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Today's "Gerard 101" flick was Reign of Fire, and for a while there, I was really enjoying it. It had not-unpleasant special effects and some rather nice-looking dragons (albeit biologically impractical ones). It had an appropriately apocalyptic apocalypse (unlike, say, Independence Day). It had Julian Bashir and the Borg Queen. It had the Cutest Scene Ever, No, Really, with Quinn (Christian Bale) and Creedy (Gerard) demonstrating to a herd of moppets how a movie/tv-watching culture adjusts back to being a storytelling culture. But best of all, it had Christian and Gerard being brave, resourceful, attractively shaggy, and so, so in love. It might have been better for the beleaguered human race if Quinn and Creedy had been more interested in passing on their genes to the next generation of smart, pretty dragon food, but how could anyone begrudge their obvious happiness with each other? It would take a cold, unfeeling person to deny them their only bit of happiness, right? Of course right. And they were just so sweet (if rather stressed).
And then Matthew McConaughey showed up, and it all. went. wrong. I swear, everything that went badly after his entrance, which was pretty much everything, was his fault, undoubtedly because he was a psychotic testosterone-monkey whose brains had been tossed out in favor of his manly tattoos and his baseless confidence in his own superiority. What a jackass. ( A few irritated spoilers and some rampant Van Zan hate. I don't usually go in for expressing character-hate, even when I feel it, but I'm willing to make an exception for this repulsive creature. Praying for his gory death got me through the last quarter of the movie, sooo... )
So to sum up: Gerard- lovely, Christian- lovely, Quinn/Creedy- lovely (sob!), Alex- okay, Van Zan- ruined everything. Everything. What a wretched character.
Oh, and then I went hunting for the reams of Quinn/Creedy fic that was surely out there. Ah ha ha ha. You'd think I'd learn. Well, I did find four. Which puts it slightly behind 13th Warrior and Miracles, but ahead of Swing Kids, Captain Blood and Moby Dick in the microfandom sweepstakes. So that's something. I also found a couple Quinn/Van Zan stories, but no, not in a million years, no way, no how. shudder
Next in "Gerard 101" will be Dracula 2000, assuming there isn't a run on the video store. Mobs of desperate Jonny Lee Miller fans converging on the shelves or something equally terrifying. It'll have to wait until next week, though, I think. Pity. I was in a groove.
In other tangentially-related-to-Gerard-news, Varese Sarabande has stepped up to the plate and released Jerry Goldsmith's unused score for Timeline. Came out today, in fact. Timeline was the second-to-last score he completed (and the last real movie score) and had been highly anticipated, but unfortunately before the movie was released, it was entirely rehacked, er, reedited, and Goldsmith's score literally no longer fit, as he had scored scenes and sequences that no longer existed. Brian Tyler, who wrote a fabulous score for Bubba Ho-tep and a strange-but-cool one for Six-String Samurai, stepped into the gap and came up with an indifferently likeable replacement. Still, advance word had been so good, and Goldsmith so generally popular, that Varese was smart to rescue his last work. I’m really looking forward to hearing it.
This release does raise again the question of Gabriel Yared's deleted score for Troy, arguably the highest profile score replacement in recent years (in part because Yared broke tradition and was very publicly vocal about his unhappiness). An unused score like Timeline or Legend may have a chance at a second life because Goldsmith is popular and sells well. Alex North's 2001 score got another chance because he's an historically important film composer. Elmer Bernstein's Last Man Standing score saw release because, again, he was an historically important composer, and it's one of his last works in the genre with which he's arguably most identified, the western (even though it, like North's 2001, was far from his best work). But Yared, while popular, isn't a huge seller, isn't historically important (not that he never will be), and Troy wasn't a super-blockbuster. And it would be a real pity if it's lost because of that, because the cues he released on his website were gorgeous, and supposedly the score as completed (which it wasn't quite) is his most accomplished yet. So we wait and hope, I guess. I'll probably end up blathering about that issue more when Troy hits DVD, since I've stored up a year's worth of anticipation and disappointment for this score (I apologize in advance). A would-be high point that became a never-was, alas.
And I'm sure this has made the rounds already, but there's so much political stuff out there that I can't keep track. This, at least, is funny. Goodness know I could use a laugh about politics by now. The RNC meets Nightmare Before Christmas.
And then Matthew McConaughey showed up, and it all. went. wrong. I swear, everything that went badly after his entrance, which was pretty much everything, was his fault, undoubtedly because he was a psychotic testosterone-monkey whose brains had been tossed out in favor of his manly tattoos and his baseless confidence in his own superiority. What a jackass. ( A few irritated spoilers and some rampant Van Zan hate. I don't usually go in for expressing character-hate, even when I feel it, but I'm willing to make an exception for this repulsive creature. Praying for his gory death got me through the last quarter of the movie, sooo... )
So to sum up: Gerard- lovely, Christian- lovely, Quinn/Creedy- lovely (sob!), Alex- okay, Van Zan- ruined everything. Everything. What a wretched character.
Oh, and then I went hunting for the reams of Quinn/Creedy fic that was surely out there. Ah ha ha ha. You'd think I'd learn. Well, I did find four. Which puts it slightly behind 13th Warrior and Miracles, but ahead of Swing Kids, Captain Blood and Moby Dick in the microfandom sweepstakes. So that's something. I also found a couple Quinn/Van Zan stories, but no, not in a million years, no way, no how. shudder
Next in "Gerard 101" will be Dracula 2000, assuming there isn't a run on the video store. Mobs of desperate Jonny Lee Miller fans converging on the shelves or something equally terrifying. It'll have to wait until next week, though, I think. Pity. I was in a groove.
In other tangentially-related-to-Gerard-news, Varese Sarabande has stepped up to the plate and released Jerry Goldsmith's unused score for Timeline. Came out today, in fact. Timeline was the second-to-last score he completed (and the last real movie score) and had been highly anticipated, but unfortunately before the movie was released, it was entirely rehacked, er, reedited, and Goldsmith's score literally no longer fit, as he had scored scenes and sequences that no longer existed. Brian Tyler, who wrote a fabulous score for Bubba Ho-tep and a strange-but-cool one for Six-String Samurai, stepped into the gap and came up with an indifferently likeable replacement. Still, advance word had been so good, and Goldsmith so generally popular, that Varese was smart to rescue his last work. I’m really looking forward to hearing it.
This release does raise again the question of Gabriel Yared's deleted score for Troy, arguably the highest profile score replacement in recent years (in part because Yared broke tradition and was very publicly vocal about his unhappiness). An unused score like Timeline or Legend may have a chance at a second life because Goldsmith is popular and sells well. Alex North's 2001 score got another chance because he's an historically important film composer. Elmer Bernstein's Last Man Standing score saw release because, again, he was an historically important composer, and it's one of his last works in the genre with which he's arguably most identified, the western (even though it, like North's 2001, was far from his best work). But Yared, while popular, isn't a huge seller, isn't historically important (not that he never will be), and Troy wasn't a super-blockbuster. And it would be a real pity if it's lost because of that, because the cues he released on his website were gorgeous, and supposedly the score as completed (which it wasn't quite) is his most accomplished yet. So we wait and hope, I guess. I'll probably end up blathering about that issue more when Troy hits DVD, since I've stored up a year's worth of anticipation and disappointment for this score (I apologize in advance). A would-be high point that became a never-was, alas.
And I'm sure this has made the rounds already, but there's so much political stuff out there that I can't keep track. This, at least, is funny. Goodness know I could use a laugh about politics by now. The RNC meets Nightmare Before Christmas.
