Are modern films over-scored?

Discussion in 'Movies & Televison: Reviews, Discussions & Debate' started by Hut*Hut, Mar 26, 2014.

  1. Hut*Hut

    Hut*Hut The Mackintosh of temazepam

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    Is this something you've noticed and does it bother you?

    I put on The Insider recently after watching several 70s movies in the preceding nights and found the amount of scoring heavy annoying. For instance: there's a scene where Jeffery is sitting in an empty room absorbing the news that his wife has left him. In a 70s film that would be silent....just him squeaking in his chair, breathing heavily, a clock ticking or whatever. In The Insider the whole moment is drowned in some ridiculous swelling idioglossia opera
     
  2. Hut*Hut

    Hut*Hut The Mackintosh of temazepam

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    *'films', obv. I'm fucking thread title dyslexic.
     
  3. Anthony

    Anthony Admin Staff Member

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    I think the same thing sometimes. Like i watch a 70s movie and they would be running or sitting in a room and no music will playing. And i think to myself that there is no way that would pass today, but it's exactly why the movie from the 70 was great. I think if a film wasnt scored in practically every scene, people would lose interest.
     
  4. Hut*Hut

    Hut*Hut The Mackintosh of temazepam

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    Yeah, it's another thing grabbing at your attention - gotta keep the lowest common denominator at that test screening turning the dial up the way. The less things bombarding your senses the more you can think and feel into the movie, i think in my mind.
     
  5. Anthony

    Anthony Admin Staff Member

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    It's true. Not sure if this is a good comparison, but it reminds me of every GTA game after San Andreas. The reason San Andreas is still so memorable is because if you wanted to get from Los Santos to Las Venturas, you had to travel there. By car or by bike or whatever. But you had to take the time to get there. But these new GTA's, you call a fucking taxi and skip through the whole trip. You dont fall in love with the music or the game.
     
  6. Panchyprsss

    Panchyprsss Clogg's LORD PROTECTOR

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    Yes, today's films are excessively overscored to compensate for lack of emotional impact. Its like a cue to the audience 'this now is a sad scene' or 'this is a tender scene' or 'this supposed to scare you'. Do you know that the original 1931 'Dracula' had absolutely no music at all except for the title credits? Several years ago some smart ass 'corrected the problem' and now the new dvd releases since has this score added 70 years later. Most critics hated it.
     
  7. whiskey

    whiskey Czarcasm

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    You should really appreciate No Country for Old Men for this reason Hut.
     
  8. cdogg187

    cdogg187 GLADYS

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    Whiskey took the words right out of my mouth
     
  9. Hut*Hut

    Hut*Hut The Mackintosh of temazepam

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    I'll pick it up when i buy my new batch of dvds saturday. I'm going through a prodigious amount of films since my cable TV packed in. is well.
     
  10. Anthony

    Anthony Admin Staff Member

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    you mean bluray right?
     
  11. Hut*Hut

    Hut*Hut The Mackintosh of temazepam

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    Pffft. As if anybody can tell the difference. If i had my way i'd still be buying new films on VHS.
     
  12. Anthony

    Anthony Admin Staff Member

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    you gotta be kidding me.
    You can easily tell the difference and the difference is huge. It's not opinion, it's fact.
     
  13. Anthony

    Anthony Admin Staff Member

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    I cant believe i have to explain to someone in their 20s the difference between blu ray and DVD.


    <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/aQ-RhnonZyg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
     
  14. lb 4 lb

    lb 4 lb Fightbeat Gold Member

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    Is over-scoring a film a problem? Maybe. However it's small beans compared to the bigger problems I see in films. Movies being used simply as a means to make money and the fact that making a quality product is often the last item they seem to care about if they even address it at all. Also the over use of CGI and 3D used as a means to create awesome trailers to lure people into the theaters to watch a film that lacks heart, story, and pacing. If a movie IS over-scored I usually won't notice because of all the other myriad of fuck ups bringing the film down and if anything I'd be lucky to have a little music in my ears to maybe help take my mind off the shit flooding my eyes.
     
  15. Joe King

    Joe King WBC Silver Diamond Emeritus Champ

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    ROCKY inspired a lot of filmmakers to use more scoring in films.
     
  16. Anthony

    Anthony Admin Staff Member

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    The kind of films we are talking about are not really heavy on the cgi. They are particularly dramas that are good. So the score would be noticed. A movie like avengers would be shite without at score IMO.
     
  17. Hut*Hut

    Hut*Hut The Mackintosh of temazepam

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    Stop stuffocationg me! I don't care - DVD is fine.
     
  18. cdogg187

    cdogg187 GLADYS

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    Blue Ray is great for new films made that way

    for old films, it's shit... don't listen to him, Hut!
     
  19. cdogg187

    cdogg187 GLADYS

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    Why don't you watch The French Connection while you're at it, YOU FAIRY!!

    You're Noo Yawk cred is suffering
     
  20. whiskey

    whiskey Czarcasm

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    If Hut keep up with this attitude I think Matt Groening might fire him from his job doing groondskeeper's Willie's voice.
     
  21. Panchyprsss

    Panchyprsss Clogg's LORD PROTECTOR

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    You guys are going to stone me to death for saying this, but I watched The French Connection only once in the 70's and didn't thought it was that great. Watched the sequel when it aired on tv and couldn't finish it.:scared2:
     
  22. cdogg187

    cdogg187 GLADYS

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    It's like the grittiest film of the decade... everything about it... the terse, offhand dialogue, the filth, Don Ellis's score, the chase scene, the drugs, the casual racism of the police... it's just so perfectly captured... that film simply is New York City in 1971... the deteriorating prosperity of the past meeting the impoverished despair to come and these characters who could only have come from such a place and time... Hackman's character, a brutal and single-minded man... Schieder more sensitive and reasonable, equally horrified and enthralled by his partner... Tony Lo Bianco, equal parts ambitious and yet seemingly aware that he may be in over his head... Fernando Rey, stylish and cool, charming but ice cold inside... The whole thing is like a million times more than meets the eye
     
  23. cdogg187

    cdogg187 GLADYS

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    Panchy, in fairness, the sequel was awful... Hackman and Rey chew the scenery and suffer through a terrible, campy script... it has almost no resemblance to the original
     
  24. whiskey

    whiskey Czarcasm

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    They're making a third one to make up for the sequel.
     
  25. ArturoGatti

    ArturoGatti WBC Silver Diamond Emeritus Champ

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    It has some cool shots of Marseille though.
     
  26. Nobleart

    Nobleart Narwhal King

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    I've got no problems if it's done well or fits the scene. Hut mentioned "The Insider", but I love the way Michael Mann uses music in his movies, and on TV. Loved "Miami Vice" as a kid.........and I loved the way Mann used the soundtrack, even though most of those songs today........I would despise.

    I coudn't picture a movie like "Black Hawk Down" or "Goodfellas" without the bombastic score/soundtrack. On the other hand, the first 15 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" was so intense and visceral, precisely because we were put in the middle of the action, without distracting us with any sounds that wouldn't have been present on that particular day on Normandy Beach.

    Score can be over-used, but I want to be manipulated. That's a movies job, to manipulate you. I think it's silly to think otherwise.

    When a movie is so bad at manipulating you, you break out in uncomfortable laughter during some scenes, I understand that criticism, because that's just poor film-making, not manipulation..............but it seems vogue nowadays for people to disparage a film, because when they leave a theater, they "feel" like they've been manipulated.............as if every film should be some stripped down Michael Haneke or Gus Van Sant movie.

    If you "feel" like you've been manipulated, the film-maker has done their job well. That doesn't mean you have to suffer through some shitty movie with a smile on your face though. A movie based on a shitty Nicholas Sparks novel, is still a shitty movie, no matter how many times the protagonists weep in each others arms.
     
  27. Anthony

    Anthony Admin Staff Member

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    How old? Old movies using certain film look better in bluray than new ones. The Ten Commandments on bluray is crystal clear.
     
  28. Anthony

    Anthony Admin Staff Member

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    Michael Mann, Daren aronfsky and Terrence malick all score their films brilliantly
     
  29. Anthony

    Anthony Admin Staff Member

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    Btw, you can buy bluray on amazon really cheap. No country can be bought for 1.98 bluray used on amazon
     
  30. cdogg187

    cdogg187 GLADYS

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    true
     

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