Now Playing XLI

Jerry Goldsmith - Lonely Are the Brave

Honoring the man's birthday by listening to this great early work. The theme is a masterpiece and the score resolves around the theme. What else can you want?

Yeah, it had a real effect on me - I too was on the verge of tears. Hard to explain (it's not really Grade A Kamen, though it's certainly very good) but it provoked an incredible emotional response in me. I love Goldsmith, Morricone, Williams, whatever, but I know that everyone loves them - with Kamen, it always felt more like he was "my" composer because I would rave about things he did that nobody else seemed to like. And this final score just felt like such a wonderful tribute to him - a great man as well as a terrific film composer.

Sometimes James your comments on film music and your response to it (and how you so eloquently you put those feelings into words) highlights to me how superficial my own comments, etc are on the subject!

While You Were Sleeping - Randy Edelman

One of his best scores, for the simple fact of how easy it is to listen to (even if it's not exactly high art).

It's very much 'mine' too -- my alltime favourite Zimmer, which is saying much because he's one of my alltime favourites, like he is to you. I know there are several others here who like it very much too. I discovered it on chance in the mid 90's, in a clearance sale for basically nothing. One of my best purchases ever.

Sherlock - David Arnold and Michael Price

Very enjoyable, if a little one-paced.

NP : A.I. - John Williams

The way that the chorus is used in Evacuation and The Pier is impressive.

Listening to Delerue's Platoon Suite, I forgot how soul-crushing this piece is.

I honestly wish they'd stuck with Delerue's score rather than insert Barber's music, it's a beautiful score, very moving.

Indeed. Other examples of impressive choir from JNH:

Tarawa - Snow Falling on Cedars
The Great Eatlon - Lady in the Water
Beauty Killed the Beast V - King Kong
The Crystal Chamber - Atlantis the Lost Empire
Redemption - Flatliners

NP: Four Gods - Joe Hisaishi

Frantic - Ennio Morricone

My first listen to the new FSM release. In fact, my first listen to the music outside the film. Great stuff - stylish, suspenseful thriller music.

Rise of the Planet of The Apes is way better than Thor. Unlike Thor, the music was not made to sound like Zimmer. Doyle talks about how he approached the score on the liner notes, with the electronics for the science of the movie, the percusion (including cage slams) and African choir for the apes, the ostrich egg for Caesar (Especially when it performs his theme).

I agree that the action cues are basically MV-esque like Thor, but cues like Lofty Swing, Muir Woods, Off You Go, Who Am I?, The Primate Facility, Cookies (which it has a very funny and curious story), Caesar's Stand, Golden Gate Bridge, Caesar And Buck and Caesar's Home are not.

I had exactly that vibe when listening to the clips, which made me decide against buying it.
Seems like the clips were very representative of the score this time!

NP: Batman Forever - Elliot Goldenthal

I like quirky music, but this score tries to be too many thing at the same time: a harkening back to Elfman's gothic style, a far too obvious wink at sixties' camp Batman and Goldenthal's own massive bombast (all three of which I really like separately) are incredibly jarring on CD.
I won't revisit this one.

NP: W E (Abel Korzeniowski)

Some lovely stuff, although so consistently over the top and ripe that you'd have to wonder whether any drama could stand up to it. And the temp trackery. It is egregious. I can no longer listen to 'I will follow you' -- too clearly a retread of the composer's 'Clocks' (used in A Single Man). And 'Satin Birds' too clearly borrows from In the Mood for Love. 'Six Hours' is 'Stillness of the Mind' again from A Single Man. 'Brooklyn Faces' is a bit of something I'm having trouble remembering for the first half, and then goes completely into a ripoff of Glass's Mishima (even more than Bear McCreary ever did). (See the coda of 'Abdication' for another lift from Mishima -- bizarre.) The bits that don't literally sound like they were based closely on another score feel like Ludovico Einaudi or Yann Tierssen could have written them. Normally that'd be a compliment, but it can feel like yet another dent in any sense that this deserves the title 'ORIGINAL SCORE'. (If this really is the film where this composer really got to write the sort of music he liked, then either he's as much a fan of other soundtracks as we are, or he thinks he's already written it.)

Nonetheless, it does sound lovely when you force yourself not to notice all these things.