Movie Moments 2017 - Entry 2

I loved Three Billboard outside Ebbing, Missouri. It's a masterwork so richly layered that you feel like you've read a novel or at least watched a mini-series, so fully do you understand these characters and their world. 

But I'm not here to talk about Three Billboards. Or at least I'm not here to talk about Three Billboards as a whole. 

I'm here to talk about how Carter Burwell, genius composer whose work I love, totally recycled his Twilight score for Three Billboards. 

I happen to love his Twilight score. I think it's fantastic, the otherworldly strings/piano/woodwind for the vampires and the tribal drums for the wolves. I was relieved when they finally brought him back for Breaking Dawn. When Vampire Diaries (at least in the early seasons) aped his work, it made sense to me. No matter who they hired, that person wasn't going to do any better than Burwell did.

I'm not even saying that this score is 100%, note-for-note the same as Twilight. I'm just saying that when Mildred leaned over and said, "'Cause you're pretty, but you ain't her," I knew I knew those 5 wood flute notes from somewhere. That somewhere is Twilight. And that emotional moment (j/k, the entire movie is an emotional moment. Prepare yourself) is probably (definitely?) not the time you want to think about Twilight (or is it? No, it isn't).

Burwell isn't, of course, the only Hollywood composer to pull this trick. Thomas Newman's scores for The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, and Pay it Forward are pretty indistinguishable. 

The point is: my name is April, there is a crossover audience for fans of the Twilight score and fans of Martin McDonagh, and I am at the centre of that very small Venn diagram. Possibly I am the only person in it, but here I am. 

You can listen to the score plus soundtrack here. The Deer/Twilight moment, if you want to experience it for yourself, begins at 1:24. 

Movie Moments 2017 - Entry 1

I have a sudden, pressing need to immortalize movie moments from 2017, so here we are.

Movie moments are not necessarily the movies themselves. They aren't really things that happened in movies (though those are also eligible), so much as they are things that happened in and around movies this year for me, personally.

So without further explanation, I want to give a shout-out to the lady who sat behind me when I went to see American Assassin.

Now, am I the kind of person who would go to see American Assassin just because it stars Dylan O'Brien? Yes, technically I am. I also like Taylor Kitsch and Michael Keaton (who is so great in this movie, see it just for him), and I like action movies, but, hey, that nice kid from Teen Wolf needs my support.

The support he got, however, was from The Lady Who Sat Behind Me (TLWSBM). TLWSBM was ready to give her whole heart to little Dylan O'Brien. She ooed and awed and marveled. When Dylan (does his character have a name? Does he need one?) was trapped in a tunnel with bad guys on all sides and he did a pull-up to some pipes or vents to hide, she leaned forward and whispered, "Bad Ass." <-- it really was two separate words, the way she said it.

I don't know TLWSBM. I don't know her life. I do know that at the moment, TLWSBM needed to see Dylan O'Brien on a revenge-tinged killing spree. And that Saturday afternoon at the cineplex, she got it. Oh, how she got it.

The Lobster (2015)

Last night Erin and I watched The Lobster on a semi-whim (not what we were after, but still something we both wanted to see). At the end, Erin felt the movie was ruined and hated it. I couldn't stop smiling and loved it, even though the movie took several surprising turns. Erin, of course, asked me why I loved it, which I couldn't really articulate the reason at the time.

I loved it because it's audacious and original and a complete world unto itself. I loved it because it was macabre and hilarious and violent.

Mostly, I loved it for scenes like this: (spoilers, obviously, because why write about a movie if you can't write about all of it)

David goes to the Limping Man and Nosebleed Woman's yacht test, seemingly to kill them. But -- twist -- all David does is blow up Limping Man's spot: he's faking the nosebleeds. They're not a match!

David proceeds to make a list of all the ways that Limping Man fakes a nosebleed. Then, taking in the blood stains on Limping Man's shirt, David creates a new list of all the products that Limping Man uses to fake blood stains instead of having to bother faking the nosebleed.

David turns back to confirm what a great job he does of eviscerating John's hope of a future, takes in current stain anew, then adds beetroot juice to his list. He turns back to Nosebleed Woman, and he's so damn proud of himself for coming up with beetroot juice.

Everyone is passionless and strange in their interactions for the run of the movie, so it falls to beetroot juice to bring David joy. David thought he had everything figured out. He gets to surprise himself instead. No one else is particularly surprised or happy, but, hey. It was nice moment for David.

Beetroot juice is why I love this movie.