The Exorcist
The Godfather
All done in 5 minutes. Yup.
Well said, tdn. One of my favorite examples is The Rocketeer… I really disliked the film, but the score is one of my favorites. And for the reverse, while I quite enjoyed most of Attack of the Clones (which surprised me as much as anyone), I think the score for it is one of Williams’ worst ever.
I think that happens far too often… Horner is an excellent composer in his own right (probably my personal favorite), but I think that a composer’s skill gets eclipsed when there is a “popular” song on the soundtrack. It’s unfortunate, really, when as my wife pointed out (and I agreed completely), film score composers could be considered as modern versions of the classical composers of previous centuries.
I like your list of favorite scores, tdn, especially Star Trek II and Unbreakable.
Some of my personal favorites…
Thomas Newman - Pay it Forward, In the Bedroom, The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty
Hans Zimmer - Gladiator, Green Card, Black Rain
James Horner - Sneakers, Thunderheart, Name of the Rose, The Spitfire Grill
For those who have “didn’t know” these movies had soundtracks, check out the “soundtrack” section of your local Wherehouse or Tower. You might be surprised… there’s some great music there, and a lot of it.
Maybe this topic should be moved to “Cafe Society” after all.
Thomas Newman - Pay it Forward, In the Bedroom, The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty
American Beauty? I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember that one.
Pay it Forward? Brilliant. It gave the film such a rich texture. 'Specially that really percussive canonical bit.
Shawshank? And Bedroom? Same composer? Wow. I just saw In the Bedroom last week, and kept thinking “This sounds a lot like Shawshank.”
Personally, I thought ItB was a pretty sucky film. YMMV. But the score was wonderful.
And who is Thomas Newman? He’s new on my radar. Any relation to Randy and Alfred?
Alfred’s son, Randy’s cousin.
I like your mention of the James Newton Howard scores for Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Signs may be the best of the three yet for his collaberations with Shyamalan.
Personally, I found the LOTR soundtrack enchanting. There were some questionable bits (most notably the fanfare when Elrond announces the Fellowship of the Ring), but I thought it was quite well done overall. The Hobbiton theme, for example, just worked beautifully. Was it the best of all time? Probably not, but it was a recent success with a lot of online support. I hope that doesn’t make me a “LOTR fan-boy”. I’m not even a boy.
I like movie scores from fantasies and historical epics. I thought that Braveheart certainly should have scored higher on the list, and I wished that a lot of others should have made it (Willow, for example – the opening theme is just amazing! And yes, the omission of Last of the Mohicans is a crime). I won’t lie – I am a Tolkien fan, and I thought that the first film was well done, though of course I would have done some things differently.
But Christ, get over yourself. Have you listened to some of the scores? Mask of “Fucking” Zorro was a shitty movie, but the score is done by James Horner and is actually quite good. Titanic was a lame movie, but the score was excellent. Jurassic Park was a fun movie with little redeeming artistic value, but the score was outstandingly done.
But, gee, I guess because I took two minutes writing this post, I’m a jerk because I could have been working at a soup kitchen during that time. Take the beam out of your own eye, asshole. How long do you spend online each day?
I honestly don’t know! laughs He’s not completely new to the game, but he’s new compared to vets like Horner or Goldsmith.
Newman also scored Scent of a Woman (which was pretty good, though obviously early work), and Meet Joe Black (another favorite I forgot to mention), and more recently Road to Perdition, which I have not heard or seen yet. And if you’ve seen the Fox show “Boston Public,” he composed the title music for that.
Anyway, I’ve found his scores to be quite compelling. I love his use of strings, and his willingness to try different instruments for a unique effect. If you liked Pay it Forward for that, then try American Beauty… it’s got some really great bits. Be sure to get the score, though, not the compilation album.
I admire his music for its richness… it’s dramatic, but seldom overdone.
Oh, and one other favorite I didn’t mention… though many of Danny Elfman’s scores sound alike, he does branch out now and again. His music for Good Will Hunting (hard to find, but worth the effort) and Dolores Claiborne are a couple of his real gems.
I’ll admit that LOTR is far from the best, heck it’s not even Shore’s best (Silence of the Lambs and Crash are both better), but I still found it quite enjoyable and a couple of its themes were bouncing around in my brain for days after viewing the DVD.
Many of the others listed deserve the mention, but WTF is with all the John Williams nominations? I’ve always thought he was over-rated and, in particular, I found Harry Potter to be overbearing, manipulative and downright annoying.
Actually, the fact that Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota and Jerry Goldsmith are missing completely annoys me more than the inclusion of LOTR
Maybe not from the poll in the OP, but I mentioned films by Herrmann and Goldsmith in my little list above.
I would have mentioned Goldsmith by name, but his score for Star Trek V grates on my nerves like sandpaper on my brain. The out of tune blasting English horn was too much.
And I don’t think anyone mentioned Elmer Bernstein yet.
No one’s mentioned it yet, but wasn’t On the Waterfront supposed to have the worst score ever?
Question: I detect sarcasm in this post, but I can’t tell where it is. I never saw Godfather, so I don’t know.
But did Exorcist even have a score? Last time I saw it (maybe a year ago) I sort of remember being surprised that there was no music at all. Except of course for Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, repeated ad infinitum.
In which case it really was scored in 5 minutes.
Am I mistaken?
Remove it from your favourites immediately!
The Sun is a British tabloid newspaper owned by that nice Rupert Murdoch. It’s usually full of bigoted, xenophobic right-wing polemic and enough righteous little Englander indignation and gratuitous soft-porn to satisfy the evolutionarily-challenged parts of the country. The football coverage is decent, but it’s not a newspaper known for its objectivity or accuracy (and are you surprised, it being a Murdoch rag?).
The large-breasted nymphette (36F, if you’re really interested) is one Kerry McFadden, formerly Kerry Katona, a topless model (from The Sun, no less) turned girl band singer, who left Atomic Kitten as they started to do well in the charts to marry one Mr McFadden from an Irish boy-band. Just a little useless information for you there.
Do not believe the spin anyone places on anything in that rag.
Remove it from your favourites immediately!
The Sun is a British tabloid newspaper owned by that nice Rupert Murdoch. It’s usually full of bigoted, xenophobic right-wing polemic and enough righteous little Englander indignation and gratuitous soft-porn to satisfy the evolutionarily-challenged parts of the country. The football coverage is decent, but it’s not a newspaper known for its objectivity or accuracy (and are you surprised, it being a Murdoch rag?).
The large-breasted nymphette (36F, if you’re really interested) is one Kerry McFadden, formerly Kerry Katona, a topless model (from The Sun, no less) turned girl band singer, who left Atomic Kitten as they started to do well in the charts to marry one Mr McFadden from an Irish boy-band. Just a little useless information for you there.
Do not believe the spin anyone places on anything in that rag.
Personally, I liked the FOTR soundtrack.
So, kindly eat out my asshole and call it candy, you smattering of cum-laden hobbit vomit.
Well, excuuuuuuse me, people, for paying more attention to the movie itself than to its sound track… :rolleyes: Great, now I’ve pissed off all the music majors, they’re gonna come after me with their flute cases… 
Crusoe: You say “bigoted, xenophobic right-wing polemic, righteous little Englander indignation, and gratuitous soft-porn” like it’s a bad thing.
Okay, I’ll put it in “Mom’s WEIRD Stuff” then…
Goodness, I wasn’t aware that The Onion had gone into such a decline! Was Jim Anchower caught plagarizing internet spam?
Yea, this from a guy who names himself after aliens from either TOS or Simpsons depending…
BTW, Michael Nyman’s “The Heart Seeks Pleasure First” from The Piano is one of my favourite classical pieces, period.
Your first mistake is never seeing The Godfather, and your second is assuming that Tubular Bells was composed in 5 minutes. Does that help? 
Oh, and agreed with matt on Michael Nyman. The score for The Piano is breathtaking.
Whoah. Someone’s in for a surprise if they ever see a print copy of the “newspaper” then.
Hint: See the link at the top that says “Page 3”? If you’re not at work then click on it.
Duck Duck Goose, I must just correct you on an common and incorrect stereotype you have perpetrated regarding English propriety - something that is based on some.
We English have way more prurience in our mainstream media than you chaps over in Illinois. The paper version of The Sun invariably has a topless woman on page 3 of the paper (and thesun.co.uk has a sister site that displays these ladies - the link is on the lower-left-hand side of the page you viewed). Other tabloids, notably The Sport, are little more than daily soft-porn rags. We also have nudity on network channels (after 9pm) - e.g. Six Feet Under is shown unexpurgated on our national terrestrial Channel 4, beginning at 10pm. WRT general media, we’re a lot filthier than you Americans, though you beat us hands-down on private stuff.
I’m not saying this is a good thing, but it is true.
Oh yeah, what amanset said… How come I didn’t see that post before?
The end of that sentence should read: “something that is based on some Hollywood directors’ preconceptions and misconceptions, no doubt.”