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Just announced on facebook! Wow! What I think is the best Kamen score, at last in complete (?) form!

“Of Grit and Glory” will be performed this Sunday, May 25th, by the President’s Own United States Marine Band at the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia. Also on the program is Williams’ “Hymn to the Fallen”. Article: https://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/wolf-trap-presents-the-marine-band-s-summer-blast-off-concert/article_7cb947d8-bed1-481f-b871-9a3ca08b5a6d.html Excerpt: Highlights include Williams’ “Of Grit and Glory,” a new piece that the composer wrote for the ESPN football theme. Nowlin noted that the title and spirit really match the Marine Corps anniversary theme. Program: https://www.marineband.marines.mil/Portals/175/Docs/Programs/052525.pdf?ver=w6T8FoAHmRsgBUqLZLEQkA%3d%3d

Is that 50,000 dollar prize in cash or check?

You know to this day when someone (including me) pours wine I either say or at least think "You want to let the breathe-- no- nothing nothing, never mind."

I think he did 😉

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Braveheart, not only one of James Horner's best scores in my opinion, but one of my favorites of all time. 1995 was a very prolific year for the composer with titles like Casper or Apollo 13, but for me Braveheart takes the spotlight, so I decided to do a retrospective review of the score on my blog. Hope you like it!

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Hans Zimmer's finest score, BEYOND RANGOON. So I wrote this tribute article: https://celluloidtunes.no/beyond-rangoon-hans-zimmer/

Saw this at the gas station. I didn't agree to that.

It took the Dutch customs office long enough, but the orders I placed in mid-april are finally here. Hurray!

Thank you for spending your money here!

Yeah, but if that's the case, they should just ignore it and stop complaining. Although I didn't really mean to put a question mark... was meant less more as a pondering statement than a direct question. I mean, I don't like rap or R'N'B or most pop music or heavy metal, but I don't go round complaining about it.

Sony Classical has released a digital single featuring the orchestral suite from the 1994 comedy drama My Girl 2 directed by Howard Zieff and starring Anna Chlumsky, Austin O’Brien, Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis. The track written and conducted by the film’s composer Cliff Eidelman (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, He’s Just Not That Into You, One True Thing, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) is making its streaming debut and is now available on all major digital music platforms, including Amazon. The suite has previously been included on the original soundtrack album (featuring the songs from the movie), which was released on CD by Epic Soundtrax in early 1994. Also listen to the full track after the jump. https://filmmusicreporter.com/2025/05/24/digital-version-of-cliff-eidelmans-my-girl-2-orchestral-suite-released/

I always wonder what critics who complain about film music actually want film music to be? I guess in an ideal world it would be totally original (hah) and composers would have months or years to write the music. Even in ideal circumstances, composers don’t get very long to write the music for a film. Do critics expect every score to be dripping in originality? Is that the most important thing to them? It often feels like that’s the case to the exclusion of everything else. I also find it particularly aggravating that critics who complained about film music often don’t seem to acknowledge the immense technical achievement of a long and complex score. So the theme from Star Wars sounds like Korngold or Holst or whatever. That’s not the be and end all of the score. They spent so long fixating on it sounding a bit like this or a bit like that, that all the good things and technical achievement of film music is completely missed by them. The ability to write two hours of music that hits any number of emotional beats as well as fitting to the picture in terms of timing has got to be a very challenging way to write. Especially longer ago when it was all on paper and with a Moviola and not on a computer with a million assistant composers. Another thing I remember was from when I was at university, there were a couple of other people my age on film music mailing lists and newsgroups who were at university doing music. They start off being big film music fans but seem to have it beaten out of them by their tutors and just end up finding all the things wrong with John Williams or whoever. It was kind of depressing!

Damn. Beat me to it. Really looking forward to this one. I always enjoyed it more than Robin Hood POT (although you can argue how comparable they are but I always kinda think of them as a pair). Very excited for this.

Fantastic! More Disney stuff is always welcome. And did our friend @Steffromuk do the cover?

Turn this tub around. You're taking me to Berlin. Anybody got a light?

Great news. This piece strikes me as a crowd-pleaser, even if it is not immediately recognized. Maybe enough venues will perform it and motivate ESPN to actually use it.

" No John, I will NOT be your designated driver!" Now I'm plagiarizing Morricone ' s BOOK cover photo"

that is absurd to me. how have some people become this intolerant of something as normal as recasting, especially for someone who isn't even a major character? it does a great disservice to the great job Benjamin Bratt did in the series as well and frankly I don't really want that performance replaced with anything else because of how it hit all the right notes. recasting let's you actually have a full performance instead of some weirdly limited scenes where you're barely able to see the person which would be far more distracting and obvious, and it wouldn't have made sense or resonated as much for anyone other than Bail to be in this position it's a shame that Jimmy Smits wasn't able to be in a show that would've let him shine as an actor, because lord knows the Prequels, Kenobi, and Rogue One did not give him that opportunity - but he is so minor in the grand scheme of Andor's production that it would've been unreasonable to halt everything and revolve purely around his availability as for the whole 'how can you call Bail a senator' thing, and this is going to sound rich/odd coming from me, but who cares? this isn't talked about by the show and it has no bearing on it whatsoever. the important dramatic detail is that Bail is the one to directly aid in giving Mon Mothma the floor - that is it. if there's any future story that revolves around this detail in an important way then I'm sure they can come up with a reason that justifies it, that is how the expanded universe has rolled in the past and how it will continue to roll in the future. there is no point in being a slave to canon, especially obscure canon, if there's nothing to be gained from it other than connecting some dots on paper

Bottling day

I don't have to take this abuse much longer.

Coffee!

Martin, it's all very simple. You yell "Barracuda!", everybody goes "What?", "Huh?" You yell "Shark!" We've got a panic on our hands, on the fourth of July.

And no strings? Presumably.

We need summer dollars

Found It. Hum, the broccoli cut is being used only for Clark. To be honest it´s like that simply because it makes the disguise actually works even more, even some new comics are using it too and it makes the difference between Clark and Superman much bigger.

They wanted more if and ands.

Both!

In all fairness, he did steal my heart.

Why did they have to give him this trendy for five minutes broccoli cut? Ten years from now it's gonna look daft. There are tons of photos of this actor with the classic Don Draper style and he looks far more like Superman in other stuff than he does in actual Superman 🤦🏻‍♂️

There is just one interesting element in Ms Marvel that's stringing me along, and it's Kamala's mother. The rest of the MCU doesn't make you think about this much, but ever since Tony Stark revealed himself as Iron Man to the world in 2008, Battle of New York in 2012, and the Blip of 2018-2023, regular people have become exposed to the world of the whimsical and the fantastical, which you'd think would lead to a global awakening and reassessment of how we fit within a bigger universe. But so many people remain in stubborn denial about it all, and militantly resistant to the fantasical notions that Kamala embraces. Her conservative Muslim parents embody this to a frustrating degree, especially to this poor girl who at least recognises the world that's changed, for better or for worse, but they zealously want to shelter her from it. And it probably isn't far off from how people like that would react in the real world. How do people deal with their Marvelised world in the MCU at a spiritual level? I guess we're clued into it in Ms Marvel to an extent, but not satisfactorily. Hell, we're even told now through official channels that UFOs are a thing, and there are probably deep pillars beneath the Great Pyramid at Giza, suggesting a level of engineering even more exceptional for the time it was built than we ever thought possible, and yet nobody at the street level really cares. And that too is how it is in Marvel-land – the regular folks maintain their state of denial about it all because it's too damn inconvenient and probably too frightening for them to dwell on too much. But the show only flirts with this very slightly, making it a wasted opportunity. Kamala might have a nice personality, but her journey is boring compared to Kate Bishop, who at least had more to do.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning I made this not realising an LP was actually coming out.

Your post is not yet complete, I fixed it for you.

Yes. I don't like it.

I believe so. In December Philippa says the script is "several, several months away." I'd say May qualifies. In April, Abdy said they're "about to get that script in May." For context, they have a shareholder meeting on the 23rd so they will have wanted that well in advance so they can read it and perhaps provide feedback all ahead of the meeting. Then on 8 May, Zaslav announces a release date for the film. That sure sounds like a "we saw a script, liked it so we're officially moving forward with this."

I have seven of those and two on order.

It appears that this is back up for sale. I'm unsure if it's a repress or old stock that they found. This is supposed to be limited to 2,000. The 2018 release sells for a lot on Discogs. https://store.rhino.com/en/rhino-store/artists/howard-shore/the-lord-of-the-rings--the-motion-picture-trilogy-soundtrack-6lp/603497862603.html

Gilderoy Lockharts Theme is not all that similar to No Ticket if you look closer at it. The Orchestration and Technique are similar with that String unison idea, and that pompous humorous feeling, but the actual melodic content is very different. Lockharts Theme is a reworking or Variation on Hedwigs Theme. And the fact that its a concert piece wich is available to purchase under Williams name on Hal Leonard makes me certain that its definitely a Williams composition. I really dont think Ross did all that much on CoS composition wise. Wasnt it mainly adapting all the direct quotes and reuses from the first score into the underscore? Neither the minority Report nor the War of the Worlds reworking were on the Soundtrack album of DoD though, were they? I still hold the believe that basically everything that is on the Soudntrack Album both for DoD and CoS is Williams doing. And about the Prologue. Can we assume that it is a Ross adaptation? Im not so sure.

This whole thread makes me think how Williams has been probably the most scrutinized composer in history when it comes to the alleged "theft" in his music. It's really incredible that there are still people spending time in wanting to bring the final proof that JW is "a scam." Are there other examples of composers getting this kind of constant, hammering scrutiny ever or since? Were Mozart and Beethoven pointed like this during their times? It's known that Stravinsky got slack because of the way he systematically reused folkloric material in some of his compositions, but none like the one that Williams is getting since... well, almost 50 years now. My question is: what all these examples should prove, in the end? Artistic dishonesty? Lack of imagination? Shameless attitude towards musical creation? I honestly believe that 99% of such critique always comes from a point of total lack of understanding of how music works and are just a way to instill drops of poison towards how an artist is perceived by the audience.

I have no idea if the movie will be good or not, but my gut feeling is that, at the very least, they nailed the casting of Superman. To play this role properly, an actor must be able to project a great sense of empathy, of seeming incredibly powerful and non-threatening at the same time. I never felt Cavill was able convey this. He looked the part, but there's a smugness, a certain vanity that I can never quite ignore when seeing him on screen. These things are hard to explain and I naturally haven't seen the movie yet, but David Corenswet really seems to embody those qualities I mentioned. It's the only element of the movie I'm almost 100% sure about.

They tried that with the first one (or two), but David Heyman said that the residents wanted so much money for the location rights (and whatever else it takes) that building a new street was actually cheaper. So given that they'll use this multiple times over the course of the show and can film on it whenever they want, it likely saves them a ton in the long run. A lot of completely idiotic (to us) decisions are made by studios, but when it comes down to the ground troops and the set builders, designers and general crew, I'd expect them to be pretty good at working cost-effectively.

Mary Ellen Moffit. She broke my heart.

He was pointing you out to security, and smiling, thinking about what they were about to subject you to.

Ah, 'tis a holy brew.

Who knows, maybe on a jock forum somewhere, everyone's mobilizing in protest.

Anyone looking for a fix of Cliff Eidelman could do worse than checking out his recently released Symphony 2 and a new recording of his tone poem based on the Tempest (previously featuring on the Blood and Thunder album he did in the 90s). The symphony is terrific, with a kind of continuo vocal part... it has hints of Star Trek VI (especially a descending 3 note motif that features throughout). The new recording of the Tempest is perhaps a bit more dynamic than the original, and it's actually nice to have it split into separate tracks so you follow the ideas more easily (even if I'm typically happy enough with this kind of work being a single track). Perhaps the only grumble being that they are both relatively short and would have made an excellent single album release - to that end, I put them together in iTunes - but as he's presumably financing this himself, I don't begrudge him wanting to make some money back! https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/cliff-eidelman-symphony-no-2-cliff-eidelman-royal-scottish-national-orchestra-jessie-shulman-michael-mchale/e8vyas2snpplb https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/the-tempest-cliff-eidelman-royal-scottish-national-orchestra/g60brt98obcka

yeah they appear to be so proud of it by showing Williams conducting in the videos they could at least release the music as a single. Maybe they don't comprehend that anyone would listen to it outside of a sports montage with sound effects and people talking over it

Just watched the video shared a few posts ago with the opening for this year's game (which I did not see as I was flying). I have to say that the new edit this year worked so well with the music. Clearly the editor worked to the music and has respect for it. The lovely shots from the recording sessions emphasize this, and I appreciate how clear the piece starts: This is the anthem for the College Football Championship game and it was written by John Williams. Big text. On long enough to read. Damn straight! And yes, sign me up for the physical album of "John Williams: The Sound of Sports."

it hash shuperficial shimilaritiesh, you can tell by the croshection