Uni

IT'S ABOUT %&$#@! TIME!!! I've been waiting for an expanded release of this score for years. My favorite Barry work, by far (and one of my favorite films). Can't wait to get this one. I agree that--ironically--the main theme (meaning the John Dunbar Theme) is the relative lowlight of the score. Much as I love the work as a whole, this piece never did much for me . . . and it irks me to no end that this is always the piece played on radio programs and in compilations. Just about every other theme is so much better: the Journey to Fort Sedgewick, Two Socks, Rescuing Dances With Wolves, The Buffalo Hunt, and the ever-pleasant and satisfying Buffalo Robe theme. This is one of Barry's richest thematic palettes, and most people can't think past the main character's ballad. What a waste. Theatrical cut or director's cut? Y'know, somehow I just assumed both cuts would be included on the blu-ray. No idea why I did that. Checked Amazon and it looks like I got the director's cut. It's for the best. If you're going to do it, then take the whole journey. This is one four-hour experience that never felt longer than a standard-length movie to me.

Most people here are. Most folks out there who know JW only from his Golden Age scores won't have a clue. That's unfortunate, but hardly unexpected. Sabrina is indeed a gorgeous theme, and one of his best romantic works. I think one of the reasons it winds up on the back burner for most people (even many JW fans) is the movie it's correlated with. The original was so much better. As much as they tried to recreate the magic, Ormond wasn't able to come close to projecting the bright innocence of Hepburn, and Ford just wasn't gruff enough to match Bogart's portrayal. You expect Ford to be the romantic lead who gets the girl (no matter how old he is); audiences weren't sure it would be Bogey who won out back in 1954. It dampened the story, and that impression--at least for me--prevented a true appreciation of the music for a while. I've grown to love it, though. And now I'm going to listen to it again, just 'cause you put it back on my radar, William. (Welcome to the boards, by the way. . . !)

Brilliant recording artist. Another one lost from a passing age. . . .

Most of it, yeah. The "New Worlds Theme" breaks out of that mold, and remains a pretty impressive piece. But the rest of the score has grown (for me, at least) pretty pedantic.

Wow. I didn't expect this to be the case, but based on the information in Ricard's post I guess I win the prize. One of the earliest soundtrack CDs was actually my very earliest CD purchase. I got my first CD-playing stereo in 1987, and the first disc I bought was 2010. I thought the outer-spacey sound would be cool on the new technology. And I wasn't wrong; when the first, steady notes of "Earth/Space" ponged out of the speakers in absolute clarity, I was hooked for life (on the format--not the score, which has since become a pretty badly-dated synth effort from the distant past). That was followed closely by Return of the Jedi, Close Encounters, Explorers, and other varied and sundry Varese releases (most of my library in those days was solid maroon).

I'm not sure what you're specifically disagreeing with in my statement. I can believe that British music listeners, being so much closer to the European roots of classical music, perhaps have a greater appreciation for that genre of music in general (though I think you greatly overestimate Americans' disinterest in it). But the fact that the top 5 on their list is made up entirely of "gateway" scores--the term I use for popular and high-selling soundtracks that awaken people who previously ignored film music to the merits of the art form--tends to suggest I wasn't all that far of the mark. However "historical" and "intellectual" the Brits may be, they still voted for the titles most listeners to classical stations in this country would choose.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. When you know what 6 out of the 10 scores are going to be, what fun is the list. . . ?

Okay, folks. Time to get back to it. You've had the length of an entire season and more to give this some thought. Those of you who haven't settled on your Top 10 Jerrys need to start doing some prioritizing. The list so far is interesting, but needs some more votes to settle things (particularly the end of the list, which has a lot of room for flux at this point). For those of you who've already voted, you still have a chance to review your choices and decide whether your opinion has changed on anything. The floor's still open to both submission and revision.

Not completely unrelated (I did bring up the JW list, after all). I had in mind to follow up in the way some folks had suggested, starting another poll sometime around the beginning of the year. Seems appropriate enough. In the meantime, I've been meaning to bump the Goldsmith Top 10 poll, which never got finished and which everyone in the world seems to have forgotten about. Maybe we'll wrap that up around the time we launch the next Horner Top 10. Yeah, but then the list would've been right.

Ditto. I love what I've seen so far, but one of my greatest fears, apart from getting hit with spoilers from outside sources, is that I'll wind up spoiling it for myself by putting too many of the pieces together. And anyway, I don't need any more trailers to tell me this is going to be great. I just want to get to the damn greatness already. . . !

Bah. A half-informed audience voting on the small pool of music they've heard in the past, no doubt with a few actual collectors in the mix somewhere. Gladiator's presence in the top 5 undoes a lot of credibility here. (Not that it's a bad score by any means, but . . . #3 All-Time? Please.) The appearance of Out of Africa on the list is interesting, though it probably represents nothing more than continuous playback by Classic FM. The import of LOTR winning for the last "six years running" is no great surprise, either. Polling the same audience once a year isn't going to lead to greatly varying results. After all, we voted here on JW's best scores twice; the two polls were done years apart, and while a few pieces traded places, most of the same titles appeared on the list (with ESB taking the win both times). Do they really think another poll of the same listeners--most of whom only hear the small sampling Classic FM gives them from week to week--a mere 12 months apart is going to yield a new winner? Ultimately it makes for a pretty useless exercise. Exactly. They've been programmed by what they hear on the station. I'm sure whoever hosts the film music program has a more thorough knowledge of film music than their listeners. Who among us, if we were hosting a show like this, would favor Gia over Jerry on a regular basis? Obviously not. The only Williams most (nearly all) of them have ever heard of is John, not Vaughan, who's even more obscure than the likes of Victor Young and Erich Korngold (who they probably don't know any more of than Vaughan Williams). Nor should they necessarily know much about any of them, either. Not everyone delves as deeply into this particular hobby as many of us do. Some people just like hearing music from the movies they know. I think I need Barbara Billingsly to translate. . . .

So if Luke's Lieutenant Dan, that makes for an interesting rethinking of Lando, there. From "I'm the administrator of this facility" to "That's my bowt." Life is like a Cloud City under Darth Vader's protection. You never know what you're gonna get. The radar dish might've been knocked off, but in close-up shots of the Falcon you can still see where he painted the name "Jenny."

So if Luke's Lieutenant Dan, that makes for an interesting rethinking of Lando, there. From "I'm the administrator of this facility" to "That's my bowt."

The Main Theme from The King's Speech. For days now. Such a pleasant, relaxing little tune.

That happens from time to time. Some people don't have much interest in the current threads, so they bump old ones they liked. Which tends to happen when you're going downhill. . . . But hey, at least he knocked off the ALL CAPS thing.

I'm actually thinking on doing just that. Rosetta Stone, here I come. . . .

All of that makes sense—although, again, it bums me out that I can't listen to your original language broadcasts. I would love to catch you doing some of that "on the fly" sort of thinking, with free associations and spontaneous remarks on the scores you're covering. I think you're definitely on the right track with using details about the film's plot, preproduction history, trivia, etc. as an introduction to the music. The scores don't exist in a vacuum, and often times their stories are as interesting as the stories of the films they represent. I plan on tackling your next international broadcast tomorrow morning. More feedback to come. . . .

Now that I see it, the title of the thread does look familiar. However, I don't open every thread on any of these forums. I stick to the ones that look like they'll interest me. Unfortunately, I don't always look into posts with strange titles to see if they'd interest me or not (and, obviously, I often come out the loser in those situations). I'm glad I've finally caught on to this, though. I really enjoyed your first international broadcast, Thor. Frankly, you cast a much wider net than Edmund Stone did on The Score when it comes to women composers. I think he featured five or six (heavily favoring the music of Rachel Portman), where you spread things evenly over 10 candidates. I thought it was great presentation, both of their work and the overall theme of female composers. (I especially liked when you offered a rebuttal of the notion that only the male, John-Williams-style composers can offer up boisterous scores for action, adventure, or military sorts of films. It was a nice touch.) The most interesting thing you said—or what most caught my attention, I suppose—was the bit about having to be both a little broader and more detailed during your international broadcasts because listeners abroad tended to know more about film scoring than people from your "neighborhood." I wouldn't know whether that's actually the case or not, but if it is, that's an adept bit of thinking on your part. I don't know that I would've changed anything about the program if I were in your place other than switching the language. Now I'm really curious to know how your regular shows differ in content. I'm tempted to listen to them anyway; even if I can't understand a word of what you're saying, I'd be interested in hearing your choices of music. Is it usually a sort of "beginner's seminar" on film music (familiarizing your listeners with scores that are commonplace to long-time fans like us)? If so, then more kudos to you for trying to get the word out on this particular form of media. I'll be listening to more soon. Thanks again for bringing it to my attention, and keep up the fine work!

That's funny. I had exactly the opposite reaction to both films. Weird. But hey . . . to each his own. This is pretty close to my feelings about Cloud Atlas. It's a sort of guilty pleasure I just don't feel that guilty about—one of those movies I was willing to suspend my disbelief for and let them take me along for the ride. It may be flawed, but ultimately, I just didn't care. It was a fun ride. (Worth it to see Hugo Weaving's Nurse Ratched turn. As epic as Elrond.)

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Finally caught up with the series (well, almost). Was really looking forward to this one, having loved the third installment and being assured by some folks around here (mostly Steef) that GP was better than MI:III. Which left me . . . disappointed. Not hugely; GP was a good movie, and a fitting entry in the series, but I didn't find it nearly as intense and enjoyable as the third. Which was a little baffling, since I've considered B.B. to be just about as good a director as J.J. in most situations. (If this is the tiebreaker, J.J. will walk away with the award.) I'm not sure what about it rubbed me the wrong way. It just seemed a little more . . . forced than the last one. It came off as trying too hard at times. The team wasn't nearly as interesting and engaging as the one in MI:III, with the exception of Jeremy Renner, who's connection story took things up a notch. (Simon Pegg was his usual, unchanging, Peggish self, but Ving Rames's absence was a sore blow—though I really enjoyed his cameo at the end.) The action wasn't as memorable, nor was the storyline. A good, but not truly great, entry in the series. (*** out of ****)

Okay.

Yes, yes, and yes. For those who are stuck in the groove of contemporary scoring and have yet to visit the Golden Age of Hollywood music, from the late 30s through the mid-60s Rosza was just about the closest thing to post-'75 Williams you'll find during that era. (Korngold was another, of course, though he only did 18 films. And I'd say Victor Young had the sort of melodic sophistication we love in JW's music. But Rosza was, in my opinion, consistently the best during the time of biblical-scale epics.) Scores like El-Cid, Quo Vadis, Ben-Hur, King of Kings, and Ivanhoe were the Star Wars, Superman, and Jurassic Park (so to speak) of the 50s and early 60s. Sodom and Gomorrah came right at the end of that period, and was the last work he did before a decline in the frequency of his output (he would do only four more scores over the next 10 years). I'm a little iffy on full-score rerecordings in general, but Nic Raine has shown a deft hand in the past and this is a classic score. I think I'm gonna hafta pick me up a copy.

American Beauty—One of Newman's more energetic works, full of what I like to call "clockworks" music. Good score. Definitely, though Treasure Planet was a bit superior (and Dinosaur was only slightly inferior). I'm always bummed no one ever mentions Dave, which is a personal favorite of mine from his repertoire.

Not at all. In fact, this would probably be better served as a broader topic—say, "Film Score Radio and Webcast Programs" as a general place to list both online and broadcast shows featuring film scoring and any kind of behind-the-scenes info. (Can someone change the topic title of the thread?) And thanks for posting those links. I didn't see an archived list, and was worried I'd only be able to access the most recent program. Looking forward to listening to them!

Okay . . . that is nothing short of awesome. How have I missed this over the years, Thor? I'm afraid I can't go through your entire repertoire, but I'm bumping those 10 English episodes to the front of the line immediately. . . .