Stephen’s Statements A little bit of everything from Stephen Duncan Jr, a Software Developer in Portland, Oregon

Monday, April 18, 2005

Movie Blogging: Music and Movies

I've got quite a back-log of TiVo'd movies to blog about. We started to watch Funny Face, but turned it off quickly, reinforcing the conclusion that I really don't like musicals. In fact, I can only think of two musicals off-hand that I've enjoyed. The first is The Wizard of Oz, though I think it's more in-spite-of it's being a musical. The second is the absolutely brilliant South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut. In fact, my fondness of South Park is almost entirely due to this movie: I'm not nearly that big a fan of the TV show.

More recently, I watched a couple of supposed "classic" films that I don't really get the reasons for the acclaim. First up: The Untouchables. I thought this movie was simply awful. It was a movie that didn't quite know what it wanted to be. Plus, Kevin Costner was more wooden than a log-cabin. But most awful of all was the music. Not only did it never seem to fit the current mood in the movie, but it was unpleasant to listen to at the same time. It's a lot easier to forgive ill-fitting beautiful music. Sean Connery was pretty good, but the poor script that couldn't decide if it was story, character, or action based dampened his performance.

Last night we watched The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Diane didn't like it all, and quit watching part way through. I, on the other hand, stuck through it mostly for the quality of the music. The score for this movie was extraordinarily well done, and kept me watching the full two-and-a-half hours. This just goes to show how movie music can make all the difference. Though the acting was better here than in the Untouchables as well.