A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 1998 Dreamworks Records. Movie poster art (C) 1998 Dreamworks SKG John Williams' score for Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg's searing World War II drama about eight U.S. soldiers ordered to rescue a paratrooper whose three brothers lost their lives in combat, follows the simple-is-better-than-operatic format that made his music for 1993's Schindler's List powerful and effective. Considering that most of Williams' film scores tend to be very bombastic and energetic (his Star Wars and Indiana Jones music tends to follow the Wagner/Korngold tradition of big orchestras and action-oriented cues), it's refreshing to hear this very prolific (and much-imitated) composer use orchestral restraint where he might have been tempted to utilize strident and Sousa-like marches, as is common in most war movies set during World War II. But starting with the reverent-yet-mournful Hymn to the Fallen (a piece that is not heard till the End Credits, but

(C)2018 Warner Home Entertainment, Village Roadshow Pictures, and Amblin Entertainment On Tuesday, July 24, Warner Home Entertainment released director Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One on Blu-ray and DVD, three weeks after the digital download release and nearly four months after the theatrical premiere of this imaginative adaptation of Ernest Cline’s best-selling 2011 novel of the same name. Director Steven Spielberg’s science-fiction action-adventure reveals a chaotic, collapsing world in the year 2045. Salvation lies in the OASIS, a fantastical virtual-reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday When Halliday dies, his immense fortune is left to the first person who can find a digital Easter egg hidden in the OASIS. Joining the hunt is unlikely hero Wade Watts, who is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending quest filled with mystery, discovery, and danger.  Although Warner Home Entertainment released Ready Player One in several disc an

On March 29, 2018, Warner Bros. released Ready Player One, director Steven Spielberg’s ambitious and visually stunning adaptation of Ernest Cline’s eponymous science fiction novel set in a dystopian near-future in which virtual reality and pop culture from the past are the only means of escape in a crumbling post-Information Age world. Co-written by Cline and Zak Penn ( The Last Action Hero ), Ready Player One combines live action sequences with immersive video game-inspired computer graphics – making this one of Spielberg’s most complex movies in his storied career. The film is set in 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world.

One of the truly outstanding scores composed for a television series was the late Michael Kamen's music for the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers , a 10-part adaptation of the late Stephen E. Ambrose's eponymous non-fiction book about E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Executive produced by Ambrose, Tom Hanks, and Steven Spielberg, this monumental miniseries follows an elite light infantry unit from its training stages at Camp Toccoa, GA to the 11-month campaign in Northwest Europe, starting from the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 to the surrender of Germany and E Company's capture of Hitler's private "Eagle's Nest" in Bavaria. When I finally saw the first episodes of Band of Brothers on the History Channel 14 years ago and heard the strains of the "Main Theme" (Track 1), the credits had not finished rolling, and because the style was similar to John Williams' music for Savin

In the summer of 1984, British-based Polydor Records released Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, an 11-track album with selections from composer-conductor John Williams’ score for the second chapter of the Indiana Jones saga. The album was issued in three formats – vinyl long-play (LP), audio cassette, and the then-new compact disc (CD) – but due to the limitations of how much content a single LP record can hold, Polydor and Maestro Williams – who is credited as the album producer – chose only 40 minutes’ worth of music from his score for the 118-minutes-long film. The resulting Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom soundtrack was a “sampler” of action cues and leitmotivs from the film, including Short Round’s Theme, Fast Streets of Shanghai, and the film’s dazzling opening number – Kate Capshaw’s cover – in Mandarin Chinese – of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. However, due to Polydor’s decision to release the soundtrack as a single LP album