Uni

Sack the mod. Seriously. (And by more than 2 to 1. . . ?) Karol's right. This is a travesty. I never really understood what it was about Burton's Batman that people thought was so great. It was all right, I guess. An interesting take on the comic legend. But Batman Begins completely outdid it as an opening story to the Dark Knight's tale. And Superman is simply a classic. A great buildup of the character, a stylish and clever sense of humor, awesome effects (for the time), and one of the great performances when it comes to "filling" the shoes of a cultural icon. Reeve didn't just make us believe a man could fly; he made us believe Clark Kent and Superman were two different people, and I think that was by far the harder job.

Nah. Urban legend. Don't believe everything you hear.

I've known vegans who can hardly stand the sight of meat, much less fathom the desire to actually eat it. I, in return, cannot fathom their palette. I guess it wouldn't do to call them crazy outright; it's just a matter of personal tastes and an approach to eating. I can likewise see where someone on a steady diet of Horner can't really wrap their minds around other styles of music, and to such ears Goldsmith might indeed often sound harsh and eclectic (save the scores where he sounds the most like Horner, such as Rudy). I'll never understand it myself, but to each his own. That is because you are awesome.

Definitely true. A lot from that time has been rerecorded, with excellent results . . . but still not the same as listening to the original, which I prefer to the rerecordings most of the time. Granted, it does take patience sometimes. Max Steiner is a Golden Age composer who seems to have a lot of vintage recordings available, for instance, but his stuff always sounds like it was recorded from three blocks away. Doesn't always make for the best listening experience.

ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO Funniest thing I've read on the internet in weeks. Nice!

Indeed it does consist of more than those notes but the 2-note and variations is a prominent part of it, to a degree it becomes the strongest thematic element associated with the shark. I have always thought the Spielberg anecdote gross exaggeration as the theme was indeed "weird and melodic" as he initially hoped for rather than just those 2 notes. But I guess his first impression was really for those 2 notes and I understand his reaction. The whole theme is a lot more than that. Absolutely true. Actually, it's a very interesting theme in that it seems to be made up of several motifs, none of which really develops into a theme of its own during the duration of the score—the two-note repetition, the three-note horn piece (which flourishes a bit but doesn't really develop), the syncopated bass hits, and the insertion of the sort of half-theme "pirate" motif (the one that begins "Out to Sea") over the whole thing in the middle . . . and the assemblage as a whole becomes the main theme, used in place of a long-lined melody. I would debate this. Again, it's just semantics, but if a single scene has an identifiable melodic line that repeats and becomes a prominent part of that scene, even if it doesn't appear again for the rest of the film, I would call that a theme—maybe not in the "leitmotivic sense," as you say, but a theme written specifically for that sequence. And no one's better at that than Williams. Great examples include the extended melody that emerges from the sick triceratops scene from Jurassic Park (everyone reading this knows what I'm talking about, which is why I feel justified in calling it a theme), "Jim's New Life" from Empire of the Sun, and many others. Hardly. "The Shark Cage Fugue" is one of Williams' great themes from that period. And, by the definition I stated above, I would say "Montage" and even the music from the scene with Ben Gardner's boat would count as themes (although the latter is a little iffy in that it's a single musical idea that moves around a lot but never really repeats during the course of the scene).

For you, possibly. It was the by far the best of the teen "rom-coms" of the 80s, mostly because it took an authentic look at teen relationships rather than treating them like out-of-control animals the way most movies did back then.

Almost Famous was a great film, second in Crowe's portfolio only to Say Anything. I always agreed with Ebert's comment on how the film constantly made you want to hug yourself for the joy of the sharp dialogue and completely sympathetic characters.

I went completist on the Big 3 years ago. More recently I've decided to do the same with some of the Golden Age composers—Herrmann, Rozsa, and Korngold (who's the easiest to achieve, since he only did 18 films). It gives the act of collecting more of a sense of accomplishment, and allows you to truly realize and appreciate the breadth of these composers' repertoires and styles.

I'm always particularly interested in how these polls are worded. I note that you didn't ask which composer was better, but which one we "admire" more. Which, while being more diplomatic than the latter, is a more difficult question to answer, because there are all kinds of ways we can admire someone that have nothing to do with their artistic talents. However, I assume you're referring to whose music we prefer, which is much easier to nail down—or would be, if we weren't talking about two such amazing composers. Ultimately, I have to go with Goldsmith over Horner on the first one. He demonstrated a much greater range of sounds and textures throughout his career, and though he was sometimes just as prone as Horner at repeating certain elements of his music, he sketched across a wider landscape in the long run. When you ask how many CDs we own from each composer, I'm assuming (again) that you mean how many works of theirs we've collected, and that we're not dialing into specifics like multiple CD sets to tip the score one way or another. With that in mind: Goldsmith - 207 Horner - 119 Of course, you have to take into account multiple releases of the same score with that, but since you asked for "CDs" and not "scores," that's the way I counted them. (I own pretty much every released score from both composers, plus some boots, and given that JG did about 100 more films and T.V. shows than Horner did, there was no question who was going to come out in front.) That last question is the hardest one of all, though. It isn't just that they both did great films; they both made films great through their music. In the end, I'd probably have to give Horner the edge here simply because Goldsmith never turned down a project, meaning he wrote for quite a few duds over the years, where Horner seemed a little better at attaching himself to higher-quality movies. (This isn't universal, of course, and Horner did some lame films too, but this is my general impression.) Absolutely. One of the centerpieces of his 80s works. None does exist, unless you choose to see it as competition instead of simple comparison—an activity you engage in on this board all the time, so I'm not sure what makes this different.

This has to be one of the best fan edits I've seen. Almost makes me wish this was coming for real (although it wouldn't work in a million years, of course . . . not that that's something to deter big studios these days)—though you'd think a videographer sharp enough to create something like this could've spent two minutes thinking up a better title. But it's still a fine piece of work overall:

Carolina Clark. . . ? That is a solid list, except . . . there's no #5 entry. I can't tabulate it properly without that info. Did you leave something out of the middle, or just skip a number and leave the last one off? In either case, you get one more choice.

The second one was too cinematic, and that was its downfall. As I said (well, more like indicated) in my post, I haven't seen MI:GP yet. I've heard great things, though, and J.J.'s take put me back in the MI groove, so now I'm really looking forward to it.

Maybe. But I like T.V. shows, too.

I need to catch up with these. I've been working through so many classic scores from the Golden Age of Hollywood that I seem to be forgetting about all the new stuff coming out these days—and then there was two weeks of Horner-only listening that pushed everything back further. Maybe I'll take a break from the past this week and focus on the present (and the future).

MI:III - Finally got around to seeing this (years too late), on my way to Ghost Protocol and in preparation for the new film. The first MI was a decent, interesting film, but a little underwhelming. The second one was a flop. If there's one action director who can outdo Michael Bay when it comes to stupid slo-mo camera work, it's John Woo, and it completely undermined this film. So they gave J.J. the reins for his first big-screen effort . . . and man, did he come through. This was easily the best of the series (so far, anyway), and one of the best action movies I've seen in a long time. Tom Cruise has been hit-and-miss in recent years—hell, when you get right down to it, he's been that way through pretty much his entire career—but he plays Ethan Hunt with so much intensity that you have to appreciate everything he invests in the role. I thought the story was great, the twists were fun, and the action choreography was top-notch (as I would expect from J.J.). Just a great, fun film.

So I put together a top-20 list, and arranged it in order . . . and realized that in doing so, I was, by default, creating a top-10 list. So I guess it's all good (I can always post my 10 runners-up anyway, right?). I'll be putting up my list sometime today or tomorrow. And I'll be publishing the overall results along with the Top 10 Scores list next Monday at 9:30 PDT. So if you want to take part, you now have just over a week to put your lists in order.

ATTENTION MODERATORS: The board has developed some kind of glitch that now seems to be replicating posts from the thread about Prometheus and putting them here, in a post about the top ten scores composed by James Horner (who didn't write the score for Prometheus and has never worked with Ridley Scott). We need to get tech support on this right away. . . . Since the conversation's here 'n' all, though . . . for the record, and speaking as a lifelong Alien fan, Prometheus was a terrible movie. ***************************** Now that that's out of the way, if we can back on topic again: I'm writing up my own list at the moment, and hope to post it in a little while here. I'm thinking that I'm going to publish the final results of the poll next Monday at exactly 9:30 PDT (the four-week mark). That gives everyone another week to finalize their ideas and post them—or revise their previous lists, if they choose.

Well . . . the whole "listening party" thing implies that we're listing what's on our playlist at the moment—just like the "What's the last score you listened to?" thread, exclusive to James Horner. But there's no reason you can't recommend something for the rest of us to listen to. Still fits the theme just fine. And Balto does seem to be Horner's overlooked animated score. It's just as good as The Land Before Time and An American Tale, but it gets a lot less attention for some reason.

That has to be the single best phonetic rendering of the danger motif I've ever seen. Nice. Now do "Stealing the Enterprise. . . ."

Man . . . I know what I said about the "hard making it great" (well, Tom Hanks said it for me), but . . . this is turning out to be a much tougher task than I would've dreamed. Maybe we should do 20, given that there are 10-15 times as many pieces as there are scores in the man's repertoire.

I'm not as picky about sound quality this and that, and it's so much easier to organize, manipulate, and mix and match digitally (playlists 'n' all), that I don't make nearly the effort to change out CDs that I used to. It's just simpler this way, IMO.

Two things popped into my head when I read the thread title. The first was that this has to be the subject of one of those Christopher Guest mockumentaries. Fred Ward would play the part of 007. Bob Balaban would be conducting the orchestra. And Guest himself would have to be the director (a la Waiting for Guffman). I can see him now, talking to someone beside the camera: "It wouldn't be Bond without an 'opening credit' sequence, so we have Cirque du Soleil doing that whole thing. Y'know. And he'll have this gadget where he presses the little button on his cigarette case, and a 'hologram' of Stephen Sondheim pops out and does this big musical number. And I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that we'll go down in the books with the most expensive and elaborate car chase scene in Broadway history. If you've ever imagined what a combination of Oklahoma! and The French Connection would look like, then you might have some idea of what I'm talking about here. . . ." The second was Michael Palin's voice at the end of the Argument Clinic sketch, saying, "What a stupid concept."

It was definitely better than Armageddon. And for some reason, the piece that's gone through my head the most over the last couple of weeks (when I haven't actually been listening to JH) has been "Goodbye and Godspeed"—especially the section during the end credits with the chorus. It's a very solid bit of Horner scoring but not one that has any chance of making my top-10 list (either one).

This wouldn't have meant the end of the show. Harry Shearer is one of the brightest comedy minds in the business, but this is voice-over animation. There's plenty of talent out there. This is like the days when the original cast of Saturday Night Live were moving on to movies; people everywhere were predicting the show's demise. (And that's one program that's been around longer than The Simpsons.) Not that I'm a fan myself. I've seen maybe six or seven episodes total since the show began. They were funny, clever, worth a smile. But I've never understood what's kept it going so long.