Movie/TV/Game Scores Through The Ages - Alan's Personal Favourites

there just doesn't seem to be as many posters anymore

Anyway, a very interesting list Alan, I'll give my feedback tomorrow.

Alan - Thank you for bringing this score to the forefront. I had never heard of it until I read your review and after hearing some samples of the score on YouTube I can't wait to download this one from iTunes. It's the quintessential Erik Woods film score!

-Erik-

As usual, Alan, most of the scores you mentioned are unfamiliar to me, and you did not mention most of my favorites from the year. This is precisely the reason why threads like this are helpful.

THE RETURN OF THE KING is the most impressive score of the year for me. It's my favorite of the LOTR scores, and that's saying something. They're all great, and this one is the best of bunch (for me).

I really enjoy Frizell's GODS AND GENERALS. So much of that album is so good. This was a recent discovery for me and one of those discoveries that was so pleasantly suprising that I was reminded why I love film music.

Despite the (over)reliance on just one theme, I quite enjoy Gregson-Williams's SINBAD score. It's swashbuckling fun throughout.

I also really enjoy Horner's THE MISSING. Sure there are some tracks that I can live without. So I don't play those! And what I'm left with is a really solid 50 min. album. I think the last four tracks are particularly good.

Powell's PAYCHECK is a significant score, and contains one of the best pieces of music he has ever written.

Elfman's BIG FISH has some really fine moments in it. It's probably my least favorite of the scores I'm mentioning, but it has some really beautiful stuff.

My favorite score of the year, however is Armstrong's LOVE, ACTUALLY. I have a hard time giving top honors to it because it's so short, but it's my favorite, so there you go. It's just so happy, so alive, and those last two score cues are just bursting with thematic grandeur. I can understand how others might see this score as an insignificant one, but I really love it and would buy a proper score release in a heartbeat.

OK, FSM seems to be back up for the moment.

My honourable mentions for 2003 are BIG FISH (Danny Elfman), S.W.A.T. (Elliot Goldenthal), THE LAST SAMURAI (Hans Zimmer), PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (Klaus Badelt/Hans Zimmer), THE CORE (Christopher Young), GOOD BYE LENIN! (Yann Tiersen), HULK (Danny Elfman), KILL BILL, VOL. 1 (Various), THE MATRIX RELOADED & REVOLUTIONS (Don Davis) and MONSTER (BT).

But I have to be awfully predictable and choose:

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (Howard Shore)

You're correct I fear. My mono thread got one response from Alan.
Tom

The usual contributors are pure awesomeness though, and count for 10 normal contributors each. So if you do the math think of it as about 80 normal contributors.

Anyway, it's more to do with the way threads are arranged here on MT. When a person who hasn't followed the thread from the beginning sees a thread with 1752 posts, it can be a little intimidating. Also, people tend to follow threads depending on how it begins. If they're not interested in Golden Age scores, they'll tend to ignore it.

I like the MT system, but it does have its drawbacks.

Peter

Mine is predictable.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS : THE RETURN OF THE KING

With a special mention for Newman's Angels In America.

Thanks Martijn for the comments. Your top 2 have some cracking tracks on them.

He did not, though I don't really like that score (and, actually, that composer, he'd be amazing if his pieces weren't so bitty and sounded as if the music editors didn't edit the album properly).

Actually hardly anything, with all my experience of 16 years of listening to film music (yes, that much time), Polish composers never really grabbed my interest. I own Ogniem i mieczem (with the companion album, which is not so interesting) from Debski, I own Kilar's Pan Tadeusz (I used to own The Ninth Gate, but my primary school music teacher borrowed it from me and never gave it back), two Michal Lorenc score that I bought recently, another score for a fantasy film called The Witcher (based on classical Polish fantasy novel, tried the movie, God-awful, but the games seem to make a huge business outside of the country). And that's all I own from my country.

It's funny but I have titles that have been mentioned by people for 2003 - The Missing & The Legend of Butch and Sundance - as 2004 titles.

2004 - Steamboy - Steve Jablonsky

This year is a strong year in my book for more "mainstream" films/composers with Marco Beltrami in particular having a good year (more of that in a moment). But, 2004 is the year that Steve Jablonsky reached the height of his career (in its entirety or so far is still unknown). For me, Steamboy is a rip-roaring score and an exciting album that has very little in the way of slack moments. There's beautiful themes right from the outset - "Manchester 1866" - as well as exhausting action scoring ("The Chase") all in the first two cues! What I particularly like with this score is the way that Jablonsky builds the tension and excitement across the entire length of several of his tracks - "Ray's Dilemma" & "Launch!". "Collapse and Rescue", running to over 8 minutes is a huge track. There is maybe more than a hint of MediaVentures/Remote Control about this score but I don't find it over the top. A great score and one that consistently appears in my all-time top scores list.

Running a close second are a group of titles that, for me, contain a couple of my favourite Marco Beltrami scores: Hellboy and I, Robot. Both, but particularly Hellboy, highlight Beltrami's ability to write aggressive (and interesting) action scoring as well as slower and more emotionally charged material. Thomas Newman's quirky and at times heartbreakingly beautiful Lemony Snicket's - A Series of Unfortunate Events and Shigeru Umebayashi's House of Flying Daggers are another couple of highlights.

Mikael Carlsson's MovieScore Media label does a great job at highlighting several great scores from 2004: Michael Kamen's Back To Gaya, Gast Waltzing's George and The Dragon and Basil Poledouris' The Legend of Butch and Sundance (I am sticking with this being a 2004 title!) all showcase quality writing for films that, although not chosen as my top choice are very worthy scores to track down.

Foreign films are also well represented in my favourite scores list for 2004. The popular Les Choristes (Bruno Coulais) is a lovely score that features several beautiful vocal tracks (around which the rest of the score is placed), Kiril Dzajkovski's score for the Macedonian drama The Great Water with it's mix of ethereal vocals and pounding rhythms linger long after the score has finished and Etienne Perruchon's choral-heavy music for the French documentary Dogora: Ouvrons Les Yeux (set in Cambodia) is a powerful listen (though quite Russian in tone). And composer Majid Entezami mixes traditional Iranian music with more Western styled instrumentation in the war drama Duel, providing an interesting and, at times, exciting musical journey.

And a quick mention for Olivier Deriviere's score for the video game Obscure. I just love the creepy use of the human voice in this score.

Great thanks! That's just what I need. I shall listen to them all carefully.




I tend to go by imdb, because it goes into detail about release dates according to country, so it seems reliable. Anyway, it says The missing was first released in November 2003 in the US. It's true that it was 2004 in the UK, but I tend to go by the date it was first released no matter the country. The legend of Butch & Sundance was released in september 2006, so it seems you're both far off.

Peter

I have just looked at when I started this thread. I can't believe that it has been over 2 years since it began. I can see why some are keen to have it finished!

Not long now.

Well, it's no where near as good as Kalle Knutmortson's Hejsan allihopa or Frydenka Zbignorshephsky's Plimpa shinka.

Peter