NOT TO WATCH from 2016. I hope y’all enjoyed!! Feel free to share!