Things I Learned Today

by Lukas Kendall

I stayed at home today and watched TV. Here are more of my great insights.

Family Plot is a good movie. I had never seen Hitchcock's last movie but enjoyed it - the story of two "criminal couples" whose fates intertwice. (It was on Bravo.) Bruce Dern is great, and so is John Williams - a '70s score of his I was not familiar with. (There is no CD, except for a suite on a re-recorded Hitchcock collection on Varese.) Makes me wonder what Williams might have done for other Hitchcock films had he stepped in to fill the void left by Herrmann earlier - it's a witty score that puts a comedic spin on potentially sinister events, with one of those long, involved Williams themes where you instantly remember how it starts, but have to listen to it nearly forever to remember how the rest of it goes. Plus Williams does that great thing he did in the '70s and early '80s with French horns playing major 7th chords in eighth notes (like in Close Encounters).

Sandra Bullock was in one of the "Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman" Specials of the late '80s - I think Bionic Showdown. She plays "Bionic Girl," basically. It's funny to see a movie star in such a junky piece of genre programming - with a cheesy synthesized Bill Conti score to boot. (I could tell it was him even before I saw the credit because there's a part that sounds like the training recorder in Karate Kid.)

The special effects in The Last Starfighter are horrendous. They look like an old Atari game. I can't believe I thought they were convincing at the time. I love the Craig Safan score but the whole movie stinks rotten. Best line, the two bad guys at the end, their "star destroyer" careening towards a moon: "What do we do now?" [long beat] "We die."

Thomas Newman is scoring Meet Joe Black - I did not know this until I saw the television commercial. The movie stars Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins and is directed by Martin Brest. Do you know the two scenes which Brest directed in War Games before he was fired for being inappropriate for the picture? They are the scene in the computer lab with the nerd friend, and the scene in which Matthew Brodrick takes 100 years to pick up a paper clip to make the phone call from the booth. John Badham directed the rest of the movie.

The "Torn Curtain" cue used at the end of the Cape Fear remake is mixed ridiculously low under all the boat noise. I never cared for that picture, and I think if Herrmann was alive to score it anew, he would have written a different score than the one he wrote for the '62 picture.

Gilda Radner was a remarkable talent. Last night they showed a "Best of Gilda Radner" for Saturday Night Live.

And finally, the Emmys. This was no ordinary Emmy telecast, but the 50th Emmy Awards, celebrating 50 years of television. During this marathon broadcast, I learned that television is good for many dozens of things, although not mentioned was the number one thing it's good for: selling advertising. I did not know that Sigourney Weaver's dad was a well known and pioneering television executive in the 1960s, Pat Weaver.

The primetime music Emmys were handed out a couple of weeks ago, but if you missed them, here are the winners:

Best Score for a Series (Dramatic Underscore): Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Christophe Beck.

Best Score for a Mini-Series or TV Movie, Glory & Honor, Bruce Broughton.

Best Music Direction, The 70th Annual Academy Awards, Bill Conti.

Best Original Song, The Simpsons, "You're Checkin' In (A Musical Tribute to the Betty Ford Center), Alf Clausen, Composer; Ken Keeler, Lyricist.

Best Main Title Theme, Fame L.A., Maribeth Derry, Tom Snow, Robbie Buchanan, Richard Barton Lewis.

Finally, a word about our new poll function here on the site. Isn't this fun? We will change the poll every few days. You need to vote in order to see the results, so please do. The poll may be a bit buggy while we get it working all right, but please participate. And, if you have some great ideas for a poll, send in your questions!

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