THOMAS NEWMAN

I loved the City of Prague compilation CD because this way I have many essential Thomas Newman tracks without having to be annoyed by all those under-one-minute bit of tracks usually on his CDs

Am I the only one who finds an intense difficulty truly enjoying Thomas' style? He's by far my least favourite of the whole Newman clan, with Alfred being my #1.

I mean I never have quit on him: I have a near-complete collection of his works, so I'm not talking through lack of exposition to his style, I just can't seem to sink my teeth into it. Most of his scores sound so similar to me... I can usually tell I'm listening to a Tom Newman score within the first 3.4 seconds. Whereas sticking to the same style works for me for other composers (Horner and Rozsa), it somehow doesn't for him, in my own personal taste.

But I'm really glad I never quit on him, because I find his recent score for "The Good German" to be truly fascinating. THAT one I really like. With that score firmly in mind, maybe I can start revisiting Shawshank or Horse Whisperer and appreciate them better, dunno...

I don't have Wall-E yet, I'm eager to see if I'll like it better than Nemo.
J-F

I doubt you will Nemo is a more coherent listening experience.

I think it's easy to understand why someone wouldn't like Thomas Newman's style, it's very idiosyncratic after all. Personally I think he's wonderful, creating a body of work which will surely end up comparable to any film composer's.

On the other hand, his brother belongs in that mid-range bunch who are professional and highly-competent, but don't bring anything particularly unique. All of my own favourite film composers have a truly distinctive personal style, which you could say about Thomas but would struggle to say about David. I know you can recognise his music as being his own, but I don't see that he brings anything to a score that someone like Silvestri or Debney wouldn't.

He is certainly one of the best in the last 15 years. I love his Road to Perdition.
Thomas

We actually agree on that point. David: produces good stuff that everyone can enjoy, but somewhat generic. Thomas: EXTREMELY unique, however, not for everyone. I struggle to find coherence throughout his scores. Too many short cues. Too little variations on themes. He seems married to pizzicato strings. But like I said, he does have a unique stamp, and he elevates films with the modern quirkiness of American Beauty like no other.

J-F

Nemo is more coherent?? Wow... That's gotta be pretty dang incoherent. Are we talking like Morricone's "Rampage" score here? Well, I suppose it doesn't help that I have a 70+ mins version of Nemo, which adds even more filler and dead air between the truly actual lovely moments. A complete score release isn't necessarily better... Someone should tell that to Bruce Broughton, too.

J-F

http://www.vantageguilds.com/ParamountV … ARY%20ROAD

Keep clicking "Score" while you press F5 to refresh the page, and there you can listen to the complete tracks to all the cues. Eventually. For some reason they are not working, bu the tracklist is there with timings.

How did you find out about this?

Thanks, first off.

I actually did discover that myself, but only accidentally. I was going to only bring it to the forum after it started working. It's been like several weeks and no update.

Hurry up vantage people. :D

Some thoughts on... Revolutionary Road (Thomas Newman)

This puts Newman back in fairly familiar territory... much like Cinderella Man felt very familiar back in 2004. Unlike that score, which returned to the glow of his Shawshank-style efforts in perhaps an overly-familiar way, this one is very much in the camp of his understated dramatic scores. The melodies are subtle and recognisably his. Strings and piano are the dominant acoustic elements - frequently trading off in patterns of piano motifs against the warm glow of string accompaniment. Those who don't like the short track madness of Wall-E and Nemo will love this - there are only 17 tracks, and 3 of them run longer than five minutes. (One is nearly ten minutes long - 'Late April'.) There's no real sense of the orchestrational style of the period (unlike in say The Good German), which tells me that Sam Mendes wants to keep his film feeling fairly modern. (I'm not sure how well that can work from a storytelling point of view, but never mind that.)

Highlights for me are the extended meditative piece 'Late April' (which some will find boring, but it slowly gathers strength in a very compelling way - I think it will be a powerful moment in the film when it turns around for the better), the ambiguous darker piece 'Beach Talk'. I think between those tracks and 'End Credits' and 'End Titles' (yes, two separate tracks), you cover pretty much most of what the score has to offer.

I don't think this score is as interesting as it could have been (even if it is another suburban drama for Newman, he makes some more interesting than others, like Little Children), and I think I like Wall-E better. But I'm always reluctant to judge a Newman score on first listen. They change a lot from the first listen to the third or fourth, and then again in the film.

I haven't seen the movie, and I probably won't be able to for a while yet. Those sorts of films don't tend to come out in Australia until the new year.

Does anyone know how to listen to the score please?

Thanks Michael for the review. I'm really looking forward to both the movie and score.

My take on REVOLUTIONARY ROAD:

http://www.moviemusicuk.us/revolutionaryroadcd.htm

once again we saw Wall-E this weekend. Such a wonderful movie, but I noticed even more how enchanting Thomas Newman's score is inside the movie, it feels like outside of the movie it loses half the charm

I must listen to it again, knowing now what it all represents, and then I can honestly say if this is correct or not