publicist

Well, take into perpective that neither Goldsmith nor anyone else is going to personally lobby for her/himself THAt often. It just isn't clear to me why he did it for such a rather lowbrow affair, but not for 'English Patient' and other big character dramas that came out around the time.

I find it much more interesting to find out which assignments composers seek out actively...that Williams lobbied for 'Stepmom', an insignificant tearjerker AND was scheduled to do 'Bicentennial Man', another Columbus tearfest, puzzles me, to say the least. The first director of 'Dragonheart' exposed on his blog that Goldsmith personally came to him to beg for the assignment of scoring it, before Cohen took over. That puzzles me, too.

I guess when a movie reaches a certain critical mass (i. e. how expensive and block-bustery it is), there will be automatically early requests for all top name composers. Bruckheimer may be an exception, but usually the agencies (Gorfaine/Schwartz, Kraft etc.) offer their clients prestigious jobs in advance and then see what comes of it.

www.get-a-life.com?

Of course! to think that ambitious Shakespeare adaptions like 'Hamlet' or 'Henry V' could possibly compete with another jolly 'Harry Potter' adventure is just to mind-boggling to contemplate.

Got a link to that, by any chance? It's HERE.

And more generic. It wouldn't fit the new movies, either, but i rather would force the old Voldemort theme(s) on the new composers with the obligation to make them fit. I find it rather unpleasant that there is so little thematic unity for such an organic story.

But it gets no love. I've searched youtube up and down for a rendition of the 2-minute-concert tune and only found a midi on a Williams-site. I seriously like this theme, but even Williams seems to have forgotten it by now.

'Drag' has deft orchestrations by an assured musical voice and the gypsy violin gives the music a playful diabolical edge. The CD features tons of stuff not in the movie.

You should. The second half is better by a country mile.

But what sketches! Dead parrot, fruit drill instructor, rabid grannies, the expedition etc., etc. Certainly on par with the later movies.

Is that so? In my humble opinion, the few themes and motives Williams writes for those occasions seldom warrant more than 40 - 50 minutes, max. 'Schindler', '7YiT', 'Angela's Ashes', all outstay their welcome for me because they repeat the thematic material ad nauseum without much variation. Often he just slaps together 2 or 3 shorter tracks so that theme A pops up in minute 2 instead of minute 3 - at least that's my recollection of '7YiT' and 'AA'. 'Memoirs of a Geisha' is the only one of those 60+ albums which offers a more diverse listening experience.

The sturm-and-drang theme Williams has concocted for this rates as one of his best, for me anyway (and he never applied Yo-Yo Ma better). There's a european wash over it i definitely prefer over lots of americana stuff he did since then. The album is much too repetitive, though. Cut it to 45 minutes and you have a great little concert miniature. In the film, it's overbearing pathos - so Annaud (or whomever) cut it to pieces and left only the subdued stuff. Score: 4 Film: 2

More likely that he's totally encouraging Bay to do his thing, knowing that there are about $400 million worth of knuckle-dragging morons who will appreciate it. I guess I can always hope Spielberg is using whatever money he makes off of the movie to make something better for himself ... more likely, he just feels like cashing a big ole' check, and can get it without tarnishing his name very much. Can't say I blame him. It would be easier to tolerate if the money wouldn't flow directly into "Transformers III" and possibly "Transformers IV". These Ben Stiller mock trailers from 'Tropic Thunder' seem terribly square in comparison.

I'll give him a 9, just for the harp stuff in 'jaws 2'

Didn't you read the other thread? Williams is the most versatile, successful and manna from heaven, anyway...saying mean stuff won't change that!!!

I guess he was mostly out there to slaughter the 'leitmotif'-approach, a style Williams rarely uses these days, anyway. With his stampeding dogmatism, he certainly will become an important scholar. As for 'Accidental Tourist'; it's nice, rainy and moody, but Williams could have injected a bit more variation into the proceedings. Less Barry, more Williams. But given that he was a Broughton replacement, we don't know how much of a quickie it was for the maestro...

He specifically mentioned Newton Howard (sans hyphenation) and Horner in a long Bouzereau-Interview around the 'Jurassic Park' time (in "Soundtrack" or "MftM", i believe). His exact description was something like they were 'real workers of the movies' and would help to uphold the high standards blabla... No insinuation by the interviewer. The only instance of him mentioning current scores specifically was when he cited 'Basic Instinct' as example of great film scoring. Maybe it was the same interview, but i don't know for sure.

It is a perfectly alright sequel score. But why Williams endured the pain of watching/scoring another 2 hours of Mac Culkin and his terrible booby traps is anybody's question.

"Gregson-Williams" is hyphenated, but "Newton Howard" is not. (Newton is Howard's middle name.) Smartass!

Josh, which long-standing film composer IS NOT versatile? Horner, Newton-Howard, Jarre, Bernstein, Zimmer, they all have tackled very different genres, sometimes with greater, sometimes with less success. It comes with the fu...ing job, man. But it's a flat fact that Williams is not exactly Mr. Versatile. It's not his core strength or his forte. And it has a reason that the aforementioned composers like Goldsmith or Morricone have gone through sharply defined phases in their career. A drum machine phase, a more serial or atonal phase or most often in their late years, a rather conservative and romantic approach. In Williams case, he tends to be more more refined nowadays, and thankfully tries some new things now and then, but i still wouldn't dream of calling him more versatile than most other composers who worked on enough films.

I think it's more about a mindset. If you are willing to write a drum machine/synth score for a film like 'Link', a good percent of the people listening will cry 'what a junk!' while in the grand scheme, it figures as an interesting concept, successful execution or not. Same with Morricone's atonal Giallo-scores or newer stuff like 'A Pure Formality'. And Goldsmith's last movie was 'Looney Tunes', after all. Williams tried new things after 1995 and i firmly believe that he felt the stylistic hamsterwheel he was in. But still, more often than not he approached 'big subjects' which require a certain weight, if you want. Scores like 'Terminal' or 'Catch me if you can' seem to be the only instances of him really open up to more frivolous subjects and those he did because of Spielberg. 'PoA' seems a rare later instance of Williams taking chances with a big project.

Exactly. What do you mean by "clunkers"? Many late 80's/early 90's Goldsmith'es, Morricone scores whose titles i instantly forgot.

And we know how trustworthy Madame Blanche's foretellings were...

Exactly. Which of course would provide you with the much needed fodder to fire off 10.000 new polls.