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Wasn't sure where to put this. I was just looking through the website of London Voices and came across this little amusing story from Terry Edwards during the recording of the first score (I assume): I'm sure they did, John. I am sure they did. Karol

So good to see someone else mentioning this! Yes, this is something that sadly IMO hasn't gotten nearly enough attention (understandably so, for those who haven't listened to the songs album/don't know the musical): Powell got the honor of doing the entire film version of "The Wicked Witch of the East." Hoping there may one day be an official release of the film version with vocals, but I won't hold my breath. For those curious, 2:28 in the album version of the song... …corresponds to 4:19 in the film version: So, Nessarose's "Save him, please, just save him" solo would start at 4:22 in Powell's version. And the big brassy minor chord at 4:44 in Powell's is when she sings the word "East." Basically, Powell put the whole thing into a minor key and made it a lot darker (which, without getting into spoilers, fits what is happening on-screen at the time). The songs album version (with the piano, in a major key) steers much closer to the Broadway version, which makes sense since people have waited 20+ years for a commercial recording of the song. So, the only downside is that we don't have an official release of Powell's film version + vocals, but man, he did an incredible job and it's amazing that they entrusted him with this. Lyric timestamps for Powell's version: 4:22 Save him, please, just save him 4:24 My poor Boq, my sweet, my brave him 4:28 Don't leave me till my sorry life has ceased 4:33 Alone and loveless here, with just the girl in the mirror 4:39 Just her and me 4:41 The Wicked Witch of the East

So I did a thing. Here are Lieutenant Yuki and Captain Kodai. He is a purring machine and the first male cat I’ve ever owned. Although they’re both about 3 months, she’s absolutely tiny at only 2 lbs.

These helicopter parents, always overprotecting their kids since the 1800s! I miss the 1700s, kids were actually kids back then! They listened to the uncensored folk tales that inspired the Grimms and also worked at the farms and factories and even got married when they reached 12.

With that service it's no surprise they went broke.

It was certainly part of the brief Williams got from the filmmakers—the film itself is a remake of sorts of the original one, with the story hitting the very same beats and reprising many of the gags verbatim, so Williams followed suit. If it worked the first time around, why reinvent the wheel? He still contributed a lot of original material and two more great Christmas songs. I heartily disagree about HA2 being a substandard performance—this is virtually the same personnel who performed on Hook and Far and Away… The playing is just incredible. Brass and woodwinds in particular are at the top of their game. As for the recording, I guess it’s just personal preference. HA1 was done by Armin Steiner at Fox, while HA2 was Shawn Murphy at Sony. I think both are fine recordings, HA1 is warmer and more tender, but I tend to prefer the more shining and bristling sound of HA2.

An interesting observation whilst I'm in the process of combining the songs with the score is that 'All Around the Wicked Witch of the East', is actually the film instrumental version of the song with all the score pieces contained within perfectly intact. It's not the album instrumental that someone mentioned before as that's a completely different mix, so any attempt to try and merge that with the score would be fruitless - if not virtually impossible. Therefore, what I've had to do is create an acapella of the song using a highly advanced and paid for A. I. algorithm and mix that into the score piece instead. Luckily there are a few bootleg copies of the film's soundtrack to use for reference as it would have been a nightmare job to do without them!

OK so I've had a look at correcting the pitch of 'Into the Closet' and adding it to the end of 'For Good' using a clip of the scene I found on Vimeo (1st clip below) and here is the result (2nd clip below). ST Clip (Mono).mp3 FG - ITC Rebuild.mp3

I'm, also on team music dialed out when they did. And the same goes for the next bit of duel in carbon freeze chamber later. The way that set is lit, with Vader in silhouette high above Luke with just the loud breathing with reverb, it just is far more impactful to me without music. Up to this point we have never had music during a lightsaber duel, and so the first duel music being the slow Imperial March as Vader hurls stuff at Luke is made even better. Just like with the T-rex attack example, the return of music as it cuts to a new scene is a subconscious cue for the audience to "unclench" after an intense moment.

For anyone who doesn’t know why this score by a relatively little-known composer is a holy grail for many including myself, I give you the most powerfully scored sequence in the film: (Obviously if you’ve never seen the film and you’re willing to just watch the whole thing on Criterion or whatever, do THAT instead of playing the above clip!) Yavar

I spend 10 minutes working out a joke (which is already sad) about Hedwig, and I forget the other damn bird. I did think of the little bluebird, but figured I could get away with that one.

The film version now with vocals. I spent a lot of time today putting this together! AATWWOTW.mp3 Film version. It was the same with 'Popular' on the end credits of the 1st film and I don't know why they don't give us the film versions of songs to begin with rather than re-mixing them from scratch and cutting out instruments and segments and stuff! Disney do the same by the way.

Sure, but he was still the secondary lead. They just botched his storyline: how many films botch the B-storyline? A great many, and nobody is investing it with a sense of victimhood. 99.999999% of actors - of all backgrounds - would have killed for Boyega's part. So to then talk about it in terms of discrimination? Ludicrous.

No, they don't, and... ... yes, it is.

Yeah, it took half an hour to get our drinks... Didn't they know that Mr. Hooper had an early morning train to catch and needed his beauty sleep?

They were only made in 1080p resolution and didn't show up on long range sensors.

Z Českých Luhů A Fájů from Smetana's amazing Ma Vlast: The whole cycle is brilliant. Get any one of the various Kubelik recordings. …although the version in your video sounds very powerful as well, and now I want to know which one that is.

Ah! So fear not, I have all of your latest releases and I can safely say they are free of this issue. Backdraft I know the second CD has the album arrangement, there is no skipping, it plays cleanly as it should. LLL does not seem to have this issue so Gladiator is safe, I'm sure Black Rain is going to be safe as well but I have yet to receive my copy. Intrada only seems to be the label with this issue for some reason, I informed Roger on Facebook a while ago regarding Windtalkers because the OST was included and has crossfades, which skipped. All 3 cds of that release had the skipping but only a couple of tracks used crossfades on cds 1 and 2 of that. Still frustrating. I like to think since I've informed them they've paid more attention, I don't think any of their releases since have had this issue, at least not ones with crossfades. I know for example Something Wicked This Way Comes, which came out a few months after, looked like a LLL release without the weird gaps in the silences. (That release has no crossfades anyway so it still would've been fine.) I appreciate the care taken into your releases, its part of why I never hesitate to pick one up when I know your name is attached.

Speaking about this issue, I sure hope it doesn't happen with the ones I do. I'm not big on crossfades, but when that happens (Backdraft CD2, Gladiator, Black Rain's CD1 ending & CD2), we're very careful about gapless transitions in the masters delivered. I cannot talk about what happens during the actual manufacturing after but if I did it right there's no reason for it to have a problem.

Now that's all I can hear. I hate you! Karol

Which is which?

No idea if it speaks to the quality of the movie, but Spielberg and/or his PR team have actually caused a widespread (well, internet-wise) public interest in this movie. I did not think that was possible in this day and age. We'll see if the trailer continues it. It would be cool to have an actual event film, and an original one at that.

Interesting. I don’t ever really feel this way, I suppose, mostly because I just enjoy (the act of) listening to music, I don't care if I miss anything, I have future listens to catch anything I didn't catch prior.

Mostly complains about being cast in Star Wars, and not being the main character.

Franglen's Way of Water score is fantastic. He doesn't imitate Horner at all. He honours his themes and the style of sound (which Franglen had a hand in developing, as he worked on the first Avatar with Horner, on the instrumentation and synthesiser sounds of pandora). So, he is using his own style and own created tones as well as driving the entire score in a different direction with his new main theme (The family theme). I don't believe his Way of Water and Fire and Ash scores sound like Horner. Only Horner sounded like Horner. I think they sound like Franglen, with of course a strong connection to the first film for obvious reasons.

In fairness, they didn’t even make action films that good back then.

Stranger Things 5x03 The Turnbow Trap That was a good episode! I thought the opening with Hopper and 11 trying to break through the wall was fun, in a bit of a goofy way (because of the weird CGI), and it was cool tech that the military guys have an "11's powers" blocker. Hopper murdering them all with grenades and rifle fire, then torturing the survivor for information, was so 80s hero coded, and the show just kind of makes it work. Interesting twist that Vecna is somehow captured and being held by the military? Unless 11's assumption is wrong? Pairing these two characters up for a while has paid off nicely so far. I also really enjoying the continuing pairing up of Will and Robin. Finally they are making a connection I was hoping they would make last week. I wonder who Will is going to kiss in the series finale? Holly in the... whatever this is... recreation of Henry's childhood home was also strangely compelling, even if I barely remembered that Holly was a character that existed before the season started. The montages set to giant 80s pop hits also work really well, and it was a fun creepy moment when the knock on the door came. I definitely was NOT expecting Max to be who actually left her the note. I remember a while ago 11 said she couldn't find Max's soul in her body, so does that mean Holly's body isn't in this Henry house place, its like a dreamworld and Holly and Max's souls are both in it? I think Holly and Max could be a fun pair to explore next week. The rest of characters all got to work together in a fun way. I really enjoyed them preparing the house for the demigorgon, they're so experienced after 4 seasons of this shit it was fun. They really kinda kicked the demigorgon's ass too, especially with the trap where it lands in a pile of barbed wire. Damn! Interesting, though, that I guess it didn't really work, since it turned around and went back to the house at the end? And now we gotta wait a whole week to find out what happens next!

There is a brass bit in there, that reminds me of one of the Animated Series theme statements. Huston and Ravenscroft are still treats.

I’ll give this to Boyega (who is otherwise a clown)…he’s spot on with his criticism of how the OT characters, particularly Luke, were treated in the ST. He’s also right to be annoyed with Disney de-emphasising his character on posters in China. A move which only goes to demonstrate how hypocritical Disney is on these issues.

I think the objection is just to the label of "kids' movie." It's more accurate to say that it was aimed at a young audience, like 'Harry Potter.' Which isn't to say that kids and adults couldn't enjoy it too.

I see at as: If you're a 30 something film maker and you want to make the space opera tales that you loved as a kid you kind of have two ways to go: You make Flash Gordon (1980) or even Heavy Metal. Or you make Star Wars. Just because Star Wars has an innocence and can obviously be enjoyed by kids does not make it a kids' movie. I can say that because you can compare it to actual kids movies from the time. The Alien toys are right around the corner? Too late for the Planet of the Apes toys. Or Space:1999. Or James Bond.

No respect for history! I unsuccessfully lobbied to have it designated as a national heritage site, but I never expected this...

The original versions of the Grimm's Fairy Tales haven't been widely read to kids for almost 200 years. In fact "softer" versions of the tales were published within a decade of the originals in translation, and it's primarily those (and other updated editions) that have been read to kids since. The only children who really ever exposed to the originals in a widespread way were Germans in the early 19th century. Also, not for nothing, but in the time children were being read the original Grimm's fairy tales they were also being forced into labour as young as seven years old. Now, whether you think all the ways society has evolved since then is good or bad is a matter of opinion. But using what kids were exposed to in the good old days really isn't your best argument for Star Wars being a "kid's movie" in 1977.

The versions of the Grimm fairy tales that are told to children (at least to German speaking ones) are quite strongly censored compared to the much darker, brutal originals. That's not to say that what remains isn't still quite horrible my modern standards. But I had lots of the children's versions on vinyl when I was little and heard them over and over again often enough to still remember much of them when I see or hear them again, and when I first came across the original versions years ago, there were many hair-raising passages I'd never heard before.

Nosferatu, by Christopher Young I was immediately taken by the full score since the first time I listened to it in its entirety, but it has steadily transformed into a all time favorite. Life circumstances and timing matter tremendously in these things, as well, and since I had a baby girl earlier in the year, the act of forming memories and associations has become, how to say, much more focused and centered on a smaller scope, don't know quite how else to put it. And since this score was in heavy rotation around the time of her birth, it has just ingrained itself in my memory and is now an indelible watermark of a very specific and very memorable period of my life. But it is tremendous music nonetheless, wonderfully atmospheric, with a clear dramatic arc, a great listening experience as an album and it joins the ranks, next to JW's and Kilar's Dracula scores as the holy trinity of musical representation of that particular story. It's such a well rounded listening experience, that I almost always listen to the whole thing in its entirety and don't cherry-pick certain tracks. My favorite score from the last 2 years or so

You still want to build your weapons in secret, so they can't be sabotaged. Unless of course you are trying to lure your enemy Into the Trap.

It was the moon of Endor’s air quality due to its high concentration of trees that improved the transmission of the Death Star’s shield generator making it the ideal location.

3 films I enjoyed very much.

Whether you share the politics of One Battle or not, I think it's hard to deny that one of the reasons for all of its acclaim is the political zeitgeist we're living. And that's not a bad thing by itself. Every movie is released under a certain socio-cultural context that may influence how it is received. The right movie at the right time. The question is: after it wins a bunch of awards, will One Battle endure as a new movie classic on the years and decades to come, even when the political context is radically different than today? Or will it be looked upon as such a 2025 movie that you had to be very aware of what was happening at the time to fully appreciate it? I mean, look at Dog Day Afternoon or Network. They are very much made in the context of the 70s United States, of what was happening with the American society at the time, and yet even if you only have a passing knowledge of the mid-70s American mindset you can still enjoy and appreciate these movies as pieces of art. On the other hand, Spielberg's The Post, even though set in the 70s, was so deep in the mindset of a liberal dealing with the first year of Trump, it was so specifically 2017 that now no one remembers or talks about it.

Messiah, part 1. Harnoncourt has lots of ideas. None of them work. Curious about what is to come.

Mcklunkey

Jabba’s a wonderful human being.

It probably fell victim to Spielberg's non-disclosure policy.

Murray wrote a lovely text for the Booklet https://www.silvascreen.com/wp-content/uploads/SILED1575-DoctorWho-Series10-digitalbooklet.pdf

Disney just added the music for this film! As expected though, it's just the OST Here are the links:

There wasn’t a good Batman film until Begins.

It has the best version of Star of Bethlehem, JW's probably best source music arrangement of non-original music (the Adeste fideles part of Christmas at Carnegie Hall), and I think I prefer this version of Setting the Trap.

I don’t hate Michael Giacchino. I just find his music boring, phoned in and uninspiring. He thinks he is the new John Williams, yet he has never written a memorable theme in his life.