[Closed] Now Playing XLIX

I was not let down at all, but even if you are, which is understandable, I really do not feel that it can be parcelled up like that. It's akin to the many scores where Hans Zimmer writes some themes and then a student and a bunch of underlings turn it into a complete film score. I feel like Franglen & co did a way better job emulating Horner than most of Zimmer's pupils have ever even come close to emulating Zimmer. The average quality of a Lorne Balfe score with themes by Hans Zimmer is much, much farther below Zimmer's real projects than Magnificent Seven is in reference to Horner's best works.

Not to mention I want to go back to Pandora and I dont' want to do it with any other musical voice taking me along for the ride. Given the recent revelations that Franglen was responsible for all of the synth and choral programming on Avatar, which were some of the strongest parts of the score, all we really need for the sequel scores to feel like they belong in the same universe is for Franglen to have the ability to come up with some decent new themes on his own. I believe he can do that. I think he at least deserves the chance. No one else is going to come closer to emulating Horner...I don't even want Zimmer to touch this even though Avatar was the most Zimmer-ish score of Horner's career and I'm the biggest Zimmer fan in the world*.

*not actually a true statement.

It's very good. A bit brief to be properly representative, but I'd like to see a 40-something minute album presented like that.

NP: The Light Between Oceans - Alexandre Desplat

This isn't doing anything for me at all. Desplat's command of the orchestra is solid, but none of the thematic material is particularly engaging.

NP: The Bone Collector - Craig Armstrong

'New York City' is one of my favourite Armstrong tracks but I very rarely give the rest of the album a spin, which is a shame as it's a very solid album. I like the feel the composer gives to the score and - of course - whenever the 'New York City' theme appears (or fragments of it), it elevates the score further.

NP: Cafe Society

As per usual, the soundtrack to Woody Allen's latest -otherwise rather underwhelming- film, is a potpourri of jazz melodies, but this time he's had the excellent Vincent Giordano (who also re-recorded all the jazz greats for the Boardwalk Empire series) do a fresh recording of most of them. And it makes for swell listening.
Apparently people don't feel comfortable saying 'swell' anymore.
Well. I say it.

Anyway, it's absolutely heartwarming to hear Jeepers Creepers, Zing! Went the Strings Of My Heart Manhattan, and so many others in glorious hi-fi stereo (only Yera Son's violin on The Peanut Vendor is WAY off! yeeekkkk!) . Enjoying this almost as much as his Boardwalk Empire work!

Get the album, skip the film.

What a swell time this is.

I love (kind of, in that I find it funny) the Beetlejuice rip in "Grand Slam Demons". I'm used to Horner nicking stuff from himself or from the Russians but for him to do such a baldfaced temp imitation of a colleague's work is pretty out of character...

Chicken Run John Powell & Harry Gregson-Williams

A defining score in my life as a film music fan.

Good question. I suspect it started as early as I can remember, though it was getting Star Trek: First Contact on CD in 1996 as a present which probably cemented it. Then the usual suspects thereafter: Titanic, The Phantom Menace, Gladiator. I'd always been interested in music in film and TV from an early age; Chicken Run was a seminal moment in the process of becoming a film score nut. It was probably the first score I wanted to a film that I was less than proud to admit I liked the music to. (This was 16 years ago mind you, so being a teenager, social embarrassment was easier to come by.)

Damn. It's posts like that that REALLY age me.

Funny, it makes me feel young!

NP: THE SIGNAL (Nima Fakhara)

I dig this film (and score), almost as much as Eubank's sci fi debut film LOVE (2011). It's a shame he was never picked up to do bigger stuff, like Denis Villeneuve, Gareth Edwards, Rian Johnson etc. have. He's in that category, I think. Moody electronic score with hypnotizing effect; seems inspired by Eduard Artemiev.

BFG John Williams

It's unsettling how much John Williams' newer scores go from being a disappointment, to mild approval and ultimately to wild enthusiasm.

Really? I only heard it in the movie ( ) and while it did seem to call back to a slightly older school of MV scoring, it also struck me as a pretty bland example of that sort of thing. Especially thematically it didn't leave anything like the impression of the other scores you listed there. But maybe I'll give it a shot on album. The track when they were boarding the train did stand out as enjoyable.

As for non-Zimmer RC scores recently, have you heard Jablonsky's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles score? I thought that one was really fun. So is Eddie the Eagle by Margeson, if you have a soft spot for 80s synths or really early Zimmer scores like Days of Thunder.