Day 2, 3 & 4- Thoughts on Film and Wascally Wabbits

The role that classical music has played in my life up until now has been to score films, cartoons and television (shows/ads). At times, I have clearly remembered these snippets of music but never sought them out.
I hope to extract the music like Rambo would some do-gooder missionaries and take it somewhere safe and far from Elmer Fudd. Ok, I am mixing my examples a bit.
My father loves Disney's Fantasia. Walt Disney wanted to bring the kids some classical music and sell some tickets to their parents as well. It was a good idea and mostly became famous for the Sorcerer's Apprentice. To me, it was and is a wondrous example of film and music together but in my mind there is still none greater than Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Now don't think I want to go out and banish John Williams. He has taken orchestral music to places few composers could have, a truly mass audience. I love what he and other composers do to create a rich world in film (and rarely, TV). But for me, I need to be able to hear the music and not see the closing credits to Rocky.

Last night I saw An Education, in which a young cellist becomes entwined in an affair with an older man. They go to see a performance of Ravel and I thought "Ah Ha, an opportunity to learn!" So I spent some time with Maurice Ravel. I found a beautiful performance of A.B. Michelangeli playing the Adagio of Ravel's Piano Concerto.
I let Pandora dance me through some things as well. Pandora is a free service on the web (as long as you listen less than 40hrs per month) that allows you to name a song or artist or several of each and then it builds you a "station" of music. It gave me Debussy (very recognizable from Film), Prokofiev and Shostakovich to start with. I think with Pandora you get a variety and if you use it's functions well, get a strong grouping of music.
So, that is a long winded way of saying I hope to find inspiration in life for new avenues to approach Classical music...I will let you know how it goes.