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My thoughts on the film and score: Spielberg’s usual knack for sentimentality and wide-eyed wonder manifests itself so effortlessly in this tender autobiography about the healing power of art in a broken family. It feels like he’s been making movies for decades with this in the back of his mind, not as some grand end goal per se but as another big piece to fit comfortably into the later chapters of his oeuvre. There has always been a little spot in his filmography left open for this one. Those skeptical about the material will be happy to know that it plays less like the stock coming-of-age-meets-homage-to-cinema vanity project that you’re probably thinking of and more like a warm and fuzzy flicker of home movie memories from the all-time great. The first hour or so is as close as the film gets to saccharine, not so much sweetened as it is a little corny, but never cloying. For anyone allergic to Spielberg in that general mode, this won’t change your attitude. The film fittingly grows up over the runtime, but still skillfully walks the bittersweet line between the dramatic weight and the tongue-in-cheek dorkiness of Spielberg’s youth from the get-go. It’s never self-serious and has a good sense of humour about itself without compromising the emotional resonance of the familial tensions. If anything, the lightness authenticates it. I’m not sure if it was just emphasized by the receptive festival crowd, but this might actually be one of Spielberg’s funniest, filled with lots of naturalistic sibling banter, interjections from old Jewish relatives, and the usual awkward teen moments. The monkey is good too! After the wide-shot flourish of West Side Story, which naturally saw him throw his whole cinematic toolbox up onto the screen, Spielberg’s direction scales back and excels in the light touch of his patented formal economy. He’s still bringing the goods as necessary, from a couple of lasting compositions to one incredibly memorable visual gag, but don’t go in expecting any show-stopping long-takes. Ultimately the heart of the film is the script, co-authored by Tony Kushner but so clearly a personal outlet for Spielberg. Sure, the recreated anecdotes will be familiar to admirers of his work, but there’s a whole groundwork of thematic subtext there to deepen the scenes that would otherwise have us pointing at the screen DiCaprio-style. In fact, it's pretty remarkable how well so much of the stuff I "recognized" translates to the screen without that embarrassing feeling that it’s only there for the sake of it. The performances are really solid in an ensemble sort of way. Obviously Paul Dano and Michelle Williams as the parents goes without saying, but the main guy who plays Spielberg at high school age is actually really good too. I recall some of the early reactions mentioning Licorice Pizza as a reference, which makes some sense considering how certain characters will just wander in, own the movie for a few minutes, and then leave (Judd Hirsch and David Lynch, baby!). Fortunately, that’s as far as the comparison goes though. I didn’t like the rose-coloured glasses the PTA film insisted on wearing but no matter here. Just as my film brain is always focusing on the camera movement and editing, my film score ears are tuned in to catch and place as much music as possible. Williams’ score is sparse but thoughtfully spotted and quite elegant in a sombre way, as KK has already mentioned. My estimate is probably not much more than a half-hour of original music, if even that much. It’s possible Williams wrote and recorded some other suites or arrangements intended for the album, but otherwise I imagine the OST will be a combination of licensed music and original score. There are a couple period needledrops from the radio, a number of classical piano pieces played by his mother (credits listed Satie’s Gymnopedie, and others by Beethoven, Haydn, and maybe Bach), as well as some diegetic Western music heard on records during the movie screenings (I recognized the villain theme from Bernstein’s The Magnificent Seven and the title melody from Newman’s How The West Was Won, credits also listed something by Victor Young, Max Steiner’s The Searchers, and more Alfred Newman- Captain From Castile may have been it). As far as Williams’ score goes, there’s one main idea for celeste, strings, harp, and what I think was an oboe or clarinet. It appears about three times in the film proper, and is also the basis for the 4 to 5-minute end credits suite, which is a unique recording and the longest piece of music altogether. That one is sure to get a lot of plays. All the players are listed, including a standard string section, french horns, and soloists on piano, celeste, and guitar. Whoever drew the Book Thief comparison was about as close as they could have gotten, even though this is still pretty unique territory from a functional standpoint. Being reminded of Williams' grace and deftness after the sequel trilogy years of wall-to-wall tentpole scoring is of course another testament to his genius. Certainly worth a closer listen. Anyway, it was really cool to attend a TIFF screening for the first time and to have it be the new Spielberg/Williams collaboration of all things. I’ll definitely be seeing this again in November. My favourite part was the post-credits stinger where a silhouetted man clearly wearing a turtleneck appears in a doorway and we get a booming, "Hey Stevie, baby!" accompanied by a bass pizzicato Jaws theme before it cuts to black. Seriously though, count me as a Fabel-fan.

Some new for the rest of 2022, from MV on FSM: 10/4/2022 - 2 titles 11/1/2022 - 2 titles 11/29/2022 - 5 titles...possibly 6 Bram Stokers Dracula should be back in stock sometime in October. This will be the final batch Harry Potter Box Set should hopefully be back in stock mid to late November Mission Impossible 1996 will be back in stock mid to late October. This will be the final batch. MV https://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=148781&forumID=1&archive=0

The problem is equally applied to dozens of sites and channels like ScreenRant, Inside The Magic, etc etc as well, and they spread like mad on social media and get tons of people to believe fanpleasing or fan-enraging nonsense, and then when the nonsense doesn’t comes true, the noise around it perpetuates the cycle. These people don’t deserve attention or clicks, but they have it down to an art. One of the trades touched on it a bit lately for non-Star-Wars. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/marvel-fans-sad-henry-cavill-jodie-comer-1235218078/amp/

Galaxy's Edge for me, with Adventures of Han in second, followed by Obi-Wan. That's what my gut says, though I like all three. I can't help wondering if Adventures of Han might have taken first if the suite had been recorded in at Abbey Road with the score proper. I've become increasingly preoccupied with figuring out why I don't like the sound of Williams's recent LA recordings, especially the trumpets. The musicians are obviously world-class; it must have something to do with the acoustics of the Sony Scoring Stage, the mics, the mixing, maybe even the use of C trumpets instead of Bb. Comparing Adventures of Han to the rest of the score or to Galaxy's Edge makes the difference really stark.

I get all my news from Twitter. You’re all wrong.

... when someone quotes a movie line, and you start to play the music which underscores it, in your head.

Had some fun putting this together...though took a lot longer than I was expecting.

…your top track on Last.fm is "Main Title", played four times as often as the track on second place ("End Title"). (And Last.fm groups by artist, so those are just the Jerry Goldsmith ones)

You instinctively know which "Main Title" or "The Hunt" someone is taking about.

Purchased these today. I have never owned either of these scores before so it was about time to get them. I am glad Rudy finally got a complete release as I have been putting off buying the score in hopes of a Varese deluxe edition.

Apparently Bear did a live watch along on Twitch with this episode and revealed some things. - Bear claims to have not used additional composers - 9 months, 6 weeks just on themes and sounds - Theme suites were written after the episode scores - God of War was finished right before starting on RoP - Galadriel theme inclusion in White Leaves was an later addition by Showrunners request. - Bear was part of the mixing process https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=114056#114056

I don't know if "crazy" is the right word. He's very, very lucky that he can do that. There are some fantastic composers that can't do that for many reasons and lacking talent or capability aren't any of them. Richard Kraft mentioned that Goldsmith was quite frustrated that he didn't have the success of Williams. He said that Goldsmith's frustration was that he never found his Spielberg and Lucas. Random chance is a great part of success in career and life. This allowed JW to be able to be choosey on his projects for the bulk of his career. Very, very few people ever get that opportunity despite their talent. On top of this, JW is obsessively driven. Many might consider Goldsmith to be the more "cerebral" or "expressionist" composer but lots of this is based on the directors he collaborated with. JW could easily have been known for the experimental route too, but he got connected with New Wave or Hollywood Renaissance who were progressive but retro. He's the very, very rare guy who could deliver the goods but also won several lotteries. Another reason why there may never be another JW. Our Johnny is not just a result of a perfect storm of rare circumstances but multiple rare perfect storms.

There has been a shift in the way trumpets sound in Williams scores. The difference is both subtle and impossible to ignore, and unfortunately, it's a change for the worse. I would like your help in figuring out what has changed. (This is where I give the disclaimers that this is all entirely subjective, that I have the utmost respect for professional trumpeters on both sides of the pond, and that there are non-Williams scores with similar trumpet issues.) The change became really noticeable with KOTCS, and it's stuck around in his (LA) recordings ever since. It's most noticable in loud passages for multiple trumpets, perhaps playing triads or octaves. There is a quality to the sound that is somehow both grating and underwhelming—aggravating yet anemic. Here are some examples of JW scores in which the trumpets do NOT have this problem: E.T. Temple of Doom Hook Jurassic Park The Lost World I have no complaints whatsoever about the trumpets in these scores, all of which were recorded at the Sony Scoring Stage with LA studio musicians. The sound is bright, clear, and modern, but not unduly fatiguing. As the new millennium hit, Williams recorded six scores in London: three SW prequels and three Potters. These too feature glorious trumpets, recorded mostly at Abbey Road and mostly with LSO players. Williams's next film was KOTCS. Suddenly, the trumpets took on a different sound: dull but strident, claustrophobic but distant, weak but distracting. It's hard to put into words. To be clear, these performances and recordings are still by professionals, but something definitely shifted. Unfortunately, this wasn't a one-off. Tintin, the SW sequels, the Adventures of Han … they all have the same problem. But we've also been treated to a few more London recordings—Galaxy's Edge, for instance, and Powell's adaptations for Solo. And what do you know? These sound great. I've become increasingly preoccupied with trying to figure out what's different on a technical level. Here are some possible factors that have occurred to me: Choice of recording venue Choice of mics Placement of mics Mixing choices Tape vs. digital Use of artificial reverb Preference for Bb trumpets in London and C trumpets in LA Choice of specific trumpet manufacturers/models Shifts in performer technique/style Shifts in compositional style But I don't see how any of these alone could account for the change. What do you think? It's understandably hard to find truly detailed information on a lot of these recordings, so despite all my listening and searching and pondering, I haven't been able to come up with an answer.

Thank you for Manhattan. https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/09/17/woody-allen-announces-his-retirement-from-filmmaking-after-72-years/

I try to keep all of my entertainment news consumption bound to just 4 or 5 trusted sites: Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline for original reporting, plus maybe one or two aggregation sites that actually exercise some editorial judgment like Slash Film). If there's anything worth reporting, it will be found on those sites. If it's baseless speculation or uncorroborated rumors, I'd rather wait until there's enough corroboration for those sites to report it.

Rivendell, Lorien, and Isengard do not go through any changes during the events of the first film, so it makes sense to me that their music wouldn't start changing until further events take place in subsequent films.

This is going to be filmed and available on BSO NOW (their streaming service) a few weeks later. Hope everyone enjoys it!

‘And John Williams’s musical score is absolutely incredible, even if it is largely just piano themes. The piano works so well with the story as Mitzi Fabelman is a piano player, with each theme Williams composed perfectly capturing the emotion of every scene of the film.’ https://www.moviescenecanada.com/fabelmanstiffreview ‘[…] John Williams‘ gently nostalgic score.’ https://theplaylist.net/the-fabelmans-review-steven-spielberg-bares-his-soul-in-his-most-personal-film-tiff-20220911/

Yeah, not sure what the construction will be like. If I had to guess, I'm thinking the OST will be a mix of the classical piano, which I suspect Williams may have even lightly arranged to fit the film, interspersed between a few actual score cues and any other potentially unused pieces or suites. Again, there's really not a lot of Williams music, but that combination would form a coherent listening experience and probably bring the album to around The Post length. Keep an open mind and we'll see! The credits cue is a lovely summary and maybe the only significant full piece aside from the first appearance of the main theme. I forgot to mention, but after the ovation for Spielberg's credit, John Williams also got some modest but noticeable applause (plus cheers for David Lynch). Oh, and it was announced this morning that the film won the TIFF People's Choice Award. Cool!

Knowing Williams OSTs, it could be both EDIT: Haha, ninja'd!

Or both!

Farewell, to a film-making genius. Whatever one says about his private life, he has left an indelible mark upon cinema, and has been influential in shaping 20th century popular culture. He has given the film-going public a veritable plethora of genuinely brilliant, and classic, films. I wish him well, in his retirement.

It’s funny how critics like to point out when a Williams score isn’t instantly memorable while praising any other sound design-y score by other composers.

Few recently purchased: Nate and Hayes by Trevor Jones (LLL) The Reincarnation of Peter Proud by Jerry Goldsmith(Intrada) Goldsmith at 20th vol. 1 & 2 Fat Man and Little Boy by Ennio Morricone (LLL) And I finally put my hand on the blu-ray of Williams' Violin Concerto n°2

The Kevin Feige rumor always baffled me, considering all of these articles specifically say he will be "directing" the film. It would only take a quick look on IMDB to see that he doesn't have a single directing credit. That's not his M.O. Not only is he just a mere producer, but he is currently (and has been for quite some time) the "President of Marvel Studios". He does not have a single non-Marvel credit to his name since he was given this title. He is not a contractor, such as someone like J.J. Abrams. That would be the equivalent of Kathleen Kennedy directing a Marvel film, which would make absolutely no sense.

But... if the score does get a physical release, will the title be embossed? And if so, how embossed?

Yeah, bring back G-strings!

The two posts immediately before mine about Feige’s planned movie are straight from the clickbait misinfo factory, and sharing them as fact just perpetuates the misinformation even if you aren’t citing the original source.

During the editing process of the first movie, Cameron had to fought Fox executives to keep the flying scenes in the movie. https://www.indiewire.com/2022/09/james-cameron-avatar-studio-fight-1234763825/

There’s a guy on YouTube named Mike Zeroh who uploads videos weekly of events and discussions and stuff and none of it has ever come true. He is one of the most clickbaitiest clickbaiters there is. And he gets thousands of views somehow. It’s a big deal because these people are straight up making stuff up and feeding it to hungry idiots.

Slightly preemptive word of caution for anyone on the hype train who was getting their hopes up about the chance of another gold statuette for Williams. It's honestly a little funny to read many of the reviews citing the mother's "memorable" piano pieces which are understandably being misidentified by some press members as original score instead of pre-existing classical music. I don't know what the Academy's rules are for this particular category anymore but I wouldn't be all that surprised if somehow Williams winds up being ineligible for the nomination and nobody realizes it yet because the critics...don't know any better? I mean, the ratio is pretty significant. There's simply not that much Williams material here, even though it is quite lovely. Nothing certain, just something to keep in mind as we wait for the awards campaign to kick off.

My mistake! I looked at Young's filmography to see if I could remember the title and it's actually from The Greatest Show on Earth, although there may have been others. The track from The Searchers was definitely Ethan Returns. I think that's the last bit of info I've got in my head more than 24 hours later, so hopefully this will tide everyone over until November when we find out I completely misremembered everything

Yes, I have it. I don't know if that cue is in there but I'll check when I get home.

The rest of the brass don't actively detract from my enjoyment. But there are definitely broader differences between Williams's London and LA recordings. I've never been inside a scoring stage—more's the pity—but I get the impression that Sony does have a drier sound than Abbey Road or AIR Lyndhurst. The PT and the Potter scores have very noticeable (but natural-sounding) reverb tails that I assume are partly artificial and partly from the room. Recent Williams scores don't sound close-miked to my amateur ear, but the sound certainly seems to decay more quickly. This holds true for all the instruments, and it holds pretty true for scores like E.T. and Jurassic Park—scores in which the trumpets still sound great to me, albeit different from their British counterparts.

Yeah. I guess I was being a bit obvious by mentioning the opening shot. The shot of Rachel is - not in execution, but in style - very Bergman-esque.

I believe this is because the Batman cameo was a very last minute addition to the film.

Sharing them as fact? The two posts which begin, “I thought?” My post is not “straight from” anywhere other than my own 2019 post speculating on the subject right here on this board. I’ve always tried to be careful to separate the gossip from the official info, but at the end of the day, this is not a news agency; we can shoot the shit a little. If you think I said something wrong, I’d be happy to be corrected. Accusing your fellow posters of “misinformation” has such a sinister, slanderous quality about it. We’re just talking about star war movies!

Just saw that this is available at Schott, for people in Europe! https://www.schott-music.com/en/star-trek-the-motion-picture-no562828.html

The earliest Williams score I really notice this on is KOTCS. There's something about the trumpets' tonal quality that is somehow both underwhelming and grating for me. Can't figure out why. I think I'm going to start a separate thread on it; I've been meaning to do so.

I think for the most part it comes down to the mixing; the sequel scores (and other LA-recorded SW scores lately) are of course mixed incredibly dry, with the trumpets in particularly being very shrill compared to other scores recorded on the same stages, to try to match the sound of ANH's score (didn't Shawn Murphy even mention that at some point?) Personally I have somewhat sensitive ears, so the trumpets tend to be a bit too loud and shrill for my liking, especially TFA. The mics are way too close, and make the music sound almost a bit unnatural in some cases.

Honestly imo it's a tie between Adventures of Han and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the top spot. Galaxy's Edge didn't really leave much of an impact on me. I'll vote for Obi-Wan just to give it a fighting chance.

Batman, obviously.

Hm, those are helmets to me, not masks. And they don't look like they would offer protection against dragon fire (the beards!). I was never quite sure how to imagine the masks described in The Silmarillion, but i think those in TRoP match my expectations exactly.

Good thing they're not given out by Sony, or it would have a photo of the guitarist on it.

It's always a delight to listen! I don't know if it's my imagination but I noticed the whole Ministry section has an underscore that reminded me of the removed clock sounds of "Forward to Time Past", which would make sense in-context too given it is a race against time for the Trio.

According to Elsewhere.com, "...the intention [from their sources] is to fully preserve Vangelis' legacy, which means that the intention is to eventually share as much as possible of his creations with the world. That would include his unreleased music, but also paintings or other art. But patience will be needed for that. Much needs to be organized, and the mourning over his passing is still fresh." http://elsew.com/data/latest.htm

Last Night in Soho I came late to the Edgar Wright party. For a long time, Scott Pilgrim on Blu-ray was the only film by him I'd seen (not counting Spielberg's Tintin, which I keep forgetting was co-written by Wright). I saw Shaun of the Dead and the rest of the Cornetto trilogy (of which I wasn't even aware until then) around the time Baby Driver came out, and therefore only saw that later on home video as well. Last Night in Soho was the first of his films (as a director/not counting Tintin) that I absolutely wanted to see in the theatre; I'd seen the trailer and was very much looking forward to it, but with the pandemic I ended up not bothering to go to the cinema for it. Rather lukewarm reviews dampened my excitement a bit, and only this week ended up finally getting the Blu-ray. I'm glad to say that I loved it, at least mostly. Unlike many people, I'm generally a fan of (good) exposition (and therefore end up liking lots of films that are much stronger in their first half), and I think Wright must be as well, because each of his films delights in quickly drawing the viewer into its world with cleverly done exposition. Soho is no different, with a strong lead performance by Thomasin McKenzie (who I didn't know before) that carries the entire film - hers is really the only lead character, the rest of the formidable cast (notably Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg in a wonderful final role, and Anya Taylor-Joy as more or less the main character in the flashback story) really just have supporting roles, most of them making a lot of impact with a very limited amount of screen time. Another Wright trademark seems to be a focus on meta elements - the Cornetto films, although they certainly draw you into their world and characters, all a very conscious of being parodies; Scott Pilgrim strongly emphasises its comic and video game stylings, and Baby Driver has a strong focus on elaborate action sequences constructed to closely conform to their soundtrack. In all of them, I was very aware of the meta level when watching them, and in fact much of their enjoyment derives from it, but it also means I was never quite fully immersed. Soho seems to be the first of Wright's major films designed to be fully immersive, which was an aspect I was looking forward to very much, and it certainly contributed to my enjoyment. That's not to say that the film doesn't have its share of homages (some of them clearly intentionally obvious), and although the film (like the Cornettos) blends genres (or rather moves through a series of them), it certainly revels in exploiting their tropes, especially so in the last segment, when it finally settles on being a horror film more than anything else. But the narrative always stays within the confines of the film's world, and the meta elements are instead part of that, primarily the ways in which the primary and flashback story lines bleed into each other. That's not to say it's necessarily always entirely successful. It certainly feels a bit uneven, although it shares that with all of Wright's other films, which often seem very differently balanced to me on a second viewing. And like many films that put much emphasis on exposition, the later parts can feel a bit straightforward, or cliched - although Soho is really well constructed in that all the twists and revelations of later scenes are cleverly set up earlier, so I think a second viewing will feel more homogeneous than with the other films. True to the genre, it has its share of red herrings, but they are well integrated and don't feel like cheats. All of that is elevated by excellent cinematography (which clearly delights in all the tricks it employs to blend the two narrative levels together, mainly with lots of mirrors) and a spot on songtrack that seamlessly blends with the mostly very effective Steven Price score (given the genre, I'm sure a certain Donaggio similarity in parts of it is hardly accidental). Interestingly, when I first saw the trailer, my first association was Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris - because of the title (I wasn't aware that Soho's title is taken from a song) and the setting. The rest of the trailer made me expect something that is more or less a horror take on the Allen film, and it is in some ways - the concept of the outside main character yearning for an earlier era and being transported at night to a specific place in that era, without being sure at first if it's real or a dream, is surely similar. IMDb also lists a number of acknowledged influences, including Polanski's Repulsion - which is very clear in the film's take on this scene, although I couldn't place the influence while watching it: But what IMDb curiously doesn't list is what while watching I became quite convinced of must be a main influence: Robert Wise's 1963 The Haunting. The film is almost like (certainly not a remake, but) a reinvention of that film's premise: A woman with a history of seeing ghosts moves into a haunted house and is slowly drawn into the house's past, losing her grip on reality. The showdown even prominently involves a staircase (though not a spiral one in this case). Soho has a brief shot of wallpaper (or wall texture) in an early scene that seems so reminiscent to Haunting's supremely frightening scene consisting of nothing more than wallpaper and strange noises that I find it hard to believe it could be just an accidental similarity. In fact, with Soho's strong reliance on mirrors, I could well imagine the film's entire concept initially being inspired by this single scene: Surely not for everyone, but very much for me, and more successful in consistently bringing its ideas and elements together than most entries in the genre.

He's just trying to follow the new rules!

Well, you know where the door is.