Welcome to Gaia! ::

I posted this yesterday in the cinema forum and... well, I'll just let one of you good folk hazard a guess as to how many responses it got.

Take your time.

*goes and nukes a pot pie

*comes back, steps in a ferret doo

Yeap, zero. Realizing that I maybe should have used --- or one of those goddamn Harry Potter flicks as an exhibit, I walk away from the forum with my eroded sense of style firmly tucked under my left arm, like a coroner carrying a decapitated head to a very nervous undertaker.

I'm talking here about style, pomp, charm, dynamism. I'm talking about the art of The Hook, which is achieved in movies typically through a well-planned and, most importantly, eye-catching opener. You know, the title sequence? And nobody had this more throughly understood and broken down than a guy named Pablo Ferro.

If you've seen L.A. Confidential or To Die For, then you've been exposed to his work. If however you do recognize the name, then you've probably seen his most famous craft, the introduction to Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb which featured a font style that was so well-known that he reused it for both The Addams Family and Men in Black.

My favorite, however, are the opening credits to Peter Yates's Bullitt. I don't think Ferro could have crammed more style and narrative panache onto those reels without... well, okay, I can't think of how he'd be able to do it, period. It's very mod-style, with all sorts of wide-angle showdowns and silhouettes, complimented by the creeping swagger of a lounge riff courtesy of Lilo Schifrin, who's current lack of output seems to add a defining footnote to the peristaltic condition of movies today.

Dodge This One, Baby.

Aside: Dig the sweet '68 El Camino at around TC 2:36. A chariot fit for Zeus (I know this guy named Zeus, absolute trailer merkin with a neck as red as Dracula's toilet, he has. Sports a mullet fit for a king... of ********.)

That's cool, stay busy. Keeps your mind from imploding. Until then, I'll keep digging up more openers.

I think the lack of response I've gotten is because everyone in that forum was more interested in tugging themselves over Supernatural and casting stones at the damnable heathens that went and saw The Golden Compass (I would have been one of their potential targets, had I the money to see it). I doubt that anyone in that forum wouldn't care or even know who Pablo Ferro was. Or Steve McQueen for that matter.

Kyle Cooper is a more recent practitioner of this art and has not only worked on numerous movies, but also a the last two games in the Metal Gear series. While not as varied or stylized as Ferro's, his works are much more recognizable. Spider Man, Seven (I refuse to spell it with a numeral in the middle, that's just grandstanding bullshit),The Mummy and Dawn of the Dead, I'm sure you've heard of those.

(Okay, I give up. I can't find any footage of this guy's stuff online but don't let that stop you from giving it a shot, if you have a few hours. Luck!)