I’ll be honest and admit that I wasn’t overly impressed by J.J. Abrams’ Mission: Impossible3 and when it was announced that a fourth film in the franchise was going into production my initial reaction was an emphatic “meh”. It didn’t help when Pixar veteran Brad Bird was chosen to helm this fourth film. This was a filmmaker who did a great job with Pixar animated films, but still an unknown quantity when it came to live-action projects.
As the months passed and news filtered out from the film’s production the news was positive with many who have seen some rough footage becoming convinced that Brad Bird might know what he’s doing outside the Pixar stable. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was soon being talked as being one of the most-awaited films of 2011. This newly-released first official trailer goes a long way into adding more positive buzz to a film already hyped up on it.
Also, it has Paula Patton in it, nuff said.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is set for a December 16, 2011 release.
This latest “Song of the Day” marks the final and third entry in the weekend-long theme of picking song and music from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. What better choice to cap of this themed weekend than picking the final song to close out Peter Jackson’s fantasy epic: “Into the West”.
It’s this song as composed and arranged by the trilogy’s master composer, Howard Shore, featuring the vocal talents of singer Annie Lennox. Her work on this song was at times quite gentle and subdued with some strong vocals once the chorus arrives and repeats a second time. Some have complained that someone with more classical training would’ve been better suited to tackle this song, but I rather enjoyed Lennox’s powerful rendition of the chorus in the song.
“Into the West” is a song that’s both one of hope and a bittersweet lament as it speaks of the leaving of the Elf race on their Grey Ships to sail into the west towards Valinor. Some of the lyrics in the song even comes from sections of the final chapter of The Return of the King novel.
When this song played at the end of The Return of the King it surely brought more than just a few people to tears as it helped marked the end of three years of fantasy filmmaking which became a cultural phenomenon from 2001 through 2003 as the world became enraptured by Peter Jackson’s fantasy trilogy. What better song to end this weekend theme than the very song which ended the trilogy of which this weekend was all about.
Into the West
Lay down Your sweet and weary head Night is falling You have come to journey’s end Sleep now And dream of the ones who came before They are calling From across a distant shore Why do you weep? What are these tears upon your face? Soon you will see All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms You’re only sleeping
What can you see On the horizon? Why do the white gulls call? Across the sea A pale moon rises The ships have come to carry you home And all will turn To silver-glass A light on the water All souls pass
Hope fades Until the world of night Through shadows’ falling Out of memory and time Don’t say We have come now to the end White shores are calling You and I will meet again
And you’ll be here in my arms Just sleeping
What can you see On the horizon? Why do the white gulls call? Across the sea A pale moon rises The ships have come to carry you home And all will turn To silver-glass A light on the water Grey ships pass Into the West
“Arise, arise Riders of Théoden (Riders of Rohan)! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride for ruin… and the world’s ending! Death! Death! Forth Eorlingas!” – Theoden, King of Rohan
This marks the final “Scenes I Love” series from Peter Jackson’s fantasy epic, The Lord of the Rings. The last couple days have seen a favorite scene picked from the first two film. Today’s pick was a tie between two scenes. One a third of the way into The Return of the King with the second being two-thirds in and a logical consequence of the first scene picked. I could’ve easily picked one over the other, but I’ve always seen the two as connected in some way. I also didn’t want to pick one over the other so we have two scenes instead of one. I say that’s a bonus for everyone.
The first scene was (continues to be one of my most favorite scenes ever put on film) the lighting of the beacons which signals Gondor’s call for aid to it’s far neighboring kingdom of Rohan. This scene just builds and builds until the rousing “Gondor theme” reaches it’s peak and shows each beacon lighting up one right after the other until it reaches the mountain peaks outside Rohan. No matter how often I see this scene (especially now on blu-ray) I can’t help but still feel a sense of awe at what Peter Jackson and his crew pulled off. One buys into the scene and just marvels at the sequence. A film which, up until the lighting of the beacons, had such a hopeless tone to it suddenly had hope appear.
The second scene finally sees the culmination of the lighting of the beacons. Rohan has responded in force as every able-bodied man and his horse have gathered on a rise above Pelennor Fields. With Theoden knowing the forces of Sauron arrayed and besieging Mina Tirith dwarfs even his own cavalry force he nonetheless orders his men to charge the Mordor lines to help break the siege. His speech in this scene trumps even Aragorn’s own rousing speech later on in the film which is saying much. The charge of the Rohirrim down into the Mordor lines gets a nice assist from Howard Shore’s score which begins with the “Rohan theme” signalling the arrival of the Rohirrim to the battle then transitioning to the “Nature theme” which is heard for the first time in full orchestral mode before returning to the “Rohan theme” as the Rohirrim charge finally crashes into the Mordor lines.
The charge itself looked great when I saw it on the big-screen and still the best way to see it. Barring not seeing it on the big-screen the best option would be to see it on blu-ray and on a large HDTV screen. The wide, overhead shot of the massed cavalry gradually gaining speed with Theoden at the elongating tip in the middle makes for great, epic filmmaking. The scene sells itself as Jackson used hundreds of extras in real armor and on charging horses (with CGI copies expanding their numbers into the thousands) to show true weight to the scene. I recommend to those who want to revisit this scene to watch it again but using their surround sound system on high and feel the thundering hooves of the charging Rohirrim until they crash into the Mordor lines. It’s the only way to see and experience the scene.
“Say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level… into ghosts and shadows.”
John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness is a criminally underrated entry in his canon—a blend of philosophical, apocalyptic horror and supernatural mystery that’s as unsettling as it is deliberately strange. Released in 1987, the film often gets eclipsed by Carpenter classics like The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness. Even so, it stands out as a unique organic link between science-driven paranoia and cosmic horror—the sort of film that grows on you as you unravel its layers.
The setup is simple but immediately offbeat: In a derelict Los Angeles church, Father Loomis (Donald Pleasence, always at his nervous best) stumbles on a swirling green cylinder hidden away in the basement. Loneliness and age hang over Loomis as he realizes this is no mere relic but possibly the essence of absolute evil—the literal embodiment of Satan. Sensing he’s in over his head, the priest reaches out to Professor Birack (Victor Wong), a physicist whose rational mindset is quickly tested by the uncanny. Birack arrives with a diverse team of grad students and lab techs, each bringing curiosity, skepticism, and just enough personality to keep things lively.
What starts as an academic investigation quickly goes off the rails. Strange, shared dreams trouble the researchers—fragmented transmissions from the future, warning of disaster in unsettling, VHS-glitch style. Meanwhile, the area outside the church transforms into a kind of urban wasteland: homeless people, gripped by an unseen force, stumble with zombie-like intent, trapping the group inside. Inside, members fall prey to unsettling phenomena, from unexplained possession to increasingly grotesque violence. There’s a sense that the evil in the cylinder isn’t content to simply stay put—and the combination of supernatural implication and scientific uncertainty gives everything a persistent, gnawing tension.
Carpenter directs the film with measured, stifling precision. His color palette—rotting yellows, bruised greens, washed-out sunlight—creates a perpetually uneasy mood. He uses slow tracking shots and carefully composed frames to ratchet up suspense, and the score (co-composed with Alan Howarth) pulses with ominous synths that buzz beneath all the dialogue, making even the film’s quieter moments feel restless and charged with threat. Compared to the gooey spectacle of The Thing, the terror in Prince of Darkness is more metaphysical—less visible monsters, more eroding reality.
Sound and image work together to keep the audience on edge: moments of unsettling silence are punctuated by visual oddities, like swarms of bugs or the warped geometry of the church’s shadows. The group’s scientific attempts to decode the evil—a jumble of quantum theory, apocalyptic Christian lore, and unsettling mathematics—do more to ramp up anxiety than offer answers. Carpenter seems to delight in ambiguity; the revelations never clarify so much as deepen the void, giving shape to a primordial kind of fear.
The film’s most iconic device is its recurring nightmare sequence, where the group—cut off from the world—witnesses a cryptic, shadowy figure emerging from the church, broadcast as a tachyon transmission from the future. It’s classic Carpenter: deeply unsettling, oddly hypnotic, and open to any number of interpretations. The blending of science fiction and theological horror feels fresh and ambitious, and it’s fair to say these sequences alone have ironically kept the film alive in horror culture discussions and remixes.
The cast, featuring Pleasence and Wong, manages the film’s shifts in tone—moving from banter about theoretical physics to genuine terror with surprising ease. The grad students are likable enough for you to root for, especially Lisa Blount and Jameson Parker, who carry the emotional brunt as things collapse. Alice Cooper’s cameo as a silent, menacing street dweller further anchors the film’s reputation for “unexpected creepy” in the best way possible.
While there are flashes of gore—possessions, injuries, even some memorable stabbings—Carpenter resists making violence the centerpiece. The real horror here is psychological: paranoia, loss of agency, and the collapse of foundational beliefs. Where The Thing was about trusting (or not trusting) your friends, Prince of Darkness is about grappling with a world where even faith and science seem powerless and interchangeable in the face of the unknown.
Thematically, this is Carpenter at his most cerebral and bleak. The notion that neither faith nor science can adequately tackle the unfathomable echoes Lovecraft, yet Carpenter grounds it all in urban decay and deadpan dialogue rather than Gothic flourish. The questions get bigger—what good is faith if truth is poisonous, and what does science matter against a force older than logic? Dialogue about quantum uncertainty and theological paradoxes isn’t there to solve anything, but to make everything less secure.
If the film has a flaw, it’s that its pacing feels deliberately patient—some might say slow. Tension accumulates gradually, and you’re invited to sit in the discomfort as the group loses sleep, loses one another, and loses touch with reality. As the stakes escalate, the line between dream and waking life shreds, leading to an ending that’s haunting, ambiguous, and deeply open-ended. There’s no neat wrap-up or cathartic victory—only trauma, unsolved terror, and a lingering sense that evil never really left, just waited.
It’s this refusal to explain or comfort that gives Prince of Darkness its lasting cult appeal. Carpenter puts cosmic pessimism front and center: knowledge itself stands as a kind of curse, and both faith and reason bend beneath the weight of mystery. Rather than offer solutions, the movie warns about the dangers of peeling back reality’s surface—a theme that’s only grown more unsettling in the years since it was made.
Watching Prince of Darkness now, the film may not fit everyone’s idea of a fun Friday-night scarefest. But if you want horror that’s slow, dense, and sticks with you, this is essential viewing. Carpenter delivers a bleak, hypnotic nightmare about what happens when explanations fail—when the universe itself seems ready to swallow us whole. Whether you’re a die-hard genre fan or someone looking for something different, Prince of Darkness is cult horror at its most unshakable—proof that the scariest stories are often those that leave their deepest secrets unexplained.
For my chosen song from Howard Shore’s orchestral film score for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers I picked the tune which starts off my favorite scene in from that film. This will be the latest song for “Song of the Day”.
“Theoden Rides Forth” begins with the scene of Theoden, Aragorn, Legolas and what remains of the Rohan cavalry riding out for one last time out of the Keep at Helm’s Deep into the thick of the Uruk-Hai forces. The song takes the “Rohan theme” first heard in the early part of the film, but with a heroic flair that transitions to full brass blaring the theme to great effect. The song then segues into a brief appearance of the “Fellowship theme” as Gandalf, Eomer and the Rohirrim appear to save their king and companions. From there the song brings in the “Shadowfax theme” with child soprano Ben Del Maestro providing the solo chorus as the charge comes down the steep incline and into the ranks of Uruk-Hai waiting below. But the song doesn’t end there as it moves into the follow-up scene using the “Nature theme” to show Treebeard and the Ents make their final march to war against Isengard.
This track from the score finishes off the two parallel story lines of Helm’s Deep and Isengard. The transitions in the song from one story line to the other were flawless. The fact that Shore was able to incorporate and combine so many different themes not just from this film but from the previous one shows an artist who is definitely a master of his craft. There’s no denying why “Theoden Rides Forth” became the best tune from the The Two Towers film score and why so many fans of the film and the score wholeheartedly agree.
Yesterday, I had chosen my favorite scene from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Today, I just finished re-watching the sequel to that film (though I think of it more as the second act of a 12-hour film), The Two Towers. From this second act I chose the one of the three climactic sequences in the film: Gandalf the White’s arrival and subsequent charge of the Rohirrim to break the siege of Helm’s Deep.
This second act had so many excellent scenes. From the last march of the Ents as they go to war against Isengard, to Gandalf’s descent and fight against the Balrog right up to the hour-long battle for Helm’s Deep. In the end, it was the charge by Gandalf, Eomer and the Rohirrim which sealed the deal for me. It wasn’t just the dramatic entrance of these characters to save their friends, but Howard Shore’s score which really added to the scene.
I love how just as the Rohirrim charge was about to smash into the front ranks of the Uruk-Hai spearmen the sun behind the charge peaked above the top of the incline and blinded the defenders at the bottom. For someone who has studied military tactics and maneuvers in battle this was a textbook use of the sun at a charging forces back to blind and confuse the enemy. Many who saw this film probably just saw it as just part of the scene, but not I. This is the major reason why this scene was my favorite in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
With my favorite scene from The Fellowship of the Ring chosen and posted it’s now time to pick my favorite piece of music from that film’s orchestral soundtrack. This was a soundtrack that I consider just one-third of a massive 12-hour symphony. The song I’ve chosen is actually a re-edited version of this film’s “Complete Recordings” release: “The Breaking of the Fellowship”.
Howard Shore’s work as composer for Peter Jackson’s monumental and epic (if there was ever a subject deserving of that overused word it would be Jackson’s fantasy trilogy) has been hailed by critics and fans alike as one of the best, if not the best, film score of the new millennium. Shore doesn’t go for the typical overly bombastic score that’s become the go-to style for epic films of any stripe. His work on this first third of the total Lord of the Rings score even manages to outdo John Williams’ own compositions for the other major fantasy series to come out the same year in Harry Potter and The Sorcerer Stone.
Where Williams’ had begun to partially cannibalize his own past film scores for his recent ones, Shore was able to look at what Jackson was creating and decided to base the entire score for The Fellowship of the Ring on three motifs which were airy, subtle with the loud and expressive brass section only appearing in one of these three. “The Breaking of the Fellowship” ends the film on a mixture of triumph and sadness as the track’s title describes. Shore takes the peaceful “hobbit theme” from the beginning of the film and combines it with the more rousing “Fellowship theme” then topped with as bonus with sections from the “Rivendell theme”. These three themes combine to highlight not just the breaking of the fellowship in the end of the film, but some sense of loss of innocence of the hobbits in the group as heard by a more somber and pensive rendition of the “hobbit theme”.
Of all the musical cues in The Fellowship of the Ring it’s the one which makes up “The Breaking of the Fellowship” that fully expresses the overall thematic and narrative themes of the film. It’s a song that tells the audience that the peaceful nature of the hobbits have now been tempered by their complete understanding of the exact nature of their fellowship’s quest. It also underscores how even in triumph the fellowship will encounter heartbreak and tragedy. These two themes will continue to be explore in the next two films and their respective score, but it’s in this first one that it truly shines.
“I would have would have followed you, my brother… my captain… my king.” – Boromir, Captain and High Warden of the White Tower
It’s been five days since the season finale of the first season of Game of Thrones and the withdrawal symptoms are definitely starting to kick in. Season two of this fabolous series won’t be back for at least ten months. To help alleviate some of the withdrawal symptoms I decided to go on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy marathon all weekend. Tonight will be The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition). It’s from this first leg of the trilogy that I choose today’s scene that I love.
The scene I have chosen is very close to the end of the film and it’s a scene between Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn and Sean Bean’s Boromir. It’s soon after the attack of Saruman’s Uruk-Hai on the group. Boromir valiantly tries to protect and save Merry and Pippin from the Lurtz and his band of Uruk-Hai. It’s the scene which arrives after that really hits home for me just how great Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the first part of Tolkien’s massive tome.
This quiet and heartbreaking scene between Aragorn and Boromir cements Viggo’s performance as the reluctant hero moving towards embracing his legacy and destiny while at the same adding complexities to Sean Bean’s performance as Boromir being a flawed and tragic hero in his own right. It is a scene that will cause more than just a few tears to be shed.
The summer of 2011 has been called the Summer of Superhero Films. In early May we had Marvel Studios’ Thor film premiere to good reviews and it has had a certain level of success (though not the level of The Dark Knight success rabid fanboys and jaded film bloggers think every comic book-based film should be doing). Then next up was the fourth X-Men film from Twentieth Century Fox by Matthew Vaughn that seem to reboot the franchise from it’s downward spiral begun by the third film and the Wolverine origins film. This film garnered even higher praise than Thor and many saw it as equaling or surpassing the X2. While it’s box-office success has been good it didn’t make the sort of money previous films in the franchise have made in years past. Then we come to the recently released Green Lantern from Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment.
This film was to be the next crown jewel to join DC’s successful Batman film franchise and iconic Superman series which seems to be the only DC properties to have had a successful live-action adaptation. While the film did very good in it’s first weekend the reviews of the film range from “ok and fun” at best to “downright awful” at its worst. All three films have huge budgets and, most likely, all three will be a profit for their studios, but not runaway hits.
Maybe the public has begun to tire of superhero films as a cause for the less than cosmic box-office returns. One other reason could be that too many people have been blinded by the massive box-office success of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight that every superhero film must now be compared to that one fair or not. This makes the job much harder for Marvel Studios’ second film of the summer, Captain America: The First Avenger, as that film looks to cement the foundation for next summer’s major blockbuster ensemble superhero film, The Avengers.
I don’t see Captain America doing TDK level money, but early screenings of the film has earned it some major positive buzz that had been missing from Thor. That early positive buzz and this latest trailer which really showcases the action of this period piece of a superhero film should help push Captain America to be a success no matter if it makes 200million dollars domestic or more.
One thing I’m sure of is that this latest trailer should be more people excited for Captain America: The First Avenger when it comes out on July 22, 2011.
The latest “AMV of the Day” is another one which is based on the mahou shoujo series, Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It’s become one of my favorite anime series of late and with each repeat viewing just increases my love for it. This latest anime music video takes that “magical girl” anime series and combines it with a symphonic rock song to create an AMV titled, “Devil’s Game”.
“Devil’s Game” is not just my latest pick for “AMV of the Day” but also the latest from AMV creator-extraordinaire Chiikaboom whose anime music video creations have always become instant favorites of mine. This latest really highlights the darkness that permeates throughout the anime series. For a mahou shoujo series, Puella Magi Madoka Magica get pretty dark and the subgenre as a whole uses themes of darkness to balance out the cute magical girl art design.
Within Temptation’s “A Demon’s Fate” is quite an appropriate song to use for this video. The series is all about Magi (magically-enhanced teen girls) fighting evil Witches to save the innocent people and the world. The series also includes Kyubey whose extremely cute appearance hides a secret that the song’s lyrics and title really meshes well with.
Chiikaboom’s editing of the video was not as extensive as some past ones which really comes and goes in rapid-fire fashion. For this video the editing and scene transitions matches very well with the bass drum sections in the song that it’s not noticeable at first glance, but really shows after repeat viewings. And it’s well-made AMV’s like this using scenes from this series that really should help sell Puella Magi Madoka Magica to the uninitiated whose experience with anime is from Adult Swim showings on Cartoon Network.
“Devil’s Game” is the best Puella Magi Madoka Magica AMV I’ve seen, so far, hand’s down.
