crocodile

Dial M for Murder (Intrada) by Dimitri Tiomkin. Karol

I can't see any info online confirming this. Karol

Haha they did. Karol

Only a Stephen King fan would say such a thing! Karol

Almost forgot... Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn... It was better than Suicide Squad and definitely more fun than all three Zack Snyder films combined (but then, so is being shot in a leg). Was it good? Not really. I liked there were some nice John Wick-flavoured action scenes with (what looks like) real stunts...even if they often don't feel like they belong in this particular movie. Mix it up with Guy Ritchie type of narration and a pinch of Deadpool and you end up with hot mess. It is also paced very poorly...as was the case with every single DC movie since 2013. One genuine saving grace is Margot Robbie who is a pleasure to watch in pretty much every movie and the same can be said here. Her take on the character is pretty much spot on. I enjoyed it more than it must sound like from my description but it is already fading from my memory. Karol

Karol

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (OST+FYC chronological combo). You know what? I really do love this score. On the first glance it might seem like a bit of a letdown, especially if you listen to the official album. I suppose with SW comes a special level of expectations where everything needs to be better and more spectacular than everything else. And it must be quite difficult for an 87-year old man to fulfil all those expectations while fighting a losing battle against temp track and post-production madness of modern blockbusters. I doubt any of his older colleagues would bother to deal with this shit. Given what we already know about the process, I am surprised the score turned out as well as it did (even in the film). Yeah, I wish they didn't re-use some bits verbatim and this and that. But it does work and subsequent listens reveal new details. There's nothing really wrong with the official album as such. I get why Williams picked these pieces and even putting them into this specific order makes some musical sense as well. But 77 minutes is simply not enough to do this score justice. If you arrange all OST tracks into chronological order and add fill in some of the blanks with FYC tracks it really does make a big difference. You instantly get a sense there is a shape to the score...even when you know there's tons missing. The Force Awakens was the only score in the new trilogy that actually had a really good album (mostly thanks to the wealth of superb new thematic material) that I often listen to without the need hear the expansion which doesn't flow as well musically due to the brevity of many cues (it's a very "start and stop"). The following two scores are more satisfying in expanded form. The Last Jedi doesn't offer that much new thematic material but it flows extremely well from start to finish (something you can't get from the album). It also has the best climactic final act out of all three. The Rise of Skywalker might not quite reach those level excellence in terms of narrative flow but it offers more development in terms of thematic material and is quite an emotional score as well. It also feels the most intricate in terms of orchestration. So each one of those has different strength and weaknesses and that's why I put them all on about the same level. What is interesting is that this is probably the most coherent of all the SW trilogies - themes are established, used consistently and sometimes even reach resolution of some kind or evolve into something else (Rey/Victory theme). Anthem of Evil is actually my favourite "evil" theme from this trilogy. I was always disappointed a bit with Kylo Ren themes. My initial reaction was petty much exactly "is that it?" They do the job well but feel too simple. WIlliams also rarely did anything interesting with them (not counting the march-like statement in the previous film and the heroic Ben version in the latest one). But Anthem receives quite a treatment, and cues like Join Me , FYC's Prologue or the end credits show the malleable theme off in amazing ways. It is also a more interesting slithering melodic line that seems to express so many ideas at once --- the ghostly fleet, the dagger mystery, Rey/Kylo prophecy, Palpatine threat... It just seems to encapsulate so much musically. We Go Together theme is probably my favourite new addition as a pure melodic line but Victory theme takes a cake in terms of emotion and satisfying conclusion. If you think about it, Williams never actually had a chance to write a proper climax to any of the previous trilogies and the two new themes give him an opportunity to give his saga a proper "fairy tale" ending. And very Disney-sounding too! Now... why don't they just expand all nine already! Now is the best time. Karol

Or they could just develop an algorithm to compose the score based on composer's vast library of works. It would sound bit similar to other things he's done. Oh wait... Karol

Karol

Now all they need to recapture the magic is James Horner! Karol

It is terrific. Makes me wish for more John Powell concert works. Karol

I watched it without knowing anything about the film. It was one of the "mystery" showings at my local cinema. Absolutely loved it. Karol

I'm not disagreeing with you. Alive by James Newton Howard. Hey, I might have another score to add to "good JNH" list. This is most enjoyable. Karol

In most cases it seems to be applied quite tastefully. Karol

That's true, but they do it best. TTT and ROTK start to interconnect ideas more and stuff whereas FOTR presents them in isolation. AUJ does it too but it's too similar to FOTR and BOTFA takes place in one location. Karol