[Closed] Now Playing XLIX

NP: WHALERIDER (Lisa Gerrard)

Beautiful. Johan Söderqvist meets Vangelis.

NP: OBLIVION (M83)

Not all tracks are equally strong, but the ones who are, are REALLY good.

Ian Fleming's James Bond 007

NP: The Living Daylights (1998) - John Barry

Fabulous!

James Bond will return.

It is! It was also released in 1987 or were you talking about the expanded Ryko release?

The tonal shifts make a hell a lot more sense in context of the film. I saw the film before hearing the score on it's own but otherwise I imagine I would have been similarly baffled.

It's a film that goes from having literally nothing but dialogue, literally not even a single gunshot, for half the movie, to suddenly having a battlefleet doing a massive bombardment of Okinawa at full blast. It's also a film that somehow manages to go from hell-in-heaven to heaven-in-hell within a few minute stretch. Those two moments mark the transition between styles that are reflected in the score. Definitely a clear three-act film and Gibson left zero room for transition. At least no room that he wanted scored.

As for the Newman-y part, there was a clear danger of straying into Pearl Harbor levels of saccharine and I'm glad some restraint was exercised even if it ended up in less crowd-pleasing sweeping melodies. The film was better for it.

Doctor Strange Giacchino

Been listening to this a lot the last few days, probably my favourite Giacchino score in the last few years. If 'Rogue One' is as good as this I'll be very happy.

Pending

NP: WINNIE MANDELA (Laurent Eyquem)

A fine score, but in retrospect, I don't quite understand why I let this and COPPERHEAD share my 1st place of my 2013 best scores of the year programme. It's not THAT good. Oh well.

Bloody cold here.

NP : BODY HEAT - John Barry


Ahhhh! Much better.

A very fine one, I thought.

It Follows - Disasterpeace

The most successful element of the film. It's not giving me as much love as a standalone experience, which isn't totally surprising. The throbbing in "Old Maid" does bring back nice memories of Clint Mansell's score to Pi.

Yeah, it's better in context than on album. But I like the Carpenterisms nonetheless. I thought the film was a masterpiece -- one of the best movies of the whole year.

NP: PLANET EARTH II (Hans Zimmer's minions)

Unfortunately, a lot of this wanders around in rather aimless 'trailer' territory. Big, muscular chord there, a little bit of awe and wonder there -- but with very little to latch on to. And the 2CD album is of course much too long. But some fine individual moments; I'm confident this would work much better in a neat, 50-minute programme. Guess it's another one added to my 'to make playlist' list.

I wish Zimmer had done this all on his own.

After getting 2/3rds through, my patience evaporated. So I deleted it. I may have to download it again at some point, though -- once I have the stamina to do playlists. I'm fairly confident a solo Zimmer score would be 10 times better, and -- more importantly -- have a more pronounced voice of its own. This just comes across as an unsatisfying mix of standard RC tropes and wannabe-Fentonisms. Caught hopelessly inbetween.

To recap what I said over at FSM: After having heard through the promo once, I must say I feel rather the opposite as you. Probably my least favourite Korzeniowski so far, as far as albums are concerned. Don't get me wrong, there are good cues here, but some of the insistant minimalism becomes a bit too much for me. It passes the limit into 'grating'. Maybe it will be better in the movie itself.