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Now this is simply awesome:

This was my 13th consecutive year going, and while it's always a great time, I was really excited to see him have a little more variety than in the past few years. Having the choir play a few selections was a real treat as well which he hasn't done in years. I also enjoyed the fact that the film cut of E.T. he used didn't have the guns replaced by walkee talkies. Here are a few clips I got:

Thanks to you I just finished my first complete listen of this score after about 10 years of dust-collecting. What really strikes me now is how "restrained" it all feels (compared to his other works). The first 10 tracks (on the Milan album) are among the best things Arnold has ever written. Flows great from track to track. After that... the attention just kind of fizzles. And even the action tracks at the end can't rectify this situation. Warriors of Virtue by Don Davis Karol Yes it was a first listen of this score in a good while for me as well and I have to agree with you on the general sentiments but still the score is miles ahead of his Bond and small family drama material and makes me wonder what ever happened to that David Arnold who penned Stargate and ID4. Perhaps he changed and films certainly have but I would love to have him score something with such obvious gusto and attention to orchestral details (Nick Dodd was of course a huge help). I love Arnold's theme for Ra, there is such immediate gut reaction to his ominous lower gothic writing and those evil slicing high string effects and the choral renditions take it to whole other level of juicy melodrama. Come on, you don't even like Tomorrow Never Dies? Roses are red, Violets are blue, I don't enjoy reading 50 Shades of Grey, As much as I enjoy reading you! love love love this score. one of my first newman favorites! it's a definite highlight of his career and while I understand some peoples irritation with the short tracks I must say that, in this case, it never really bothered me. Alice, I'm so glad you're back! :lol: :lol: Gold star for you!

Parts of Hook are perhaps some of the busiest, dizziest orchestration in their whizzing and buzzing and plucking enthusiasm. And certainly parts of the exuberant score would sound weird indeed for movies and moviegoers of today. Hook is a score that is still strongly linked to the 1980's Hollywood wunderkind style of moviemaking aesthetic, which was slowly but surely passing by the time Hook appeared in the theaters. It would be too much for most modern films, so colorful, extrovert and indeed unabashedly rambunctious it seems.Spielberg's changing directions certainly left a mark on the score, as he was pondering different approaches to the story. The near-musical, opera sans libretto as he calls it in the original liner notes, is really what Williams achieved in the end with the score, Korngoldian opera without singing. All the song styled long melodic lines, the balletic and colorful and indeed forefront approach could feel schmaltzy to most modern ears. Hook is also a score of interesting contrasts. It contains that opening dreamy, gentle music for the nostalgia of childhood, followed by the energetic and vibrantly dazzling music for the wonders of Neverland, the pomposity of the pirates, the wacky jollity of the Lost Boys, the warm and lyrical discovery music of childhood and a finally Williams pits elements of all that has gone before against each other in the Ultimate War and draws everything emotionally together with the Farewell to Neverland. The constant variety actually makes the score very strong as a whole and the themes tie everything together in a wonderful way. And I can certainly see why not everybody likes the score. It is just so energetic and busy and dazzling and buzzing and whizzing much of the running time it can wear you out. There is such a sense of many things going on it might irritate people who like more lean approach and larger arcs instead of dense writing.

Saw The Hunger Games. Even an outstanding performance by the lead and some grotesque Roald Dahlesque stylings of the futuristic rich and repugnant couldn't allow me to overlook some terrible composite work and shoddy cgi. Couple the bad effects with a a bloated and rather tedious hour long setup, clichéd plot contrivances; and a movie which gets frustratingly close to greatness ultimately comes off as the work of an undeniably capable but undisciplined director who should still be congratulated for delivering a solid thriller with a fairly decent stab at social commentary which gets away with its heavy-handedness due to fairly assured grasp of OTT style. 3/5

Look who else was in attendance!