[Closed] Now Playing XVIII

Opening chorus on Deep Sea Ranch, bittersweet emotion on Empty Bucket and Tears of Sosuke, cheerful and adventurous Little Sisters, tongue-in-cheek Wagner parody Flight of Ponyo, the beautiful finale Song of Praise for Mother and the Sea, and simple but unforgettable Ponyo theme.... none of them grabbed your attention?


Maybe I'm too hyped about this score. But I couldn't help doing so... because I'd been longing for Miyazaki and Hisaishi's return to this genre, where they presented subtle emotions of children with a simple story long time ago, on My Neighbor Totoro. Sadly Miyazaki failed to do that on Ponyo. But Hisaishi succeed, perhaps better than in Totoro.


NP: PONYO!

NP: My Neighbor Totoro - Joe Hisaishi

Did I say Ponyo is better than this? I take it back... even she can't surpass this beloved monsters...
(But Ponyo is more complex musically, as I said on other thread.)

Great score, great songs, I love you Totoro! (I should have brought my old Totoro plushies from my parants home! )

When listening to the Cylops cues one can only marvel at Herrmann's ability to nail a specific sound that totally describes a character or moment.

No one, and I mean NO ONE has ever, before or since, written monster music as good as Herrmann.

NP: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -Alexandre Desplat

Like it or not you have to admit that this one is definitely a curiosity... pardon the pun. I wanted to give it another spin to see if I could connect with the music this time... and you know what made the difference... volume. While most of the time we talk about turning up the volume on our favorite epic scores when listening to them, but with this score you really need to hear every nuance. It's not the most original score out there but there is a lot that it does offer and I'm very interested to hear it in context this weekend to make my final judgment. I have 9 out of 10 scores on my Top 10 list for 2008 and there is a spot for Benjamin Button if it does its job in the film. I will tell you this, the latter half of the album is much stronger than the first.

Anyway, this a rare example where more listens are needed to get into the score. I often mention that as a weakness in a film score but this time I will put the blame square on myself for not really giving the attention the score deserved during my first few listens.

-Erik-

That´s exactly why the score works so good in the film. It is never, never mixed too loud or over the top. That would have been the easy way, but they took exactly the opposite, and IMO they succeeded. The fact that you have to actually listen to the music (at least for us score geeks) makes the experieince of watching the (superb) film even better
I have not heard it out of the movie, but I´m sure I´m gonna appreciate it more than if I had listened it before.

Agree! Damn! It's been too long since I played this.

NP : Live Free or Die Hard | Copter Chase - Marco Beltrami

My favorite track from the album. It typifies what I love the most about Marco's action styling - the mix of rhythmic, interplay of percussion and brass and strings. Very enjoyable.

I thought that the first track, Out of Bullets (I think), did a great job of segueing from the unique Kamen sound to the Beltrami style.

If you need a wake up call the opening bars of that song is it!

BA BAAAA WAH WAH WAH WAHHHHH

I love this score. Young's written some fine stuff since (I love An Unfinished Life) but probably nothing that tops this.

Afrika Wataru Hokoyama

I want more, it's too short. It's too good to be this short!

Let the Right One In - Johan Soderqvist

I love the opening cue - such fine music.

Dial-an-Emotion? Are you sure that isn't your brain interpreting scenes from the film in a cliched fashion and then inferring that the music is party to it? The music is trying steer as well as clear of THE NOTEBOOK or even tinkling sensitive FORREST GUMP-type scoring (now THAT's Dial-an-Emotion in the context of the film). In a film of remarkable artistry (even if Ben Button isn't always the story it could have been), Desplat's score is well up there with the best of it for me.

NP: Appaloosa (Beal)

This score has just ripped up near the top of my scores of the decade list (just behind Signs) and is one of my very favorite scores of all time! This is up there with some of the most underrated scores of the decade along with Christopher Gordon's On The Beach. If you don't own Pavilion of Women shame on you. You can find it used on Amazon for under $8. Get it while you can. You will not be disappointed.

-Erik-

NP: Soldier - Joel McNeely

McNeely channels Jerry Goldsmith to compose one of the best Goldsmith scores not composed by Goldsmith. What a mean, raw, muscular and inventive score. McNeely was coming up with ideas that Don Davis was only dreaming about when he wrote his score to The Matrix two years later. And Shawn Murphy's mix is probably his most aggresive and tight sounding in recent memory. Awesome stuff! And the 5 previously unreleased tracks from McNeely's own web site are a Godsend. "A Whole Lotta Brass" and "End Credit" should have been included on the commercial album!

-Erik-