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What blatant JW copy!!

Painfully reminded me how much we miss *good* comedies today (and when taglines were not just empty promises). Chances are people will answer it's Pixar's domain. Be that as it may, this very british assembly of characters, most of them Potter alumni, makes for a sometimes side-splitting experience (Maggie Smith is responsible for a good amount of them). The setting is a small Yorkshire town in 1947, during the worst of the postwar austerity, with rationing of bread and eggs, and all kinds of food shortages. The lordly city fathers (Indy's Denholm Elliott, Potter's Richard Griffiths etc.) plan a patriotic banquet celebrating the nuptials of Princess Elizabeth (RIP) and Prince Philip - which involves a 'forbidden' pig to be obtained on the black market. In needs to be fattened, undetected by the nose of the pitiless food inspector. When the socially ambitious wife (Smith) of hapless chiropodist Mike Palin smells a chance for leveraging the stealing of the pig into a steep climb up the local importance ladder, things spiral out of control. Rarely haughty pomposity and scheming at the lowest of levels have been combined to better effect (only british filmmakers could have delivered a film like this). The added grace notes like Maggie Smith's befuddled mother, looking serenely out of a window, the pig next to her, are the icing on the cake.

There's no shortage of them, and their arm has a long reach.

Low hanging fruit... This on the other hand, is a much more substantial 1993 offering, probably Bernstein's last *great* score, it's a bit as if Brahms were reincarnated as jewish film composer in Southern California. It needed a filmmaker of Scorsese's standing to allow for it, but whatever the circumstances were, the 'classical' (in the best sense) idiom Bernstein employs here is unique and the orchestration is gorgeous (Bernstein even smuggles in his beloved Ondes Martenot, 'Ellen at the Beach'). There's virtually no filler, it plays like a concert work. I would also urge everyone who's into historical movies (minus trolls and dwarfs) and has not seen 'Age of Innocence' to watch it.

Isn't he more or less canceled, anyway?

It remains what it always was: a 'sentimental favourite'. The repetitions of the main theme really grate on this 65 minute version. My favourite stuff in this score since 1993: the fanfare in 'Take Us Out' or its longer version, 'Tryouts'. These are really standouts no other composer could have nailed as well.

There's no handwringing for me here, i haven't watched a Spielberg movie in the cinema since Indy IV with the exception of 'Ready Player One' out of pure boredom during a Bangkok layover (it was dumb, but watchable and was a great fuck you to modern directors that can't film and edit a good action sequence). And this sounds like the kind of nicy-nice Stevie Spielberg, safely in the no-offense zone, which i tend to yawn myself through. So my actual hope is Williams stops aging and has a final Spielberg in him that better utilizes his talents.

There's not really much left i still need, but imho it's time for one of the biggies by either JNH or JH that still aren't out expanded, say 'Postman', 'Mighty Joe Young' or 'Hidalgo'.

Lively adventure score, with a lot of 90's Arnold/Dodd (Stargate especially) and also recalling the good second-tier scores of that decade. Nothing new or unique, but the level of old-style is endearing.

As anyone should know who listened to Burgess Meredith's Boston Pops narration, where he spells it out clearly!

This is the one Rudy cue i couldn't do without and if it sounds better, i get it.

The Barry theme. It sure stood out in the cinema.

Yikes, that's awful.

JG rather publicly called Shatner an idiot (which Doug Fake halfway confirmed by relating to certain tensions from the sessions he attended) and i frankly don't know what delusions of grandeur made Shatner think he could handle a weighty religious topic like that. An early version of the script was even more nuts: god turns out to be the devil in disguise! Even Nick Meyer couldn't have saved this one.

Expansive-to-intimate, rather traditional wildlife score, with unusual prominence given to viola solos. From time to time (Scout's Dinner Date) you could be fooled into thinking it was a *real* good old score.

You could also be reminded of 'The Haunting', which employed a similar chord progression on high strings. The main theme on 'Hollow Man' is purely perfunctory, though. The score's true core ideas are the call to arms for the good lab guys (following the opening pizzicato in 'Isabelle Comes Back') and a dark three-note motif for Kevin Bacon's invisible man (opening of 'Find Him'). It's a thriller score constantly reworking these small motivic ideas to the point of where it's staggering by today's standards that a composer could actually possess the ability to apply his musical intellect to such a degree for a score written in a handful of weeks. 'Hollow Man' came out in summer 2000, when Goldsmith just had a cancer operation. Viewed in this light, it's a truly remarkable piece of work (even if it may have limited appeal due to not being an expansive adventure score).

Didn't member @KK confirm that the score doesn't amount to much in context of the movie (he saw it)? He singled out the theme for the mother as nice and that was about it.

Musically more appealing (to me, there's a solid Horner/Barry vibe throughout) than the Price and Zimmer outings for such documentaries. The Budapest Symphony...do they remember the old Jerry sessions?

A good mix of french savoir vivre, gallic waltzes and mischievous comedy. Something Desplat denies us since 10+ years. Recommended.

The old album is fine, but why not (given the competition).

Emmy Winner 2022

I'm too lazy to dig out the time stamp but 1974 was clearly said at some point.

Hollow Man? Botnick mentioned this a while ago.

@Yavar Moradi Rio Lobo was 1970, not 1974.

So not one bigger musical set piece that Williams owns?