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In my very humble opinion, none of the scenes in War Horse are overscored. Sure, there's some pretty big music accompanying several scenes, but I never had the feeling of "this is too much". I found it absolutely in line with the film's aesthetic itself (good or bad, you be the judge). It's certainly music that harkens back to an older Hollywood scoring style, with lush themes played by a full symphony orchestra. And nowadays many people are just put off by such a stylistic choice and find it phoney or insincere. However Spielberg and Williams are champions of this kind of approach, especially in the movies that acknowledge very clearly a nostalgic, naive attachment to the good ol' days of Hollywood movies--like War Horse. What really impresses me is that many people are ready to point the finger at Williams for "overscoring" the films for which he writes the music and don't realize that A LOT of other Hollywood composers/directors are doing just the same, if not worse. Recently I saw Scorsese's Hugo and I noticed that Shore accompanies the film in most of the scenes with busy, melodic music. But nobody stood up and slapped the composer for putting "too many notes" in the film. That's not to beat on Shore (the music is really lovely and fitting), but it's strange that film critics and part of the audience seem to have become allergic only when it comes to Williams. And what to say about Zimmer's constant drumming and droning during The Dark Knight Rises? The music is playing for 90% of the film's duration, even accompanying dialogue scenes--and it's also really LOUD! But I didn't read a thing in film reviews lamenting that Zimmer "overscored" the movie.

But the songs at the end of the LOTR scores are classy and LOTR-like, and integrated in the score. They're not "tacked at the end". I don't think they're there to sell albums (the body of the score is what made them known among the public), and I frankly don't remember them being treated like merchandising like that song in Titanic or the hilarious failed attempt at that in Avatar.

It was great. Boston Common is a really nice theater. Classic movie posters, murals and quotes everywhere. Nice. We arrived a little late into Raiders during the temple scene. Movies all looked good, although from close up the resolution wasn't quite as high as I was expecting. They still looked great. Raiders kinda lost focus at points (and not the usual instances) and there was some kind of weird fuzziness at times, like the blue sky in the opening of Last Crusade. But I guess that's always been there since I had it on VHS. Temple of Doom was easily the best time and the one the audience seemed most into. It's the ultimate popcorn movie. Once again I was made to question whether or not Raiders is truly the best one. It's a great film yes, but there's no more rollicking, rousing, action-packed roller coaster ride of a movie than Temple of Doom. Thoughts on Temple: - Easily the best score. I know many hold the others in high regard (for good reason), but God damn! Williams' presence in a film has never been greater! There's a reason all the women are spreading their legs for him in the opening credits. - Everyone disagrees, but I like Willie. I love how wrong she is for Indy and turns out to be so right. They have great chemistry in a kind of Han Solo/Princess Leia way. - Short Round is the greatest sidekick of all time. - The scene where the big guy goes into the rock crusher makes me think more than any Kubrick or whoever's thinking man's films ever will. Was Indy trying to save that guy or was he just using the rope to get up to the catwalks? In fact, we will never know. - Few movies have created such serious tension as when Indy falls into the black sleep. The scene where they make him drink the blood is super intense. - Every shot of Harrison Ford in this is a masterpiece. Literally.

Prequels usually invent stuff and are written after the original. And while PJ and cohorts added a couple of things for their own entertainment, the rest of it existed before LotR was released. Prequels are often made for the sole purpose of telling a backstory, which leads to them trying too hard. And I would like to add that sometimes I feel some people on JWfan are like Don Quixote. They are fighting non existent enemies, and the issue at hand can't be stupid or obvious enough that they won't find at least one other fool to support their imaginary fight.

Addams Family & Addams Family Values. (Marc Shaiman) I'd love to see LLL do a expanded / complete release of these scores. I find these to be underrated works for Shaiman.