M&M: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I like and respect Roald Dahl as a writer and enjoy watching the movie “Mathilda” several times and I did enjoy reading “The BFG” even as an adult. Maybe I should some day read his book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, on which this movie from the year 2005 is based on.

To be honest, I don't like the movie much. It's predictable from the start and the whole conception of it is just purely annoying. A typical Tim Burton movie with the “usual suspects”: with Danny Elfman scoring the music, like he did with almost every Tim Burton movie, we also have Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka in the lead role and Helena Bonham Carter (then still fiancé of Tim Burton) as mother of Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore). Charlie's family is so poor, they barely have enough just to eat. Still it's Charlie of all people, who gets one of the rare golden tickets. The golden ticket enables Charlie and other children to visit Willy Wonka in his famous chocolate factory and get a tour there, one which none of them will ever forget. In the end even Willy Wonka, living estrangd from his father, learned something. Yawn. In fact at the end I had the feeling that the movie should have been called “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, because it was somehow most of the time about Willy Wonka, his life style and his factory and not about Charlie Bucket.

While nobody would wish for anybody to grow up in such poor circumstances that Charlie has to be in. However the other kids that get the remaining golden tickets are rotten and spoiled. Each of the spoiled kids will get into a nasty situation according to their character. Charlie is the only one getting away from that tour in a positive way, since he's already punished enough by living in the poor family situation he grew up in.

The movie respectively the factory has jarring colourings in a typical Tim Burton way. As a fan of Danny Elfman's music I listened to it several times before I saw it was on tv one day. I don't know if my parents knew what the movie was about or that it was a Tim Burton movie respectively some parts would be musical songs. I don't know what bothered my parents the most. In any case they turned it off soon. I watched it alone some time later. As I watched it, I had the feeling Danny Elfman's music held everything together and especially in the factory it seemed that they were moving from one song to the next. I liked the music. Especially the first tracks of the album (1-5) are funny and diverse like the characters they're about (“Wonka's Welcome Song”, “Augustus Gloop”, “Violet Beauregarde”, “Veruca Salt”, “Mike “Teavee”). Danny Elfman sang the lyrics to the songs himself and as he reported himself, as he composed the songs, he had laughing fits so hard that his wife checked in on him a couple of times,to see if everything was ok. I can very much imagine that. The tracks are “quirky”, upbeat and dynamic. With “Augustus Gloop” there is however already a revelation that nothing really bad will happen to the kids. Of course not! It's a children's movie and as rotten as the kids may be, nobody wishes them anything terrible („But don't, dear children be alarmed, Augustus Gloop will not be harmed, Augustus Gloop will not be harmed“). The tracks 13-15 (“ Loompa Land”, “The Boat Arrives”, “The River Cruise”) and 18 (“The River Cruise – Part 2”) are pretty dark tracks, by the way. So it's by all means not all just cheery music. I'm listening to the soundtrack again after a long time as I'm writing this blog post.

I would almost suggest to not watch the movie and just listen to the soundtrack. Of course you won't see the kids that way or in what kind of situations they get into and the lessons they'll learn. By only listening to the soundtrack you will also not know the ending and what happened to Willy Wonka and Charlie Bucket after the tour. I like Helena Bonham Carter, who can only be seen shortly as the mother and I also like Freddie Highmore. Still, I personally would prefer listening to the soundtrack happily and repeatedly, which I find much more entertaining by itself with the sounds and the lyrics, than watching this quirky, predictable movie. Probably most people will want to watch the movie after listening to the soundtrack anyway. To that I can only say this: Watch it at your own risk!

A Ghost Story: The Music

Already shortly after publishing my last post, I got the feeling that my review of "A Ghost Story" didn't really do the movie any justice. So I want to use this post now to write some more about the music. As I already wrote in the post about the movie, the music is composed by Daniel Hart.

Daniel Hart was born to musician parents in 1976 in Emporia, Kansas in America. So it probably comes as no surprise that they gave him a violin when he was 3 years old and he never let go since, as he said so himself. He came to composing film music for friends and providing the music for their little projects first.

When he's not composing film music, he plays and sings in his band: Dark Rooms. The song “I Get Overwhelmed“ from the band is used in the movie. Contrary to other movies it is not just the title song or something, but the man of the couple is a musician and the woman listens to the song after he died. Elements from that song can be heard in the other tracks of the soundtrack.

The soundtrack is mostly calm and much like the movie as a whole reduced to the essential. I personally feel that the soundtrack is a good one to listen to in passing when you work on something (like I am now, writing this post) and don't want to do that in complete silence or when you want to calm down and get some rest.

I should also mention that Kesha wrote the song “Last One“ performed by Stereo Jane. Kesha is briefly seen in the “party“ scene in the movie, too.

Here is an incomplete list of the tracks from the soundtrack album, if you want to check it out for free:

AGhost Story (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Not included is track no. 9 of the album, “Sciunt se Esse Mortui“ and no. 10, Kesha's/Stereo Jane's “Last One“.)

Often times for the trailer music from other movies is used of from music groups. In the trailer for „A Ghost Story“ however you can hear parts from „I Get Overwhelmed“. Check it out:

trailer in English and trailer in German.

I think, because the movie is rather quiet and with very little dialogue, the music as a whole and “I Get Overwhelmed“ comes to the fore more. If you don't just want to listen, but also see Dark Rooms performing “I Get Overwhelmed“, I found this

IDKSessions Video

for you.

M&M: The Legend Of 1900

"You're never really done for, as long as you've got a good story and someone to tell it to."

The trumpet player Max Tooney (Pruitt Taylor Vince) tries to sell his trumpet in a shop. The shop owner (Peter Vaughan) actually wants to close the shop at that moment, but grants Max to play the trumpet for one last time. Max plays a melody which sounds familiar to the shop owner, who heard it on a broken matrix he found in an old piano. Max says that this matrix shouldn't actually exist and that's how he starts telling the shop owner the story of 1900.

1900 isn't a number but a man. As a baby he was left by his mother on the Virginian, a ship that was going back and forth between America and Europe. Danny Boodman (Bill Nunn), a worker on the ship, finds the boy in a box and raises him. Since Danny found the boy on the first month of the new century, he calls him that. Danny never registers the boy at any office, for fear they may take him away. When 1900 is eight years old, Danny dies from an accident. After that the boy hides so well that nobody can find him. When he's seen again, he's playing the piano perfectly and moving everyone. So he ends up playing in the band on the ship to earn himself some money. In the first class he is more or less playing from notes, in third class he's playing totally free and his own melodies. Although he's never registered somewhere, more and more people on land hear about his ingenious playing. That's how Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III) also hears of 1900 and challenges him to a duel. 1900 however has no idea how such a duel works.

One day Max leaves the ship again and loses contact with 1900. But when Max hears they're going to destroy the Virginian in short time, he goes looking for his old friend.

Will 1900 ever leave the ship? Who'll win the duel? Will Max find 1900 again? Those are questions only you can answer to yourself by watching the movie.

It's a bit curious that this movie from the year 1998 runs more than two hours when the book on which the movie is based is only about 80 pages long written by Alessandro Baricco. The book is thought to be a monologue, a one-man-theatre-play, which is why it also includes some directions. The trumpet player is called Tim Tooney in the book and he tells the story as a flashback, similar to the movie.

At first I was sceptical about such a long movie. But I was very positively surprised and the story totally captivated me, so the movie wasn't tedious for me. If you like piano music and/or movies about friendship, you might enjoy this movie.

Heavenly music

Dear reader,

I rarely hear "pure" classical music. I do listen to a lot of soundtracks. Soundtracks speak to more, because good soundtracks tell a story of their own even without the pictures.

Year ago, I became again interested in magic and found Derren Brown. In his stage show "Something Wicked This Way Comes", the second act starts with him getting a woman from the audience on stage, sitting her across from him at a table, signing a brick of wood for her and then hammering a nail in his nose, well the nose hole. To finish, he hammers the nail in the brick (perfectly timed with the playing music) and hands the brick to her as a present. All of that is with almost no words, he only whispers when she should hold the nail and when he asks for her name to sign the brick for her. This is accompanied by Beethoven's fifth piano concerto, in english areas also known as "The Emperor". It is a strange thing to see someone hammering a nail in the nose, although I'm well aware that this act is not a trick, but really possible. Those of you, who can't see that sort of thing, should just click on the video to start it and look away or close your eyes. Everyone else can, of course, also close your eyes and just enjoy the music. The piece itself is the second of three and about 9 minutes long. Those of you who want to listen to the whole piano concerto and haven't yet, be warned: the transition from the second to the third part is very instant and very loud.

The second part is, not least because of Derren Brown, my favourite part. Although it doesn't hurt trained people to hammer a nail in the nose, it still has become the essence of relaxation and especially analgesia for me.

You have been warned, Derren Brown hammers a nail in his nose in this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNbnuZR2wd4

I heard the second, in my opinion divine, piece, in the movie "Master & Commander". A crew is sailing around on a ship. The captain enjoys playing the violin and the doctor plays the cello. Preferably, and much to the dislike of the rest of the crew, they play classical pieces. This is why there are at least some excerpts f those classical pieces on the CD of the soundtrack, too. An ingenious movie with the combination classical pieces with the captain and the doctor, by the way. Normally the two of them play always together. So all pieces are for violin and cello. The only exception is when they stop at the galapagos islands, to treat the injured doctor and give him a rest. On the island, on land and among many interesting new animals, he is in his element. That's the only moment, when you can hear a piece for solo cello, namely Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007.

My favourite piece however can be heard when they sadly have to abandon a sailor, a cut version (of about 16 minutes cut down to about 5 minutes) of "Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis" by Ralph Vaughun Williams. It's a bit complicated, I know. Thomas Tallis lived about 1500 until 1580-ish and has composed a hymn. Vaughun Williams was born about 1890-ish and died in 1960-ish. He was very interested in english folk songs and was inspired by Tallis' hymn. Vaughun Williams composed his wonderful piece in 1910, in which it was also performed for the first time in the Gloucester Cathedral. The special thing about it is, that the musicians are not all sitting together. some of them are sitting in a smaller ensemble somewhat apart. Vaughun Williams did that for the sound effect. In the link, which I'll give you in a bit, which by the way is also Gloucester Cathedral, the group is sitting, like they were in the premiere, so the spacial arrangement can be seen. I find it unbelievably exciting to hear the high strings at the beginning playing their melody and the low strings replying with the strings being plucked. The strings need quite some time, until they find to each other and really play together.

I'm not a music theorist. Others could tell much more about that piece. If you're interested, you'll certainly read up about it. I was lucky and found a very insightful audio sort of documentarydiscussion on the internet. It is about 45 minutes long. Let me know, if you want to listen to it. This should be it with explanations today.

Here it is now, the heavenly "Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis" by Ralph Vaughun Williams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihx5LCF1yJY

With this I wish you all a heavenly christmas!

If you like, you can post your own favourite classical music in the comments,

Until next blog,
sarah

My Christmas Song "List" 2013

Dear reader,

the "usual" christmas songs are fine for a while for me. I prefer unusual. Here are a couple of songs, which I have and listen to, which are christmassy:

"Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over" by Jack White

I heard it for the first time in the film respectively soundtrack of "Cold Mountain". An upbeat, happy melody, something different from the more usual slow songs. The song tells the story of a group, who will join the band when christmas time will soon be over.

(The video link has the Royal Albatross. Sadly I couldn't find any other video or audio with Jack White, some youtube links are blocked for germany due to some copyright/rights regulations.... sorry about that):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPoJE92yvvM

"Christmas In Hollis" by Run DMC

I learned about this song watching the film "Die Hard". Bruce Willis is in a limousine and is driven from the airport to the building where his wife is having a christmas party with her company, to which he is also invited. He complains that this isn't a christmas song and it does sound more like rap, far away from what we'd associate with sounds and music for christmas. But as the driver points out to Bruce Willis, "This is christmas music!" The text tells the story of someone, who goes for a walk in a park on christmas and seems to see someone with a dog. The dog happens to be a reindeer and it's very sick and the man next to it isn't just somebody, but santa claus.

Here's the music video to the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR07r0ZMFb8

"The Stowaway" by Murray Gold/performed by Yamit Mamo

"Doctor Who" fans may know this song from the 10th Doctor (David Tennant). You can find it on the soundtrack to the 3rd series. I like it, because it's a happy, dynamic melody. Although the song is a bit sad. The singer tells about a "stowaway" on his ship. Which applies quite well to the Doctor in the episode "Voyage of The Damned", in which this song is played. In this christmas episode he's on the Titanic. The stowaway of the song desperately wants to be with his love on christmas day.

You can listen to the song on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoXF6H_venI

"Christmas Hell" (variaton of "Jingle Bells") by Danny Elfman

Not really a song in a real sense, more a short promo by Danny Elfman, the composer of the music of "Nightmare Before Christmas" with his very own version of "Jingle Bells". More on "Nightmare Before Christmas" later (later as in "in a new blog post", linked to it, now that it's done)... I thought I'll add it here, even though it's not a proper song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcgtOkj9ubU

"White Wine In The Sun" by Tim Minchin

A christmas song? Or more a song for and to his little daughter? Or both? I like Tim Minchin, as you may have guessed from previous entries and I like this song. He's australian and in australia there's no snow on christmas, of course. White is only the wine for him.

In the video he's singing this as an encore, I think during his tour "Ready For This":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iwfLN4K1hA

Do you have christmas songs you like to listen to? If so which ones?

Until next blog,
sarah