SKYFALL's PTS

Harmsway wrote:

Sharky wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

Quote :

CR isn't half the movie AVTAK is.

I agree, AVTAK is a trainwreck.

A VIEW TO A KILL has John Barry. Therefore, it wins.

A VIEW TO A KILL Is so bad that it even makes John Barry start to seem un-cool.

No way. John Barry is not tainted by any of AVTAK's flaws (which are often overstated). He rises above it.

Sharky wrote:

No way. John Barry is not tainted by any of AVTAK's flaws (which are often overstated). He rises above it.

Only when the score is listened to outside of the context of the movie.

The score is great, mind you, but the stuff going on on-screen is so terrible that even the pleasure of Barry's terrific score--I mean, let's face it, "Snow Job" is one of the best Barry cues ever--is blunted by it. A VIEW TO A KILL is the Bond franchise at its laziest and most lethargic.

Harmsway wrote:

Sharky wrote:

No way. John Barry is not tainted by any of AVTAK's flaws (which are often overstated). He rises above it.

Only when the score is listened to outside of the context of the movie.

The score is great, mind you, but the stuff going on on-screen is so terrible that even the pleasure of Barry's terrific score--I mean, let's face it, "Snow Job" is one of the best Barry cues ever--is blunted by it. A VIEW TO A KILL is the Bond franchise at its laziest and most lethargic.

As FieldsMan noted above, even John Barry aside there's more to the film. Colourful characters, compelling performances by Moore and Walken and so on, help offset the sluggish pace and dull locations in the second half.

Walken is fun, I'll give it that. But I don't much care for anybody else in the film.

That said, in recent days I've made a habit of defending DIE ANOTHER DAY, so who am I to talk?

A VIEW TO A KILL is an excellent film and a thousand times more entertaining than QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

So, how about those SKYFALL pre-titles, eh?

Loomis wrote:

A VIEW TO A KILL is an excellent film and a thousand times more entertaining than QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

I'm not going to defend QUANTUM OF SOLACE here, which is a lame Bond film in its own way, too. I've called it the worst Bond film elsewhere. But A VIEW TO A KILL is still pretty wretched.

Sharky wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

Quote :

CR isn't half the movie AVTAK is.

I agree, AVTAK is a trainwreck.

A VIEW TO A KILL has John Barry. Therefore, it wins.

A good score does not always make a film. SUPERGIRL has one of the best scores made by Jerry Goldsmith, butin the end the film is still a piece of shit.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Sharky wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

Quote :

CR isn't half the movie AVTAK is.

I agree, AVTAK is a trainwreck.

A VIEW TO A KILL has John Barry. Therefore, it wins.

A good score does not always make a film. SUPERGIRL has one of the best scores made by Jerry Goldsmith, butin the end the film is still a piece of shit.

Indeed. I would regard Arnold's score to QOS as his best work on Bond. It's a better score than perhaps half of Barry's efforts. That doesn't make QOS any better as a movie.

Come to think of it, film composers (especially the great ones) have a way of producing marvelous soundtracks to shit movies. My favorite soundtrack of all time in Barry's score for Dances with Wolves. The movie itself is a slow, overblown ego-brenched disaster by the typically pompous Kevin Costner, but the score is wonderful. How Barry was inspired to write it by viewing Costner's images is totally beyond me.

Harmsway wrote:

right idea, wrong pussy wrote:

It's a better score than perhaps half of Barry's efforts.

Care to support that argument with more than just Kevin Spacey's ugly face? Barry's scores to TB, TMWTGG and OP are rather monotonous efforts. Thoroughly competent, mind you (as Barry always was), but nothing really memorable in them (other than perhaps the instrumental version of "All Time High" in OP). AVTAK does have "Snow Job", but a lot of that score involves the same chords repeated as some sort of suspese motif (the sort of rubbish Srnold did in TND, TWINE, DAD and CR). I think QOS is clearly superior to those four Barry efforts. Listen to the music Arnold writes for the PTS and divorce it from the shit they actually put on-screen. It's a great track. Combining, action and menace. The harpsichord at the end is even better. "Night at the Opera" is another great track that adds greatly to the film's atmosphere. Unlike the overblown Cuban music Arnold had for DAD, he helps introduce the myriad locations in QOS more subtley, and it works. Even the pure action cues later in the movie are not Arnold's usual sound clutter. Compare "Miamai International" in CR, which is shit, with the music to the climactic battle in QOS. The latter is great, and makes the end of QOS better than it has a right to be.





Barry wrote 12 scores, Arnold's QOS score seems clearly better than a thrid of them (four). I'd put QOS somewhere around the middle of Barry's output in terms of quality (keeping company with GF, YOLT, OHMSS, and MR). If it's better than some of those middling Barry's and worse than others, that make Arnold's QOS score better than about half of Barry's work.

So, care to refute me with logic rather than silly posters?

In all seriousness, though, Arnold's QUANTUM OF SOLACE score offers nothing as thrillingly intense as "Street Chase" from THUNDERBALL, as elegantly sensual as as "Slow Boat from China" from THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, or as dramatically suspenseful as "Palace Fight" from OCTOPUSSY. And it doesn't matter whether "Snow Job" repeats a chord structure from earlier scores or not. It's a damn sight more invigorating than any cue Arnold's ever written.

I won't deny that QUANTUM OF SOLACE doesn't feature a fine Arnold score, as far as Arnold goes, but Arnold's best isn't as good as Barry's worst. Even on Barry's off days, his music has more emotional range, elegance, and depth than Arnold's.

I will say that Barry is the better composer, but I do like QOS's score more than TMWTGG and OP's...

Sharky wrote:

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Sharky wrote:

A VIEW TO A KILL has John Barry. Therefore, it wins.

That's a bit like saying "a train crashed, but it didn't kill anybody". Sure, nobody died, but it was still a train crash.

My point is that Barry (and Walken to a lesser extent) at least makes AVTAK enjoyable for me to watch. It's harmless fluff. CASINO ROYALE is just painful, obnoxious, and feels like a chore. Overlong, sadistic video-game generation violence, serious miscasting, cringe-worthy drama, overlong action sequences, too much pointless music, too much homoeroticism, not enough tits. I've never been able to watch it one sitting.

A superb capsule review of CR there Shark. CR IMO is watchable but I'd rather relax and watch AVTAK. Far more enjoyable. I rejoice whenever Tanya Roberts graces the screen, plus her calico cat is quite entertaining. And the John Barry music elevates the whole presenation. CR on the other hand; yes, is watchable. I especially like the drawn-out poker segment and action segments and suspense that break it up. The dallying with Solange is quite entertaining, except for when dumbass runs out on her. Classic Bond would never have been written to run off. Who wrote this crap anyway? Ah yes, the infamous Haggfish and the other two regulars. Haggfish of the cringe worthy dialogue, and then there's skinny bitch Eva Green - a hideous Bond-girl, although I will extend 4th Bond-girl status to her, behind Solange, Ocean-Club receptionist and Ivana Milicevic, who comprise a solid top three, so the crabby chick is at least compensated for. Then there's the blue snuggers and the general schock therapy treatment required to adjust to the affrontery that is Craig-Bond.

All things considered, it's a no brainer. AVTAK wins slam dunk, but that's just my terribly biased opinion.;)

btw TMWTG is my favourite Barry score, I particularly like the title song and whole musical vibe of the film.

Post the 1960's classics, the DAF, LALD and TMWTGG is my favourite 3 film stretch of Bond films, but that has much to do with the brilliance that is Guy Hamilton plus the 3 exhilirating scores turned in by Barry and Beatle-boy Martin.

As for the SF pts, I'm sure it will be brilliant!

Vesper's tits aren't a problem. They're modest, but I'd still take them over Ivana Milicevic. They're tiny!

FieldsMan wrote:

I will say that Barry is the better composer, but I do like QOS's score more than TMWTGG and OP's...

Barry was one of the greatest film composers ever.

FieldsMan wrote:

Vesper's tits aren't a problem. They're modest, but I'd still take them over Ivana Milicevic. They're tiny!

I think it's a boy.

Mr. Brown wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

I will say that Barry is the better composer, but I do like QOS's score more than TMWTGG and OP's...

Yeah, that gave me a chuckle too.

right idea, wrong pussy wrote:

Care to support that argument with more than just Kevin Spacey's ugly face? Barry's scores to TB, TMWTGG and OP are rather monotonous efforts. Thoroughly competent, mind you (as Barry always was), but nothing really memorable in them (other than perhaps the instrumental version of "All Time High" in OP).

Nothing memorable? Bullshit. I count (not including the ATH instrumental):

"Switching the Body"
"Death of Fiona"
"Chateau Flight"
"Street Chase"
"Search for the Vulcan"/"Finding The Plane"
"Bond With SPECTRE Frogmen" (great slow variation on the 007 Theme here)
"Lights Out for Paula"
"Underwater Mayhem"
"Dance With Domino"
"At The Casino"
"Death of Largo"
"The Spa"
"For King and Country"
"Bond Meets Domino"
"Underwater Ballet"
"Let's Go Get 'Em"
"Goodnight, Goodnight"
"Getting the Bullet"
"Hip's Trip" (even sampled by The Prodigy in "Mindfields" - featured in THE MATRIX when Neo meets Trinity at the club)
"In Search Of Scaramanga's Island"
"Return To Scaramanga's Fun House"
"A Water Pistol" (unreleased)
"Bond Confronts Lazar" (unreleased)
"Bond in Macau"
"Bottoms up" (also unreleased - complete with hilarious CU of girl's arse grinding to the camera)
"Arrival At The Island Of Octopussy"
"The Palace Fight"
"Bond at the Monsoon Palace"
"Yo Yo Fight And Death Of Vijay"
"Bond Look Alike"
"009 Gets The Knife And Gobinda Attacks"
"Bond to Delhi" (unreleased)

I'm sure there's a few I've missed too.

right idea, wrong pussy wrote:

AVTAK does have "Snow Job", but a lot of that score involves the same chords repeated as some sort of suspese motif (the sort of rubbish Srnold did in TND, TWINE, DAD and CR).

I couldn't disagree more in your comparison to those Arnold scores. John Barry was a master of leitmotif and in particularly harmonic motifs, which he likely got from Bernard Herrmann. Arguably his greatest talent was the ability to say the most profound things with just 3 or 4 chords. The ultimate of expression of "less is more." That no-nonsense, deliberate, and unfussy approach worked perfectly for Bond and other strong male protagonists (Harry Palmer, the s 24th Regiment of Foot, Quiller, King Kong, John Dunbar, Robin Hood, Charlie Chaplin, and others). Barry's action and suspense writing in particular reminds me of Theodore Roosevlet's slogan that he got from a West African proverb "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."

David Arnold's music on the hand should be given Ritalin. It's faster than The Road Runner, structurally all over the place with numerous string flourishes, brass figures, and reverbed synth pulses that don't add anything. His music is a hedge that needs trimming, with the help of a blow torch. It's a prime example of how music often sounds when not composed with the thought and concentration pen, piano, and paper demands, but in real time with a keyboard plugged into MIDI sequencer.

"I speak loud and carry a tiny stick; thy name is David Arnold."

The signature chords in A VIEW TO A KILL you mention (Fm > Ebm > Cm) while very simple in theory, it is in their orchestration and heavy voicing that provides them with a strange poignancy and sense of dread, as if Bond is in his twilight. It works particularly well in the eerily subterranean "Pegasus's Stable", which recalls Barry's great suspense writing in THUNDERBALL and DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. Every alto flute breath, gong strike, vibraphone hit, harp pluck, muted trombone and stopped horn puncture, and bow of a cello string played sul tasto, is essential. No note is wasted.

Another key element of Barry's writing is repetition. In his own words:

"I love repetition, there is something about it that intrigues me."

For some this is what turns them off about his Bond music, or his music in general, but I love it. At it's best (say in THUNDERBALL) it has a sensual, hypnotic effect, like some kind of Eastern meditation music, minus the singing bowls and Javanese gongs. What this does in effect, is weave the music into your subconscious, so it becomes one with the identity of the film and its subtext. Once again, Barry clearly owed a lot to Bernard Herrmann for this. All of this saved from becoming monotonous by varying the orchestration, so each repetition is never the same.

I've gotta say this too: whether or not this is dull or compelling or not will come down to your personality, tastes and experiences. THUNDERBALL was the first Bond film I properly saw as kid, and it's music had a big effect on me, hence it being my favourite Bond film and score. The score's dark romance and slowness still brings me back to it to it. On every listen I find something new I didn't hear before. I can't say that about QUANTUM OF SOLACE or any David Arnold score.

right idea, wrong pussy wrote:

Listen to the music Arnold writes for the PTS and divorce it from the shit they actually put on-screen. It's a great track. Combining, action and menace. The harpsichord at the end is even better. "Night at the Opera" is another great track that adds greatly to the film's atmosphere. Unlike the overblown Cuban music Arnold had for DAD, he helps introduce the myriad locations in QOS more subtley, and it works. Even the pure action cues later in the movie are not Arnold's usual sound clutter. Compare "Miamai International" in CR, which is shit, with the music to the climactic battle in QOS. The latter is great, and makes the end of QOS better than it has a right to be.

I like QUANTUM OF SOLACE too, and it's easily Arnold's best score to date (thanks to "Inside Man", "Night at the Opera" and a few others), but better than any of Barry's efforts? The suspense music is nowhere near as memorable or haunting as THUNDERBALL or OCTOPUSSY's, and while the action stuff is tighter than usual, it's still overly active, too tied to the sound fx track, and shouting more than it's saying. The worst examples being the finale and boat chase.

Nowhere in those four Barry scores you cite do I need to skip tracks or use the fast forward button.

Re: the reverbed harpsichord Bond theme in "Time to Get Out." I have a theory that Arnold noticed the similarity to Jack Carter driving to the field with Margaret in the boot of his car in GET CARTER. So he decided (consciously or not) to reference Roy Budd's iconic harpsichord theme for the film.

right idea, wrong pussy wrote:

I think QOS is clearly superior to those four Barry efforts.

Sorry, but you'll have to do a whole lot better convincing me.

How excited are people here about Thomas Newman as the SKYFALL composer? I don't know his music at all, so I've no idea whether his hiring is a good thing or not.

I prefer Arnold, because I like his Bond music and I would love to hear it for the 50th anniversary film, but I can't do anything about it. Newman's music is fine, but it's not particularly memorable. I can't remember the score for Revolutionary Road, Iron Lady or Road to Perdition, though I remember liking the music for My Week With Marilyn (I think he composed that, but I just can't remember it).

Loomis wrote:

How excited are people here about Thomas Newman as the SKYFALL composer? I don't know his music at all, so I've no idea whether his hiring is a good thing or not.

I don't really like Thomas Newman (his scores tend to bore me). I would be much more overjoyed if they had announced, say, Ryuichi Sakamoto as the composer of SKYFALL.

But I'm nevertheless a bit excited just because it's a change. Arnold has been an institution at EON for a bit too long. And unlike with Arnold, with Newman, it's really hard to tell what he'll go for with the Bond score. We could end up with something moody and minimalist (which is Newman's usual approach) or we could end-up with a full blown Barry tribute (Newman has done at least one "pastiche" score before with THE GOOD GERMAN). More likely, we'll get something halfway in-between.

Thanks, fellas. Personally, I'm glad Arnold isn't scoring SKYFALL. On the whole, I find his music far too blaring and frenetic.

As Sharky puts it:" David Arnold's music on the hand should be given Ritalin. It's faster than The Road Runner, structurally all over the place with numerous string flourishes, brass figures, and reverbed synth pulses that don't add anything. His music is a hedge that needs trimming, with the help of a blow torch. It's a prime example of how music often sounds when not composed with the thought and concentration pen, piano, and paper demands, but in real time with a keyboard plugged into MIDI sequencer."

Of course, Arnold has certainly had his moments: CASINO ROYALE and parts of DIE ANOTHER DAY and QUANTUM OF SOLACE. Still, it's time for a new composer to inject some freshness.

"Parts of CASINO ROYALE", that should be. I reckon that the "good bits" would add up to only about 10 minutes in total, if that. When you got 100+ minutes of underscore, that's not good.

Sharky wrote:

"Parts of CASINO ROYALE", that should be. I reckon that the "good bits" would add up to only about 10 minutes in total, if that. When you got 100+ minutes of underscore, that's not good.

We might niggle about which parts of CASINO ROYALE's score are worthwhile. Putting together a playlist of the "good tracks" still gives me 30 minutes worth of score. If I was a little less generous, I might narrow it down to 20 minutes. Of course, 20 minutes out of a 90 minute score leaves a lot of dead weight. Still, I do like those moments.