Bayesian

I would really like to attend this, not least because I've never seen the LA Phil's concert hall in person. But you have to be a member before you can buy tickets and I'm not sure I want to do that without knowing my chances of getting tickets. (Otherwise, I'd do better to just support my local major orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony.) Anyone buy tickets to this yet and can tell us whether there are any seats left, or how they're going to sell them?

At this point, I think JW is sincere about not doing any more film scores after Indy 5. If he does, it’ll be for Spielberg alone, not least because he knows and respects how JW works. Luckily Spielberg is producing Indy 5 and Mangold appears sensible enough to appreciate the fact he’s likely the last director not named Spielberg who will ever have the privilege of getting JW to write a full two-hour score for him. At least I hope he’s sensible enough to appreciate it and not make the scoring process a horrific ordeal.

I am stoked for this film. It’s going to be phenomenal seeing what Ridley Scott does to dramatize Napoleon and Josephine. Joaquin looks great here. I understand this is a passion project for Scott, so he’s surely bringing his super duper A-game to this one. Good on him to keep making these epics while he can, and despite the world’s indifference to Last Duel. This one also looks really interesting. I’m impressed we’re getting this story so soon cinematically. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be any word of a U.S. release date yet 😕

I'm happy I popped back into this thread today--a new trailer (replete with trailerized JW music), new first-look pics, a magazine cover, and new tweets! The Disney hype machine is off to a good start with this one.

Everyone here is so weirdly dismissive of Cameron now. I wouldn't bet against Avatar 2, though. The story and characters were basic, but the experience in theaters was unlike anything seen in theaters before. We've heard fairly little about the sequels, but everything we have heard indicates that Cameron is trying to outdo himself--basically, make another can't-miss theatrical experience. The fact that he's spinning this out over four more films also suggests there's going to be a lot more story to look forward to. I want Cameron to succeed, if for no other reason than to show the film industry that it can and should bet money on original IP and maybe one day think about weaning itself off the superhero teat.

I prefer when it it’s used as a small badge in the corner of the album cover. In full size, I agree that the yellow is not terribly attractive. Maybe if it were a little darker or had a hint of orange or something. The full-size shield looks stellar, though, when it’s printed in the gold/bronze they use for special editions. Also whenever it’s emblazoned with the words “John Williams”. Which, gratifyingly for us, is now happening rather more frequently.

My understanding is that contemporary composers of classical music, going back decades, moved away from the notion of being beholden to a home key, or even in a key from a 12-tone scale (e.g., modes or atonality or your second Viennese school whatnot). Instead of writing in a key signature, JW just writes in all the accidentals as needed. Someone help me out; am I even remotely right about that?

Going through the recent JW/BPO Philips box set is a great reminder that JW interpreted a fairly wide range of repertoire for a film composer-turned-pops conductor. Are there any musical works you would have enjoyed him having recorded with the Boston pops for posterity, (including pieces he may have only conducted live)? One that comes to mind is Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio italien. That is a great piece to listen to, especially the tarantella at the end, and I bet JW would have had fun with it. Another one is Bizet’s Arlésienne suite. The farandole in particular sounds like something from JW’s wheelhouse. Anyone else??

I'll admit, @TheUlyssesian, that yours appears to be a thoughtful list. From that list, I've only seen French Dispatch (and thought it was brilliant) and recognize the titles of maybe three or four others. Many of these entries seem to be arthouse fare or really auteur. This doesn't necessarily diminish your take on WSS's direction or the validity of your list, but it reminds me of the notion of "audience gradient" (my term) that affects both film and film music. Spielberg is a crowd-pleasing filmmaker who mostly makes films that appeal to wide audiences, but many of your faves from 2021 likely appeal to film connoisseurs. I'm going to argue that there is a distinction between the two forms of film, just like there is a distinction in music between Ligeti or Boulez and Zimmer or Gia. In both situations, the products fit the literal definition "film" or "music" but substantively they are complete worlds apart. Spielberg made a brilliant crowd-pleasing film (that unfortunately not enough crowds saw in theaters), and within that universe, I think he made a better-looking and better-flowing film than 90% of his conventional Hollywood competition. I suspect that's how most people defending the film here are looking at the situation.

Yikes, tell us how you really feel. Are you sure the end credits didn’t scroll by too slowly either? No movie is perfect, but Spielberg’s WSS is far from the dumpster fire you’re basically calling it. While I respectfully disagree with pretty much every single point you brought up, I am curious to know the 25 films from 2021 that you think are better directed than WSS. That’s a mighty claim to make, IMHO.

You wouldn’t happen to have a link for this, would you? I’m always curious about how these kinds of contracts or agreements are written.

Have you heard of Michael Bay? He’s an American director who can film 4 minutes of car-shaped robots beating the piss out of each other with as few as 950 shots. You wanna talk about talent…

Desplat is probably my favorite of the group, and Godzilla and Moonrise Kingdom my gateway scores. It was a lovely bonus to discover later on how much respect he has for JW and how he still writes all his own music. After him, it’s a tough call, but I put my vote in for Britell. Succession was the way I discovered him, and Cruella confirmed him as a new favorite. His writing style is interesting, in that he seems hardly interested in writing more than a couple minutes’ worth of music at a time and there’s usually precious little in the way of B themes or thematic development…but the moods he can evoke are wonderful. His material is unusually hypnotic. After him, Powell and Beck. I need to listen to more Beck.

When you say "cuesheet sheet credits," is that to mean that the composers listed are given fair payments and royalties?

The VF article might seem to pull its punches (although I don't blame the writer; he couldn't get his sources to name names), but it's high-profile enough to potentially make a dent for the better in the film scoring universe. I am all for equitable treatment of ghost composers in terms of recognition, payment, and royalties, but I find it dismaying to read about composers claiming credit for such basic elements in a film score. In the article, Mike Zarin claims credit for Zimmer's horn of doom (the ol' "BWAAAM" trick). It is literally one fucking chord. Anyone could have written that, and probably has, countless times, in the history of music. Is Zarin seeking to claim credit for marking the dynamic fff, or calling for x number of horns instead of x−n horns, or adding some synth layer? A single chord is not writing music. It's arranging. The older I get (and I'm not old), the more I bemoan how regressive many things are becoming, even as (comparably fewer) things are improving. Thank God JW is still alive -- and not just in the sense of "still alive but not doing anything, so he's just a living symbol of a lost competence," but instead "still alive and still showing the rest of the world how it's done."

I feel like this might have been tackled in other threads, but couldn’t find them after a cursory search on my phone. Hence this. I’ve been intrigued by discussions of late regarding the state of CD collecting and am curious about how our community views CD collecting, particularly when it comes to JW. Do you obsess over adding to your JW collection wherever possible? Do you collect only the discs of JW scores you love? Do you collect for the sake of the collection itself or maybe for the potential value of the collection decades from now? I personally like collect as much JW on cd as I can, although there are certain OOP releases that are too expensive on the secondary market for me to consider and some tribute albums that don’t do anything for me, and I disregard those. My collection (and the effort of collecting) gives me great personal satisfaction and I harbor no great illusions about my collection becoming monetarily super valuable in the future. My collection is an important statement of who I am, and that alone is worth it. That, plus the opportunity to play the lossless music on a proper hi-do setup someday! That said, if, God forbid, I somehow lost my collection, I don’t think I could bear to start all over again, not would I be able to afford to. Anyone else out there as collection-driven as me? EDIT: I added a second question to the poll that addresses the shortcomings of my first question. I made it multiple choice and there's overlap in some of the options, but my intent was to find ways to organize JW's copious output in natural groupings. (Turns out I was able to come up with 16 of them!)

Agreed on all points. I would love if he also incorporated jazz elements into this concerto (jazz rhythms, progressions, colors…). Several of us here have hoped for awhile he would reach back into his jazz roots more often.

I don’t have a particular problem with the sequence of helmets, myself (it’s kind of a neat way to be reminded that so many distinctive helmets have appeared in SW), but yeah, the logo music could be considerably improved. That said, I really hope JW’s new music is for Kenobi.

Yep, me too. I can't justify €33 for DG to ship a CD to California, even if it has ASM's signature on it. If enough people order the signed version, she just might end up scribbling her initials anyway after the first few dozen booklets to save her wrist. (At least that's what I plan to tell myself while I'm waiting for the regular one to show up on amazon.)

Your contributions to this forum are orders of magnitude more valuable than Jurassic Shark's. We can't lose you. Put him on your ignore list, like I did long ago.

Ninety years old and going as strong as ever before. It's a beautiful and astounding thing. JW, the éminence grise of film music, the ne plus ultra of his field. I feel certain no other composer will ever achieve what he has achieved over the course of a career as varied and comprehensive as his. He is the best example I can think of what hard work and an unfailingly generous spirit can earn you; as ideal a role model for human behavior as there ever existed.

That was exactly my reaction too! A JW piano concerto, as confirmed as we've ever had a piece of classical music confirmed from him. I cannot wait.

An OST is coming! Great news!

I hold a somewhat opposite feeling for the film myself—I watched it last year on Disney+ and I thought its effects held up great, even if the overall impression of the movie wasn’t quite as good as I remembered it in theaters. Avatar is definitely a film that was made for the 3D theater. In that regard, it exceeded its mandate, especially for late 2009. (This is why I’m stoked for Avatar 2 this year.) When watched on a laptop or phone screen, admittedly, it loses its immersiveness and the basic-ness of the plot becomes pretty hard to ignore.

Still no word on a soundtrack album for this film, digital or otherwise. There was no release either for Elfman's Woman in the Window. It's one thing if the studios don't want to spring for pressing CDs, but to not even bother with digitally releasing an organized sequence of cues or suites is a worrisome trend.