Word: soundtracks
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Much about Stardust Memories, even the ugliness, is beautiful. Having passed through his Brown period (Interiors), Allen emerges in his Black & White period as a spectacular director who masterfully designs long takes and exciting compositions. He enjoys the metaphorical blank screeen, toys with soundtrack blasts and whispers with the control of a superb cinematic technician. One shot, a wide landscape that turns Allen's dancing silhouette into a contemporary fiddler on the roof, is absolutely gorgeous. Allen's expert eye and ear are matched by the steady hand of Gordon Willis (who shot Manhattan) behind the camera...
...they dispense with such trivialities as plot, character, and thematic development, in favor of the juicier and more exploitative aspects of the story. The film is a two-and-a-half-hour parade of gruesome tortures and unexciting sex to the tune of strange wailing and chanting on the soundtrack. So much for artistic and social significance...
Very few recent films have been as successful as Rockers at integrating a collection of period music with worthwhile screen footage. American Graffiti did it for the 50s, Coming Home tried to do it for the 60s, and Saturday Night Fever is close as we dare come to a soundtrack for the 70s. Of these, Rockers most resembles American Graffiti, a film where the music weaves in and out of the story, and the story--what little there is--bobs and darts through the music...
...judicious responses to Carter's gaffes the GOP has proved content the last two weeks to go with the Big Mo. It has allowed the ultra-conservative elements to exert influence disproportionate to their support among the electorate. Former president Gerald R. Ford was introduced by a film whose soundtrack featured the melancholy ode "What I Did for Love." In his speech, he insisted he was not an elder statesman; he pledged that he would be active in campaigning to defeat Carter while failing to mention whether he would try to move the party back to a more responsible, centrist...
...measured by a sickeningly warped sense of time that is disturbing even when it is almost boring. Intertitles warn of a slowly decreasing time frame measured first in months, and finally in minutes. Through the film, Kubrick never loses his eye for detail, using red to fantastic effect. The soundtrack groans initially with laughably melodramatic tones but turns into a collection of distorted household noises: plumbing gargles, airplane take-offs, TV gibberish, heartbeats, breathing, and chanting...