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I mean, no. The major tonic marches Williams cooked up at the end of the 70's would have collapsed Snyder's 'vision' - or the other way around. There might be a case for i. e. the Krypton stuff, which is teutonic enough in its Straussian roots for Zimmer, but really, which of the poor souls being forced to endure this gloomy orgy of destruction were asking for bright trumpet marches to go along with it?

At the start you may think you're listening to a 90's Britpop album that disappeared into oblivion (that title song!), but it actually is a rather playful orchestral affair that McCreary serves up here. It has a fashionable streaming service ring to it (the musical production values seem to be a preset), but at least there are many noteworthy variations in volume and orchestration (solos, pizzicati and so on). The 'period drama television series about the life of Catherine de Medici, the 16th century Queen of France' can not be detected idiomatically by any stretch of the imagination, but who would have expected that. Compared to the would-be epic of McCreary's current 'Lord of the Rings', an improvement (especially as far as running time is concerned). Recommended, but only if you can get along with Korzeniowski's since-decades-unvaried minimalist style - nothing has changed there since 'A Single Man' (a little Glass, a lot Nyman), but you have to pinch yourself now and then to remind yourself that it is indeed a new score.

I don't know if the DC was released with the (adjusted) ISO score but it's weird how good that boot sounded and it had definitely some of the cues/changes (i picked up on them even on a cursory listen, especially in 'Find Him' and 'Big Climb'). The 'I Can’t See Him' clip on Intrada's site sounds like the rape cue with the harsh edit (as present on the boot), though i don't know if the addition of more sneaking-around music helps the flow. The score now again gets the old beating from the usual FSM guys who wrote off Goldsmith ca. after 'The Sand Pebbles'. But to me 'Hollow Man' always was a 60's score at heart, only with beefed-up production values (it just much more fun to listen to that style in this wet incarnation instead of the sometimes difficult dry-as-a-bone recordings of the 60's).

I remember Universal Studios had a section devoted to that atrocity. But i laughed at one Simpsons-style line, when Carrey says 'And I won?' (nasty smile) 'That means there were losers!'

It's a kinda fun hodgepodge of styles (the linked example goes from the Star Wars rebel fanfare - sort of - to his 48 Hours-style in one minute) and while it's of no great consequence (Horner had written this stuff like 10 times before for Casper or We're Back), it's a nice addition to this kind of Horner scoring for blatantly commercial 'family' movies (lots of sugar and eye candy).

Reading the phrasing on Intrada's site dampened my anticipation, as the mentioned inserts and odds & ends (some of which i already identified from an old bootleg, which offered what were slightly rewritten versions of i. e. Big Climb or Find Him) are certainly not 'substantial alternates'. Nevertheless, it's still on the order menu, as it is a very detailed score that can stomach a few more minutes and some of the slight alternates are preferable to the album versions (Big Climb especially).

Chances are they did, but they would probably refer a train conductor or local politician.

Having listened to the Britell album last week, what's missing isn't originality (that's the last thing i'd expect cited on a Williams forum as great attribute ) but a much simpler thing, which Britell could have provided: musical form. There's no need for elaborate rondos, fugues, scherzos or swooning romantic gestures as back in Williams' heyday, but this stuff barely hangs together as succession of sounds. It's mostly unharmonized rhythms, increased by more percussion layers. This becomes even more apparent when - for a few fleeting seconds - something like this violin duet in 'Past & Present Suite' appears. Out of nowhere, seemingly, to hit a specific moment they seem to deny the composer(s) except for when it's absolutely necessary. I'm not especially taken with what McCreary did on Amazon's LOTR series, though it's night and day compared to this. What he offers in mammoth release after mammoth release is certainly form, melody and storytelling, though it comes in form of a mishmash of source/folk music and thumping trailer music clichés. It is certainly better than any of Disney's SW offerings of late, though it's just another form of creative cop-out. But it ain't gonna get much bette than this, i'm afraid. I fully expect JNH to nosedive the same with his upcoming 'Willow' tv series score, but i'm up for a happy surprise all the same!

The Haunting: Hill House, First Look, What Am I Doing, Green House/Bloody Feet, Finally Home (Original Version) Small Soldiers: The Boxes, The Gwendys, Fire in the Hole, No Prisoners, Cleaning Up (this one really profits from editing and moving stuff around, though, but it's so similar to other 90's Goldsmith you don't need to bother as casual fan) Executive Decision: The Villa / Flying Lessons, The Abduction, Initiating Approach, 5 Minutes, Line it Up Looney Tunes: Back in Action: old album is fine as is Matinee: old album is fine as is Rudy: old album is fine as is (even too long) U.S. Marshals: The Pen, Take It All, Funeral Ambush, Up The Stairs, Ship Fight Gremlins 2: The New Batch: The Imposter, A Better Mouse Trap, Gremlins At Work / The Brain Hormones / Gremlins Wings, Gremlin Mayhem, No Cavities / Climate Control

Geez, what a humourless boob you are.

As expected, it's a very mixed bag - which is not really a reflection on Goldsmith's ability, but on the medium he worked in. In between a lot of short tv bumper-style cues which are not anyone's idea of a good listening time there are some nice nuggets, but i bet the composer would be the first one to acknowledge that material like this needs judicious editing (or in some cases, a cease-and-desist refusal to release it at all). In the order of presentation: ANNA AND THE KING (33:18) If you don't enjoy the kiddie-ceremonial gamelan style Goldsmith employs for the main theme (lots of upper-register woodwinds, glockenspiel etc.), this is a lost cause. If you do (i think it's cute), there's a good selection of precious variations on it (March Of The Royal Children being chief among them, this is classic Goldsmith with a great buildup in the horns). The tv-style brevity cuts many of the cues short, they either stop when you wish them to build more or are not that interesting at all (as usual, the travelogues come off best, often for moments when Fox inserted old location or backlot footage from their expensive Cinemascope version from 1956). Finally, the peculiar music for the episode 'The Chimes' is obviously out of character (the cues are longer and seem to carry the narrative), it's very atmospheric and fuses Goldsmith's asian music with reedy synthesizers. They seem to belong to something like 'The Chairman' or 'The Challenge', but without those scores' thematic brackets, they remain interesting miniatures that trail off nowhere (it's good stuff though, but a bit repetitive). Sound is improved from the old Varése. NICK QUARRY (10:29) This is the best presentation of material in this set - a well edited suite of of punchy Peter-Gunn hard-boiled crime jazz, which Goldsmith wrote for a tv pilot (a bit late to the party in 1968). It's the same as the old FSM suite, but why change a perfect thing? Afair, sound quality is the same, or at least not noticeably better. ONLY IN AMERICA (1:56) Negligible, just three bumper style cues only 30 to 50 seconds in length, written in a broad klezmer style bracketed by americana horns - this could have been written by anyone, Goldsmith's own 'Going-Up of David Lev', another tv movie gave Goldsmith a much broader canvas in the same ethnic idiom, is vastly preferable and hereby recommended if you never heard it. It's even on Spotify. ROOM 222 (12:57) Typical 70's tv-scoring, heavy on Burt Bacharach and/or Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass style. The theme on recorder is somewhat cute if you can stomach Sesame Street music. This is another bumper cue affair, with lots of 20-30 second cues edited together, which all seem to end with the same tadadat flourish, which is frankly a bit obnoxious. PRUDENCE AND THE CHIEF (14:53) A western pilot, which you heard in much superior form in the score for Howard Hawks' final movie 'Rio Lobo' (a stinker, but Goldsmith's score sure isn't to blame). Since virtually everything here is available in better form either in 'Rio Lobo' or 'Rio Conchos', why bother? (except for Yavar, who feverishly spreadsheets the few moments in between that are not verbatim repetitions). A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (23:12) Probably the chief reason to get this, a sweet americana score typical of Goldsmith's approach to material like this, before he started beefing it up in later scores like 'Love Field' with big horn and string sections. Cue lengths are still on the short side, but it seems much more like a score for a feature film. Piano and woodwinds dominate, and it's all rather wistful, with a few up-tempo scherzos added for a much needed tempo change (they were missing from the old Varése box, which sounded rather bad - i didn't kept anything from that, so i can't say for sure if this is a stereo update, but it really sounds rather good now) A GIRL NAMED SOONER (31:13) Another FSM-upgrade, with the most developed underscoring on this set, but it's still marred by the rather unbecoming rustic wholesomeness of 'The Waltons' (more harmonica!). If material like this is pitched against darker idioms (as in 'Raggedy Man' or 'Poltergeist'), it can become an interesting study in contrasts, standing for itself it just mirrors the shaggy tv-style dramatics of what it was written for. It's well-made, alright, but also rather boring.

Overall impression: meh. One hears that Britell could, but was not really allowed to. Many deadly organ chords (feel excused for falling asleep even during the relatively benign running time of 50 minutes), dull ostinati figures, but at least orchestrated with a certain elegance (great solo violin part at the end of 'Past/Present Suite'), it's quasi the counterpart to what someone like Balfe would have produced under the same guidelines.

Fans of real music instead of glorified sound design should take a listen here: Daniel Hart's new score for the 'Interview with the Vampire' series.

One of the better elegant tunes that the late 90's spawned.

He had quite a few.

This 2019 docu - a wide-spanning look at the rise and fall of disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein featuring interviews with former colleagues and those who accused him of sexual misconduct - is on ARTE due to current events But the end result is not so much a revolting, damning portrait of a monstrous lecher (it is, too), but rather a complex portrait of a man who gave in to his inner demons with impunity for far too long and of the system which enabled him for far too long. It says a lot about the hierarchies within the entertainment industry, and also about incredible cowardice and abuse of power. You know what you're in for at the beginning: a woman of no fame, who has not talked about the abuse for 40+ years, details how she joined Weinstein at the tender age of 19 on a business trip when he still was a music promoter. A matter-of-fact rape in a hotel room includes sex, threats and sweet promises thereafter. The whole system worked like this for over 40 years with little change . Director Ursula Macfarlane shows why the blackmail and abuse system worked for such a long time. Women who dared to take action against Weinstein were silenced with settlements and silence clauses. But many, especially young and insecure women, were completely intimidated. But it's really hard to take in a single watch - not just because of the insulated fates of the countless victims, but what it tells us about the morally dubious behaviour of many of our favourite artists.

I haven't watched it or indeed any Halloween movie since part IV, but i want to go on record saying 'I love Jamie Lee Curtis'. Unconditionally. So it can't be all bad.

It's just an overlong elaborate 'Dynasty' joke - and it's not especially clear that the director was in on the the joke all the time (nobody could accuse Ridley Scott of being an especially humorous director). There was really nothing more to it then a lot of expansive settings and the eyebrow-raising buffonish operetta accents of the actors (wildly fluctuating in the english version). Jeremy Irons seemed to be in another, deeper movie, but he was gone soon enough. You could call it 'interesting', for where else would you find a big mainstream movie with Jared Leto made up like Peter Boyle, saying the immortal words 'You should smell my crotch' into a public payphone.

And he didn't. 'Always' has one basic problem they couldn't lick over a 10-year gestation period: by taking the original story out of its WW2 flier context without updating societal mores this abomination is basically Spielberg's worst 'Amazing Stories' episode ('The Mission' is really bad, too, but it's one hour shorter). I can't remember when Spielberg felt grown-up enough to show people fucking (was it 'Munich'?), but for 'Always' this would have been the only straw to make it halfway relevant for the time it was made. Without something like that, Dreyfuss' invisible jealousy has nothing to play against it as the new lovebirds hardly touch each other - and Spielberg fell deep into a trap he's often set up for himself, namely just barely connecting the scenes he is visually after with a workable script only being an afterthought. The few visually stunning scenes make this failure all-too apparent (the thing still made too much money for how childish it was).

It's not really essential, it was just a good workmanlike piece of craftmanship and for a taut Oscar-nominated thriller, for a change. The arbitrary main theme in particular fails to nail the piece - the first thing that came to my mind after watching it in the cinema back then was that a hardboiled old-fashioned tune like he did for Sinatra's 'The Detective' would have been perfect for the mid-50's LA setting.

I wish it was music that wouldn't sound like this.

The Cooler.

For today's standards surprisingly modest release (42 minutes!), in an idiom somewhere between 'Van Helsing' and 'Wolfman'. Unfortunately most of it is functional suspense. For the fact that the film is Michael Giacchino's directorial debut, however, the music sounds surprisingly impersonal. Perhaps the directing part was exhausting enough. My recommendations are limited to the Main Title, Mane on Ends, and the guitar-strummed End Titles (he seems to have picked up a fondness for expressive piano concertos when he did Batman, this one has a short bookending piece like that, too). Desplat fortunately in a more rough and snappy mode than usual. The rhythmic dissonances always remain slightly ironic, the airy instrumentation with lots of woodwinds, harp and percussion keeps the tempo quite tight. The motivic ideas are short and precise (they won't knock the socks off the common Star Wars fan). All in all, however, a pleasantly up-tempo comedy-Desplat, incidentally his sixth collaboration with Stephen Frears.