KK

The key difference that I'm able to discern from both scores, is that Shore's music feels so distinctly like it's built a sonic and imaginative world of its own. It's not just about how many themes and different instruments one has used. But look at the way those scores have orchestrated, the way it's been recorded, the modal style of the writing, the sparsity and tact with which soloists are incorporated...it all feels so deliberate and hence feels like music of another time and place. Yes, it benefits from being attached to the films and its original hyper-surge in popularity, but the music was clearly trying to do something that was just not being done in films at the time (whether you like it or not). McCreary's score is mostly just drawing from existing modern film music tropes and conventions (even if it uses everything but the kitchen sink in instrumentation), and while it might have some pleasant moments, it ultimately feels as vanilla as the show itself. And at the risk of sounding terribly pretentious, it has no real point of view to offer.

I made it through two episodes. And about 10 minutes into the third one (with the introduction of Numenor), I gave up. I tried, I really did. It's just so...vanilla. There's no character, personality or even vision to this thing. Tolkien or not. Everything looks, feels and sounds like a plastic knock-off. It also feels very TV...meandering plot lines and contrived Hollywood beats that feel like they were designed by an algorithm of mass fantasy interests. From what I've seen, it feels like a colossal waste of $4 billion. House of Dragons has surprisingly ended up being far more interesting. I'll stick to that!

Agreed. I imagine Williams is just another face of Hollywood excess that he came to loathe. You can see through the entires that Cuaron's film was the only one he was actually rather happy with and fond of.

The Post is a much stronger film than RP1. It's also a much more interesting film than The Fablemans, imo. The music however, was pretty uninteresting to me.

Well spotted! For some reason my brain was not registering these in the film. While I personally thought little of the film, TIFF really ate it up. It won the people's choice award at the festival today. Which means it's the "feel good" film of the year, which over the last few years, tends to pick up the Best Picture award. I don't know. Was The Post like that? I imagine this OST will be similar to that one.

Here's a string quartet piece of mine that premiered this summer at the Banff Centre: Would love to hear thoughts!

Sounds like the film is kind of a dud. But I've seen multiple glowing references to Powell's score, so I'm excited to hear what we're getting!

Cool!

There's a sequence where the mother has this dance solo in the night and that's probably the only purely, original musical set-piece. And it is of a certain subdued quality, though quite elegant. There are these idiomatic orchestral "source music" interludes that underscore Spielberg's school screenings of his adolescent films...and that could also possibly be new Williams, if only because I couldn't quite place them at the moment. But they could just as easily be bits of old film music too.

Nope. That's definitely trailer music. The music in the film never really soars to that kind of level. It's mostly pretty somber, save for the source background music for the movies the Sammy character makes (couldn't place it...so maybe it's original?) and a little bit in the end. The film's key sequences are underscored by classical piano pieces that Sammy's mother plays. One of them felt like a variation of Satie's Gymnopedie, so that could have also been an original treatment too.

I was in LA for the last month! Doh! I'm sure I'll be back sooner than later anyway, so we'll coordinate next time!

I wouldn't be surprised, and I hope you do! I don't hate it. And it's not without moments. I just wish Spielberg had opened himself up more in this film. He mentioned on stage that he always tends to put a camera between himself, his movies and the people around him, and having co-written this, this was the first time he felt he didn't do that. Ironically, it feels exactly like he did, where he took these stories he lived through, and turned them into a technical cinematic exercise. Honestly, it reminded me a bunch of Catch Me If You Can in certain ways, just without its emotional heft.

Got to hear this live at the Bowl on the first day! Haven't heard it since, but I thought it was lovely on the night of. I definitely heard Marion's theme being interwoven in the second half somewhere, so I suspect Helena is going to be her daughter. But I bet this has already been dissected to death here. Was just absolutely magical getting to see him live at the bowl (my first time!). A true gentleman!

Caught this at TIFF. Spielberg and the cast were there: Spielberg was a class act on stage. The film itself was disappointingly lightweight, though it has some nice moments (the critics seem to be eating it up). Not much of Williams in it, but there is a nice theme for the mother (played by Michelle Willams).

The Fablemans Occasionally thoughtful and moving even, but mostly just too lightweight for me. There's nothing here that hasn't been explored in abundance in E.T., Close Encounters or even Catch Me If You Can, all of which cut much deeper with its daddy and mommy issues. The dated tropes, true or not, also feel really tired (they move homes, parents get divorced, there's a big bad bully...etc etc). The film shines most when it leans into its sense of humour and Spielberg's sense of mis-en-scene gets to shine. But a lot of this just feels strangely impersonal. Like a flat literal retelling of the events in Spielberg's childhood that clearly fuelled his greatest achievements...and yet told with so little flavour or point of view, almost as if all the traumas have been watered down to make the most pleasant and consumable semi-biopic...which just makes it all kind of passionless and boring. This feels like no grand cathartic cinematic reckoning and you would do better to look to his classics to get a better glimpse into the man himself. I enjoyed Kaminski's work in The Post and West Side Story, but found it grating here (his fans may disagree). There isn't much score from Williams, save for a nice (if inconsequential) theme for the mother.

Yes, this seems like it will easily be the better of the two shows. Neither seems promising on the music front though.

Very much looking forward to this!! Though I'm always more than a little skeptical about music/conservatory films...

Looks good! Some more black and white...

Exciting! Going to try and catch this at TIFF.

Pretty sure this one is fake. Dunkirk works quite well. Tenet is just terrible and easily Nolan's worst film.

I never expected Shore to take on the whole show. I just doubt that would have been remotely within his current working capacity and the needs of the show. But these snippets really sound like generic EPIC video game fantasy music.

Grey renouncing Nolan...Cremers defending him...if that's not a sign of impending doom, then I don't know what is!

https://music.amazon.ca/albums/B0B621SXCS?

The McCreary tracks aren't terrible, but don't feel very Tolkien at all. And sounds like McCreary is abandoning the original themes.

I will say that visually, the new trailer does look much stronger than the last. The bits of plot that I could gather do sound dumb though.