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I know! But it's anything but a traditional thriller score. There are some grooves here and there that suggest something "thrilling" going on, otherwise it's very smooth listening.

Renaissance Man - Hans Zimmer

Pleasant drama underscore sprinkled with some military marches.

It's never too late, thank you!

NP: Transformers Dark Side of the Moon.
Since the first score, I expected in every secuel reprises of the amazing theme for the autobots. it didn't happen.

Revenge of the fallen used the bland Optimus theme instead. the action cues were replaced by dark new age oriented stuff.

Now, In this third score everything changes . It's darker. It's Full of adagios ( The Dark Knight notes are highly noticeable). A lot of electronic effects and an impressive percusion recording. It's not a memorable score. It's not an easy listen either . But it has something...something that is perfect for a robot Invasion.

Not, it's there, it's lazy, and making everyone think it works for a robot invasion. Rest assured, if Jerry or Basil were still alive, they would lay that to rest very quickly.

^
FACT!

We know. We know.

Christopher Lennertz - Medal of Honor: Rising Sun

Only my second listen to the full score. Erik will kill me, but my most listened score from the set is probably Djawadi's, Giacchino's Airborne comes close second. Then Frontline, the original and Underground. To CDs 4 and 8 I listened only once.

It's great that Lennertz retained Giacchino's original themes where he could (including my favorite Nazi march!). Builds a nice sense of continuity, but while it's still an epic orchestral action score, Lennertz's work is a completely different world. That's actually very good. Rising Sun has a lot of great percussion writing, in general as in all the Medal of Honor scores, the orchestrations are very good (I can't even complain about Djawadi's score here even if all he has is a string section, it's STILL a carefully built soundscape). The Williams references are here, though handled slightly differently. Rather than going for pure Americana (closer rather to what his mentor Basil Poledouris would do than what Williams or Giacchino would have done, but the string writing (Saving Pearl Harbor for example) and some of the woodwind writing can't be mistaken, this is a great homage work standing wonderfully on its own.

I haven't heard any Lennertz scores save for his work on Medal of Honor (Pacific Assault has some wonderful emotional material and of course European Assault is probably his best work for the series and rivals some of Giacchino's highlights).

Great score, great themes and wonderful orchestrations from the type we don't hear anymore in movies. I haven't heard other Lennertz scores than his Medal of Honor works and, well, they are great. I don't really intend to listen to his parody scores though.

From what I've heard from Scream within the film and on various versions throughout the year, that's it for me as well. Several highlights throughout, especially involving the main themes, but as a whole, it probably won't capture my full interest.

Here, here.

Shadowlands - George Fenton

I've been the first to sing Planet Earth's praises over the years, but this is probably the finest music he's written. So elegant, so full of class, so beautiful.

It's a great one, for sure. Some classical pieces in there too, if memory serves, and it all comes together well. Often played around here.

"Mr. Bean's Holiday"
Howard Goodall


A quite enjoyable score, with a instantly recognizable theme. Chorus in small parts, harminoca, flamenco(?) guitar, quirky upbeat pieces. There's some micky mousing at tims, but Goodall seems to take it very seriously in style and structure. In fact "micky mousing" might not be a good word.


A good score over all. Another delightful effort not released on CD.

FACT!