Uni

I've been noticing that as I listen to his stuff. Anything piece connecting with flight tends to rise above its companion pieces in a score. "Flying" from The Man Without a Face, "Flight of the Griffin" from The Spiderwick Chronicles, all the material from The Rocketeer and Apollo 13—even the change in mood that takes place in Krull between the moment the fire mares are galloping on the ground and the moment they take flight . . . the subject just seemed to bring the greatest inspiration out of him.

You have to think that, given his relationship with the Flying Horsemen, that he loved not just flying but the idea of those daredevil acrobatics. I'm sure they showed him the how-tos on some of their tricks, and it isn't hard to believe he was prone to a little experimentation in his spare time. But he wasn't a full-time stunt pilot, and he probably wasn't as capable as he might have thought he was. Terrible to have it end like this, but as everyone's been saying, he was doing what he loved. I won't be the one to blame him for that.

You're not kidding. I was listening to tracks from this the other day, and was unexpectedly blown away. (I've had this thing for 30 years now, so I'm probably a little inured to it.) I just sat and shook my head, thinking, "A kid in his twenties, writing for his first big studio picture, had no business composing a score this sophisticated." The complexities in the writing are sometimes easy to overlook—especially, again, if you've seen the movie 100 times and have listened to the score ten times more than that—but when you stop and really listen, even just to the opening credits sequence, you can't help but see what a prodigy Horner was. It's no coincidence that this is the one that launched his career into the stratosphere.

Yep. It's well worth the $100 or so to get yourself an extra TB of space.

Yeah. People often fly single-engine aircraft at low altitudes in low-population areas.

Getting ready to catch up on the last few entries. Before I do so—and see what changes it brings—I can report that the top 3 scores are separated by only 1 point apiece at the moment, as are the last 4 on the list. The surprise sleeper (again, in my mind at least) has dropped from 2nd to 4th, but is still contending strong. And one of the scores I thought would be in the top 10 for sure only has a handful of points so far. So nothing's been decided yet, and there's plenty of opportunity for some shifting to come. Of course! Anyone can submit changes right up to the end—which still hasn't been absolutely determined yet. (I'll start a countdown in days when it seems like it's time to wrap things up.)

Actually, it sounds more to me like something catastrophic happened just a minute (or even only a few seconds) before the crash. He was steady at about 500 agl at each sighting, including a few moments before impact. The engine sounded normal. There were no erratic actions. I doubt there was much warning before everything went wrong.

Wow . . . starting to tabulate things, and seeing some very interesting things. The score currently in 2nd-place is a mind-blower (well, to me, anyway), and some of the scores I thought were shoe-ins for the final 10 are nowhere near the top, at least not yet. This is turning out a lot differently than I figured it would—which is making it that much more fun! This is probably understood, but just in case . . . again, I can't make up the order, so it goes by the order you listed them in. Also, any "ties" will be counted as holding a single place in line, pushing the last score(s) off the end of the list.

Which is interesting, because I thought there would be. (I just figured everyone would agree with my choices, y'know. . . ?) They won't be scored casually. STII will get the highest score on your list, followed by Cocoon, then Brainstorm, etc. If you have qualms about that, you'll want to rethink that ordering.

You can change your mind right up until the polls close (which is at least a week or two away, so give those new scores a listen in the meantime).

This is Horner, so we could do 50 or 100 easy. But we're after the best of the best here. It's hard, sure, but . . . Again, though, there's no need to rush into it. Take some time to think about it. If you change your mind on anything in your list, let me know.

This is the process I went through as well. I thought it was horribly ugly at first . . . but after growing to like, and then eventually falling in love with, the show, it became quite a striking design. It was the people inside that ultimately gave it the appeal it finally had.

Whoops--missed that part! Sorry. Didn't mean to step on your toes. I just recall it being mentioned, and I didn't want to have to go back through and search for it. I figured we might take a little longer with this one for that reason. But I also figured that if people are listening through his works right now anyway, they might keep this ulterior motive bookmarked in the back of their mind while they're doing it. And there's no reason people can't talk their way through it here, too--sort of let the discussion help gel things in their decision-making process. I actually think we could probably guess what scores will comprise the list right now; it's the order that'll be really interesting. Frankly, I know most of what'll be on my own list already . . . but choosing which one gets the top spot? That's going to take a little time.

As I was considering the logistics of the Top 10 Horner Scores poll, I started thinking . . . while we're at it, why not dig a little deeper? We never did this one for JW, but Mr. Horner is a little more on everyone's mind right now, and a lot of us are spending some quality time digging deeper into the man's opuses anyway. I thought it would be interesting to see not only how his broader works compared to one another, but which individual compositions floated near the top in people's minds. There may be scores that don't make the other Top 10 list that have single pieces that would stand out to a lot of people here. The rules are pretty much the same here as on the other poll (post your list from mostest-favorite on down), with one extra guideline to keep in mind: what with so many different versions of some scores available out there, it would be best--though not absolutely required, I guess--to stick to OST titles and arrangements where possible. If a piece you want to list wasn't on the OST but did appear in a later release, that's fine, of course; but the point here isn't to see how various versions of the same piece compete against one another. If you like one portion of a piece but don't care for the rest, it should still be listed by the title of the entire piece, not as "the second half of 'Bird of Prey Decloaks' from 1:43 on" and the like. Naturally, commentary on these is also welcome and encouraged--and makes for a much better place to specify which parts of the piece you like best, along with the whens and whys of it. I'll publish the results of this poll at the same time as the other one (whenever that winds up being). And, like the other one . . . I haven't yet had time to sort through my own choices yet, but that's no reason to put off everyone else's tee time.

Someone in the "memorial" thread suggested we do our JWFan patented Top 10 poll for Mr. Horner, the same one we've done for Mr. Williams twice. No one else has volunteered yet to spearhead the project, and since I was always disappointed I couldn't put together the Film Composers' World Cup, I might as well be the one to kick things off on this. The process should be familiar enough by now: Post your ten favorite James Horner scores (or the ones you consider his best) in order, starting with your favorite first, second favorite next, etc. You can number them if you like; if you don't, I'll assume the order you place them in is how you want them scored. That's pretty much it. If you can't come up with ten you've heard, list as many as you know and like; the top spot will still be given the same score as anyone else's. We'll run this for a week or two. I'll try to keep up with the tabulation, so it doesn't take too long after time has been called to publish the results. (I haven't given deep thought to my own list yet, but I figured there's no reason not to let everyone start compiling their own.) One more thing: you're welcome to just post a list of titles if you'd like, but feel free to add some commentary on why you've chosen any or all of your scores, why you've ordered them the way you have, or even just how you react to the music when you hear it. It would make another nice memoriam for the man if we expanded on how each of us reached our conclusions.

That was just plain awesome.

I'm betting we're going to see a lot of new, expanded Horner releases over the next couple of years (and I certainly hope Willow will be one of them).

Polished off my next tribute video today. Wanted to get it done and posted by 9:30 PDT, but it wasn't to be. Oh, well. Of all the ones I've done so far, I'm most pleased with this one. I only used three pieces this time, but didn't have to edit the longest at all: "Preparations for Battle" sums up the story and mood for the entire picture so well it didn't need me to interfere. (It's also the piece I listened to at 9:30 this morning.) Hope it works for you as well.

It was "Preparations for Battle" for me again. Just can't separate that music from the man. I think it's his best moment all the way around. Now preparing to upload a tribute video for that score (I'd hoped to have it finished by the deadline, but couldn't quite get it done. . . .).

No. Not like this. He hasn't faced death. He's cheated death. He's tricked his way out of death, and patted himself on the back for his ingenuity. He knows nothing.

And liking Spock and Bones . . . isn't. I love the E as well. Wish I could get my hands on a (relatively cheap) model. But the Constitution refit will always be the Enterprise to me.

Oh, no apologies necessary. I was just having a little fun with the fact that we always seem to come full circle to Horner's predilection for self-replication. (And it caught my interest because it was the first example of it I ever noticed, back in my early days as a collector.)

Actually, that last shot is the Enterprise-A, which completely lacks the nuance of the more dramatically lit Enterprise refit (and therefore sucks). But the movie ship will always be the superior version.

Well, now we're getting into semantics. Really, when you think about it, even moderate, genuine laughter represents a slight loss of control. Robin Williams once said it's pretty much the same thing as an orgasm (rolling his eyes, he said in a goofy voice, "Is this fun or what?"). You're letting go and allowing yourself to look like a fool. In most cases, though, if something's really funny then everyone else around you isn't any more in control than you are. I saw Brian Regan in concert a couple of years ago, and it was like riding a wave of laughter. (You would've hated it—everyone there was laughing and crying at the same time.) I laughed my ass of at that movie. Hilarious. Of course it's not impossible. Most of the time in only lasts a few seconds. But it is a genuine reaction.

Actually, that's a full minute where "The Chase" from Cocoon is an exact replica of a minute from the "Genesis Countdown" in TWOK—complete with unique syncopated rhythms and everything. It's way to precise to be a simple example of a tune stuck in his head that wound up in another film; I have to think he was getting pressed for time and intentionally lifted that section because he liked the sound and it fit well (and, to be sure, there's no question it works in both contexts). So what profound conclusion can we draw from this? James Horner occasionally copied himself. Stop the presses.