Day: June 22, 2015

The Daily Mail‘s Chris Spargo and the Associated Press are reporting that the brilliant, profoundly gifted film-score composer James Horner (Titanic, Field of Dreams, Avatar, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Glory, The Rocketeer, The New World, Braveheart) apparently died this morning when his private plane crashed into the Los Padres forest in Ventura County. Update: Variety is reporting that Horner’s death is confirmed.

Composer James Horner, killed in a small-plane crash that happened around 9:30 am this morning.

“A single-engine plane registered to Oscar-winning composer James Horner has crashed in Southern California,” the story says, “and while the identity of the [pilot] who died has not been released it is believed to be the famed musician.

“Jay Cooper, an attorney for Horner, said the plane was one of several owned by the 61-year-old composer. He said no one has heard from Horner and that ‘if he wasn’t in it, he would have called.'”

I felt I’d come to know Horner pretty well through his music over the years. Emotionally, I mean. The river within. His score for Phil Alden Robinson‘s Field of Dreams (’88) was the first Horner that really got me. I wrote last year that I think Horner’s score for Ron Howard‘s A Beautiful Mind was a significant reason why that film won the Best Picture Oscar. His scores for James Cameron‘s Avatar, Titanic and Aliens are legendary. The man was a maestro, a genius, a musical seer, one of the all-time greats.

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I bought a pair of Bowers & Wilkins P3 headphones in Manhattan in early May, just before flying to Paris and the Cannes Film Festival. During the latter part of the festival the slim cord that extends from the phones to the playing device (iPhone, iPad) separated in two, and the part with the male jack was lost. I naturally had to order a replacement cord, which set me back $25 or $30 with shipping. And then another part broke off. During the 6.13 memorial luncheon for my mom in Connecticut I noticed that one of the earpads had fallen off. I’ve just ordered a replacement for that, which set me back another $25 or so. Where did I get the idea that when you buy expensive headphones that they’ll be sturdy and won’t break? Who makes a cord that comes in two sections? Who designs ear pads that fall off? In my book the Bowers & Wilkins headphone designers are dilletantes.

I can’t begin to fully convey how personally delighted I am that Universal’s Jurassic World, easily one of the stupidest and most painful-to-watch event movies of all time, will hit the $1 billion mark in worldwide revenues sometime today. Deadline‘s Nancy Tartaglione is reporting that JW‘s worldwide tally had hit $981.3 million as of yesterday so do the math. Jurassic World will therefore hit $1 billion in 13 days, or four days faster than it took Universal’s Furious 7, another serving of forehead-slapping bonehead entertainment for the none-too-brights, to get there. Is there any way the Academy would consider staging a special tribute to these films during next February’s Oscar telecast? Or, failing that, is there any way Universal’s marketing department could organize a special parade down Hollywood Blvd. next week to celebrate?

Italian actress and world-renowned sex symbol Laura Antonelli is gone. She’s been found dead in her home in the outskirts of Rome at the relatively young age of 73. There’s no way to talk about the power Antonelli exerted as one of the most lusciously proportioned, bodaciously ta-ta’ed, hungered-for actresses of the early to late ’70s without sounding like a sexist dog (certainly in the eyes of the politically correct, femme-militant types). Most of the Italian-made movies she starred or co-starred in were light sexploitation junk, but during a three-year period from ’74 to ’77 Antonelli appeared in some quality-level stuff, most notably Luchino Visconti‘s L’Innocente (’76). Other standouts were Malizia, Lovers and Other Relatives, Till Marriage Do Us Part, Wifemistress and The Divine Nymph — all made when Antonelli, born in ’41, was in her early to mid 30s.

Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli in Luchino Visconti’s “L’Innocente (’76).

I distinctly recall sensing that legendary critic Andrew Sarris had gone to some effort to stifle his libidinal longings for Antonelli while reviewing her films, and how I always empathized with that effort.

Antonelli got hit with a cocaine rap of some kind in the early ’90s (when she was 50 or thereabouts) but the conviction was later overturned. I know she got fat when she hit her late 60s but I’d rather not think about that now. Antonelli was exquisite in her day. I only wish she’d made a few more good films, which might have happened if she’d learned English and tried to get into the American film community and ignite a few opportunities. We all have our prime time, our window of opportunity. The truth? Antonelli didn’t work it like she could have. She stayed in Italy and, in a sense, paid a certain price for that.

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Am I the only critic-columnist willing to admit the plain truth about animated features (particularly Pixar-produced), which is that I fucking hate their energy levels…their relentlessly peppy and ultra-exaggerated mood elevations and hyper ping-ping-pinball physicality…which of course is deliberately injected so as to appeal to young kids? I can’t be the only film worshipper out there who feels this way, and yet I seem to be the only one actually saying it. Would you like to hear the truth? A significant portion of film critics feel exactly as I do but they can’t admit that because it would make them seem grouchy and out of touch and a candidate for replacement, and so they put on their 21st Century smiley face and down a few shots of Kool-Aid before seeing the next big animated Pixar feature.

Every respectful and admiring thing that I wrote last May about Inside Out was sincere, but I also had the character to admit that I didn’t like watching it very much. Which is more than can be said about a lot of the critics out there. Here’s what I said in a piece called “Inside Out: Clever, Adult-Level, Peppy, Not My Cup”:

“The praise being heaped upon Pete Docter‘s Inside Out (Disney, 6.19) is correct. It’s very fast and clever and superbly rendered. And surprisingly, even head-spinningly complex at times, which is to say adult-friendly. And rather touching at times. I was impressed, engaged and amused as far as it went, given my general loathing for animation.

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