Weekend Show - John Williams and the Music of the Movies

Nerd Alert! I went to the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday night to see John Williams conduct music from famous movies including music he composed. I thought the entire show was going to be his music because he's pretty much composed every movie ever, but that was not the case. He and the LA Phil played quite a few movies that weren't John Williams movies, such as Sunset Blvd, which I've never seen, but am now very interested. The movie is about a silent film actress whose career is no longer and desperately wants it back. She meets a man and kills him for whatever reason and all the attention she gets from the police makes her believe her career is back. Very interesting. They also played a tribute to Audrey Hepburn, which was amazing. The main violinist played the song from Sabrina while clips of Audrey Hepburn played. Sigh. She's so amazing. Screw you Emma Thompson for not liking her!

I find Audrey Hepburn fantastically
twee ... Twee is whimsy without wit. It is mimsy-mumsy sweetness without
any kind of bite. And that's not for me. She can't sing and she can't
...really act, I'm afraid. I'm sure she was a delightful woman — andperhaps if I had known her I would have enjoyed her acting more, but I
don't and I didn't, so that's all there is to it really.

Anyway, I digress. I'm just bitter. Another movie they played the music from was Psycho and even after all these years, that movie is still incredibly creepy. The fact that Norman Bates watches the chick through the peep hole he's carved out in his room and the fact that he keeps him mom's skeleton locked up. Creepy! Of course, they played the theme from Indiana Jones and Jaws. It made me realize that I've never seen Jaws all the way through. There are famous scenes that I know, but I've never actually watched the movie in its entirety. I need to add that one to my list as well.

This is where the nerd alert hits. We all know John Williams did the theme for Star Wars and that was the finale of the show. As we sat waiting for the show to start, we saw a bunch of people walking around with their lightsabers in their ridiculous Jesus robes and we thought nothing of it, but we finally realize the severity of the situation when the Star Wars theme began to play. Every single person raised their lightsaber. At that point I wasn't sure if my IQ went sky high or dropped a bunch of points. Even John Williams was shocked to see all the lightsabers. He turned around to face the audience at one point and had a look of utter shock on his face. Then, he played the Darth Vader theme and all the lightsabers were moving in time. The group I was with was probably the coolest group there. We were just surrounded by uber nerds. They all made noise too. People would turn them on and they would make the lightsaber noise. Seriously ridiculous. Funny, but ridiculous.

The show was entertaining and good, but I was hoping the entire show would be John Williams music. I was hoping for Jurassic Park and Harry Potter and what not. I was happy with that I got, don't get me wrong, but John Williams has done some amazing stuff. One person from my group over heard someone saying they thought the entire show was going to be Star Wars music. Can you imagine? I don't think I would have gone to that show....

Here are some pictures we took in case no one believed us. They're a little dark, but all those tiny lights in the audience are lightsabers.