Bill Wrobel's DVD - Film Score Rundowns

although it is no classic. There’s a really neat process shot—a so-called “freeze-frame”
shot-- at 00:11:10 that actually lasts several seconds as the gasoline attendant (Frank
Cady) gives directions to Shelley Carnes (Ruth Roman). In the distance is a storm acoming,
and to the side are Joshua trees. The location is supposed to be Texas, but you
can only find Joshua trees in California and maybe a few places in Mexico in the
Southwest. You don’t find them in Texas. Richard Todd, a steely Brit with a distinct
voice, would’ve been cast well as Jason in Jason & the Argonauts if he were the same
age then in 1963 as “now” (in 1951). Ruth Roman was excellent the year before in Dallas
with Gary Cooper. Nice desert scenes (in California!) substituting for west Texas
somewhere. Didn’t see any giant ants, though—although I don’t think they show up until
1954!
The Main Title music is dynamically dramatic. I like it! The total score is decent,
middle-drawer Steiner movie, although it was never a high priority for me to ever spend
the time to pull it at Warner Bros. Archives. Of the 1951 scores Max did, I was much
more interested in Distant Drums, Jim Thorpe, I Was A Communist for the F.B.I—all
three of which I had pulled for me. I wanted to have Raton Pass pulled too but it was a
low priority, and I never got around to it.
*****************************
-A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) ** 1/2 [music ***]
http://www.amazon.com/I-Artificial-Intelligence-Widescreen-Two-
Disc/dp/B00003CXXP/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1292890562&sr=1-2
Strange futuristic movie with Williams composing a strange futuristic-type score.
As with the past, the future is a bit removed from the emotional, here & now present. I
get this alienating sense about the movie. This future is a long probable distance from us
in terms of time, but I already feel distant towards the movie. My wife, upon seeing it
again right now while she is in the kitchen making beef for Miss Kitty, says that she
“never liked that movie.”
In certain terms, the “Mechas” in the movie initially that we focus on--David
(played by Haley Joel Osment) and his new super toy, Teddy, that “Mommie Monica”
got for him—remind me of the two robots in Star Wars, R2-D2 and C3PO. The
interaction is obviously not the same but for some reason I sense a sense (probably the
simple fact that they are all sophisticated robots). The primary root assumption these
movies suggest is that robots have consciousness, that they are “alive” just as “organics”
(human beings). Instead of being human beings, they are robot beings. Well, this root
assumption in science fiction movies and television series (for example “Data” in Star
Trek: The Next Generation) makes for interesting entertainment, and I like some of these
robot characters (such as “Data”). But this root assumption is also a false belief, a mighty
huge suspension of belief that irritates me, especially when I see someone of Spielberg’s
caliber fall for it. Even if he fundamentally doesn’t, and utilizes it for the sake of the story
(and to promote as best he can Kubrick’s original conception), he nevertheless attempts
to manipulate the viewer. At least with E.T. the creature was actually a being, a
193