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C’mon, his peak at least started in the 70s… Jane Eyre, his first Oscar win for Fiddler on the Roof, The Cowboys, Images, JAWS (and its first sequel), Close Encounters, The Fury for DePalma, Family Plot for Hitchcock, SUPERMAN, a little film called STAR WARS??? What’s this 1954 film score you’re referring to? Was it a student film or something he did for the Air Force? Because his first Hollywood film score was Daddy-O in 1958… And while I’ve got my pedantic professor hat on… Anyone who regards it as such is being ignorant; anyone who declares it as such is either that or dishonest. King Kong in complete form is a little over 70 minutes long. And it’s not even “wall to wall” because the film has almost half an hour without music. Check out this great podcast episode for interesting commentary on that: https://www.settlingthescorepodcast.com/14-king-kong/ In the previous decade composers such as Gottfried Huppertz (Metropolis, Die Nibelungen) were composing even larger scale and more wall to wall orchestral film scores of much greater sophistication and complexity than what Steiner did for King Kong (or similarly for the same creative team the previous year for The Most Dangerous Game, for that matter!) (2.5 hours!!) (4.5 hours! It was an epic two-part film, but still…) Hell, the very first original orchestral film score by Camille Saint-Saens way back in 1908 was virtually wall to wall itself! (It’s just that the film was only about 20 minutes long.) (Start on Track 5.) My favorite French film score from the 20s is Salammbo by Florent Schmitt: (This isn’t even the complete score, but three suites from it cut down for concert performance purposes.) None other that Doug Adams (The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films) is another champion of this one: https://florentschmitt.com/2014/06/12/film-music-specialist-doug-adams-talks-about-florent-schmitts-salammbo-and-other-music-scores-from-the-silent-film-era/amp/ And it’s not just the French and Germans. Dmitri Shostakovich started writing long form film music in Russia during the 1920s. His score to Odna was years before King Kong, was long form, played with diegetic and non-diegetic, and even was the first film score to feature the theremin, many years before Rozsa or Herrmann used it! (79 minutes long) Then we have Spanish composer Ernesto Halffter (Carmen, 1926): (66 min long) Finnish composer Armas Jarnefelt with the very first original orchestral film score written in Finland (just 11 years after Saint-Saens’s sole film score): (99 minutes long!) Italian composer Pietro Mascagni’s score for Rapsodia Satanica (he’s best known for the opera Cavalleria Rusticana but he did this one film score in 1917): “But Yavar! Max Steiner was the first person to write full length orchestral scores in HOLLYWOOD!” Nope! None other than La-La Land Records released a restoration of the Zamecnik score to Wings (1927) years ago — 76.5 minutes, longer than King Kong: https://lalalandrecords.com/wings-limited-edition/ And he’s not the first in the United States either! That might(?) have been for the odious (but historically important) Birth of a Nation (1913), with original orchestral score composed by Joseph Carl Breil: https://moviemusicuk.us/2022/01/10/the-birth-of-a-nation-joseph-carl-breil/ And for Spotify users, we have this new (released earlier this year!) Mark Fitz-Gerald-conducted recording of The Thief of Bagdad — no, not the well remembered 1940 version by Miklos Rozsa, but one by American composer Mortimer Wilson for the 1924 Hollywood version starring Douglas Fairbanks… 74 minutes on album, also more substantial than King Kong which it pre-dated by nine years: Wilson was something of a film music specialist all through the 1920s in Hollywood, by the way… at least a half dozen film scores starting with 1920’s The Mark of Zorro and going through 1928’s The Good-bye Kiss and The Night Watch. So yeah, while the 1933 film King Kong was the first Hollwood film to achieve *that* level of popularity, and therefore Steiner’s lengthy (but not unprecedentedly so) orchestral score has gotten a lot of press and attention over the years… NO, it wasn’t “first”… by any meaningful metric. Yavar

This was a really good film - very entertaining and wonderful score. It didn't always feel like Horner but felt like someone who tried to embody Horner and that's the most we can ever hope for. I'm totally fine that he wasn't cloning Horner but embodied him while doing his own thing too. It had otherworldly themes too. There were new themes that I thought were gorgeous and I could feel the synth connection to so much of Horner's earlier scores like Titanic which to me, this film had a lot of connection to. Thumbs up for lots of use of Lydian mode and multiple pianos ala Horner. I loved it.

Well, I just returned from seeing it and loved it! I thought it was a good sequel to the original with some amazing visuals and excellent action/combat sequences. I haven't seen the original in years but think I might like this one better. I thought Simon Franglen did a great job capturing the spirit of Horner considering the obvious constraint that it is NOT and never will be Horner. I didn't mind it was quite noticeable where Horner came in and where Franglen came in. I have no doubt he tried his best to embody the spirit of Horner and I hear that effort. Overall, the film was a worthy successor and very good popcorn flick. Outstanding visuals and I found the characters (the kids) more interesting than the villains of the original. I enjoyed myself but actually think it could have been a bit longer...I thought the same of the original even with the director's cut. Not that it isn't long (it's quite long) but some sequences felt rushed and cut down and I think would have flown smoother with more material. I can imagine this as a 3:45 film. Yes, yes, a bit heavy handed at times. But no worse than Star Wars. I had a great time. I saw it in Dolby real 3D which includes reclining seats and subwoofers in the seats which gave me a bit of a headache, but the 3D was excellent visually. It was pricey for me, $21 for a matinee. The frame rate changes were a bit jarring. At the high frame rate, looked excellent but stuttered a bit in the low frame sequences.

SCORES Interview with the Vampire (Daniel Hart) The Book of Boba Fett (Joseph Shirley w/ themes by Ludwig Göransson) The Fabelmans (John Williams) Succession: Season 3 (Nicholas Britell) The Batman (Michael Giacchino) Avatar: The Way of Water (Simon Franglen) The Outfit (Alexandre Desplat) Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Ludwig Göransson) Special mention to Austin Wintory's Traveler: A Journey Symphony. TRACKS - The Journey Begins from The Fabelmans - Main Theme from Glass Onion - The Run (Urban Legends) from Nope - Leaving Home from Avatar: The Way of Water - Can’t Fight City Halloween / The Bat’s True Calling / Catwoman Suite from The Batman - Rigaudon / End Credits – The Raid from Succession: Season 3 - Vengeance Has Consumed Us from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - The Book of Boba Fett / The Stranger / Train Heist / The Ultimate Boon / Teacher’s Pet from The Book of Boba Fett - Are We the Sum of Our Worst Moments / The Fantasy of Happiness / Vicious from Interview with the Vampire - Galadriel / The Stranger from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power I'm including The Book of Boba Fett and Succession: Season 3 on my lists because while both are 2021 shows, their scores were not released until 2022 and weren't on my list last year. FILMS The Fabelmans (dir. Steven Spielberg) Nope (dir. Jordan Peele) Tár (dir. Todd Field) Top Gun: Maverick (dir. Joseph Kosinski) Avatar: The Way of Water (dir. James Cameron) The Banshees of Inisherin (dir. Martin McDonagh) Ambulance (dir. Michael Bay) RRR (dir. S.S. Rajamouli) The Batman (dir. Matt Reeves) The Northman (dir. Robert Eggers) Glass Onion (dir. Rian Johnson) It's been an incredible year for populist cinema and I've enjoyed almost all of the big ones. Hoping to fill in the gaps with a few I still intend to catch in 2023, including but not limited to: White Noise (dir. Noah Baumbach), Decision to Leave (dir. Park Chan-wook), Aftersun (dir. Charlotte Wells), and The Eternal Daughter (dir. Joanna Hogg) SPECIALTY LABELS I was only able to buy Empire of the Sun from LLL this year, but I'd really like to nab Amistad and Jurassic Park soon. Thanks for another year at JWFan!

Yeah, the score has definitely turned out way better than I anticipated. Karol

It being New Year's Eve, I decided to make a best-films-of-the-year list, except not for the year that's about to end. 2020 is the year from which I've seen the largest number of films by a huge margin (around 175 now, I think). The twenty-four months since its end have given me the chance to watch most of the films of that year that I'm ever likely to, and also to see which of the best ones retain their impact over time and/or hold up on rewatching. I couldn't decide whether to pick a top ten, top thirty, top fifty or whatever. For no good reason I've opted for twenty-five. I'm counting a film as being from 2020 if (to the best of my knowledge) it had its first release in any country in that year, excluding special screenings at premieres and festivals. (Nomadland was originally a contender here as I'd read that it had had a limited release in Australia or New Zealand very late in 2020, but it seems that may have been a mistake and I'm counting it as a 2021 film instead.) Saint Maud (Rose Glass) First Cow (Kelly Reichardt) Identifying Features (Fernanda Valadez) Shirley (Josephine Decker) Lynn + Lucy (Fyzal Boulifa) Black Bear (Lawrence Michael Levine) The Nest (Sean Durkin) Atlantis (Valentyn Vasyanovych) La Llorona (Jayro Bustamante) Small Axe (Steve McQueen) Riders of Justice (Anders Thomas Jensen) I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman) The Assistant (Kitty Green) This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese) The Personal History of David Copperfield (Armando Iannucci) Dear Comrades! (Andrei Konchalovsky) The Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane) Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell) DAU. Natasha (Ilya Khrzhanovsky and Jekaterina Oertel) The Macaluso Sisters (Emma Dante) Saint Frances (Alex Thompson) Calm with Horses (Nick Rowland) Sound of Metal (Darius Marder) Asia (Ruthy Pribar) Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (Lili Horvát)

Inspired by the great Jim Titus, I had to put these mockups together. Never gonna happen, probably, but a man can dream!

'Hard To Starboard' is peak Horner Anvil.

Good lord haha. And apparently it went up hugely in China as well. It's basically increasing business everywhere. Cameron is ridiculous...yet again.

There is reportedly a version which is 30-50 mins longer so hopefully we get a proper extended cut on the blu ray. 10 mins of action scenes were cut and Franglen mentioned having written more music that was performed on set so I assume that a few additional “song / live on set performance scenes” were filmed as well that weren’t in the theatrical cut.

Those aren't templates, I built those shots myself in Blender.

That might be true but I would say the standards have improved slightly in recent years. There's definitely more colour and melody creeping back into film scoring. To give you a simple example, in 2008 we had Djawadi's Iron Man and in 2021 we had Djawadi's Eternals. Not a huge leap necessarily but an improvement for sure. 😀 Karol

BEST SCORES OF 2022 The year haven't produced a single score I would call a "classic", but I liked Giacchino's The Batman, Elfman's Multiverse of Madness, McCreary's Rings of Power and GOW: Ragnarok, Gorannssonn's Wakanda Forever and Franglen's The Way of Water well enough. TOP 10 BEST TRACKS OF 2022 Family History by JNH from Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (the only track from that very long album I find myself returning to); Vengeance Has Consumed Us by Ludwig Gorannssonn from Black Panther 2 Leaving Home by Simon Franglen from Avatar 2 BEST CATALOG TITLES OF 2022 Willow Amistad Spider-Man Presummed Innocent SpaceCamp FILM SCORE LABEL OF THE YEAR All of them! BEST FILMS OF 2022 Everything Everywhere All at Once Avatar: The Way of Water BEST TV SEASONS OF 2022 Better Call Saul S6 Severance S1 SPECIFIC HIGHLIGHTS OF 2022 The labels thriving and releasing a lot of beloved film scores from the past (aka when film music used to be good). SPECIFIC DISAPPOINTMENTS OF 2022 As @Jurassic Shark said: The mostly mediocre standard of film scoring.

I just listened to this and Franglen calls the underwater theme “the way of water theme” so it’s a safe bet that that is the official name of the theme (in into the water, return of the tulkun etc).

That was the most hillarious thing! People betting against James Cameron. Will they never learn?

To my big surprise, this airs on Norwegian TV tonight. But already available to stream. Watching now, not sure there is much from the first day when I was there. The anecdotes are a little different from what I remember. Probably already explained earlier in the thread. Anyways, just a heads-up to Norwegians here.

90 some hours away, at the most, until we find out what these January releases are!

Next in my series is another JW masterpiece, based on LLL's wonderful new expansion, which revealed lots of previously unknown unused tracks, alternates, and filled in major gaps in the soundtrack album as well as restoring the proper order of cues revealing a structure of a wide range of seemingly disconnected musical elements converging and coming together satisfyingly, mirroring the movie's theme of distant cultures growing to understand each other. As usual I will explain the cues' film usage where it's fitting. The spotting is certainly not wall to wall, though since I didn't restore even the source music found on the LLL set, let alone all the "needledrop" recordings used in the film, it's a tiny bit misleading if we'd want to look at purely music, not score: The state court scenes are mostly left unscored, but nearly all of the final 40 minutes are scored all the way through. Starting with this project, I'm doing something some previous ones like Presumed Innocent could've benefited from: burning subtitles into the video to help with cues for dialogue-heavy scenes where the sync points aren't necessarily for shot changes or physical actions but for a specific line that changes the tone or topic, of which there are several in this movie. Syncing up cues helped me appreciate many cues in a new light or a deeper way - like Discovering the Bible, really seeing how the initially 2 disparate textures start melding and come together by the end; or Adams' Address to the Court, where I was initially confused by the usage of obvious synth voices in this fantastically varied choir-heavy score - the first one scores Isabella's complaint letters about American courts, probably illustrating her "unnatural" views of courts as mechanical toys to play with, to do as she says, instead of idealistic independent entities, the second, darker one scoring Adams reading aloud the article about how slavery is the natural order of things, hopefully no need here to describe why the usage of "unnatural" synth voices instead of a real choir could be appropriate. Thanks to @Jay for helping with the selection and answering some background information questions! Introduction is actually a wild vocal take the music people used here, but I included it because why not. Retribution is fully unused, and to be honest I can see why, even if it's a great piece. If synced up to the final film footage (the opening may have been extended), the percussion and flute scores Cinque's struggle as it's starting to bear fruit, the male choir scores him lifting the nail, the choral Cinque's theme scores his newfound chance, and things start to escalate as he frees himself. The rhythm kicks up as the captain picks up his musket and Cinque approaches him, then it fades out when the new captain removes his Excalibur from the old captain's body like he removed the nail. I removed the second wild humming take that's included in the film and LLL since it would overlap with the next cue, July 4, 1839, which is mostly unused. The dark soundscape scoring the uncertainty (unused) temporarily clears up as the helmsman states he'll head for Africa. JW's emotional shot-specific scoring for the night scene was replaced by a choral take of Cinque's theme, dropping the twinkles for the stars, its descending variant scoring the turn, and the Seven Years in Tibet/RotS strings with added choir scoring Cinque desperately taking over and correcting the course himself. Steering East is again unused, and in my opinion should be here where the title doesn't describe it very well, for the scene of the new crew landing on what they think are African shores, gathering water and coming across a man on a proto-bicycle. (For an alternate sync idea that might actually work better, see this post.) The Capture is mostly used, only a small portion was edited out when the ship lands (the film was edited down a bit at this point too), and the ending was replaced with one of the wild solo humming takes, removing the only musical representation of the Queen of Spain coming from JW, since the rest of her scenes contain source music at most. Introducing John Quincy Adams is used as is. Meeting of the Minds is a strange case - it's more like semi-wild mood music than specific scoring adhering to sync points, and it runs longer than the scene, where it's only partially used. Counsel Meets Client, The Ship Remembers, Visiting Adams and What Is Their Story? again are used as is, but Learning To Count is the same case as Meeting of the Minds - not really specific and runs a lot longer than its scene. Tale of the Lion's Tooth is used as is. The Capture of Cinque and The Crossing are complicated - for this video I had to shorten the storm/birthing scene and entirely remove the feeding scene between the suicide/lashing and the mass drowning scenes. In the film, parts of Capture of Cinque are looped over these and other parts of the same track, and even mostly in place of or over The Crossing - only the opening minute and the Spanish guitar part remains from it, edited, then the ending's replaced by solo humming again. Tales of Horror remains untouched except for a percussion overlay coming from The Ship Remembers (if you don't count that the original take's ending was replaced by the second revision, replicated here instead of sticking with the LLL edit), same with Discovering the Bible. After a long unscored section, including the victory on state level, The Letter to Massachusetts and Cinque's Legal Mind are used as is. The footage for African Violet had to be edited very slightly. Adams' Address to the Court and Adams' Summation are used as is. The Verdict is edited slightly in the film. Liberation of Lomboko is used as is, Going Home starts with the choir only mix, the soloist only comes in starting with the Civil War shots. The film starts the credits with a third solo humming take, then used Dry Your Tears, Afrika as is on the LLL, with more obvious Lomboko tracking edit points and the ending cut short - if we use only it and The Long Road to Justice like I did here, they fit the credits' length well. The Capture (alternate) is basically a different mix of the main program version. The Ship Remembers (alternate) is a slightly different take with different percussion overlay usage. What Is Their Story (alternate) is the original take, featuring another Adams rendition in place of the revision's DYTA. The Crossing (alternate) was written for an even shorter cut, I couldn't really come up with a good way to edit it down. Tales of Horror had an original take with Cinque's theme scoring his outburst, more as a low moment where he can't hold in his despair any longer - I had to shorten this footage for this original ending. The first revision doubles down on this idea and utilises the longer edit to add in another statement that helps the theme climax, still scoring Cinque's despair. The second revision, ultimately used in the film, takes the first revision's structure but pulls Dry Your Tears, Afrika onto it, making it a moment of uplifting triumph, where Cinque stands up for himself and demands the justice he'll ultimately receive. The third revision keeps the DYTA idea, but tones it down significantly, more as a quiet release than a triumphant climax. Discovering the Bible (alternate) is a different original approach - while the revised film version starts with representing the Africans with percussion, the Bible discussion with harp and Cinque on flute, and the church scenes with semi-religioso strings and brass, and eventually starts melding them, moving Cinque to different instruments and stops changing styles with the latter back and forth cuts, this version represents the Africans with sad strings (probably coming off of one of the Cinque versions of Tales of Horror), the Bible scenes, while still prominent in harp, are also scored with strings and multiple kinds of woodwinds while the church is mostly brass-based - they still meld but the cutting back and forth is not so obvious. I had to extend the ending a bit so Cinque's theme entering would sync up with the cut back to the jail. Cinque's Memories of Home, a revision of Cinque's Legal Mind, sets the "communication" theme on cello, solo vocal humming and percussion - IMO moving the material a bit too far to the east from the US, possibly why it wasn't used. Going Home (alternate) is the choir take without the solo vocal, as it is partially used in the film. And finally, an idea by @BrotherSound: Cinque's Theme (solo flute) is also 2:06 long, like Going Home, why not try to see if it fits. In my opinion, it kind of does, many of the percussion hits and phrase borders match with shot changes.

The anvil exceeds in Aliens (it is amazing to hear Horner's use of percussion in this track, the snare drums, timpanis and anvil 'speaking' to one another):

Knife Fight is an amazing track - brings back that old Horner/Don Davis scoring with full on snare drum and anvil percussion.....

Well, you should use the Norwegian release date.

Where's Shithouse? Nice to see some love for Black Bear!

Good list Gloin! Though I'm surprised to see Saint Maud ranked all the way at the top. I thought it was really well made and directed, but ultimately leans on the derivative end, as many of these kind of contemporary art horror films do. Nice to see The Disciple on there as well!

I love Bad Batch and I'm very excited for the new season (even though it means the end of my vacation). Clone Wars is, like you said, very much all over the board. The last four episodes of the Clone Wars are truly next level and the best thing from the Prequel era by a goodly margin. But Rebels is where my heart is.

BTW I finished binging season 1 of The Bad Batch since Tuesday and pretty much loved it across the board. I've also watched the first 6 episodes of Rebels and it's not bad at all! I think the first half of Clone Wars was just uniquely creaky and boring for me. Filoni & co. got so much better at what they were doing over time. The quality jump in the D+ era is especially noticeable IMO. Honestly it's a big relief for me that I was able to get into these shows with perseverance. It was always such a huge part of Star Wars that I felt cut off from and now I feel more fully engaged as a fan.

Less than 40 hours now! At most!

What the heck, I'll do 1985 too. This one was much harder, an incredibly strong year. For both lists though the #1 was never in doubt for me. 1. Tom Waits - Rain Dogs 2. John Mellencamp - Scarecrow 3. The Smiths - Meat is Murder 4. Talking Heads - Little Creatures 5. Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms 6. New Order - Low-Life 7. Mekons - Fear and Whiskey 8. Robyn Hitchcock - Fegmania! 9. Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair 10. The Replacements - Tim Just missed: The Cure - The Head on the Door Rush - Power Windows The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy REM - Fables of the Reconstruction Prince - Around the World in a Day (sorry @Thor, I'm an indie kid at heart) I like a bunch of these! They're just not top 10.

Nope, they normalized the tracks (at least it seems like this is what they just did with the quiet tracks), so that the loudest part of each track almost equals the amplitude peaks of all the other tracks (regardless of whether the peak is a slight string crescendo or a forceful orchestral outburst). Trying to paraphrase it in abstract manner: When the volume of a track ranges from 1 to 10, it's fine and left as is. When the volume of a track ranges from 1 to 5, on this Intrada release they raised the volume, so that the volume reaches from, let's say, 6 to 10. The result of this madness is that pieces that remain quiet for their entire running time are now unnaturally loud. This can be fixed by just lowering the volume level of the affected tracks. The cues itself are not compressed and have great dynamic range. However: There are some tracks that combine several cues at different volume levels, so these need to be seperated first, before you can change adjust their volume. After that you can put them together again.

For no real reason, my top 10 pop/rock albums of 1986 1. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead 2. Paul Simon - Graceland 3. XTC - Skylarking 4. Sonic Youth - EVOL 5. REM - Lifes Rich Pageant 6. New Order - Brotherhood 7. Kraftwerk - Electric Café/Techno Pop 8. Cocteau Twins - Victorialand 9. Bruce Hornsby - The Way It Is 10. Huey Lewis & The News - Fore! Just missed the top 10: Robyn Hitchcock - Elements of Light, Peter Gabriel - So, Prince - Parade

I will end up with ten, yes (and some runner-ups).

Amazing 2020 videogame score by the best darkwave/darksynth composer around (sorry, Perturbator and Carpenter Brut!). Funky, dark, delicious.

I won't have my lists ready for quite some time yet (currently in the process of sampling more than 1000 new scores, and organizing my 2022 film list), but looking forward to reading Gloin's lists. We're kinda twin souls that way, in that our lists tend to include both the big Hollywood blockbuster stuff and the more independent arthouse/festival circuit fare.

Tomorrow Never Dies is nothing but a miracle. In all aspects. After the Goldeneye miscalculation, nobody had any right to expect this all time great entry. I would and will go so far and say that Tomorrow Never Dies the film is on equal grounds with the best of the Bonds, it's the perfect Bond formula placed in a recent timeframe, with a perfect balance of all elements. David Arnold's score is a godsend. When I heard the opening of the alternate Surrender, I shed a tear, being transported back 40 years in time. I wish Arnold had kept it more orchestral in the rest of the song, because that opening with that voice is legit GOAT.

Yes, all the way. Although the fun bit is these early parts that few others have heard.

Alas, that only works for titles that are outright owned by one of the studios. Only physical releases can apparently happen when there are multiple owners. Yavar

BEST SCORES OF 2022 -Fantastic Beasts 3 by James Newton Howard -The Batman by Michael Giacchino -House Of The Dragon: Season 1 by Ramin Djawadi -Rings Of Power: Season 1 by Bear McCreary -The Time Traveler's Wife: Season 1 by Blake Neely -Knives Out 2 by Nathan Johnson -The Orville: Season 3 by people who still haven't realeased the OST BEST TRACKS OF 2022 -The Promise (House Of The Dragon: Season 1) -Khazad-Dûm (Rings Of Power: Season 1) -Valinor (Rings Of Power: Season 1) -White Leaves (Rings Of Power: Season 1) -The Cost Of Love (Death On The Nile) -Catwoman (The Batman) -Rayn Is Dying (Batwoman: Season 2) -Into The Woods / Going For A Drive (The Time Traveler's Wife: Season 1) -The From Glass Onion (Knifes Out 2) -Fantastic Beasts: Secrets... -The Kingdom Of Dreams (The Sandman: Season 1) -Jessamy's Flight (The Sandman: Season 1) BEST CATALOG TITLES OF 2022 -Star Trek Collection: The Final Frontier FILM SCORE LABEL OF THE YEAR -La-La Land Records BEST FILMS OF 2022 -The Batman BEST TV SEASONS OF 2022 -The Orville: Season 3 -House Of The Dragon: Season 1

In a lot of ways I think this is the best of both worlds solution for the future of this hobby: Have the specialty labels make definitive expanded releases as limited edition physical releases in order to finance their creation and to make the physical media collectors happy, and then after some exclusivity period make the release available for digital purchase/streaming. The physical releases are important to be able to finance the expansions since streaming makes hardly any money and without them it would be unprofitable, but I think eventual digital releases are important for long term preservation and wider exposure, plus physical media is unfortunately rapidly dying so I don't know how much more of a future CD-only releases have for the youngest generations especially

Would you anyway?

I love the first Avatar movie and I think that Way of Water is even better and I want it to do really well. I'm also enjoying the reception the movie has gotten after the years of a pathetic internet minority loudly stating that nobody cares about Avatar! I go to the cinema quite often and I haven't seen the cinemas this booked since I guess Endgame. I tried to get tickets for next week and the seats that are left are all terrible in the big screens.

Yes you will

My La-La Land package arrived - the first surprise is that I don't have to pay any customs, the second surprise is that LLL doesn't have those cheap jewel cases any more - wonderful!

That’s definitely my least favorite part about the soundtrack community. Anyone who mentions literally any flaw in a product we purchased is told to just shut up and be grateful. God forbid we have any standards. A great example of this occurred when Disney released the Star Wars “demasters” a couple of years ago. Some guy on FSM at the time went out of his way defend those albums and insist that all the problems people brought up about them were just in their heads. As far as I’m concerned, that’s not just blind loyalty to the labels. It’s behavior that borders on outright gaslighting.

I can't speak for anybody else, but for me, I've seen so few 2022 films so far, and heard so few 2022 scores so far, I don't remotely feel ready to rank the year yet. I need a few more months to catch up

By the way, I think, your work here is really important. I guess, noone else in the world does such an acurate research in Williams' TV work in the 50s and 60s.

How many steps from that to this?

The Last Of Us is phenomenal storytelling for any medium, not just in its base narrative but in its environmental storytelling. Part II, especially, takes the audience down a dark path.

FROM HULL

Basically this at full length: