Score This

[kjpepper]

So. Movie/TV themes/scores. Which are your favorites? Which do you think are the most musically interesting? The most well matched to their movies? Why? I'm going for a musical discussion as well as a movie one.

I was tempted to exclude everything in the John Williams oevre, as I fully expect most of you to immediately be all like "Star Wars! Imperial March! Yeah Baby!" But I'd like to see some other choices.

Honestly I think my favorites currently are as follows:

Danny Elfman's main title for Spiderman. Not only is that a breathtaking example of orchestra porn, it seamlessly switches between 2/4 and 6/8 time periodically through the piece that just keeps the ear and the brain busy.

Klaus Badelt's entire score for Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl. Especially the during the Moonlight Serenade sequence. Very grand, very spooky at times, very rousingly swashbuckling.

Mark Knopfler's score for The Princess Bride, much for the same reasons as the above, though it trades bombast to a lighter, simpler, more humorous tone in keeping with the story. My favorite bit is actually the bit entitled "Friends" played under Fezzik and Inigo's rhyming game. The play between the low brass and the guitar capture the spirit of the two so well.

The main title for The Terminator. Granted Brad Feidel is generally a two bit hack for movie scoring (note he only seems to have ever done James Cameron movies), but this one he did right. Somehow he managed to strike the right balance between synthesizer, orchestra and odd metallic sound effects for percussion to create a theme that sticks with you almost as much as Arnie saying "I'll be back."

What do you guys think?

[xposted to pvrewind]

Comments

[wrpigeek.livejournal.com]

Mark Knopfler is seriously the man. He did the soundtrack to Wag the Dog too.

I actually like the Harry Potter main theme (you know, the one that shows up in all the commercials). It has a nice mix of mysterious and quirky.

I also wish I could find some of the Serenity and Firefly music, with the western themes played on asian instruments.

[rhipowered.livejournal.com]

I concur with TPB and PotC.

And even though you said exclude John Williams...the score for Minority Report is fantastic. I didn't even realise it was John Williams until I saw the credits; it's weird and film noir and complex.

The Greg Edmonson track 'The Funeral' from Firefly is heartbreaking, as is Jay Chattaway's work for Star Trek: TNG's 'The Inner Light'. And speaking of Trek, Jerry Goldsmith's First Contact score conveys just the right amount of dread for the impending Borg. I also like David Newman's work on Serenity for its excellent following of Edmonson's style.

A Mighty Wind. O Brother, Where Art Thou? Enough said.

Maurice Jarre's classic theme from Witness. Michael Kamen's 'Logan and Rogue' track from X-Men. Toto's work on Lynch's Dune; Brian Tyler's work on Sci-Fi's Dune minis. I could go on and on, sadly.

[rhipowered.livejournal.com]

Also, to finally mention a woman, Rachel Portman's score for Chocolat.

Yann Tierson's Amelie is wicked.

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

rachel portman also did the score for Beloved, which was utterly amazing and creepy as hell.

Also, in terms of fabulous bits of baroque style orchestra porn, Thomas Newman's main title theme for 1994's Little Women. The trumpets!

[rhipowered.livejournal.com]

Do you have the latter on MP3? I can't find it on Soulseek, and I remember seeing that movie in the theaters.

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

not on MP3, but I DO have it on CD somewheres. check back with me tonight.

[morlock.livejournal.com]

i'll put this into the pvrewind comm too...

the entire soundtrack to garden state. its realyl well suited for the whole film, which in itself is simply awe inspiring.

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

the thing is... I was kinda looking more for original scores, not so much soundtracks, though I agree that the group of songs that accompanies Garden state are well suited for the film.

[morlock.livejournal.com]

well *fine* ;p

thats harder :-/

the matrix is good then.

[anzovin.livejournal.com]

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, by Ennio Morricone. The famous bududududa...wah, wah, wah intro is great, but the best part of the score is called The Ecstasy of Gold, and it goes over the last section, where Tuco is desperately searching the graveyard for which grave to dig in, before Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef show up to ruin his day. It elevates what is basically a simple little story about three vicious, remorseless, greedy people into some kind of weird epic of startling alienness. It keeps suggesting emotions for which we have no name. Maybe they're the emotions the Man With No Name feels. They certainly don't belong to us.

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (the animated, Dreamworks version), by Harry Gregson-Williams. This is such good adventure music, it's a shame it was written for such a tepid movie. It's really much better on its own. Aside from some really nice animation, the only other interesting feature of Sinbad is that the plot only makes sense if you assume that at least one of the main characters is gay. But that's a topic for another time.

Treasure Island (Charlton Heston version), by The Chieftans. I know a lot of people grew up with the Disney version of Treasure Island, but I never really understood it's appeal. That sleepy-eyed Long John Silver is kind of lethargic, and Jim was, well, he reminds me of young Anakin. No, I grew up with a different version, a version where Charlton Heston plays the most dangerous grisled old one-legged bad ass on the spanish main, and Jim is played by Christian Bale, who grew up to be Batman. Also, Christopher Lee as that terrible blind man, Pew, and Oliver Reed as a Billy Bones who looks like he could still reach up and strangle the life out of you, even with one foot in the grave. But even Blind Pew and Billy Bones, even Captain Flint himself, were afraid of Long John fucking Silver! Now that's a Treasure Island I can enjoy.

A huge part of the movie's appeal is it's score, which is full of Celtic
blood and thunder instead of adventure movie cliches. In particular, Blind Pew's theme has a pounding sense of urgency. The whole thing is tremendously exciting in a way that conventional movie music never could be. Getting a real traditional Scottish band to score it instead of a Hollywood composer was a stroke of genius.

The Third Man, by Anton Karres. According to legend, Carol Reed (who was, by the way, inexplicably male despite his name) heard a zither player named Anton Karres in a bar as shooting on the Third Man was wrapping up in Vienna, and immediately signed him to score the film. It sounds nothing like any other film score I've ever heard, but it provides a perfect cynical undertone to the image of Orson Welles, one eyebrows cocked ironically, emerging from the shadows of a Vienna doorway to explode all of Holly Martin's pretty illusions.

[austingoddess.livejournal.com]

Tangerine Dream, Blade Runner. Couldn't be sexier if it tried.
Most anydamnthing of Danny's, 'cause he was just born good.
Booker T and the MG's, Get Shorty.
Wojciech Kilar, Bram Stoker's Dracula. The love theme just rips your heart out with a fork and waltzes with it.
The lovely various artists chosen for the QAF music - excellent taste.

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

I know Tangerine Dream did the American release of Legend, but I thought Blade Runner was done by Vangelis? No matter, still an awesome score.

[austingoddess.livejournal.com]

Fuck, you're right - got them backwards. TD did Legend and The Keep, amongst others. I like TD's scores a lot, but Vangelis did that one. I was just into them both a lot in the 80's. :)

[extrajoker.livejournal.com]

"Star Wars! Imperial March! Yeah Baby!"

George joked that he wants to use this as the processional for our wedding ceremony....At least, I think he was joking....

Anyway.

John Corigliano's score for The Red Violin really captivated me. But then, I'm partial to brooding violin melodies. And Tan Dun's scores for Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon also moved me.

That's all I'll say on this subject; I don't know music enough to dissect it, say why exactly I like something. Have you ever considered submitting music critiques to a local paper? Even on an Op Ed sort of basis?

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

My senior year in high school there was a petition to graduate not with pomp and circumstance, but the last march from the original Star Wars, when Han Chewie and Luke were getting their medals. The board of directors would, of course, have no such nonsense playing in the UN General Assembly.

No, actially, I hadn't considered that; I figure only people bothering to read my stuff hear actually care about what I think about (insert topic x). Which is funny cause on the other hand I've wanted to start something similar to the old Can We Talk? issues from college and perhaps in a similar spirit to denonymous's Team Totally Awesome. morlock and I were thinking of calling it Soapbox Of Doom or something similiar - course I've got to get my butt in gear and start drawing in earnest the comic we've been planning for nearly a year. So... yeah. babbling. Stopping now.

Oh year, regarding your other comment, I would indeed still be interested in taking the "Succulent Wild Woman" poster off of your hands... I know a couple of spaces in our house it would be perfect for.

[(Anonymous)]

egads. Apologies to the goddesses of Spelling and Homophones for my blasphemy against them in the above comment. It must be getting late.

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

It is indeed getting late, for I just commented to my own journal anonymously. Right-o, getting off the Intarn3ts before I hurt either myself or someone else with a stray bit. @_@;