I love good advertising. This is cute and well worth a look.
Western Australia certainly has an incredible symphony orchestra. I’ve experienced the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in various settings and they never fail to impress.
I’ve seen them supporting acts like Human Nature and Glen Campbell through to playing for the West Australian Ballet and much more. They’re always superb.
Tonight was certainly no exception. Our family headed to the Perth Concert Hall for an amazing musical experience as guests of the orchestra.
The West Australian Symphony Orchestra launched the audience on a journey to infinity and beyond with Space Classics.
They played classics such as Holst’s The Planets and the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as John Williams’ music from Superman, the Thunderbirds theme, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Conductor and presenter Anthony Inglis was superb with a wonderful mix of music and humour. I only wish that he was spending more time in Perth. I would have loved the opportunity to interview him on my morning radio programme.
I loved the mix of familiar movie music with some more unknown music (at least to me it was) like three movements from Holst’s The Planet’s Suite. One interesting side note was that while I was listening to Holst’s Jupiter from The Planets, I recognised part of the music. I had to think for a few seconds but then it hit me; it was Daddy Cool’s song Make Your Stash. (Ross Wilson was obviously influenced by Holst. Who would have guessed?)
I don’t know if tickets are still available for the Saturday night concert but if there are any left and in in Perth, grab some and get there.
Late last week I spoke with Marshall McGuire, Executive Manager, Artistic Planning with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra during my morning radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM about the concerts. Click the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post to hear more about Space Classics and other concerts coming up with WASO.
[audio:http://mpegmedia.sonshinefm.ws/feeds/MOR070510_1303.mp3]
While the movie world is trumpetting Avatar as the highest grossing movie of all time, many are missing the fact that it was actually beaten at the box office by a 1961 animated Disney classic about dalmations.
It also still lags behind movies like Star Wars, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Sting, The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago.
Of course it all depends on what you’re using to determine the biggest movies of all time. Avatar certainly is the highest grossing movie of all time. That means it’s taken the most money of any movie ever produced but it’s only at number 26 (so far) as far as tickets sold. I have no doubt that it will continue to climb but it may never even reach the top ten.
The Hollywood Reporter has pulished an article titled Why ‘Avatar’ is actually the 26th biggest movie. It lists the biggest movies by ticket sales rather than income.
There are so many factors that will have an effect on the statistics such as price of tickets over the years, the introduction of things like television, video, DVD, Blu-ray, internet and a range of other entertainment alternatives. I suppose it’s easier to simply quote the dollar amounts that a movie is making.
So which movie has put the most backsides on seats at the cinema? It’s still the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind, selling 202,044,600 tickets.
Just for the record, here are the top 20 movies in order of tickets sold.
1 “Gone With the Wind” (1939) 202,044,600
2 “Star Wars” (1977) 178,119,600
3 “The Sound of Music” (1965) 142,415,400
4 “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) 141,854,300
5 “The Ten Commandments” (1956) 131,000,000
6 “Titanic” (1997) 128,345,900
7 “Jaws” (1975) 128,078,800
8 “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) 124,135,500
9 “The Exorcist” (1973) 110,568,700
10 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) 109,000,000
11 “101 Dalmatians” (1961) 99,917,300
12 “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) 98,180,600
13 “Ben-Hur” (1959) 98,000,000
14 “Return of the Jedi” (1983) 94,059,400
15 “The Sting” (1973) 89,142,900
16 “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) 88,141,900
17 “Jurassic Park” (1993) 86,205,800
18 “The Graduate” (1967) 85,571,400
19 “Star Wars: Episode I” (1999) 84,825,800
20 “Fantasia” (1941) 83,043,500