JAMES HORNER

Yeah, but at least Newman has a sense of humour when he names his cues. For example, 'Shine My Knob' from The Green Mile.

The problem with Newman is he'll create these wonderful themes, and use them maybe twice in the entire movie. Horner is the oppisite and will use 4 or 5 themes dozens of times and evolve them. I wish Newman would use more of them, the Wall-E theme is in the entire move 3 times I believe...

And for Newman, his many short cues make it almost IMPOSSIBLE to choose a few highlights if you only want listen to 15 or 20 minutes and not the whole 75 min album.

Did I complain his music is bad? Did I say I won't listen to or buy his music because of the cue names? Did I say it affects my enjoyment of the music? No. I'm simply expressing my dislike for his sometimes pretentious cue names. I hate bullshit in any form. I'm allergic to it.

Newman's scores would benefit SO much from a more coherent structure when it comes to his pieces. Instead of sounding like scenes and improvisations - no matter how good some might be indeed, they could actually sound like meaningful musical compositions.

For me, the beauty of Newman's music is that even the short tracks ARE meaningful compositions. They are actual pieces of music. I can understand that there could be a sense of frustration that he can just take an idea, make a little piece out of it and then discard it for something else (I share that frustration at times) but never that the stuff is non-musical. Give me a 90-second Newman vignette over 12 minutes of a 100-piece orchestra and 100-piece choir playing in unison for the latest Bruckheimer film any day.

Very well put. On the other hand, I have to agree with the ones who feel that there are too many short cues on Thomas Newman's albums... For me, the listening experience often becomes too disjointed and incoherent, even though many of those short cues are brilliant little pieces in their own right.

mc

Amidst those great and meaningful musical pieces, James, which ARE there indeed in almost every Newman score to date, i think you'll agree that amidst that ton of little bits and pieces of short cues on album, there are several very undeveloped little ones that disrupt the natural musical flow; like half-dead musical ideas that never go anywhere and could be easily elevated into more meaningful compositions if they were parts of larger pieces.

Newman's approach frequently comes along as draft and lazy, to me, ‘cause at one hand you have those gorgeous pieces and themes only he can deliver in such dreamy and effective way and on the other hand, he allows undeveloped and quirky 30-second keyboard improvisations to disrupt the formers’ impact. It's unfair to the whole...how can one do that?

I find once you've seen a film, there's little that can beat a Thomas Newman score. Of his recent scores, it was only when I saw LITTLE CHILDREN and GOOD GERMAN that I truly appreciated how brilliant they. I'd liked them, but I hadn't really *got* them until then. I imagine the same is true with WALL-E. NEMO was ok for me as an album... perhaps the climax didn't feel as climactic as a climax should feel.

I think Newman is one of the most talented composers for film that has ever lived. His albums may not be as enjoyable on the whole as a lot of other composer's, but his music within films (the most important thing) are works of genius, or at least something very close to that. And I don't use that word a lot.

One of my all-time-favourite cues! But it does seem a bit much within the film - I can only assume that was down to the director, since it's a long way from what Newman would usually do.

I completely agree with Steven and Timmer about Newman, though I usually have few problems with sitting through an entire CD of his. But you're right Southall, about Meet Joe Black; I was reading an interview with Thomas Newman and he was saying that Martin Brest was very specific with what he wanted out of the music. So really there was no mention of Newman going against his own instincts, but I remember thinking that just from my own interperetation of the subtext of the convorsation.

I can't seem to find it, but I'll post it if anyone is interested in reading it.

Love the film, partly for its emotionally charged score. I've never enjoyed other Newman's works like Meet Joe Black. But I agree it's just not his style, this overbearing type of scoring, he is more minimalist, depending more on textures and moods, than on themes. That is maybe why I don't particularly find his other stuff interesting, except for some (such as The War, or parts of Scent of a Woman), because I need themes in my scores... Wall-E? No I cannot get into it at all.

He did do a good job with Spiderwick Chronicles recently IMO. So I'm expecting a bit more...

Interesting how? How is THAT interesting? Did Casper make a cameo?

-Erik-