SteveMc

Saving Private Ryan by John Williams
One of Williams' more solemn and reflective scores, most notable in the horn solos for me.
 
Raiders of the Lost Ark by John Williams
Still as fun as the first time. Aside from the obvious Raiders March, I really enjoy tracks like In the Jungle and The Map Room: Dawn, as well as the chills that the awesomely creepy The Miracle of the Ark gives you. Good fun!

The Grinch Danny Elfman
A quite fun score.  Refreshing, even.  Any woodwind based material is very welcome nowadays.  Nice balance between energetic "cartoony" moments and softer material.  Pretty good all round.
 
James Horner: The Classics James Horner
Solid album with some engaging performances.  Horner's melodic sense shines through here.  Willow's Theme was a highlight for me.
 
Revenge Of The Sith by John Williams
A classic score.  Dark, rather broody at times, quite operatic.  John put a lot of skill on the table.  The orchestrations are remarkable, love some of the little surprising details and turns the music takes.  The best of the Prequel scores for my money.
 
The Grand Budapest Hotel by Alexandre Desplat 
The instrumental color and overall exotic quirkiness of the score got my attention, but failed to keep it.  Maybe it's just me, but it all became very repetitive over time.  Short cues did not help either.  One of these scores that seems to work better within the movie.  
 
Denace The Menace by Jerry Goldsmith
Nice little score.  Particularly interesting application of harmonica.  Themes were rather pleasant too, especially that one that came in most often on flute.

The Grinch Danny Elfman
A quite fun score.  Refreshing, even.  Any woodwind based material is very welcome nowadays.  Nice balance between energetic "cartoony" moments and softer material.  Pretty good all round.
 
James Horner: The Classics James Horner
Solid album with some engaging performances.  Horner's melodic sense shines through here.  Willow's Theme was a highlight for me.
 
Revenge Of The Sith by John Williams
A classic score.  Dark, rather broody at times, quite operatic.  John put a lot of skill on the table.  The orchestrations are remarkable, love some of the little surprising details and turns the music takes.  The best of the Prequel scores for my money.
 
The Grand Budapest Hotel by Alexandre Desplat 
The instrumental color and overall exotic quirkiness of the score got my attention, but failed to keep it.  Maybe it's just me, but it all became very repetitive over time.  Short cues did not help either.  One of these scores that seems to work better within the movie.  
 
Denace The Menace by Jerry Goldsmith
Nice little score.  Particularly interesting application of harmonica.  Themes were rather pleasant too, especially that one that came in most often on flute.

Happy birthday @Marian Schedenig!!

You have taken your first steps into a larger world.

Roy Orbison died at 52 just few months before releasing the best album he recorded in all his career : Mystery Girl (1989).
 
 
 

Take that back!
I love that stuff.

A Special 2016 3-CD Roy Orbison compilation, covering all his career.
 
Top notch!
 

I re-watched "Là-haut" (Up) yesterday, because Charles Aznavour dubbed Carl Fredricksen in French.
 
The main musical theme of the movie is good. The treatment is not good in the whole score. It lacks some experience.
 
Well, that's "old" Giacchino already...
 

No. I will never drink and drive!
 
 

Smashingly good.

Smashingly good.

Here is the official YT video:
 
 
 

^^
 
How come he still has the magic ? :(( goosebump hearing it, especially the last part ( the hidden world theme)

Here's a nice performance of Nice to Be Around, by Freddy Cole.
 
 
 
It really warms my heart to see how much this song has been embraced by the "outside" community...you know John Williams did a good job on a song when no one credits him for it! 

and just like that bespin blows it wide open, after i kept my photograph off of jwfan for two decades........

My eyes.

My eyes.

I see it!

Oh, you were talking about the first chord I pointed out rather than the second. Sorry, my mistake!
 
Well, since we're talking about that first chord, I still believe it is a half-diminished 7th chord despite not sounding an E at that point. My feeling is that the progression from mm. 138-141 (the last of the chords with E in the bass to the big cadential 6/4) composes out and "jazzes up" a traditional progression of ii6/5-ii7-V6/4. Here is the traditional version in the key of B major:
 

 
In this progression, the bass arpeggiates the ii7 chord, so in the second bar, the E is understood as being there because it was already there in the same chord in the previous bar. In other words, we mentally extend the note and hear it as part of the chord despite its absence. That's the basic principle that I think applies to the Close Encounters "no E" half-diminished chord. It's just that Williams uses jazzier harmonies. So his basic jazz progression (one that we hear as the sort of background for what he actually writes) might be something like this:
 

 
where the ii6/5 has been substituted with a major 7th chord on IV, and ii7 has been extended with a 9th.
 
So then here's a reduction of what Williams actually writes:
 

 
The differences now are that the first two chords of the basic IV7-ii9 have been chromaticized to give a major-minor 7th (flat 5) chord and a half-diminished 9th, and that Williams has added a passing chord (which is of lesser importance to the progression, hence the filled noteheads) that smooths out the bass to stepwise motion.
 
Hearing this progression as an altered version of a more basic model allows us to make sense of the voice leading: for the ii9(b5) chord, couldn't Williams have led the F# down to E and filled the chord out completely? Yes, but then the intense chromatic motion toward the dominant note of G#-G-F# (or scale degrees 6-b6-5) in the inner voices (here, the tenor) would be lost. And I also think the connection to all the previous chords with E in the bass would be weaker because the whole harmonic idea of the passage seems to be to keep the upper voices on essentially the same notes while the bass moves (arpeggiates) underneath them. So keeping the upper voices reasonably fixed lends a continuity to the harmony that would be lost by moving them around more.

Schindler's List 25 Anniversary Edition by John Williams: Still as devastatingly beautiful as when I first heard it in 1997. Fantastic to have the Schindler's Workforce and I Could Have Done More film versions that I'll put on my playlist from now on.
 
How To Train Your Dragon 2 by John Powell (expanded edit thingy): Such an energetic, joyous and rollicking score that has such big heart. Lovely.

Everyone and everything goes at the mstrox!

the mstrox is a great place to hang out, and do whatever!  that includes photography imo