Word: hal
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...millions of miles from Earth. But that destination is almost incidental to the performance of the spacecraft that will make the trip. Though it looks little different from countless other unmanned probes NASA has launched, the ship will be navigated by an electronic brain that has been likened to HAL, the independent-minded computer in the film 2001, and will move through space under power of a system that has long been the stuff of technological fantasies: an ion propulsion engine...
This has been a top year for indie cinema. Fertile talents have emerged: Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex), Darren Aronofsky ([Pi]) Tommy O'Haver (Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss). Familiar renegades prove they can expand on their obsessions: Hal Hartley in Henry Fool, Neil LaBute in Your Friends and Neighbors. An old timer like James Ivory displays renewed grace with A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. And this fall four filmmakers who made a collective splash in 1995 and '96 are presenting works that offer hope for a better, bolder American moviescape...
...Bacharach has gained a prominence of late, with ripened sex appeal and flawless lounge credentials. In all the fuss, though, what has been neglected is the mastery of his songwriting, full of curious melodies, startling chord changes and the catchiest hooks this side of Top 40s radio. With lyricist Hal David and vocalist Dionne Warwick, he produced some of the best pop songs of the '60s, at the moment when rock was sending the pure songwriting tradition to its final death throes...
Together, they perform beautifully--Costello offers Bacharach his first substantial lyricist and collaborator since Hal David, while Bacharach roots Costello in a sound rich with splendid hooks and lush instrumentation. Costello entirely rises to the challenge of matching the Bacharach melodies with poignant musings on heartbreak, love stories laced with the chill of specific, damning truth. On the outstanding "This House is Empty Now," a moving portrait of a man who cannot make sense of the unreliable memories that inscribe his vacant home, Bacharach and Costello write: "Do you recognize the face fixed in that fine silver frame?/Were...
...inspired pairing: as composers, both men have a knack for knotty yet supple melodies, and Costello's bitter takes on romance are not far removed from the sometimes jaundiced eye of Bacharach's best partner, lyricist Hal David. Two years ago, Costello and Bacharach co-wrote the song God Give Me Strength, included here, for the film Grace of My Heart. If only the rest of this album were up to that stunningly well-crafted peak. Bacharach brings out a new directness in Costello's singing and verse, but the millstone is cloying production. These engagingly sinuous tunes deserve better...