Citizen Kane (1941)
The actual winner: How Green Was My Valley.
The other nominees: Blossoms in the Dust, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon, One Foot in Heaven, Sergeant York, Suspicion.
Listen, I love How Green Was My Valley, one of the many great movies from director John Ford, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that throughout the years, Citizen Kane repeatedly shows up as number one on many lists of the best films of all time. In addition to its non-linear storytelling, Orson Welles’s directorial debut is visually groundbreaking cinema in terms of its use of low camera angles and most importantly its use of lighting, in-camera techniques and optical printing to keep the foreground and background all in sharp focus.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
The actual winner: My Fair Lady.
The other nominees: Becket, Mary Poppins, Zorba the Greek.
It’s a crime that Stanley Kubrick never won an Oscar (other than for Visual Effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey) and this is the year it probably should have happened. One can also make a good case for A Clockwork Orange (1971) but the competition that year, namely The French Connection, was tough. Incredibly, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture, though Kubrick was nominated for Best Director that year, in which Oliver! took home the top prize. I’ll admit I’m biased because I don’t personally care much for musicals, but — getting back to 1964 — Strangelove is iconic Kubrick and one of the greatest satires of all time.

The Graduate (1967)
The actual winner: In the Heat of the Night.
The other nominees: Bonnie and Clyde, Doctor Dolittle, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Don’t get me wrong, In the Heat of the Night is a solid movie that introduced the world to the unforgettable line “They call me Mister Tibbs!” But thinking in terms of which film became classic American cinema, it really should have been between The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde, with the slight edge going to the one with the Simon & Garfunkel tunes and that instantly recognizable leg pose on the movie poster. The film’s director Mike Nichols did win the Best Director Oscar that year, so at least the Academy got that one right.

Star Wars (1977)
The actual winner: Annie Hall.
The other nominees: The Goodbye Girl, Julia, The Turning Point.
Because I love Annie Hall so much, I almost didn’t include Star Wars on this list. But how can I argue against the movie that changed the course of film history? In terms of substantiating the summer blockbuster and using epic visual effects to tell a tale of pure escapism, the influence of Star Wars never went away. In terms of total number of Oscars won, Star Wars was actually the winner of the evening with six wins total (Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Score, Sound and Visual Effects, plus a special achievement award for Sound Effects Editing), compared to the four won by Annie Hall.

Raging Bull (1980)
The actual winner: Ordinary People.
The other nominees: Coal Miner’s Daughter, The Elephant Man, Tess.
This should have been Martin Scorsese’s first Oscar. Taxi Driver, you say? Well, 1976 was a tough year with Network also in the field and Rocky winning. The actual Best Picture winner Ordinary People is a very good film, but at the end of the ’80s, Raging Bull was selected best film of the decade by many film critics, including Roger Ebert — so even after only ten years Raging Bull was already demonstrating it would better stand the test of time.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
The actual winner: Chariots of Fire.
The other nominees: Atlantic City, On Golden Pond, Reds.
Nothing against Chariots of Fire — it’s a good movie — but come on! This was one of very few instances where the Best Picture winner went to a film in which the director (Hugh Hudson) did not receive a directing nomination. The award for Best Director that year went to Warren Beatty for Reds, leaving me to think that Raiders wouldn’t have even been the Academy’s second choice for Best Picture. At best it likely placed third, which shows just how much the Academy doesn’t consider pure escapist cinema to be Best Picture material, no matter how perfect it is. The Academy did manage to get something right that evening: with a total of five Oscars won, Raiders actually took home more statues than any other film that evening. Chariots and Reds won four and three, respectively.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
The actual winner: Gandhi.
The other nominees: Missing, Tootsie, The Verdict.
So how did it come to be that a serious historical three-hour drama will automatically be the frontrunner for Best Picture? Aside from Citizen Kane losing, this might be the best example of the Academy getting things seriously wrong. Even back in ’82 I knew that E.T. would become an endearing classic and that Gandhi (while a very good movie) would never be remembered in such a way. E.T. is simply filmmaking perfection by a director making the kind of movie he was put on the earth to make.

Goodfellas (1990)
The actual winner: Dances with Wolves.
The other nominees: Awakenings, Ghost, The Godfather Part III.
At the time, my friend Bill summed it up like this: “To say Kevin Costner is a better director than Martin Scorsese is like saying I’m a better quarterback than Joe Montana.” No disrespect intended to the excellent Dances with Wolves, but Goodfellas is Scorsese’s masterpiece — and the second film of his that should have won.

Apollo 13 (1995)
The actual winner: Braveheart.
The other nominees: Babe, The Postman (Il Postino), Sense and Sensibility.
This is the film that should have earned Ron Howard his first Oscar, not A Beautiful Mind (2001). Come to think of it, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) should have taken Best Picture over A Beautiful Mind that year, but at least that was sort of made right when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) took home all 11 Oscars for which it was nominated. But getting back to Apollo 13, Ron Howard was famously not even nominated for directing this near-perfect film that manages to create considerable tension even though the story’s outcome is known. The Directors Guild of America gave Ron Howard its prestigious DGA award that year, but the Oscar went to Mel Gibson — who Howard happened to making the movie Ransom (1996) with at the time.

Fargo (1996)
The actual winner: The English Patient.
The other nominees: Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies, Shine.
Not unlike Elaine on Seinfeld, I find The English Patient an excruciating experience to sit through. The winner that year clearly should have been Joel and Ethan Coen’s perfect blend of crime and dark humor, which at 98 minutes is precisely as long as it needs to be. Fargo was also, in 1998, the only 1996 film to make the American Film Institute’s original 100 Years … 100 Movies list.

For the second half of the day, Goldsmith was joined by newcomer David Anspaugh, whose name I recognized from producing and directing episodes of one of my favorite television series, Hill Street Blues (1981- 1987). The movie screened was Anspaugh’s feature film debut: Hoosiers. From the opening sequence of Gene Hackman’s character driving across 1950s Indiana, beautifully photographed by Fred Murphy, I pretty much knew I was going to love the film.

The excellent screenplay by co-producer Angelo Pizzo is inspired by a true story about the underdog Milan High School basketball team, who won the Indiana state championship in 1954.

Gene Hackman is perfect as Norman Dale, a former college basketball coach of the Ithaca Warriors who was given a lifetime suspension for physically assaulting one of his own players. He is given a clean slate by his old friend, Cletus (Sheb Wooley), the principal of Hickory High School in need of a new basketball coach. The tone is set for Dale his first night in town when he meets some of the locals at the barber shop and he is told outright, “This town don’t like change much.” Indeed. Dale, of course, has his own plans for the team.

Barbara Hershey is great as the protective neighbor of one of the school’s best players Jimmy Chitwood (Maris Valainis). Dennis Hopper shines in one of his greatest roles as the town drunk who begins to confront his alcoholism when he is given a chance by Dale to be the assistant coach. But really, the entire cast is perfect, right down to every citizen of Hickory and every single boy on that basketball team.

What comes down to is this: even if you don’t give a rat’s ass about basketball, if you have a pulse you’ll probably like this movie.

Getting back to that UCLA screening back in 1986, it was the only time in my life I’d been in the same room with so many Goldsmith fans at the same time. There was a moment during the climax of the final game when the music was so wonderful everyone around me looked at each other excitedly in utter amazement.

There was a Q&A after the movie, but the only question I could think of had fortunately been asked early on. Yes, there would be a soundtrack album.

Later that day was the first of two times in my life where I had the opportunity to meet Jerry Goldsmith. I was able to tell him how much I loved The Omen (1976) and how it got me interested in soundtracks. He shook my hand and said, “Thanks. I had a great time doing it.” I’m sure I was shaking from the magnitude of the moment. I mean, how many people get to actually meet their favorite composer and tell them in the briefest of moments how much their music means to them? It was one of those moments I’d like to capture forever and play it over in my head again and again.

Hoosiers opened November 14, 1986, in limited release. When it finally opened wide February 27, 1987 — despite my best efforts telling everyone I encountered what a wonderful movie it was — Hoosiers did not win the box office, opening number five. It did earn two well-deserved Oscar nominations for Dennis Hopper’s performance (in the Supporting Actor category) and for Jerry Goldsmith’s music.

Over the years, I was happy to see that this little film that I loved eventually found its audience.

In 2004, ESPN voted Hoosiers the best sports movie of all-time in their list of the 25 Best Sports Movies. As much as I love Rocky (1976, which didn’t even make their list), Field Of Dreams (1989) and The Natural (1984), it’s hard for me to argue with Hoosiers as their number one choice.

Like Jimmy Chitwood says before he makes his final shot, “I’ll make it.”

1984 was one hell of a summer for movie nerds like me. May 23 brought us the highly anticipated Raiders prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, while the following week allowed us to discover what happened after the death of a beloved character in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Back in the day when a film wasn’t considered “dead on arrival” if it didn’t open in the #1 spot, June 8 saw the arrival of two big summer films, Ghostbusters and Gremlins — but that didn’t stop both movies from breaking $100 million at the box office that year.

In the weeks before these four films opened, I remember sitting in my high school Calculus class attempting to draw the logo lettering of all of them with the exception of Ghostbusters, which to be honest I wasn’t anticipating as much as the others. But as it turned out, even though it was a comedy, Ghostbusters (thanks to help from the excellent special effects by Richard Edlund) was as epic in scope as the other films in the summer of ’84.

Ghostbusters is directed by Ivan Reitman, who at the time had previously directed Meatballs (1979) and Stripes (1981), in addition to serving as a producer on National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978). The screenplay is written by Dan Aykroyd (who also wrote 1980′s The Blues Brothers) and Harold Ramis (co-writer of Animal House, Stripes and 1980′s Caddyshack; director of Caddyshack and 1983′s National Lampoon’s Vacation).

Bill Murray’s comedic talent shines as Peter Venkman, a role that was originally conceived for Aykroyd’s Blues Brothers pal John Belushi. Murray is wonderfully deadpan here, reminding me at times of the great silent comedian Buster Keaton, especially his reaction to his would-be girlfriend transforming into a “dog.” Aykroyd and Ramis are also perfect in their respective roles, Raymond Stantz and Egon Spengler, forming a great comedic trio. They are joined later in the film by Ernie Hudson, who ends up having one of my favorite lines in the movie (see title of this article).

Sigourney Weaver, known mainly at the time for Alien (1979) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), displays a solid aptitude for comedy as Dana, a woman seeks the help of the Ghostbusters when she discovers a demigod named Zuul in her refrigerator (“Generally you don’t see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.”) Her dweebish neighbor Louis is played to perfection by Rick Moranis. And let us not forget the comedic talent of Annie Potts who plays the Ghostbusters’s occasionally acerbic receptionist, Janine.

There are so many great quotable lines in Ghostbusters, it was actually hard to pick just one for the title of this piece. One of my favorite throwaway lines, when Egon matter-of-factly states “print is dead,” is kind of prophetic now. Let us also not forget such goodies as “He slimed me,” “We came, we saw, we kicked it’s ass,” and of course “Human sacrifices, dogs and cats living together … mass hysteria!”

Pretty much the entire cast reunites for Ghostbusters II (1989), along with director Ivan Reitman, with another screenplay by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. What could go wrong, right? The disappointing results indicate just how difficult (and lucky) it is to capture lightning in a bottle — even with the aid of Proton Packs and an Ecto-Containment Unit.

And by the way, despite my daydreaming back in 1984 about upcoming summer movies in that Calculus class, I still managed to get an A.

In 1982, one of my favorite Stephen King books Different Seasons was published, consisting of four novellas that each correspond to a season of the year. I love this book so much because three out of the four tales do not have anything whatsoever to do with the supernatural — a bit of a departure for King. One of his strengths as a writer is his ability to create real flesh and blood people who populate his stories, no matter how crazy things get. This ability especially shines in Different Seasons, and anyone who doubts the writing talent of Stephen King should read at least one of the stories from this book.

Three of the four stories, the same three that do not rely on anything supernatural, have been made into films — the first being Stand By Me which was adapted from The Body. The second film to come from this source was The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Frank Darabont’s flawless adaptation of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. Unfortunately my favorite of these stories, Apt Pupil, failed as a film (released in 1998), mainly due to the fact that director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Brandon Boyce changed the ending so significantly that they pretty much rendered the rest of the story pointless.

The screenplay for Stand By Me, by Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon (who also wrote 1984′s Starman) is remarkably faithful to its source, right down to the moment where Gordie encounters the deer — one of my favorite little incidents from King’s story that I couldn’t believe made it into the movie. Future adapters of Stephen King material take note: it’s the small character moments like this that make me an admirer of the author’s work, and leaving such moments out of the movie — even though they might not advance the plot — is utterly stupid.

Something else that is generally lost in other King adaptations is his wonderful prose. Fortunately, since The Body is told in the first-person, it lends itself well to using voice-over, and the screenplay beautifully depicts an older version of Gordie, played by Richard Dreyfuss, narrating the story. Thus, we get to keep such observations of friends drifting apart over the years such as, “Friends come in and out of our lives like busboys in a restaurant.“

It is a testament of Rob Reiner’s directing skills that he was able to not only so successfully cast the four young leads, but also that he managed to get such honest performances out of each of them. Corey Feldman has never been better as the crazy, bitter, angry Teddy Duchamp. Jerry O’Connell is perfect as Vern Tessio. And of course River Phoenix shines in the role of Chris Chambers, the kid who believes he was born with no chance in life, who in one heartfelt moment confesses to Gordie that he wants to move away to a place where no one knows him.

Playing Gordie Lachance is a very young Wil Wheaton, in what I was certain at the time was a star-making performance. He’s so downright perfect in this role, it will always remain a mystery to me why his acting career never quite took off the way I imagined it would, especially after demonstrating his ability to carry a movie like he did. Of course all of us nerds are well aware that Wil Wheaton grew up to become — not unlike the adult version of his character — a great writer.

25 years ago, I sat in the theater pretty much stunned by what a solid adaptation this was. I couldn’t believe the entire Lardass Hogan story even made the cut. I had snuck a bottle of Mickey’s Big Mouth into the movie theater, and by the end, with a little buzz going, was profoundly effected by the ending, which I found even more emotional than the book — probably because of the way Chris Chambers disappears from the frame, or the way that the older Gordie looks back on his childhood while at the same time watching his own young son interact with his friend.

Ultimately, Stand By Me is my favorite film about kids beginning the transition into adulthood, a coming of age story that made me reflect the most about my own childhood and the friends that I had when I was twelve. I just don’t understand how this movie is now older than I was when I first saw it. Jesus, does anyone?

It was in 1983 when James Cameron met with Alien producer David Giler to discuss possibilities for a sequel. Giler had been impressed with Cameron’s screenplay for The Terminator, which had come across his desk. Cameron, about to complete pre-production on The Terminator, began writing a treatment for Alien II. A scheduling conflict with Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger caused a production delay, affording Cameron the time to begin writing his screenplay. Although he wasn’t able to complete the script, it was enough to impress the heads at 20th Century Fox — so much so that they actually waited until Cameron was available again and told him he could direct the Alien sequel if The Terminator (1984) turned out well.

When Ripley is rescued after 57 years of hypersleep, her account of events on the Nostromo is met with extreme skepticism and she looses her space flight status as a result. She is also informed that colonization has already begun on LV-426, the very planet where her ship’s crew had first encountered the face huggers, only one of which managed to wipe out everyone on board.

Later, when contact is lost with the colony on LV-426, Ripley is visited by corporate suit Carter Burke, played to slimy perfection by comedian Paul Reiser. The company wants to send a team of marines to investigate, with Ripley along as an adviser — and if she agrees to go, Burke says he will restore her flight status.

The tension established by Cameron the director is a very high level that few films achieve, a major factor of which is the fact that each marine is outfitted with a helmet camera that Cameron and editor Ray Lovejoy can cut to whenever they want to demonstrate just how claustrophobic and dire the situation is.

But more important is the suspense created by Cameron the writer by focusing more on the human elements, notably the relationship between Ripley and Newt (Carrie Henn), a young girl who is the only colonist that managed to survive. The most terrifying moment in the movie, at least for me, occurs later in the film when Ripley hears Newt faintly screaming from somewhere inside the complex and we all know that Ripley is left with no choice whatsoever other than to go after her. Compare this to the original film in which no less than three times, someone goes off looking for Jones the cat. Now don’t get me wrong, I love cats and I love the original Alien, but to be used as a plot device three times is a bit weak. By having a little girl in danger, one that we know Ripley feels responsible for, Cameron elicits gasps from the audience, not groans.

The screenplay also does a great job of establishing things early on — such as the cargo-loader and speculation over just what the hell exactly is laying all those eggs — and paying them off later.

The film is perfectly cast with great actors like Terminator co-star Michael Biehn as Corporal Hicks (who gives a perfect non-enthustiastic acknowledgement of leadership when it’s pointed out that he is now the man in charge), Jenette Goldstein as the badass Vasquez, and of course Bill “Why don’t you put her in charge?” Paxton as Hudson.

Lance Henriksen portrays Bishop with a perfect balance of android and humanity. There’s a great moment in the film when Bishop volunteers to go through a claustrophobic pipe, saying “Believe me, I’d prefer not to. I may be synthetic, but I’m not stupid.” Another great Bishop moment comes when he’s being sealed into the pipe and he cautious the others, “Watch your fingers.” Also the character is wonderfully written with an arc that is a very fitting juxtaposition to Ash, the android character from the original film played by Ian Holm.

Sigourney Weaver received a Best Actress nomination for this film, which is an astounding feat considering the Academy generally doesn’t acknowledge acting in genre films. But here we have a sci-fi horror action film that also happens to be a sequel — that’s a lot going against her and yet the Academy couldn’t ignore this amazing performance.

Composer James Horner certainly had a challenging task, considering he was following in the footsteps of Jerry Goldsmith, who wrote a score for the original that many film music fans (including myself) hold in very high regard. Horner ended up writing a score that has become an action staple of its own — one particular cue called “Bishop’s Countdown” was used in just about every single action film trailer for a couple of years. It’s interesting that Cameron ended up playing around so much with Horner’s score that there’s very little music in the film that was actually written specifically for the moment it’s being used. Yet still, Horner also ended up getting an Oscar nomination.

As great as the theatrical release is, an even superior “Special Edition” version was released on laserdisc in 1992, featuring several great additional character moments, notably the revelation that Ripley had a daughter who had died by the time she had returned to earth from her hypersleep, making Ripley’s bonding with Newt all the more compelling. Fortunately, the Special Edition has made its way to various DVD releases and is also on the latest Blu-ray — and this is the version you need to watch tonight, especially if it’s been a while since you’ve seen it. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer.

And so here’s the “problem” of sorts: these filmmakers set out to make a pure escapist adventure film and wound up setting the marker and making the best of its kind. They set the bar so high that no other film (including any of the sequels) have come close to matching it. All this happened 30 years ago on June 12, 1981 when Raiders of the Lost Ark was released.

It has one of the funniest gags ever of its genre. At one point our hero Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is confronted by a incredibly skilled swordsman, in what seems to be a build-up to an amazing fight. But then Indiana Jones calmly pulls out his pistol and shoots the guy dead. Around the fourth time I saw the movie in the theater, I dragged my Grandma Webb to see it with me. She always had a nice hearty laugh and after this particular gag I could hear a good one coming from down deep. After her laugh finally subsided, I could still hear her chuckling about it for the next couple of reels.

The genesis of Raiders began in the early ’70s when George Lucas had a desire to make an adventure picture which would be an updated version of the film serials of the ’30s and ’40s. Friend and fellow filmmaker Philip Kaufman collaborated on the idea, with the understanding that Kaufman would direct, about an archaeologist in the 1930s (at the time named Indiana Smith) trying to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis. When Kaufman was hired to work on The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) for Clint Eastwood, the project was shelved and Lucas focused his attention on Star Wars — another idea inspired by old film serials.

Years later, during the opening weekend of Star Wars in May 1977, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were vacationing in Hawaii together when Spielberg mentioned to his pal that he’d always wanted to direct an action picture that was pure escapism like James Bond. Lucas pitched the idea of Raiders and suddenly, with Spielberg’s enthusiasm, the project was reinvigorated.

In my write-up for The Empire Strikes Back (1980), I gave major props to Lawrence Kasdan for his screenplay and the same props definitely apply here. Spielberg, Lucas and Kasdan would meet regularly and brainstorm scenes that they’d like to see in the movie. It was Kasdan who took the hodgepodge of crazy ideas and managed to work many of them into a coherent screenplay. A few ideas that didn’t make it, such as a mine cart chase and an escape from an airplane on an inflatable raft, would show up in the 1984 sequel. (I guess technically Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a prequel, even though it references the aforementioned funny gag from Raiders — whatever, just go with it.)

Right from the start, when the Paramount logo dissolves into a shot of an actual mountain, we know we’re in for something different. The amazing opening sequence plunges us headfirst into the world of Indiana Jones, as we witness the finale to an unseen previous adventure involving a quest for a golden idol in the jungles of South America 1936. I consider myself fortunate that I first saw this sequence — like everyone else in the theater — with no idea whatsoever who Indiana Jones was. This was just some guy in a fedora with a bullwhip who emerges dramatically from the shadows and is really good at detecting spike traps, but who clearly has bad luck in the loyal henchman department.

One of the things I absolutely love about John Williams’s score is the way he refrains from using the theme right away. Lesser composers would have come right out of the gate with this great theme they’ve written, but Williams builds to it. About 12 minutes into the film, while escaping from Peruvian natives, our hero swings out on a vine (missing his plane and splashing into the water) and the Indiana Jones theme finally begins to emerge. I still remember sitting there in the theater during that moment, hearing that theme for the first time and being overcome with major chills. To this day, that memory is the sole reason why I never listen to a soundtrack album of a John Williams score to a Spielberg film before I see the movie.

There’s lots of great action sequences in the film. Some of them, like Indy being chased by the giant boulder, have even become iconic. But my favorite action sequence ever put on film is the truck chase, a technical marvel of great editing, perfect music and spectacular stunt work. The part where Indy climbs underneath the truck, a variation on an old stunt originally performed by Yakima Canutt in John Ford’s 1939 version of Stagecoach, is executed masterfully here by stuntman Terry Leonard — even if they did have to dig a small trench in the truck’s path to pull it off. Leonard had previously attempted a variation on the Stagecoach stunt in The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981) and was badly injured when he got pulled underneath and his legs were run over.

It’s practically common knowledge now that Tom Selleck was offered the Indiana Jones role but couldn’t do it because of his TV series Magnum, P.I. While I’m certain Selleck would have been great in the role, it’s very difficult to imagine anyone else besides Harrison Ford wearing that fedora. In addition to being able to come across as a believable action hero, Ford manages to bring a vulnerability to the role as well. Somehow there’s still an everyman quality to Ford’s Indy, even when he’s punching Nazis in the face.

The excellent cast also includes Karen Allen as the refreshingly feisty Marion Ravenwood, Paul Freeman as Indy’s rival Belloq who’s been hired by the Nazis, Ronald Lacey as Toht who chuckles at the very thought of tossing women into snake pits, John Rhys-Davies as Indy’s old friend and sidekick Sallah, and of course the great Denholm Elliott as museum curator Dr. Marcus Brody.

As I mentioned already, it is my opinion that no other action-adventure flick has ever come close to matching the perfection of Raiders of the Lost Ark, not even any of its sequels (or prequels). But as far as those sequels go, I know I’m in the minority when I say that my favorite is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom — mainly because it’s so audaciously different from the first movie. I assume most Indy fans prefer the third in the series Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) because it brought the story back closer to Raiders — Indy fighting Nazis again in a race to find another holy relic. It’s certainly fun, but feels more like a rehash to me. Clearly it’s a difficult task to catch lightning in a bottle twice.

Happy 30th, Raiders! To quote Indy himself, “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.” And the mileage here holds up splendidly.

About a year later, in the summer of 1977, we had just gotten this new contraption called Showtime which allowed you to watch movies uncut with no commercials in your living room. It was a little box that sat on top of the TV. To turn on Showtime you tuned your television channel to 3 and turned the dial on the box over to “premium.” Back then, the day’s programming generally began early evening. They showed two movies, followed by the same two movies repeated, and that would be it.

The Omen was the second R-rated film my parents let me see — the first being the Roger Corman produced classic Death Race 2000 (1975) directed by Paul Bartel. Of course I had no idea who Roger Corman was yet, but I would soon learn that if I watched a decent action flick with some cool car crashes, chances are Corman had a hand in it.

I was a couple of months shy of my 12th birthday when I sat down one evening to watch The Omen. That’s right, I said evening. It was 10 o’clock, my parents had gone to bed, and I was up by myself. From the first bars of Jerry Goldsmith’s main title music, I was scared.

The story involves the rise of the Antichrist, as young Damien Thorn (Harvey Stephens) winds up in the care of U.S. Ambassador to England Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) and his wife Kathy (Lee Remick).

At the time, what I found most frightening about the movie were all of those violent on-screen “accidents” that befell anyone who stood in Damien’s way — it’s certainly what all of my fellow 5th-graders couldn’t stop talking about. While that’s definitely a big part of the gruesome appeal, over time I started to wonder why none of the film’s many imitators, including all of the sequels, could ever achieve the same level of fright as the original. Eventually I realized that many of the movie’s genuine scares come from those creepy darkroom scenes involving a photographer, Jennings (David Warner), who discovers strange blemishes in his pictures that seem to foreshadow how someone will die. When Jennings presents a photograph of himself which has a large streak going through his neck — and Goldsmith nails the moment — my 11-year-old self had chills from head to toe. To this day, that scene still gives me chills whenever I watch it.

That said, the deaths in The Omen are spectacularly awesome, particularly the priest impaled by the lightning rod and of course the famous beheading — there’s something terrifically gruesome about the way that the severed head rolls along the glass.

The imitators and sequels all sought to give us more of the grisly accidents, losing sight that it was really the story and compelling characters that drove things along in the original. Director Richard Donner rooted the film firmly in realism, just as he would also do two years later with Superman (1978). In Donner’s commentary track he says it was his intent to make a film that could be interpreted as Robert Thorn going mad and that all of those deaths could be nothing more than a series of strange coincidences. While I’ve never interpreted the film that way, I have always appreciated the fact that there is nothing overtly supernatural beyond the premise of a child who might be the Antichrist. Writer David Seltzer certainly knows how to write believable characters — he would go on to write and direct the excellent coming-of-age drama Lucas (1986) starring Corey Haim.

I’ve written excessively about Jerry Goldsmith’s amazing score, specifically about how the piece “Ave Satani” got me into film music. In our apartment complex there was a girl my age and we would listen to the soundtrack album together over and over again. Sorry, Dynese — surely our parents must have found this odd.

Goldsmith won his only Oscar for this score — and in fact “Ave Satani” was actually nominated for Best Song, but it lost to Barbara Streisand and Paul Williams’s “Evergreen,” from A Star Is Born. I suspect the lyric “Love, soft as an easy chair” is a little easier to take than Satanic Latin choral chanting.

Outland opened 30 years ago on May 22, 1981 and I clearly remember my dad and I going to a matinee showing opening day. This ranks right up there among my memorable moviegoing experiences with my dad, which also includes seeing Caddyshack (1980) opening day and spending the rest of the day laughing about our favorite bits — such as rocking the phrase “Oh, but it looks good on you though,” whenever it made any kind of sense. I also remember getting a kick out of seeing just how much he loved Superman (1978).

There was also the time my dad drove my friend Eric and I to see The Black Hole (1979) and when the lights came up at the end my dad was actually sitting in the theater a few rows behind us. It turns out he actually wanted to see the movie too, but didn’t want to “cramp our style” by having “the old man” hang around. It wasn’t the greatest movie, but we all thought the voyage through the black hole at the end was interesting and it lead to a fun discussion in the car. In short, my dad is cool.

The thing I remember us both enjoying about Outland is while it’s clearly set somewhere in the future, released during a time when studios were scrambling to release Star Wars knockoffs, there is not one laser gun blast in the film. The law enforcement’s weapon of choice is the good ol’ trusty shotgun. And while the saloons of the old west have been replaced by futuristic strip clubs, there’s still a scene where a guy gets punched in the face there.

Peter Hyams at that point had co-written (with Stirling Silliphant) the screenplay for the Charles Bronson thriller Telefon (1977). He had also written and directed the films Hanover Street (1979, with Harrison Ford) and another one of my favorites, the awesome conspiracy thriller Capricorn One (1978).

In Outland, Sean Connery plays O’Niel, a Federal Marshal assigned to a one year tour on the Io mining colony. He’s pitted almost immediately against Sheppard (Peter Boyle), the general manager who wants him to look the other way when the workers want to let off a little stream now and then. Also on hand are great underused actors like James B. Sikking (a Hyams regular) and Frances Sternhagen as Lazarus, the outpost’s doctor who becomes one of the few people O’Niel can trust.

The relationship between O’Niel and Lazarus is one of the more interesting elements. Early in the film, O’Niel’s wife Carol (Kika Markham) had left him, taking their young son Paul with her, unable to cope with the fact that Paul has never once set foot on earth. In the hands of other filmmakers, a romance could have easily blossomed between O’Niel and Lazarus — it is after all what movie audiences have been conditioned to expect. But it doesn’t happen here. It’s clear that O’Niel still loves his wife and hopes to work things out with her. The closest Lazarus and O’Niel ever come to expressing any feelings for one another is one great moment where she says to him “Your wife is one stupid lady.” The best part of this is not knowing whether she actually has feelings for him or if she’s just saying this as a good friend.

Fans of Peter Hyams no doubt recognize that the corporation behind the mining outpost is Con-Amalgamate, which is also the name of the company responsible for the faulty life-support system in Capricorn One, and is also referenced in Hyams’ first screenplay, T.R. Baskin (1971).

Outland was the second collaboration between Hyams and composer Jerry Goldsmith, who also scored Capricorn One (which features “Break Out,” one of my six favorite soundtrack cues of all time). For Outland, Goldsmith wrote a very dark score, with rhythmic motifs that build with an overwhelming feeling of dread, especially in several of the early scenes that depict some of the miners going crazy.

The Stravinsky-influenced cue called “Hot Water,” written for an exhilarating chase sequence through the outpost, is one of the highlights of Goldsmith’s career. This particular piece of music also kept my friends and I awake in the middle of the night once during a road trip.

30 years ago, it was a great day at the movies with my dad. Now Outland has become one of my favorites, a movie that’s really hard to turn off once it gets started.

Thanks Dad, for being so cool.

Related articles

• Revival House: Seven Great Rejected Film Scores (popdose.com)
• Revival House: Nine Great Scores From Bad Movies (popdose.com)

Carmina Burana

Excalibur

Director John Boorman at the time was best known for the brilliant and disturbing Oscar-nominated Deliverance (1972). Boorman had been trying to make a film about the Arthurian legend since the late sixties and at one point was even preparing a film version of The Lord of the Rings instead — in fact he and Excalibur co-writer Rospo Pallenberg had collaborated on a Lord of the Rings screenplay which would have condensed all three of J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels one movie. When that project fell through, Boorman turned his thoughts back to King Arthur.

The screenplay for Excalibur, adapted by Boorman and Rospo Pallenberg from Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, focuses more on allegory and myth than historical accuracy. But, as strange as the tale is at times, it never strays too far from realism. It also manages to cover the major moments of the legend — the betrayal of Lancelot and Guinevere, the rise of Mordred, the quest for the Holy Grail — without seeming rushed.

I think what stood out for me the most when I saw it opening weekend was that the film portrayed medieval combat unlike anything I had ever seen before — with brutal realism. A knight in full plate armor can barely move, let alone fight, and the swords they use are so heavy that a sword fight is less like a fencing match and more like ferociously slashing away at your opponent’s armor until eventually you hack your way through.

The cast assembled here is outstanding. Noted character actor Nicol Williamson, at the time best known for his bold and brilliant take as Sherlock Holmes in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), gives a wonderfully eccentric performance as Merlin, who weaves in and out of the story, setting things in motion with great wisdom and confidence, yet showing genuine shock when events occur that he did not foresee (an example of which is seen at the end of the clip below).

Nigel Terry, known primarily for his stage work, is a perfect King Arthur, playing him convincingly through a wide range of years. And the stunning-at-any-age Helen Mirren is captivating as Morgana, Arthur’s half-sister and also his son’s mother (yes, you read that right). Also flawless in their roles are Nicholas Clay as Sir Lancelot and Cherie Lunghi as Queen Guinevere. These are all easily my favorite portrayals of these mythic characters ever filmed.

Excalibur was the film debuts of Gabriel Byrne (as Arthur’s father Uther Pendragon), Liam Neeson (as Sir Gawain), and Patrick Stewart (as Leondegrance, who is the first to overdramatically attempt to draw the sword from the stone and is also the first ally of the boy king).

The gorgeous Oscar-nominated cinematography is by Alex Thomson, who went on to shoot Ridley Scott’s Legend (1985). For Excalibur he uses a striking green lighting effect whenever the titular sword of power is featured. The film also contains unforgettable background imagery such as the the massive flames of the fire during the night Arthur is conceived and the red glow of the sun during the climactic confrontation between Arthur and Mordred.

I’ll leave you with this small bit from John Boorman’s DVD commentary track as Perceval (Paul Geoffrey) begins his quest for the Holy Grail: “This scene of finding the dead knight … I really stole this idea from The Seventh Seal, from Bergman. He did it much better.” ]]> http://popdose.com/revival-house-you-and-the-land-are-one/feed/ 4 http://popdose.com/revival-house-seven-great-rejected-film-scores/ http://popdose.com/revival-house-seven-great-rejected-film-scores/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:00:17 +0000 Jeff Johnson http://popdose.com/?p=72879 Composing the music for a film is one of the last creative stages of the filmmaking process. If there’s still something in the movie that’s not quite working, rejecting the score and replacing it with another is often a desperate last-minute attempt to see if there’s anything that can be done to “fix” the movie.

But it’s interesting that regarding most of the films on this list, the scores were rejected for creative reasons. A few were thrown out in favor of temp tracks — previously existing music that’s “temporarily” tracked into a soundtrack during the editing process. Another score was rejected because of a famous falling out between director and composer. And in one example, the score was tossed in favor of no music whatsoever.

Torn Curtain (1966, composed by Bernard Herrmann). We’ll kick things off with a legendary confrontation between composer and director who had previously collaborated seven times on such classics as Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960) and North By Northwest (1959) — eight times if you include the “sound consultant” credit on The Birds (1963). For Torn Curtain, Alfred Hitchcock (rumored to be under pressure from the studio) was looking for a pop-sounding score, but Herrmann delivered a striking, aggressive work composed for french horns, flutes, trombones, cellos, basses, two sets of timpani and two tubas. According to several accounts, Hitchcock actually stopped the recording sessions before the first day’s work was completed. Hitchcock then turned to Tom Jones (1963) composer John Addison to score the film, who delivered more or less what the director wanted. The following sample cue was written for a brutal fight scene, which is unscored in the finished film.

Torn Curtain – The Killing

My final verdict? Herrmann knew exactly what the film needed and it’s a shame these two never worked together again. An account of this is addressed in the 1992 documentary Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann, beginning at 3:12 in the first clip and carrying over to the next clip.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, composed by Alex North). Perhaps the most famous example of an original score being replaced by a temp track is this seminal science-fiction classic. Alex North, who had previously worked with director Stanley Kubrick on Spartacus (1960), composed music for The Dawn of Man, the space station sequence and the voyage to the moon base. North never wrote anything for the Jupiter Mission and Beyond the Infinite sequences. As film music historian Jon Burlingame points out in his liner notes for the Intrada CD release, after recording music for the first half of the picture, Kubrick informed North that no further music would be necessary, and that the remainder of the film would remain unscored, featuring mostly breathing effects. But when North attended a studio screening of the film, he was shocked to discover that all of his music had been tossed. The Dawn of Man sequence is mostly unscored in the finished film. The scene where the Moon-Watcher ape discovers that bones can be used as weapons is famously tracked with “Also Sprach Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss and the space docking sequence with “The Blue Danube” waltz by Johann Strauss II. The second half of the film ended up being tracked mostly with music by avant-garde composer György Ligeti (notably “Atmosphères” for the Star Gate sequence). It’s a telling sign that on Alex North’s sheet music for a cue called “Moon Rocket Bus” (written for the Moonbus’s journey to the moon base) is a hand-written note by his orchestrator Henry Brant: “Stanley hates this but I like it!” The following sample cue “Bones” was written for the Moon-Watcher’s discovery of weapons (and also was apparently supposed to double for the main title).

2001 – Bones

My final verdict? While I love Alex North’s score very much, Kubrick’s music choices have become so iconic it’s hard to dispute them. But here’s an interesting approximation of what might have been:

Frenzy (1972, composed by Henry Mancini). Though Mancini is best-known as the composer of hit tunes like “The Pink Panther Theme” and “Moon River,” he’s also written some intense, challenging music for thrillers like Wait Until Dark (1967) and Nightwing (1979). My best guess is that Mancini delivered a darker score than Hitchcock wanted. It’s unclear exactly how much of Mancini’s score was recorded, but after hearing some of it Hitchcock reportedly said, “If I had wanted Bernard Herrmann, I would have hired him.” Hitchcock turned to British composer Ron Goodwin, who scored Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), to write the music that’s in the finished film. Mancini’s score remains unheard to this day, except for the main title which he recorded as “Frenzy Rejected (Main Title)” for his 1990 Mancini in Surround album.

Frenzy – Main Title

My final verdict? It’s difficult to say without hearing the rest of the score, but it sounds like Mancini pretty much nailed it.

The Exorcist (1973, composed by Lalo Schifrin). Director William Friedkin’s original choice was Bernard Herrmann, but according to Friedkin, Herrmann wanted to record in London which would have created logistical problems for the director. So Lalo Schfrin was hired, who wrote one of the most challenging, dissonant, atonal works of his entire career. But Friedkin felt that Schifrin’s score was too obvious, that it was too big and scary, and that it was exactly what he didn’t want. On the DVD documentary, special sound effects artist Ron Nagle says that Friedkin “went apeshit” at the recording sessions, and editor Bud Smith recalls that Friedkin threw the tape reels into the studio parking lot saying, “That’s where that music belongs.” The final music in the film ended up being all temp track music, mainly pieces by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and of course “Tubular Bells” by Mike Oldfield. The unused sample cue here was written for the film’s trailer and is very characteristic of Schifrin’s score for the film.

Exorcist (Lalo Schfrin) – Unused Trailer

My final verdict? Schifrin’s score is awesome and I think delivers pretty much exactly what Friedkin thought he wanted, but it’s very difficult to imagine the film without the music that’s there. Ultimately, Friedkin was right.

The China Syndrome (1979, composed by Michael Small). One of the most unsettling aspects of this excellent thriller is its lack of a music score. But it turns out that composer Michael Small — who was noted for writing disturbing atonal scores for such films as The Parallax View (1974) and Marathon Man (1976) — had written and recorded a score for The China Syndrome that was never used. If anyone were to write a score for Syndrome, it seems Small would have been the perfect choice. So what went wrong? In an interview on the DVD, actor-producer Michael Douglas recalls that during the dubbing process, as they began to add the music, what was already dramatic was becoming melodramatic, adding “When we laid the music in, it didn’t work.”

China Syndrome (Michael Small) – Meltdown!

My final verdict? I love this score, but it was the right decision to toss it. This is a case where the film plays beautifully without any music.

Legend (1985, composed by Jerry Goldsmith). For director Ridley Scott’s Legend, Goldsmith felt he’d written one of the finest scores of his career. The film opened in Europe with Goldsmith’s score intact, so what happened with the U.S. release? Universal Pictures, who controlled the U.S. rights, cut the film from 125 minutes to 89 minutes, and in the interest of making the film more “commercial,” Goldsmith’s score was jettisoned in favor of an electronic score by Tangerine Dream. In 2002, a 113-minute “director’s cut” version was released on DVD with Goldsmith’s score restored. What’s interesting is that Goldsmith had also scored Scott’s Alien (1979) and had been frustrated that they ended up using two selections from Goldsmith’s own score to Freud (1962) in the final mix. And even in the director’s cut of Legend, there’s a cue from Goldsmith’s Psycho II (1983) in there — and it’s entirely out of character with the rest of the score. The sample cue was written for the final confrontation between the forces of good and Darkness.

Legend (Jerry Goldsmith) – Darkness Fails

My final verdict? I’m biased because Goldsmith is my favorite composer, but next to Tim Curry’s awesome performance as Darkness (and Rob Bottin’s amazing makeup), Jerry’s score is the best thing in the movie. But you can judge for yourselves:

Gangs of New York (2002, composed by Elmer Bernstein). Bernstein has had his share of rejected scores in his career, notably The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) and The Scarlet Letter (1995). Supposedly, Bernstein sent a letter to actress-producer Demi Moore thanking her for rejecting the score for The Scarlet Letter so he could use it in a better movie. But the rejected Bernstein score that really stands out to me, especially after hearing it, is the one he wrote for Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. Scorsese and Bernstein had previously collaborated on The Age of Innocence (1993), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), The Grifters (1990, which Scorsese produced) and Cape Fear (1991, where Bernstein had adapted Bernard Herrmann’s music from the 1962 original). It seems to me that Bernstein’s brutal, haunting, Celtic-flavored score would have suited Gangs of New York perfectly, but it was tossed in favor of temp track — mainly excerpts from a Howard Shore concert piece called “Brooklyn Heights.” It’ll remain a mystery to me why Bernstein’s score wasn’t used, but according to rumor it was mainly due to the insistence of Harvey Weinstein. Scorsese had also apparently done a lot of additional editing to the picture after Bernstein had recorded his score. In a 2003 interview conducted by Roger Friedman, Bernstein had this to say about it: “On Gangs of New York, Marty could never quite make up his mind about what he wanted. Then, he got into this long, painful edit. I wrote way back, nine months ago, some music for the film. I went over it with him. But as he went along, he began to have some other concept of what he wanted. He winds up with a Scorsese score, a pastiche.”

Gangs of New York (Elmer Bernstein) – Battle

My final verdict? Bernstein’s score seems dead-on perfect to me.