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My perception is that some films feel very natural in the way their narrative and scenes evolve - in which case you're ready to accept the human-kindness-schmaltz or whatever...others drop dead in the moment such a scene is happening and don't come to life before it's finally over. A howler like 'Fried Green Tomatoes' really works this way, the 'pre-cogs lived happily ever after'-scene doen't. 'Saving Private Ryan' certainly is a good movie, too, but after the first third you are conditioned to wait fearfully for the big MESSAGE scene...you'd know it would come sooner or later and bite your tongue till it's over. Spielberg still has these 'showman' allures, courtesy of Cecil B. DeMille or Walt Disney. If he makes an 'important' film, goddamn, the whole world should realize it to their teeth!! It's just as if he can't find a better way to portray said feelings - what doesn't mean there isn't one. I recently saw Ingmar Bergmans 'Fanny and Alexander', which is full of poignant scene, which feel earned...but again, it's director is a swede and the sensibilities may be very different. He doesn't make me bite my tongue.

While 'E.T.' may still provoke that reaction, even if it would force me to help it with some alcohol or other substance abuse (yes, just a joke , i tend to feel it is out of place in the more adult thematics Spielberg tackles nowadays. A cool noirish technoid thriller like 'Minority Report' really suffers from all the goody-goody saccharine at the end, i don't particularly like Tom Hanks reciting his text like flowery prose in the 'High School teacher' sequence of 'SPR'. But i can see people feeling truly touched by these scenes - i just don't have any idea how this works. 'A.I' and 'WotW' are just misguided, though. No need to cite them for the saccharine. There may be lonely islands of good scenes in both, but on the whole, these films let me sit head-scratching what may have gone through Spielbergs head while making them.

I just skimmed through your engaging reply, my dear Ted . Of course, you're right to a large degree. But i'm more pragmatic about these things: for me, Neeson just goes through an emotional striptease of 'Jerry Springer' proportions in this scene. I watch 'Schindler' as a reasonably emotional engaged viewer, which has seen a lot of nauseating things which still need time to absorb. Then this scene hits home all the OBVIOUSest (i know, that's no word) ideas of an emotional breakdown after seeing cruelty, sadism and hatred reign the world for too many a year, but i feel offended that someone dares to show such a blatant version of it...it feels as if someone is trying to milk me for the last drop of human kindness and here Spielberg miscalculates, IMHO. It just wasn't necessary, period. Any halfway decent human being knows or can approximate what a human being may feel after living all this horror - wouldn't it be much more respectful to let him leave quietly? It may be an european vs. american thing, though. Addendum: i don't think i ever had a pre-disposition before watching a new Spielberg film. I would have laughed at 'A.I.' and 'WotW' if the credits would have said 'Directed by Akira Kurosawa'. Often i get the feeling it's a very easy way to counter Spielberg-criticism. Remember, often enough the criticism may be valid enough!

Of course he is guilty. I think it is common ground that some of Spielbergs work, be it the whole story or just separated scenes, tends to treat emotional 'mature' viewers, read:adults, like children and they react accordingly and f...k him, critic-wise. The blatant kitsch which works in 'E.T.' does not in 'Hook', because the film feels fake from the beginning...in his grown-up-mode, i tend to like his POV for 'Empire of the Sun', even if manipulative at times, but can't stand the ruinous 'I could have done more'-scene in 'Schindler'. The 'Schindler'-syndrome of ruining perfectly good films with tacked-on scenes of sometimes disgustingly false 'wholesome' schmaltz has established itself through the course of the last 15 years. 'Minority Report', 'A.I.'(which i found terrible to begin with), 'SPR', 'War of the Worlds', even 'The Lost World', all instances where you would find not many viewers who wouldn't agree that the films were better off without the obvious kitsch. 'Munich' at least got the ending right.

The prequels are a testament to the old wisdom that Hollywood is a town where they gladly give suckers an even break.... Simply ignoring 30 or 40 years of filmmaking progression, they stampede like bushmen tribes charging against any filmmaking virtue western culture has ever produced and it's glaringly obvious that Lucasfilm must be the equivalent of a totalitarian state, where you'll suffer grave consequences if you challenge the all-knowing 'leader', which of course is the emperor without clothes when the reviews from the free-of-his-clutches press come in. It's fascinating that he obviously choose to ignore that not only one, but two times. Jackson, on the other hand, may not be the most subtle of directors. but in comparison to Lucas, he's an our-era-Van Gogh or Rembrandt.

You are kidding.... When i recently saw the 'Legend' Director's Cut, even in this re-visioned stage the music was a mess... The same goes for 'Alien' (see a pattern here?), 'Link' and not too few others...so Goldsmith got the shaft equally often...

'Poisoned Chalice' is another great choral invention. B+...it's not overly complicated, but the textures are very filigrane. It's ethereal without becoming too static.

Of course can opinion be wrong. I.e. an uninformed opinion. But if you offer a thesis (which you did), you should be able to back it up. I know, i know, it's internet and people write the biggest dung without ever being taken to task for it - still, i think it's viable to challenge from time to time and i still think you just want to say the 'LOTR'-scores are overrated and are searching for the right argument why.

Adding a bit of bite to discussions is allowed, i hope. As to what Karol said: i still think you're just reacting to the first post and try to model your arguments after these (irrelevant i think) supposed themes...i read what you've just written, i fail to see any proof in it. If nobody would've told you about 4 themes for the hobbits, you would never have realized they were there in the first place. What is called 'themes' are, for the most part, nothing more than rather short motives. Shore may have intended more with them, but that's the way the come out in the picture. So his work method isn't very different from the Williams or Goldsmith method of scoring, he just can't write 'great' melodies....or isn't allowed to 'intrude' that much. To put it simpler: when Goldsmith introduces a new rhythmic cell into a cue, nobody would call it a theme, but a natural musical progression. These gazillions 'LOTR' themes, at least to my ears, are often not much more than that. Apart from the Hobbit/Fellowship/Isengard-music ( or the terrible Orff-cues in the first film), and maybe some setpieces here and there, the problem is that there are NOT ENOUGH characteristic musical statements...just a big wash of sound with lots of choirs. It's nice enough, we agree on that point, but to ripple on these scores because they do, as is the gist of your statement, TOO MUCH, is just wrong.

Venting off...that's what it's all about, isn't it? While i'm certainly not guilty of overestimating an ambitious, but ultimately not very musical thrilling work like 'LOTR', i have to say that the 'arguments' you (and others) bring up are simply hogwash. This nonsense about themes stumbling together without musical flow...just point the unknowing towards the specific moments you refer to, would you? Or let's start with something simpler...semantics...what 'certain philosophy of scoring' is 'LOTR' an extreme example of? And if you're so lofty describing your naysaying as 'interpretation', then for god's sake, do at least write some proper lines about these scores! What gets on my nerves isn't even this wishy-washy way of letting people know that 'LOTR' sucks and you have some kind of 'proof' for that...it's the fact that there are enough discussable shortcomings to Shore's composing abilities (drab suspense made up of half-tone steps, simple rhythmic devices, lots of organ points, some of the themes so basic they could mean and portray anything) that it just pains me when people just take the most outlandish argument instead without any foundation.

One is left head-scratching why in all this flowery prose above, nobody seems to realize that apart from whatever artistic progression Williams may have gone through, he's still scoring A FILM...so whatever the aesthetic demands of a modern action film may be, obviously they are not the same as in the 70's. You may as well ask if his less cerebral way of scoring is a direct result of directors and producers friendly asking him to tone it down. That's at least the impression I get from listening to 'Munich' or the likes.

Bad spelling is another one of these annoying habits.

I find nothing 'chilling' about 'Patricide'. It's run-of-the-mill adagio stuff. But to start a discussion about the merits or non-merits of 'Gladiator' et al. is the last thing i want. This particular score has squandered more forum bandwidth than it possibly could deserve.

Let me paraphrase: whenever Zimmer is hired to score big, epic movies with big, epic music, the result is cringe-inducing. Apart from pop pieces like 'Earth' ('Gladiator'), he hasn't the chops to think orchestrally.

Would it? I think everyone interested in Goldsmith's 'GLadiator' has heard it by now, or at least COULD if he/she wanted. And it's not really that breathtaking, although it has some rather engaging jumpy moments...in a good-cheesy kind of way. If i were a record producer, i wouldn't release 'Back to the Future' out of sheer nastiness, just because people are so damn focused on getting it...maybe it helps that i'm agreeing with the Moviewave-guy that it's one of the last scores i find necessary to have in a longer version. It's not really god's gift to mankind - serviceable movie music, the best of it released. 'Hook'...yeah, well, if you like being disappointed, hold on to your dreams. It's far outside Varése's reach. And 'Epic'-executives (or whoever holds the rights currently) would probably faint when seeing the final AFM payment sum. It's still 160 minutes of music...

I agree with the 'breezy' part...problem is, for me at least, that he never goes past the breezy stage. Zimmer is one who can talk an awful lot, but when you listen to stuff like 'Last Samurai' or 'Gladiator', you realize how much of it is simply wishy-washy. Scores like 'Matchstick Man' or 'Spanglish' are perfectly good, maybe better than what someone like Williams would've come up with, but the 'real' scores suck. 'Da Vinci Code' is a first positive sign in many years and even that is rather modest in substance. I'm no Zimmer-hater, far from it. But at one point he decided, for better or for worse, to actually compose an approximation of 'big' symphonic music and he simply is like a fish out of water in this area. And it gets cumbersome if he describes his 'big concepts' and you hear the meager results.

He's candid? Defensive is more like it. And he has a way to infuse certain semantics into his answers which simply come off as unintellegible in context ( i don't remember his exact words, but i remember i was really taken aback by his lax working ethos - i. e. in the FSM piece). My impression is that he's more of an overseer of his teams work than a genuine composer. This would be no problem at all, if the credits and numerous award nominations wouldn't refer to him as 'composer'. Goldsmith once grumpily remarked in an interview that today's film music is dominated by guys 'who can't read music...and are even proud about it!'. I'm rather certain this comment was based on one of Hans' carefree remarks.

What is it people find so endearing in these interviews? The self-serving attitude he displays may be cool to some 12-year old in desperate need of an older brother, but apart from that he comes off as a musical fraud. Oddly enough, i do like Zimmer occasionally, but his comments about 'composing' are better left in his mouth.

Luckily, anachronistic orchestral bombast is not the beginning and end of the musical spectrum. So there may be indeed some more talents looming.

A film like X-3 may be a lot of things, ADULT is not one of them. His most convincing music is exactly in the 'kid's fare' arena: 'Chicken Run', ''Antz', Robots', 'Agent Cody Banks' with things like 'Endurance' or 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith'(great latin kick in there!) close behind. 'Paycheck' has 2 or 3 rather good ditties, too.

Since you seem to dig his westerns, so get 'LA RESA DEI CONTI'!!. 'Vamos á Matar, Companeros', 'My name is Nobody', 'Nobody is the Greatest', 'Two Mules for Sister Sarah' For the epic stuff, get 'Marco Polo' before 'Nostromo', which both kick serious ass. 'La Venexiana' has a very sad and melancholic choral score, a lot of people like 'La Tenda Rossa' (The Red Tent) and 'The Lady Caliph'. 'Secret of the Sahara', then...and, and, and....

Like most of these 'smaller' scores (i.e. 'Accidental Tourist'), 'Presumed Innocent' relies heavily on one great theme, which isn't particularly developed throughout the score. It may be because it isn't a genre begging for varied music or Williams is just being pragmatic about it, but i could part with these scores rather easily with two or three cuts from it on the ipod. It seems sufficient, however great it may work in the movie.

I'd second 'Empire of the Sun'. Especially 'Return to the City', which has a middle section rather similar to 'Stored Memories'.

While the score is splendid in itself, with all it's heavyness it tends to drown the children's aspect of the story. McCourt's style is rather laconic while Williams writes for a full-blown drama like the world's going to end VERY soon. Was 'Angela's Prayer' even in the film?

You make it sound like 'Far and Away' is some misunderstood piece of art music. When the score came out, i remember being a bit pissed because it was 'Poppa Williams epic hour' like we've heard it too many times before... The irish element ('Fighting for Dough' etc.) was inspired, but unfortunately never seemed to gel with the broad 'Star Wars' tutti style Williams employed especially in the american half of the story. When the finale reached it's 'Throne Room'/'Raider's March'-like coda, it was glaringly obvious that Williams gleefully obliged to the value-conservative wishes of 'Opie' Howard. I'm rather glad this partnership was of short duration. Grade B minus...