A recent trend that has been bothering me an awful lot lately is including modern rock power chords as soundtracks to fantasy or period peices. Its about as dislocated as seeing John Wayne with a southern drawl wearing a wrist watch in Sparticus. It just pulls me out of the film entirely.
I am not saying these scores are bad music. Just not right for these films in these settings. You can have powerful moving scores without falling back on modern music trends.
I still haven’t seen The Wolfman as it ranked lower on my anticipation list than other films last weekend. Dammit if after hearing this, I am happy that they turfed the Paul Haslinger score for the ever appropriate Danny Elfman.
Danny Elfman knows haunting, and he also knows what works. This is the score we ended up with:
Usually it’s the other way around – the classical sounding score is scrapped for the modern/electronic score.
Glad this time was different.
John Wayne in Spartacus? I think you mean Greatest Story Ever Told as the centurion at the crucifixion. And yes, that souther drawl is jolting and takes you out of it.
No, I meant Sparticus. I didn’t say he was in it, I was just making the example, because it Sparticus there is a scene where you see an extra wearing a wrist watch by accident.
John Wayne was in Greatest Story, which is just a bad casting instead of anachronistically challenging.
Should have been titled “Puerto Rican Werewolf in London”
That score would have awful for the film, which is a disjointed mess, but yet, I found enjoyment while watching it…perhaps because I had fun mocking it afterward. Personally I enjoyed the gore even when it was over the top, did it contribute to the story? Not in the least, but it was entertaining when things were starting to feel a little dull. It’s a shame though…I was looking forward to this movie and hoping the production problems weren’t going to affect the film, but they did.
the score could work if used in a certain scene. I kinda like it, but it’s REALLY distracting
I think the music kinda ruined the mood for the film. It felt too over the top and… well, epic. It wasn’t “haunting” at all.
Favreou hasn’t dissapointed me yet.(even Elf was good)
We’ll see bro, Jones’n for that movie hardcore.
I’m to the point where I dare not really look forward to anything anymore. I’ve been burned too many times…this last summer was the final straw in that regard really…Terminator – ugh.
I’m like this now with rare exception anyway…for instance I have faith that Favreou will deliver with Iron Man II.
Sad news.
still gonna see, BUT takes away the hard-on I had all year waitin’ for it.
tinkerin’ seem’s to always lead up to a steaming pile.
same for X-men Origins.
Just dont F-up Capt. America PLEASE!!!!!
Rodney, this movie has huge issues. Enough of them and of such severity that the soundtrack doesn’t blip the radar.
Utterly, unbelievably, unnecessarily, over the top gory. A monster running around randomly pulling people’s arms and legs off…yeah that’s not so much of a story.
Things are actually more scary of they’re hinted at rather than shoved in your face, but this filmmaker (and many others these days) doesn’t get it.
This film needed a better screen play, better acting, less body parts and blood flying around. Give me those things and you can score it however you want.
What a waste of a potentially good idea/homage to the werewolf films of old.
And I know it’s gonna sound Italian cause he’s Italian BUT if the dude is soooo method as to get the “Marielito Accent” down as great as he did, you’d figure the cat can mimic a few lines of spanish in a cuban accent as well…
Andy Garcia is the only guy I can think of that uses his real accent.
The movies now-a-days dont really seem to have that problem anymore it seems(going for authenticity I guess) but the 80’s-late 90’s and even 2000’s were full of that crap.
THAT’S WHY INGLORIOUS BASTERDS WAS SPECIALLY AWESOME TO ME….no playin’ around with phoney accents (for the most part)
o.k. i’m finished SORRY for the ramblin’ on
On the Accent’s issue, like when they got somebody speaking spanish in a movie and the actor has a bad english/american accent(sometimes with an actual latin/spanish actor) That does bother the shit out of me. I know the guy can speak perfect spanish and still they make him(I’d think)use a funny accent.
or it can go the other way.
Like in Scarface, when Pachino is following the Nark’s car and his families in it and he dosen’t want to kill the kids.(he spoke spanish with a heavy Italian accent)BUT he like totally Nailed the Cuban Slang english down pat.(totally different scenario, but annoying anyways)
Why
Uh-huh.
So the music is totally distracting…
But Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson’s British accent in a movie that takes place in Ancient Greece is totally fine.
Accents I can deal with as they are already not speaking Greek to begin with so it really doesn’t matter. What would matter is if they were using modern colloquialisms and recent slang associated with their culture. Like when Raiden the Ageless God of Thunder in Mortal Kombat speaks all noble like an ancient would then quips a “I don’t think so” (popular comeback in the early 90s) that disjoints.
I do understand the music thing, agree, but dont really mind.
What REALLY bothers me is the accents thing, because unlike the music, it actually happens IN the movie.
The “Characters” never listen to the soundtrack,thats for the audience ALONE to hear, a movie is story telling…. but they DO speak the accent.
Wow. So much wrong with the statement complaining about a shitty line of dialogue when the movie had far bigger problems than that…
It’s like the time when I was in a comic book store, before Spiderman 1 came out and someone was bitching about how Tobey Maguire didn’t have the right color eyes to play Spiderman.
(not that I’m incapable of nerdrage at points in time, but I always get a laugh out of those minor things)
Im complaining about Clash of the Titans. Wtf are you talking about?
And it doesnt bother me THAT much, but i do notice it. Way more then the music.
And Tobey didnt have ANYTHING right to play Spider-Man
I wonder if 200 years from now, when they make a movie about ancient greece, if people will be complaining that they SHOULD have used power chords instead of modern day music.
If raiden has lived for 1000s of years, I would think that he would have picked up phrases from different times periods, including the one he was in.
No, 200 years from now, classic music to that period would STILL be classic music to that period.
No one watches a movie from the 60s and hopes to hear 80s music even though that’s considered retro by today’s standards.
Yes, The Wolfman was the last thing to come to mind when I listened to that excerpt. I’m glad it was rejected. Not a bad score, no, but not appropriate for something like The Wolfman at all.
This is really a pet peeve for you isn’t it? We all have those things that just bother the heck out of us. For the most part I agree with you on this one. It can be distracting.
I thought that the movie was to be good but I was wrong