Bach, St. Matthew Passion, opening:

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I just got through watching John Boorman’s 1981 film Excalibur (thank you Netflix). What a weird-ass movie. Not least because you get to see young Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart (already bald), Gabriel Byrne, and Ciaran Hinds, most of whom were cast, according to IMDB, because Boorman wanted relative unknowns, so that people would focus on the movie instead of the actors. It probably worked well at the time, but it’s pretty hard for me to think anything other than “That’s academy-award-winner Helen Mirren wearing a sheet-metal bra! Patrick Stewart TOTALLY just hit that guy with an ax!” and so on. Video after the jump… more »

So let’s talk about the music. As you probably know, the score is by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood (the musical equivalent of stunt casting) and it’s gotten a lot of press for that reason alone. But Greenwood has serious chops – this is one of the best scores I’ve heard in years. I’m sure it would have gotten an Oscar nomination, if the Academy hadn’t judged the score ineligible (apparently because Greenwood reused sections of a preexisting composition that he’d written for the BBC in 2004). A lot of my fellow film music nerds are pissed off about this, but I don’t particularly care… Greenwood doesn’t need the money, fame, or validation, and the score itself has received plenty of media attention already… more »