15 Film Challenge meme, Part 1

[annathepiper]

I got tagged on a 15 Film Challenge meme on Facebook, and since I don’t tag people on memes as a general rule, and since I have Opinions on this in general, I thought I’d make this a blog post. A few blog posts, in fact, since like I said, OPINIONS.

So here you go, my 15 all-time favorite films, Part 1! Here are the first three!

Best. Movie. EVER.

1) Raiders of the Lost Ark

(Because in my house, it’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, dammit, not Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don’t care what it says on the Blu-rays. Which I do own. Because yes, I have this movie in multiple formats. Laserdisc AND DVD AND Blu-ray. DON’T JUDGE!)

This should surprise exactly NONE of you, particularly those of you who spent any length of time roleplaying with me on any MUSHes, and were accordingly familiar with my longstanding fangirling of Harrison Ford. This was the movie that did it, with a strong helping hand from The Empire Strikes Back.

I love every frame of this movie, and every single character interaction. Especially the characters, and especially Marion. Marion was the template for how I played Shenner on Star Wars MUSH. It doesn’t suck either that this was Harrison Ford at the absolute apex of his swoonability. There were reasons I spent a long span of time on roleplaying MUSHes swooning hardcore over characters who were based on Ford, and the first and foremost of these reasons was Indiana Jones.

Musically, this movie also has a strong and special place in my heart. John Williams did a splendid job on the soundtrack for this one, and every time I listen to it, I can’t help smiling. Especially because I have fond memories of playing the Raiders March in middle school band, because there’s a particular sweet, prolonged note on the violins in the final track that is the very first time I remember swooning to the sound of violins, and because I happily match up every note of the soundtrack to the corresponding action in the movie.

2) The Lord of the Rings trilogy

This would be #1 on my list if Raiders of the Lost Ark didn’t exist, and it’s a HARD call to make, I assure you! But if you’ve followed my blog or its mirrors for more than five minutes, you know what a big raving Tolkien geek I am. I have to take the whole trilogy together, too, because it is after all one great big story.

Suffice to say, I’m entirely on board with Jackson’s realization of Middle-Earth. I could devote entire weeks of posts to all the various reasons I love these films so much, but I’ve already recently posted about all the bits in them that make me sob. That I regularly re-watch them AND keep crying over them is all by itself a huge indicator of how much these movies have meant to me every since they came out.

And as with Raiders, the music is critical here as well. Howard Shore did masterful work on this soundtrack and I would give much to be in an orchestra that performs works from it, just once.

3) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

O My Captain

Russell Crowe has been the only actor to date to ever surpass Mr. Ford for my fangirling affections, and while I’ve loved a great many films Crowe’s been in, Master and Commander is my hands-down, uncontested favorite. It beats out Gladiator, even though Gladiator was the first Crowe film I ever saw in a theater and what made me a Crowe fangirl to begin with, because I do rewatch this one semi-regularly.

Jack and Stephen are wonderful. The story is wonderful. And yet again, the music is critical. I always adored that Crowe made a point of learning how to make coherent noises on a violin to lend his portrayal of Jack additional weight, and I love the bits where he and Paul Bettany play their instruments. Mutual love of music is what made these characters become friends, and Crowe and Bettany do a splendid job of communicating their love of music throughout this movie.

The soundtrack’s a joy to listen to, too.

You may be seeing a common thread here to my top favorite films, and if you’re saying “music”, you would be correct. Just about all of my top favorites are important to me because of musical strength. But I’m also putting in a thought to how often I rewatch them, and whether they involve top favorite actors, and whether I’ve done any fan activity based on them (e.g., MUSHing).

Next post on this to come as I think about the next ones on the list! Expect more Harrison Ford, more Russell Crowe, Elvis, MST3K, and Superman!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

The soundtrack’s a joy to listen to, too.

I also love this movie, but me being me, I am not aware: how much of the soundtrack is the music that Jack and Stephen play in the books? Apart from those moments where we see them playing together, I mean: did the producers build those classical tracks into the general soundscape? (Yes, I should of course have noticed, but I don't. I am boringly all about the words, and I only tend to notice soundtrack when it interferes.)

[annathepiper]

I've only read through the series up to just before The Far Side of the World, so I don't have a suitably well-versed background in the matter. But my overall memory of the first nine books of the series is that specific composers of the era were rarely called out in the text. I'd have to go look through the books or do some googling to see if I'm remembering wrong.

There is a set of classical compilations though that were specifically themed around composers of the era, people whose works Jack and Stephen would indeed have been likely to play. They're the "Musical Evenings With the Captain" albums and they're lovely. Lots of Vivaldi and Corelli. And what's on those albums lines up with what's on the actual movie soundtrack album, in terms of which composers were involved.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

And what's on those albums lines up with what's on the actual movie soundtrack album, in terms of which composers were involved.

Well, goodie. That's what I wanted to be the case.

[annathepiper]

The albums in question are Musical Evenings With the Captain, Volumes I and II, and Musical Evenings in the Captain's Cabin.

Composers cited in the metadata of Musical Evenings in the Captain's Cabin: Joseph Fiala, Pietro Nardini, Federigo Fiorillo, J.B. Breval, Antonio Vivaldi (woo!), Carl Stamitz, Giovanni Platti.

On Musical Evenings With the Captain, Vol. I: Locatelli, Haydn, Handel, Boccherini, Leclair.

Vol. II whips out some Mozart and Bach, and more Haydn.

For comparison, on the soundtrack album, I see Corelli, Bach, and Boccherini cited as the classical composers, at least for the stuff that wasn't original to the soundtrack work.

All of this music is on my Aubrey-Maturin playlist in iTunes. ^_^ It's how I discovered that why yes I DO like Corelli and Locatelli and other Italian composers whose names end in -i.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I always liked Boccherini.

But the odd thing about this is that I came at the whole series bass-ackward: I heard a thing on BBC radio about these books where the true fans not only read the books but cooked the food and played the music and made CDs and everything. I don't know quite how I had so utterly managed to miss the books for the previous fifteen years, but I totally had. So then I went and sought them out, and ... yeah. All else followed. But I knew about the food and the music first. And then the books proved to be everything I hoped, and then even the movie didn't at all disappoint...

[annathepiper]

I came to the books because of the movie being on the way to the theaters. I decided to read the first book just to prep for the movie, and from the first scene, I was hooked. I adored how Jack just sat there physically getting into the performance, waggling his hand to the time and everything, and that little detail right there made me fall in love with the character, just because I do that. I could also very much see Crowe playing him from page one.

But then I fell in love with the prose and especially the interactions of Jack and Stephen, bonding over playing music together. <3 Has not a goddamn thing to do with the plot, but every time they picked up their instruments, it was a jewel of character development. Not enough books have characters picking up their instruments and just playing because they love music. Jack and Stephen doing so is exactly why I have such a scene in Faerie Blood.

As to the rest of the aspects of the fandom, hee! All fandoms have their benchmarks of crazy fan activity and I love that that exists, even if I don't participate in the Aubrey-Maturin fandom.

I have a Facebook friend though who makes miniatures and she's got a lot of Aubrey-Maturin-themed ones. They're adorable.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

(Also you should totally read the rest of the series.)

[annathepiper]

I plan to!

But my problem, as always, is that there are several hundred things on my To Read list, and what pops off it next has to fight with those several hundred things to see which gets my attention!

Because people keep releasing new things I want to read, and I can't exactly tell everybody in the publishing industry to stop putting out books for a year or so so I can catch up!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ah, damn those other writers! What you need, obviously, is somebody to tell you what to read. Like, f'rexample, me.

You should read (a) me; (b) Daniel Fox; (c) Ben Macallan; (d) Patrick O'Brian; (e) Neal Stephenson. That should keep you going. When you run out, come back to me and I'll extend the list.

[annathepiper]

I have several Brenchley, Fox, and Macallan titles parked on the queue, yes. ;) Thank you for your guidance, sir!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Raiders is an amazingly good film, after all these years. It just shines, the whole way through. Marion is such a contrast to the female character they brought in for Temple of Doom. Urgh.

I have to disagree with you, though, on the apex of Ford's swoonability. I thought that was Witness. Still one of the most amazingly sexually charged films I have ever seen, and partly because of the lack of sex.

I must rewatch Master and Commander. I remember finding it fun and very slashy.

[annathepiper]

I agree that Witness is an _excellent_ film, and that the sexual tension between Ford and his leading lady in it is cracklingly hot. I enjoy the hell out of it when I do watch it--but unlike Raiders, I don't actually go back and regularly rewatch it just because it makes me happy. I cannot remember the last time I watched it, in fact!

Raiders, though--see, Raiders was the film that alerted twelve-year-old me to the possession of hormones. ;D I'd just started deciding I liked Han Solo better than Luke, thanks to Empire coming out the previous year. And then when I realized Indiana Jones was the VERY SAME GUY as Han Solo, well. It was formative in my development as a fangirl!

Witness would definitely be in my top favorite Ford films though. :D