The R.I.P. Thread
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Video game composer Bobby Prince just passed away who was best know for classic notorious shooter games like DUKE NUKEM and WOLFENSTEIN 3D.
https://www.ign.com/articles/doom-composer-bobby-prince-dies-at-81I was shocked to see the passing of Matt Osborne who was a champion of documentary film scores through his DOCUMENTING THE SCORE: Documentary Film Scores & Their Soundtracks Facebook page.
Always the promoter of music written for the documentary, we occasionally interacted online, discussing music for documentaries and introducing each other to new music.
His social media posts went beyond music; I enjoyed seeing his photos of him out-and-about, and his extensive experience with cocktails and food.
A true champion of the music we love. He will be sorely missed. #RIP
I saw Lalaland posted about it on Facebook. Never heard the name but I remember their former fun monkey images for announcements he apparently did.
Sad to hear that Bonnie Tyler died a few days ago.
If I’m not misremembering, she might have been the first international music star I saw live. She performed at a local fair/festival in my hometown in the mid 80s, when I was a wee lad. (She often performed in Norway).
Later on, she became more the butt of a joke, with her somewhat kitchy ballads and hoarse voice. But I particularly like some of her collaborations, with the likes of Harold Faltermeyer and Mike Oldfield. I have “Islands” on an Oldfiled compilation album; I think that’s the only Tyler in my physical CD collection.
The first of her songs that I knew was “It’s A Heartache” and that went on my nerves from day one. But I couldn’t help liking Total Ellipse Of The Heart.
I always thought, it must hurt her throat to sing the way she sings.As with so many hits that were played back and forth back in the days when we had only a few sources… 😉
I always thought, it must hurt her throat to sing the way she sings.
Read on arbituaries that the voice was actually the result of an operation on her vocal ligaments or her not resting them after an operation properly or something like.
Yes, saw that in my feed this morning. Very sad.
It’s no secret that JURASSIC PARK is enormously important in my life. Both film score are alltime favourites. Just a few years ago, I was struck by the fact that I had reached the same age Sam Neill was when he played Dr. Alan Grant, who I had always seen as a father figure. One of these strange discoveries you make as you grow older.
Of course, he was also great in other movies that I enjoy, like THE PIANO, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, DEAD CALM and EVENT HORIZON. Very much a central “face” of my formative years.
I still have two Sam Neill movies on my watch list that I always missed. Maybe I use the sad occasion to watch at last DEATH IN BRUNSWICK or THE FINAL CONFLICT.
THE FINAL CONFLICT is not a good film, but it allowed Neill to play a delicious evil character (he would go all-out evil operatic in the finale of EVENT HORIZON, also a job well done). And it has a fabulous Jerry score, of course. Worth it for those two things alone.
Sam Neill was always enjoyable… like Thor, I somewhat “grew up” with Sam Neill, he was always “there”, from THE FINAL CONFLICT to DEAD CALM, HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, JURASSIC PARK, THE HORSE WHISPERER, and many more of course, I always enjoyed him being in a movie.
AFAIK, he was also friends with John Carpenter, and had a great lead performance in IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS.Yes, I always wondered if Paul W.S. Anderson did a visual reference to the Carpenter film in EVENT HORIZON because of the Sam Neill connection – when, in the beginning of the film, he cuts from a camera movement towards one of the original crew corpses – through his mouth, the “mouth of madness” – and to Sam Neill’s eye as he wakes up somewhere else. I talked a bit about that, and other visual motifs, in my 2017 article on the film, Google-translated here – suitable for a “bump” now.
THE FINAL CONFLICT is not a good film, but it allowed Neill to play a delicious evil character (he would go all-out evil operatic in the finale of EVENT HORIZON, also a job well done). And it has a fabulous Jerry score, of course. Worth it for those two things alone.
Yes, THE FINAL CONFLICT is a bad film, but it’s a bad film because of a bad script (by Andrew Birkin, who went on to write much better screenplays), which was probably the result of a production that was way too small scale for its subject. Pure potboiler sequel. However, Sam Neill’s performance, Jerry Goldsmith’s score, and the photography were all excellent. Incidentally, this was probably the first movie with Sam Neill I ever saw.
Oh, I haven’t heard that news. A actor I always liked to see. I think I first noticed him in a 80s TV series named REILLY, ACE OF SPIES.
Actually none of the OMEN movies is any good. To me the scores always were the only interesting aspect.
This horror element of people dying driven by some evil supernatural force never worked for me. Probably that is why I enjoyed so much these FINAL DESTINATION movies. Because they were a parody of that concept but still opposed to the OMEN movies here it was comprehensible and working.I agree. Not even the first one, considered a classic, is really THAT good. It was up against the likes of THE EXORCIST around the same time, which is a proper masterpiece and completely blows THE OMEN out the water. But the sequels were worse. Funnily, I had the first four movies in a VHS box once (yes, even that fourth TV one scored by Jonathan Sheffer), but sold it at the cusp of the DVD revolution.
By the way, despite all the other Carpenter classics IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS is probably my personal favourite John Carpenter movie. Not sure if it beats THE THING, which I haven’t watched since I was a teenager. I like the nightmarish atmosphere of IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. And it came out during a period in my life when I was reading a lot. And as the movie was pretty much about the process of reading I loved it.
Well, the first OMEN movie was made under the premise that it could just all be coincidence and made up, that people were driven to believe it. Gregory Peck and Richard Donner explicitly never showed any actual supernatural things happen, it was always the premise: yes, these people believe that… and make other people believe it… until even Gregory Peck’s character believes it. So it was an interesting premise for a horror movie that never confirmed or denied that Damien is the literal Anti-Christ that will bring doom to the world. It’s a stylish, well made thriller and by now a classic in the horror genre. Jerry Goldsmith’s score of course helps a lot, but so does Gregory Peck, whose mere presence brings an element of class to the movie it wouldn’t otherwise have.
The way sequels then go, they became of course more sensationalist and exploited (and confirmed) the premise. I still enjoy DAMIEN – OMEN II as a typical 70s horror thriller, but agree it’s a pretty silly movie and not really a masterpiece. But at least it’s fun to watch, whereas THE FINAL CONFLICT makes no sense, not even within its own Universe.The FINAL DESTINATION follow the same “death by accident” pattern, and while I somewhat enjoyed the first movie, it’s just an even sillier premise than THE OMEN movies.
By the way, despite all the other Carpenter classics IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS is probably my personal favourite John Carpenter movie.
I saw that movie when it originally came out and re-visited it about a year ago; I enjoyed it even more the second time. Very fun John Carpenter movie, with a plot that could have been co-autored by Stephen King & Franz Kafka. Very enjoyable movie with an excellent ending.
For many years, I confused Sam Neill with Pierce Brosnan. But Neill was always the better actor.
If I have this right, Sam Neill was pushed into auditioning for Bond in The Living Daylights by his agent, the reluctance being because Neill knew that his friend Pierce Brosnan was very keen on the role.
As we all know, Timothy Dalton got the job when Brosnan was obliged to continue with Remington Steele. Personally, and well off topic, I’d have preferred Brosnan to have The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill under his belt and Dalton to have done Goldeneye through to Die Another day. Realistically, as Tim would have been 55 for DAD that might have been a stretch. Although Moore was of course older than Connery. But I’m going around in irrelevant circles, now.
RIP Sam Neill. You were excellent in Peaky Blinders.
I forgot, Sam Neill was also in Andrzej Å»uÅ‚awski’s wild and unpredictable POSSESSION (1981), with Isabelle Adjani, Å»uÅ‚awski being one of those underrated Polish directors who thankfully still gets a lot of love in cineaste circles (ON THE SILVER GLOBE is another crazy trip of a film he did).
THE FINAL CONFLICT was the first film I thought of when I heard of Sam Neill’s passing and that’s purely down to Jerry Goldsmith’s score.
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