Score Corner: John Williams Munich and his 6th Oscar potential
So, I saw Steven Spielberg’s Munich this weekend, and without having read the book and history that this movie is based upon, I couldn’t fully understand all that transpired in this rather long movie with all the politics. Regardless, one part of me wanting to see this movie was more due to the good reviews that I have read about John William’s fourth score this year. John Williams’ dark score to Munich resembles that of his Schindler’s List with a slight flair of James Horner’s Troy (given the Middle-eastern vocals that remind me of Troy’s Greek vocals). Some pieces of this album could easily be put on the Schindler’s List album without raising an eye-brow for those unfamiliar with his previous work, for the score also uses a lot of tragic string segments in addition to cello and piano solos. However, what really got me into buying the CD after coming out of the movie, is that addictive, pulsating, low-tone, electric drum-beat that John Williams has added throughout the album (and throughout the movie). You’ll hear the beat already with the opening sequence of the movie, and it’ll follow you as you find protagonist Avner go down his hitlist. Very tense, very exciting.
With Williams completing the Star Wars saga, delivering a rather disappointing score to War of the Worlds, a good soundtrack to Munich and an amazing score to Memoirs of a Geisha all within this year-where does this lead us? Well, John Williams earned his 44th and 45th Oscar nomination with Geisha and Munich, but this time he might actually win an Oscar for a change. Williams has been nominated for the Oscar pretty much every year since he received his last Oscar in 1994 for Schindler's List and this is not the first time that he is being nominated twice in the same year, but with already five Oscars in his hands, no one really expects him to win anything (heck, last year he wasn't even in the audience, but was conducting the Academy Awards orchestra himselfs during his own nomination). However, this year might be different, for I truly think that Geisha is nothing short of a masterpiece, and the other three nominated scores didn't make a splash this year in the filmmusic industry. We shall see the results in two weeks.
Gay Indies: Brokeback Mountain, Saving Face
Gay indies? No, not what you think of. I am talking about independent movies about homosexuality. I saw Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain a few weeks ago, and I think it’s groundbreaking, it’s beautiful, it's a great script, and it's a remarkable job done by director Ang Lee. I can’t believe this comes from the same guy who did Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I highly recommend this movie to everyone.
So after seeing Ang Lee’s story about two gay cowboys, I figure to balance things out, I picked as the next movie from my indy-list Alice Wu’s comedy Saving Face about two Asian lesbians, a 40-something year old pregnant mother and … well.... I shall save you guys from the intricacies of this movie's story. While I think the dialogue in this movie is not very well scripted, it’s a very funny comedy that makes fun of everything we love so much about Chinese parents (and probably Vietnamese ones as well) and their foolish match-making attempts and obsession about saving face within a given community. It's a fun watch, go see it.