maybe my fave part of movies

The music.

Sure, there are a million great lines and quotes from movie that spring to mind, and insanely cool visuals, and thrilling sequences and characters and plotlines.

But in the same way that a vague whiff of certain scents is enough to send me tumbling headlong down a rabbit hole of sense memory, so are certain movie themes and musical motifs...

... the screaming trumpets in the "Truck Sequence" in RAIDERS...

... the first blare of the horns as the sun peeks over the horizon in LAWRENCE...

... the dissonant string bustling past one another in NORTH BY NORTHWEST...

... the cooler than cool bouncy theme from pretty much any '60s-era James Bond movie...

... the hammering drums of the opening to CONAN...

... the oddly sweet and innocent tinkling piano line which opens ROCKETEER...

All it takes is a few notes from any of hundreds of movie moments and themes and suddenly an entire story-world expands and takes over, and I'm left reminded of just how great 110 minutes alone in a dark theater can be.

A few times (again) in recent weeks I've had opportunity to visit with old friends in live face to face reunions, and in almost every meeting there comes that moment where they look at me and say "why movies? why not novels? Why not write a book?"

I usually fumble with all sorts of reasons and stabs at explanation, but let's be honest: a big part of the reason is because no book yet written has ever begun like STAR WARS did for me in 1977, with an explosion of brass and wind that raised every hair on my body, pulled a smile so wide it hurt, and made me immediately say "now THIS... this is gonna kick ass...."
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