Stephen and I went to go see Gangs of New York today. The movie was amazing, and as much as this shames me for once Leo Dicaprio did not look boyish, and was actually handsome. hehe. By far though, one of the best things about the movie was Daniel Day Lewis. My God, he’s such an actor. I told Stephen that he deserves to win the Oscar. He’s that good. I’d see the movie again just to see him act. For some reason his movies always have that effect on me.
My only gripe with the film was with the music. Some of it was outstanding, but there were a series of notes that almost had me humming the LOTR theme. That’s when I knew Howard Shore was responsible for the score. Why can’t conductor’s escape this trap they set for themselves? Seriously, many of the notes seemed to come straight from the LOTR score. It’s like the James Horner curse. You can tell he’s composed a score because there never fails to be a small theme taken straight from Titanic or even Legends of the Fall. It’s annoying in the way a John Woo movie can annoy you after he’s used the dove trick for the nth time! It looks great in Face/Off but it’s downright laughable in Mission Impossible 2.
I guess I’m just peeved that the score didn’t end up being as good as it seemed to be.
The rest of the movie was fine, and the ending shots were truely touching. It was about a minute’s worth of scenes of New York during each time period up until pre 9/11. I was hoping the Twin Towers would make an appearance and they did. Stephen and I thought the next shot would be present day New York, but the movie ended with the towers and I’m glad.