More Thoughts on John Barry, As Promised

I once described John Barry as the British Ennio Morricone. I was joking at the time – it was really just another way of saying that he was awesome – but in some senses the comparison now strikes me as apt. Morricone and Barry both made music that often lived on a different sphere than the films they accompanied. Think of all the unforgettable Morricone scores to films that are themselves completely forgettable; even those of us who adore the Spaghetti Western genre have to admit that a lot of those movies are pretty stupid. But the music. Dear god, the music. That was heaven.

RIP John Barry

Records of John Barry scores were about as much a staple of my childhood as milk, so hearing about his death is a bit like losing a family member. I'll try to write something slightly more in-depth later, but here's an interesting (and brief) clip from the BBC.

For all his great work (and there is so much great work -- from the Bond scores to The Ipcress File to Petulia to Out of Africa), I actually decided a few years ago that I think his score for Richard Attenborough's much-maligned Chaplin might be his best. Here's a sample:

Hauer vs. Statham: A Tale of Two Killing Machines

So this week’s been all about action movie icons for me at Vulture, where I did a slideshow/interview with Rutger Hauer about thirteen of his most memorable parts, and then a slideshow of the 16 worst ways to be killed by Jason Statham. I’m quite proud of both pieces. They were written at different times, but it’s kind of fitting that they ran back to back. Considering these two actors together, one notices some interesting things. 

Don't Forget About Bernd Eichinger

Amid all the Oscar hoopla the other day, the news of German film producer Bernd Eichinger’s death at the untimely age of 61 may have understandably fallen through the cracks for some. But it shouldn’t: Eichinger was one of those guys who had an old-school, hands-on approach to producing, especially when it came to some of his pet projects like Downfall, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, and The Baader-Meinhof Complex. With a filmography that includes Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's Hitler: A Film from Germany, Wim Wenders’s Wrong Move, The Neverending Story, and the Resident Evil films, among many other lesser-known titles, his credits are a curious mix of acclaimed prestige epics, sleazy action franchises, and lots and lots of Europudding -- a career of De Laurentiisian contrasts. He had started, interestingly enough, by trying to organize funding for works made by his film school classmates Wenders, Edgar Reitz, and Alexander Kluge. There’s a very nice Der Spiegel obituary here.  Also, an interesting 2005 profile of him here.

SEE THIS MOVIE: "Last Summer" Will Air on TCM February 1st

Frank and Eleanor Perry’s Last Summer (1969) is one of the lost gems of American cinema – long unavailable on DVD, only briefly available on VHS eons ago (buy a $75 copy on Amazon here!), and pretty much never screened retrospectively. The folks at Warner Archive have said that it’s one of most requested titles in their library, but their plans to release a DVD were scuttled (hopefully only temporarily) last year by the unavailability of a decent master. So, its appearance on Turner Classic Movies in early February is a momentous event, especially if it actually winds up being a decent copy. (The TCM website suggests it will not be letterboxed, but I don’t know how wide the cinematography was to begin with – I’ve only ever seen it on VHS.)

Thinking of England: "World Garden" and the Films of the British Council

World Garden (1941) from British Council Film Archive on Vimeo.

“They come to Kew in early Spring when yellow daffodils bring thoughts of Summer sunshine. They come to Kew in the bright light of May, when the cherry blossom is falling.”

My pal Faisal Qureshi passed this along. It’s a lovely, short, glorious color journey through Kew Gardens directed by Robin Carruthers and shot by the great Geoffrey Unsworth (2001: A Space Odyssey, Cabaret). The cinematography, as you might imagine, is marvelously textured, taking full advantage of Technicolor’s vibrancy and depth. Needless to say, it’s not exactly the kind of thing we think of nowadays when we say “documentary.” It’s more like a non-fiction fantasy of Kew Gardens, a brief little daydream made all the more poignant by the fact that it’s dated 1941.

Do Oscar Winners Make Less Money Than They Used To?

The Atlantic has a couple of interesting slideshows up, one with the 15 Highest-Grossing Best Picture Oscar winners and one with the 15 Lowest-Grossing ones. Some surprising (to me) things in there, including the fact that the ever-so-iconic An American in Paris apparently wasn't a big moneymaker, and that the now-virtually-forgotten Around the World in 80 Days was. I'm sure those facts aren't news to people who follow box office reports and Oscar history closely, but I don't, so there. Still, these lists did get me thinking...