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Indeed, this score is great!

NP: Pantheon - Zaalen Tallis

I know nothing more than it says in the digital booklet that accompanies this download. Pantheon is a "concept score" to accompany the story of a human race on the brink of total destruction at the hands of a powerful natural force.

It's a catchy little score, sounds completely synth in origin and sounds really good. Full of energy from the start it is punctuated with some slower-paced pieces to break up the relentless forward momentum of the score.

Well worth bringing to the attention of a wider audience, here's some clips:

https://itunes.apple.com/album/pantheon … mpt=uo%3D1

Don't you ever feel like just letting yourself go, franz? Not just adher to clinical coolness in terms of emotional response in films and music?

Personally, I enjoy stark realism and grittiness and somberness and all that too, but sometimes I want to go way-out with a straight-out Hollywood melodrama in some form or fashion (including the action genre). Otherwise, I would be bored out of my mind.

I don't know if taste is any argument, but here's some favourite films, which I've returned to many times:

Last of the Mohicans
Chungking Express
Moonrise Kingdom (ok, I've only seen it once, but the romance and the whimsy were gorgeous)
F for Fake
Groundhog Day
Bridesmaids (just trying to think of a recent film that managed to be funny throughout its length)
Roadhouse (so bad it's a masterpiece -- Milius's Conan and Farewell to the King didn't manage to be this bad)
Bakshi's Lord of the Rings (yes... it's still good for a laugh)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Insider (it's great to just feel what Crowe's character goes through)

Were these meant to be bad films? There's a couple of those there, but most are probably good. All of them full of moments where it's a pleasure, without embarrassment, to let go. In a lot of cases, to have fun. (I don't mind letting go in a more disciplined film either, but they're often as much for the head as for the heart, and it's different kind of satisfaction that results.) So I'm capable of emotion, don't worry. More capable than many whose lives revolve around films, I feel.

Now there's no Die Hard's there. Or Terminators. Or Bond films. Or Star Wars films. I'll enjoy them all probably if they pop up on tv -- and probably see all at least once or twice in life. Which might just be all they're worth, unless you really relish them. (Can't say I've seen ET the whole way through in one sitting actually.) I should check out Shawshank Redemption again. Darabont can definitely do melodrama.

But I take it my emotional response to Velasquez's music is insufficient? Music is so subjective. It's moving, yes. Have I never felt this way before? No. Can I remember the last time a piece of music touched me the same way, and what it was? Yes. And perhaps all those things mean that while it's lovely, it's not given me something I haven't felt somewhere else before, and more intensely.

As to whether I like it in the film, that's another issue, and one that gets weighed down by what the film is trying to tackle. It's hard to think of a film like this that had as many emotional highs as this movie sounds like it has (going by the music), and pulled them all off.

NP: Rise of the Guardians - Alexandre Desplat

Second spin of the day! Bloody magnificent! Easily one of the best scores of the year! Wow! Within about a week or so 2012 is shaping up to be a pretty solid year after all! One excellent score after another!

-Erik-

The score have this by-the-number feel to it. I mean, most Bond scores have the same prerequisites, and this doesn't fail in delivering the same type of prereqs. But it feels very generic and, given Thomas Newman's track record, completely conventional.

A lot of that material is lost by reducing to a single CD. It is certainly extremely challenging - but rewarding too, I think, given time. "The Ten Plagues" (only the first part of which is on the single CD) is extraordinary. Mixed in with a handful of renditions of that magnificent theme, it's easier to take than when it dominates (as on the double CD).

It is the double disc I have. Is the single disc an official release or your own concoction?

The double disc.

Oops, never mind.

NP: The Amazing Spider-Man - James Horner

I find Horner's music for this to be pretty poor as a stand-alone listen. And I can't see it grabbing anyone's attention who watched the film. Shouldn't this sort of score have a killer theme?

Really?

I think that Horner's style today doesn't lend itself well to this type of genre. He's more suited for those films that demand sweeping melodic lines. IMO.

It's remarkable, I remember a time when some people would say "Spider-Man" had no theme, but now we've moved on from that to Horner's being better than Elfman's.

I'll easily take Elfman's any day.

I'll take the hot college girl over the senior center grandma, though. And I'll also take fresh bread over molded, rock-hard bread.



Yeah, yeah, I knew what you meant.

Horner's Spiderman is top-scoring. Quit nagging