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Afair, Casper was recorded in LA January 1995 and Braveheart early spring in London, Apollo 13 directly after that in late spring back in LA. Balto.

Believe me, the beloved orchestral Hollywood sound from the 80's and 90's has very little to do with Rózsa et al., in the early 90's the template became so common it was referred to as a specific orchestrator trademark, where every big orchestral McNeely, Arnold, Newton Howard, Debney etc. suddenly appeared to have fingerprints and crossovers that certainly weren't stylistic choices of the composer, but because they all (to a degree) used the same orchestrators. This has little use in the discussion at hand, though.

Both, actually, i was thinking of a KL cover version on Sax, but yes... It really isn't, after many years of messageboard debates i can pinpoint exactly what it means, namely gold standard sound established in between Star Wars and Stargate, or better, ID4. Where harpsichords etc. are verboten!

All is fair game, better than artistic (or indeed personal) standstill where everything has the same pasty Hollywood sound. That being said, the Kenny Loggins alto sax is hopeless, in and outside of film music. I think Dave Brubeck may have found a setting once where it was acceptable, but i'm not really sure.

When Amistad is good, it's brilliant, when it's bad, it's really bad (JW sadly contributes more than his share to this, imho). Not more to be said. The Patriot, for the uninitiated, was one of those movies that heralded a new era (in retrospect it's already a very Trump-ian movie), posing as classic 'quality' film making, but being no more than a shallow historical comic book full of reductive characterizations.

I've no interest in this release, but since this different mixing (the LP mix) was done by a guy named Len Engel, i will just give a word of caution: this guy sure has a bad track record, he did for instance the first release of 'The Final Conflict', which sounded like it was recorded off a tv set. So the difference might be bigger than you think.

An ultra-patriotic 15-minute James Horner cue: this will make you either swoon or run for the hills. Having listened to it today made me appreciate its impeccable craftmanship more, though it's still aiding a somewhat questionable military ethos. Back in 1996 i found it draggy and boring. Zwick's low-key thriller hardly needs Horner (it's built like a detective story), so the only musically noteworthy cues on the album are either concert pieces or the big, bookending salvation cue linked above - solemn patriotism was the only angle Horner could musically exploit. It's not a great score, additionally burdened by the fact that he lifted large parts of the opening battle for 'Titanic', but the cues Hymn, The Elegy and Courage Under Fire (plus the finale) are surprisingly free of self-referencing and i just grew fond of them, in a way you like your old slippers. Also it obviously was the template on which JW based the Omaha beach cue in SPR. It is *very* similar to the 'Courage Under Fire' cue.

Or the fart thing Morricone employed in 'March of the Beggars' from 'Duck You Sucker'.

I saw that but don't remember anything about it. Though i like Williams' modal, Vaughan-Williams-tinged score on it's own, i felt he completely missed the point and atmosphere of the story. Seen through the eyes of a child, which is what AA is all about, being all adagio and elegiac just doesn't cut it. The choice of the piano as lead solo for a story about the poor, an instrument culturally attached to the higher social strata and elegant drawing rooms, confirms a certain detachment on JW's part.

I imagine space aliens in the year 2468 examining this thread, wondering what triggered this impassioned debate. Finally they locate the 'Spacecamp' soundtrack and listen to 'Training Montage'. Hilarity ensues.

I agree with him.

Like i said, this is not really the issue, it's just cherry-picking of the obvious social warrior bigotries. Stereotyping and casual racism in movies are a complex and delicate affair, a dance involving race, artistic license, gender, and ethics vs. profit. That most will dismiss it out of hand is just license to do it again.

I think it runs much deeper than that, asians are notoriously stereotyped in Hollywood movies since the dawn of film beyond lumping together ethnically different people. The standard refrain to these stereotyping complaints is the usual 'they're overreacting', which is as patronizing and ignorant in this case as it is for any marginalized group, but i know from hearing first-hand from asian colleagues that western people just don't understand/don't want to understand how offensive certain cultural slurs are to them.

Tbh, 60's US comedy movies had these annoying 'zany' bells- and-whistles scores pretty much all the time, from Doris Day to Disney family movies. A fusion album i love, from the jazz standards to Yared's seductive, silky score, a kind of a light, sicilian 'Basic Instinct'.

It absolutely does, if your frame of reference for bad movies goes beyond Ed-Wood-style incompetence. Some of them i just reject for ideological reasons, i. e. The Patriot or the casual 'they all look alike' racism of the polished coffee table book that is 'Memoirs'.