JAMES HORNER

Yeah, thats the MP3 Album, its also availble on CD:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009KIYDG

How can anyone put Legend above Mask!? Mask is clearly the better score! It follows the more emotional narrative of the film and it makes a more dramatic album. Sure, Legend is fun, but it doesn't have nearly the emotional impact and swashbuckle as Mask.

You people are crazy!

Some of the originals sound as horrible too

I had a look at Spiderwick Chronicles a few days ago. I just had to post here and say that my god, even if some of the material is familiar (fats slides back and forth between high and low registers, and of course the Casper lullaby), I don't think there are many composers who write to picture so elegantly and beautifully as Horner. It's like a ballet. Graceful, sophisticated. I'm really impressed, and I had forgotten how good Horner is at this. I'd take any Horner score, be it 100% recycled material, over any Zimmer clone wall-to-wallpaper score ANY DAY.

mc

Absolutely. I listened to Spiderwick just yesterday, and while not among Horner's best, it still trumps much of what's been written this year.

Good lord... seriously? Why don't you just temp your film with Horner material and pay the licensing fee. Same difference.

-Erik-

He's not that bad. Besides as a filmmaker, you can tell him not to directly quote himself. Worked for Steven Zaillian in "All the King's Men" where the only cue that he blatantly ripped himself off was rescored (but still made it onto the album). . If put to the challenge, Horner can still churn out remarkable work.

All the King's men by Horner was one of the most outstanding scores i've heard the last 5 years. I agree with Erik that he's above the average standard of what's being written today, way above, but i find that usually he reserves all his best of energy for the big productions whilst on smaller movies and / or movies of lesser profile, he usually resembles older works of his.

It sounds like you are referring to the music on CD? For the record, I was talking more about how elegantly Horner writes to picture and how extremely well his music works in the film context. I agree with you - it would have been nice if everything was original and new, but what I am impressed by is his technique. You can almost hear that he isn't conducting to click, because the music has such a natural, organic flow - like I said, almost ballet-like.

mc

I haven't watched the film but if it was a flop, what could Horner do about it? on CD, it is a rather pleasant musical experience with gorgeous themes; that's enough for me in this case.

Its floppiness was endogenous to his efforts, regrettably. I believe he took a below average film (thanks to Sean Penn and Steve Zaillian) and made it a very below average film. The way he thunders on in moments when we're meant to grasp some symbolic portent is beyond all sense of proportion. I found it impossible to listen to after seeing the film. I never want to hear that score again, except perhaps the cue I don't remember hearing in the film, 'Conjuring the Hick Vote'.

I haven't seen Spiderwick (or All the King's Men!) but I am just mesmerised by his approach to film scoring. Mikael is spot-on when he calls it balletic. It's slightly aloof which no doubt puts some people off, but I think it takes real confidence to sit back and offer the kind of singular, organic approach he does, and if it weren't for an octogenarian Italian then I would say he's the finest film scorer alive.

The original was made in 1949, and I've actually never seen it. I believe the music for it was mostly stock music out of the studio library, including some cues by Balaneikoff. Despite the original film winning an Oscars for best picture and best actor, it was known at the time to be a very troubled post-production. (One of the best editing stories I've heard, true or not, comes from this film.)

I think the Adrian Johnston score you're thinking of was from another story altogether about World War One, and the Australian assault on the Turkish at Gallipoli. It might have been called All the King's Men, but I can't remember.

That's pretty generous to one of those guys.

Balletic though it may be, Horner tends to press some pretty conventional emotional buttons that makes him for me, as a presence in a story, unwelcome. He always tells me when two lovers are really in love when I can already see it in their eyes. He always tells me exactly when that love becomes complicated. Everything that should be up for grabs is fixed into place by the interpretation his music encourages.

The difference between Horner's music and others that also WORK, is that it has a certain touch - it is exquisitely elegant, graceful, sophisticated in its dynamic relationship to the pictures, the movement, the pacing, the editing. It does so much more than only work! IMO of course.

mc