Music from the Watchmen Film

I’ve seen the ‘Watchmen’ movie twice now, and though I really like the movie itself, what stands out, for me at least, is they way they used music throughout the film; particularly in transition scenes and montages.

[WARNING: Possible spoilers, especially if you haven’t already read the graphic novel]

The musical good-ness starts with the opening credits that feature Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’. This was a really neat way to start the film as this montage is our introduction to the parallel reality that the movie is set in (I particularly liked the bit where Silhouette replaces the sailor in Eisenstaedt’s famous ‘V-J Day in Times Square’ photo).

The two most memorable uses of music, however, are the cold war era protest song ‘99 Luftballons’ by Nena that gets played at the start of the Daniel Dreiberg and Laurie Jupiter dinner scene and use of Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence’ for The Comedian’s funeral. Awesome stuff, particularly the entire funeral scene. Also memorable, but more because of it’s unusual placement, is the use of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ during the Nite Owl and Silk Spectre sex scene.

Then there are the more energetic songs that are used at appropriate points. These include ‘All Along the Watchtower’ performed Jimi Hendrix (but, of course, written by Bob Dylan), ‘Desolation Row’ as performed by My Chemical Romance (also originally by Bob Dylan), and ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ as performed the Budapest Symphony Orchestra (which is a nod to the helicopter attack scene from ‘Apocalypse Now’). Oh, and if you stay for the credits you’ll also get to hear Leonard Cohen’s ‘First We’ll Take Manhattan’.

Finally there’s the brilliant use of a muzak version of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ by Tears for Fears that is played in the reception area outside Adrian Veidt’s office.

[End spoilers]

Actually, come to think of it, the good use of awesome music started months ago with the Smashing Pumpkin’s ‘The Beginning is the End is the Beginning’ being used for one of the film’s trailers.

Anyway, if you haven’t yet seen the film I suggest you do because it really is quite good. One thing, though: do keep in mind that this is not your typical, happy-ending superhero film. It’s a dark, dismal, serious movie – darker than what Batman films are supposed to be – and if you don’t go into the cinema expecting that, you probably won’t enjoy it as much.

[For more on the music used throughout the film, check out the Reel Soundtrack Blog’s feature on the Watchmen Soundtrack or the film’s Wikipedia page.]

Why is Science Important?

Why is science important?

Physics teacher and film-maker Alom Shaha decided to ask a whole bunch of scientists and educators that question, the answers to which he compiled on the ‘Why is Science Important?’ website that he had created for this purpose.

He then put all those answers – including, of course, his own – into an awesome video that is now available online:


Why is Science Important? from Alom Shaha on Vimeo.

Enjoy :)

[Via the Bad Astronomer]

Roland Emmerich to Direct Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ Series

Variety reports that Columbia Pictures has won the screen rights to the ‘Foundation’ series of books written by Isaac Asimov. Asimov is one of my all-time favourite authors and ‘Foundation’ is one my all-time favourite series of book so the fact that they’re in the process of developing these books for film – presumably a series of films – is awesome.

Unfortunately the director they have chosen to do so is Roland Emmerich. Now Emmerich isn’t a bad director – ‘Stargate’ (1994), ‘Independence Day’ (1996), ‘Godzilla’ (1998), ‘The Patriot’ (2000), and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ (2004) are all good films – but the ‘Foundation’ series is much too awesome to be made into simply a good series of films. And thus I am…concerned.

That said, what is cool about Emmerich’s films is that they manage to depict very well the epic scale of the stories being told. Further, the epic nature of these stories is brilliantly supported by superb special effects that don’t get in the way of the storytelling (think: ‘Star Wars’ prequels as a case in which the CG got the better of the story being told).

What all of those movies lack, then, are deep, complex, meaningful characters that you find yourself caring about…well, with the exception of Benjamin Martin’s character (played by Mel Gibson) in ‘The Patriot’. Okay so the characters aren’t all that bad (you could even say that some of them are good) and, yes, you do end up sympathizing with them (and the predicaments they find themselves in) but they are pretty one-dimensional. Indeed, most of the conflict that makes Emmerich’s films interesting occurs, not because of the way the characters are written, but because of the stories themselves.

*Realization dawns on Ameel*

Ah.

Which is why, I suppose, that Emmerich is the perfect director to tell Asimov’s stories. Why? Because Emmerich makes the kinds of stories that Asimov writes.

Let me explain: Asimov was never good at writing characters that were deep, complex, and meaningful – indeed very few science fiction authors are – but he did tell awesome stories on a very grand scale.

For example, the Foundation series – which spans a period of about 500 years – contains only one deeply-written (though not very complex) character in Hari Seldon and only one complex (though not very deeply-written) character in Golan Trevize. What you get instead is an excellent, nay mind-blowing, story that is worthy of the the special “Best All-Time Series” Hugo award. And since this matches so well the types of stories that Emmerich likes to make into films…this could actually work really well!

And thus I am now…excited :)

R.I.P. Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton, one my all-time favourite authors, passed away a few days ago.

I loved his books and the way he wrote them: they were exciting, inspiring, and a whole lot of fun. Indeed, I've read all his fictional works though I've only read one of his non-fiction ones (must remedy that). I've also watched almost all of his films and remember being blown away by 'West World', 'Jurassic Park', and 'Twister'. Heck, I even remember the ending scene from 'The Andromeda Strain' which I watched on TV back in the mid-80s! I must now watch the three films that I've missed.

You can read more about Crichton here:

Rest in Peace, Michael.

Ramchand Pakistani

Speaking of stuff that's related to Pakistan (see my previous post), I'm really looking forward to watching Mehreen Jabbar's film 'Ramchand Pakistani' which I've heard good things about.

Ramchand Pakistani is derived from a true story concerning the accidental crossing of the Pakistan-Indian border during a period (June 2002) of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two members of a Pakistani Hindu family belonging to the 'untouchable' (Dalit) caste, and the extraordinary consequences of this unintended action upon the lives of a woman, a man, and their son.

I don't know when we'll get to see it in Melbourne but I hope it's sometime soon.

[Also see 'Ramchand Pakistani' on IMDb]

I Really Liked 'The Happening'

A lot of people disliked M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Happening'. A major reason for that, in my opinion, is because bad marketers keep trying to promote Shyamalan's films as spooky, summer-blockbuster thrillers like 'The Sixth Sense' when, in fact, they're far from it.

Take for instance the tag line for this movie: "We've Sensed It. We've Seen The Signs. Now... It's Happening."  WTF?! 'The Happening' is not a paranormal thriller or alien invasion movie. Why the heck is it being marketed as one?

It is because of all this crappy marketing that viewers go into cinemas expecting to be frightened or, at the very least, weirded-out. When that doesn't happen (on doesn't happen in the way they were expecting it to happen) they get upset. Hence the poor reviews.

Not a Spooky Movie

I, on the other hand, really liked the movie. Before I explain why, let me clarify a few things. This film is not a spooky, supernatural thriller (like 'The Sixth Sense'). It is not a hero movie (like 'Unbreakable'). Heck, it's not even about faith (like 'Signs').

It is, however, about a bunch of regular everyday people trying to stay alive when the world around them is going to hell and they have no idea why. In many ways, it's like Steven Spielberg's 'War of the Worlds' (another film that many critics and viewers didn't like) in which Tom Cruise's character -- a not-so-bright, not-so-smart, not-so-successful regular Joe -- does the best he can given the circumstances he finds himself in. And one of the main reasons he stays alive is because he gets lucky; i.e. it's not because he's a great leader, quick thinker, or is otherwise larger than life.

'The Happening' is, in fact, very much a good old-fashioned science fiction story. And I don't mean a Hollywood 'sci-fi' story but a 1950s or 60s classic 's.f.' story. One written by H.G. Wells or John Wyndham. Or of the kind that Clarke and Asimov might have written: an understated, cerebral, but still oh-my-god-what-an-awesome-concept type of story.

Very Real

So, keeping that in mind, I loved how the movie was done so realistically. I mean, seriously, if something like this was to happen in real life, would you expect to find yourself in a typical Hollywood action-thriller-disaster movie or in one of Shyamalan's? I know I'd expect to find myself in the latter.

There's a point in the movie, for example, when people coming from four directions meet at a crossroads. They're all running away from 'attacks' that have occurred just a few miles behind each of them. When they get together and try to figure out what to do next, the person who gets to be in charge is the obviously out-of-his-depth but still barely still-holding-it-together Army private who's the only formal authority figure there. Everyone automatically turns to him for leadership. That's probably what we'd do in real life as well.

In most other Hollywood movies this scene would have been dramatically different. That's actually a pun because it would, indeed, have been a very 'dramatic' scene. There would have been a heated argument and two clear leaders would have emerged with strongly differing opinions on what to do next. There would have been lots of shouting, panicking, and pleas for sanity. A couple of idiots would have snuck off and, as expected, quickly gotten themselves killed. Eventually, they would have split into two groups with our hero feeling terrible about the people who didn't listen to him and will surely die. Think, for example, the library scene from 'The Day After Tomorrow'. Did something like that happen in 'The Happening'? Nopes. And that's what I loved about it.

Oh and there were no obvious "No! Don't go in there!" type moments, either. I really appreciated that.

Atmosphere

Shyamalan did a great job with the atmosphere throughout the film -- starting, literally, from the first scene -- and the overall feeling was of great disquiet tinged with ohmygodwhatthefuck?! Both the acting (everyone was appropriately tharn) and the musical score (particularly the cello solos) really did that justice.

And even though I watched the movie a few days ago, some of those feelings still linger. That tends to happen with Shyamalan's films, doesn't it?

A Different Movie...

Ultimately, though, what I like about Shyamalan's films is how they're different from the usual Hollywood fare. Their locations are different (he insists on filming in Philadelphia, where he lives), their pacing is different, and though the stories themselves are not always ground-breaking they don't follow the usual Hollywood cliches.

...But Not a Really Great One

That said, they do tend to follow the usual Shyamalan cliches. Which is what makes this a less-than-great movie. Still, as Chris Hewitt from TwinCities.com says: 

Shyamalan movies demand that you surrender to his way of telling stories. If you're up for that, you should go.

Since I am more than happy to enjoy films the way he makes them and I don't go into his movies (or any other movie, for that matter) with any preconceived notions of what they should be like, I generally have a good time. And that's exactly what happened with 'The Happening'.

So, be warned: If you don't generally like Shyamalan's movies, you won't like this one either. But if you do like his movies, then you should really enjoy this one as well.

Others Views & Reviews

Iron Man!

I watched Iron Man yesterday and it rocks! I particularly liked that the writers took their time in developing Stark's character and back story -- like the Yinsen story arc -- before jumping into the action, which was also nicely done. In fact, what made the movie special was that it was much more of an action-drama (the birth of a superhero) than just a pure action movie (a superhero goes around kicking ass). The dialogue, acting, and smatterings of humour were all really good too.

Of course it was interesting to hear Raza, one of the main bad buys, speaking Urdu. The last time we had a cool but seriously evil bald bad guy that spoke a language from this region was when Amrish Puri played Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom -- though, of course, he spoke Hindi and not Urdu.

Faran Tahir (who is of Pakistani origin, by the way) also played Raza a little less one-dimensionally than I was expecting, which was nice. That said, Raza was very much a mix between Puri's Mola Ram and Crispin Glover's Creepy Thin Man from the Charlie's Angels franchise: "menacing" to the point of being almost funny, but still reasonably believable (like the bad guys from xXx, for example). [See update below]

Oh, and all US patriotism aside -- this is an American superhero movie about a military weapons manufacturer, after all -- it was interesting how they made the main bunch of over-the-top bad guys a reasonably international group of weapons traders who spoke Urdu, Arabic, Russian, Hungarian, and a whole bunch of other languages. All the cool terrorists are either Middle Eastern, Central European, or Scandinavian these days. Gone are the days of the evil Japanese, Vietnamese, Germans, and Russians...though the ultimate bad guy is still, of course, British.

Also, to keep up with the times, they moved the entire Iron Man story from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Even Yinsen (originally Ho Yinsen) had his back-story moved from "communist Vietnam" to "terrorist Afghanistan". I guess that means the Bond franchise now has dibs on European bad guys; the Spider-Man, X-Men, and Batman franchises have dibs on American bad guys; the Transformers and Superman franchises have dibs on outer-space bad guys; and the Bourne franchise has dibs on the CIA and other intelligence agencies as bad guys. Have I missed any?

Anyway, I don't have much more to say about the movie itself -- a lot of others have already said pretty much everything I wanted to say (and have probably said it better) -- so I'll just link to some good reviews, instead:

All in all, it's an excellent movie that I would highly recommend.

UPDATE: Trekker alerted me to this excellent PULSE News article on Faran Tahir and his role in Iron Man. In it, Tahir is quoted as saying:

"The thing I loved about playing Raza was the approach. It's so easy in today’s reality, when you have a movie set somewhere in the Middle East or Afghanistan, to have everything become about the current terrorism in those nations. However, it wasn't about that. It was about a different ideology. My group of people, my minions and I, are the real soldiers of fortune. We use whatever we can to get the power. It wasn't about religion, but we'd use religion, corporate espionage -- whatever we needed to get ahead. We have no alliance to anyone. We have our own ideology: profit, power, prestige -- it brings everything to an honest level. People do a lot of things under the guise of ideologies, but it's all about power in the end."

Awesome. Now I'm really looking forward to seeing Tahir in the upcoming Star Trek movie.

Freddie Highmore

I watched The Spiderwick Chronicles today. And while the movie was pretty good, I was most impressed by actor Freddie Highmore who played the twins Jared and Simon. (Sarah Bolger, who played their sister Mallory was also pretty good).

Highmore's done a lot of other cool stuff as well. For example, he played Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and was the voice of Pantalaimon in The Golden Compass. He'll also be doing the voice for Astro Boy (slated for a 2009 release).

Chalk up one more young actor whose career I am looking forward to following (the other one being Dakota Fanning). Hmmm...I must now watch August Rush.

Film Club in Lahore

During my undergrad I became president of Alpha Hour -- LUMS' extracurricular club that showed movies, invited guest speakers to campus, and arranged discussion groups on interesting topics.

While I was president, though, it ended up being more of a film club than anything else. Every Friday evening, then, I'd borrow the video projector, book the school's largest auditorium, and screen a couple of films. We'd show all kinds of stuff and, by the time I handed the club over to my juniors, it had become pretty popular.

The movie screening formula that I used also worked nicely: I'd show a popular movie or cartoon first (usually a comedy, romantic comedy, or action movie), take a half hour break, and then show a more serious movie (usually a drama, artsy movie, or cult classic). The first session usually filled the 370-seat auditorium, especially when we showed films like Titanic or Star Wars: Episode I. The second session, meanwhile, was targeted mostly to film buffs and/or hostel residents (I was both). I remember in particular our second-show screening of Apocalypse Now because, by the end of the movie, there were only eight people in the room :)

Coming to the point of this blog post: Having run a film club in the past, it made me really happy, then, when a friend e-mailed to tell me about the Punjnad Film Club that has recently started in Lahore ("alpha hour - all jumped up on volunteer adrenaline", he wrote). We have a number of cinemas in Lahore but all of them focus on mainstream movies (mostly blockbusters) and PFC is a breath of fresh air for people who want to watch other kinds of movies as well. Here's hoping they're wildly successful.

Geeky Home Cinemas

Deputy Dog has a list of 10 Stunning Ultra-Geeky Home Cinemas. Being a geek myself, I fully intend to build me one of those as soon as I can afford it -- though I probably won't go as far as these people have. Mine will based on the bridge of the Enterprise D, of course -- a bit like #5 on the list -- but it'll be a lot simpler and a lot more practical. Something like this, maybe:

Ameel's Home Cinema

Check back with me in about five years and I'll let you know how it turned out :)

2 Good Articles: Cover Songs, Will Smith

I read two fun articles (via Digg) today.

The first is a list from the Onion's A.V. Club called 'Let It Die: 23 Songs That Should Never Be Covered Again'. Excellent article. Very spot on.

The second is The Deadbolt's interview with Will Smith which is, among other things, about his upcoming movie, 'I Am Legend'. I'm really looking forward to watching that movie and will write about it as soon as I do. Smith is one of my favourite actors and is also one of my favourite people-I've-never-met. I like him particularly because, despite all his success, he's still an honest to goodness, real down to Earth guy.

Science Fiction Film "Babes" on Flixster

Ah, the science fiction "babe". An elusive creature, if there ever was one -- though that trend finally seems to be changing in film and on TV (thanks, Joss!).

Still, Flixster recently posted an article called 'Science Fiction Film Babes Through Time' that lists five decades worth "babes" in order of "babe-itude". It's a fun read. And though I don't know a couple of the women listed there, in my opinion, their list is pretty accurate.