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Goldsmith=cash cow. I'm a mild Goldsmith collector, but this recent trend of re-re-re-issuing seems rather pointless to me. I haven't heard the samples but i sincerely doubt that the improvement in sound quality is that huge. On the other hand, if people want to buy it (and a lot of them clearly are), who am i to complain?

If you would ask Williams if he would come back for JAWS V, he'd probably say the same thing. The whole matter obviously wasn't that important to anyone involved or they wouldn't have let Hooper roaming around in TV-musicland for two entries. And probably Williams figured by now that he couldn't bring his thematic material back, because most of it is tied to much more innocous films. It's just not his franchise anymore.

At this point in the series, it makes more sense that he quotes Hoopers themes (are there any?). The only reminder of Williams' themes is the awkward HEDWIG quote here and there, but it never seems to mesh well with the tone of the new films or the scores. Since DEATHLY HALLOWS is two parts, i don't expect the first to offer much room for musical excitement (they do travel a lot by the countryside, aren't they?). More interestingly, if Williams returns for the finale (which at this point is rather doubtful), will he quote the new Hooper and Desplat themes? If not, the Potters are next to the JAMES BOND series for musical incoherence...

It's certainly not as easy to love as other Goldsmiths's from the decade...as for me, i am not to keen on the theme, which always struck me as a bit lukewarm. But i think whatever magic it has is best appreciated in the original recording. I had the bootleg and the playing was much more vigorous, the calypso and ethnic stuff was more tuneful.

I would go as far as saying ON THE BEACH is a great early 80s Williams. Full of distinct themes and orchestrated with an assured hand (sans Prokoviev) it's certainly a lost treasure (only 50 people bought the CD, while DEP IMPACT, a boring score to a similar film, sold around 80.000 copies).

Quite a few times, it does...

We are willing to pay good money for it though. Not nearly enough, it seems. The other internet phenomenon is that any unreleased 12-second stinger is elevated to legend-status as soon as the fanboy gets his iPhone browser post-ready after the show. 10 years before, the movie release dates in Germany were significantly later than in the states and what tension-filled life it was. Reading american messageboards made me dizzy, reading about hourlong quantities of the most brilliant musical setpieces in any film scored by an eminent composer which naturally was absent from the album. Scores like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, JUMANJI or POWDER allegedly were full of those and i can remember watching them in near breathless state, waiting for the big moment to occur (at the very least this waiting game got me unscathed through lots of junky movies). In retrospect, most of the albums from the 90s onwards are reasonably well-produced. Yes, there is the occasional A. I., and sometimes the score is just too much for a single CD release (PHANTOM MENACE), and sometimes a good piece is missing. But honestly, take PADME'S RUMINATIONS off the record and people start to complain how such an obvious cue could possibly be left from the album and Williams and his cohorts would be yelled at as senile jerks. Most composers are, in fact, too generous with stuff they release, at least under purely musical considerations.

Yes and no. The album has a great selection and was quite long for it's time, 50 minutes in 1982). But tracks like THE SENTRY REEL have notable middle chunks missing, where Goldsmith expanded on the mysterious/choral ideas and even a little Korngoldian fanfare (which appears more stately in the main and end credits). I wish there would be more variations on the russian theme. The end credits hint at the possibilities - just to think of a Williams score for a TOM AND JERRY cartoon with them fighting russians, but alas....

You didn't like The Red Canvas as a whole? Karol The long piece is the best representation of the material therein. I try to select only the most characteristic pieces of any given score. MP3 collecting made me selective....i could produce very good albums now, because i've gotten used to trim the fat since 2001.

But he didn't gave me my money back after i saw his film, either.

For me, it was a rather fruitful year, filmmusic-wise, that is. 2009 scores worth mentioning are CHÈRIE and NEW MOON (Desplat), MAO'S LAST DANCER (Gordon), STAR TREK (Giacchino), TERMINATOR: SALVATION (Elfman), RED CANVAS (at least the 11-minute piece, Petersen), ICE AGE 3 (Powell) and, with reservations, AVATAR (which shortcomings seem to be more Camerons than Horners fault). As for re-releases: BLACK STALLION RETURNS (Delerue), HOUSE OF CARDS, JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, STAR TREK II (Horner), INNERSPACE, LONELY ARE THE BRAVE, FREUD (Goldsmith) and, for some funky greatness, THE SPLIT (Quincy Jones).

Soured about WHAT? There's not one note in PERFECT STORM which isn't perfectly accessible Hollywood mush with 100 strings and horns playing with lots of vibrato. Brahms it certainly ain't. Aside from that, PS is a great, if compromised score. Lots of themes and motifs, lots of memorable moments, just too much, too sugary at times, too many repetitions of core moments. But how many composers can produce multiple 10-minute action cues which have a dramatic arc and a symphonic flow to them? Name the last long Williams cue as through-composed as COAST GUARD RESCUE (not you, Morlock, anyone!)

Yes, if you count all his rejected scores. I toss a vote for Media Ventures/RC, not Zimmer, since they really all contributed.

I'm not sure either with all this 'it's so ambitious' shit. People hardly took notice when MIGHTY JOE YOUNG or FOUR FEATHERS came out and god forbid anyone would've used the word ambitious, then. And those are better scores, on the whole.

More than you ever will buddy, that's for sure. And that's astounding, especially for someone sporting the maturity of a 10-year old...

Troll alert?

More screentime for the midichlorian stuff, like scientists analyzing and scrutinizing it for several minutes...

And I bet it spends most of its running time expoloring this idea, right? It's like saying the prequel trilogy is a mature study of human nature (which it kind tries to be ). Karol - who can't see how is this deep at all But then, remember how deep a lot of people found GLADIATOR in 2000. I give AVATAR one year and 2, 3 other 3-D spectacles later before people begin to find it really square, a bit like THE ROBE as the first CinemaScope film in 1953. Cameron still is the Cecil B. DeMille of our time, a real showman. But all the fuzz which is crowding social media these days of AVATAR being the second coming of motion pictures is just silly. And this is coming from someone who has seen it in Digital 3-D and feeling happy as a clam most of the time.

Where can one listen to DAYBREAKERS? I'm still high on ON THE BEACH and MAO.

Well, it can be as dynamic as a neurotic staffordshire terrier stung by a tarantula, the fact remains that there's a general aesthetic which oozes in trailer/video game music clichés - that's just not open for debate. It is reasonably engaging in it's simplicity and, as usual for Horner, melodic richness. But the only thing Horner can really offer here are high production values. As for the film, i liked the effect it had on me with it's visual splendor, but a lot of the storytelling was cringeworthy. At least it will bring new age-y posters with frolicking unicorns resting before moonlit waterfalls back into fashion. And that can be not an altogether bad thing.

If i may answer it, of course there are a lot of generic things in it. Obviously a case of the director demanding a popular summer blockbuster/Michael Bay movie sound (to depict an alien culture by new age-y spheres and tin whistles with high strings swelling in the background certainly isn't going to win you originality prizes). Add to this Horner's penchant for parading his old stuff prominently through the motions (Four Feathers Love Theme, danger motif, My Heart will go on etc.) and you have a score which you can hardly label 'fresh'. It's very subservient to the film, anyway. AND this leads us to the movie itself: While i was spellbound by a lot of the 3-D spectacle, the whole storytelling borders on an intellectual insult. It was ok, because Cameron still is a class by himself as a director, but without some great setpieces (the flying sequence, the whole war segment) it would be in serious danger of hitting rock bottom. PS: when the danger motif reared it's head at the end of the dstruction of Hometree, at least here in Berlin some cinemagoers commented on it being this or that movie. They got the movie wrong of course, but still...

Beltrami did KNOWING this year, which is a helluva lot better than most stuff people cite as their 2009 favorites.

The first Bruce looks frightening, no matter what. The only real unconvincing scene is the boat hopping, but they didn't anticipate DVD back then. JAWS 4 is in a league by itself, with several shots highlighting the rig and the machinery connected to the rubber model: Give him a rest, after being killed three times you'd need help to stay afloat, too! (Pic 1) Look Ma, no wires! (Pic 2) ...sorry, hotlinking wasn't possible...

And JAWS - The Revenge finds YOU laughable!