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This is sensational news! Arguably a bigger deal than the Bouzereau documentary. 
 
I love the description: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, A.I. and BotFoJ. Yep, that’s pretty much the big five. 

This is sensational news! Arguably a bigger deal than the Bouzereau documentary. 
 
I love the description: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, A.I. and BotFoJ. Yep, that’s pretty much the big five. 

This is sensational news! Arguably a bigger deal than the Bouzereau documentary. 
 
I love the description: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, A.I. and BotFoJ. Yep, that’s pretty much the big five. 

Apparently Tim Greiving has just announced the first English biography on John Williams, to be released in 2025:
 
https://timgreiving.com/john-williams-in-his-adventure-on-earth/

That’s no excuse.
By the time we get the CD, there won’t be players to play it on. 

I thought the movie was really good. It brought stakes and the stunts were as epic as ever. Also the AI plot was very interesting to me considering all that’s happening right now.
 
On the score I agree I only like the Entity theme which I think is best expressed in "His Name Is Gabriel." Another cool part of the score are the descending piano keys in "U R Dunn" I thought they worked very well in the movie. Besides that though I genuinely thought the score was way too loud in the theater and my god I need to do a drinking game with the amount of times that three note theme plays. It’s insane how little Balfe adjusts the tone of the score it’s so stagnant. It works well during the movie a lot of the time I’ll give it that but by the end of certain action scenes I’m begging for the score to shut the fuck up.
 
Overall while there are some good tracks (That work better in film than on album) I think this score is a little better than Fallout but still just super Dark Knight wanna-be. Imagine if Kraemer was still scoring these. Or even Giacchino.

Every establishing shot is accompanied by increasingly epic versions of those same three notes...

Is anyone else a bit surprised that the OSTs for scores like “Sabrina,” “Nixon,” “Sleepers,” “1941,” “Always,” etc. are still not available to purchase/stream from the major digital music services? I can understand very old scores (mid-70s and earlier) not being available, but especially for the 1995-96 scores (and the missing Spielberg ones), I would expect them to be on there by now. Not expecting any of the expanded treatments by Matessino, but it would be nice even for just the standard OSTs to be made available for the wider public. Do you think this will ever happen at some point?
 
EDIT: Also can’t forget “The Patriot” and “Angela’s Ashes”!

I love the Helena song!

That sounds like a podcast I'd love to listen to! Alas, time is finite, and I'm more of a writer than a talker anyway. It's not exactly what you're talking about, but Chrysanthe Tan and Dominic Sewell's respective channels are both at that extremely high musical level you're interested in.
 
Speaking of stretto, the clip is now accurate in my article. Hooray!

Thumbs up if you think @Falstaft has the germ of an amazing podcast in this article.  Imagine a primer on musical techniques of film scoring, with examples from Williams and others, illustrating elements of composition for the musically uninitiated. Rather than doing episodes on individual film scores like so many podcasts have, you could explore tools of the trade like stretto, fugue, ostinato, etc. The Underscore podcast feinted in this direction a bit before it fizzled, but your knowledge base could really make it soar. Think it over!

Eeek. Didn’t even stop to think. Sorry mods. Let me know if I’m in trouble and I’ll remove it. I’ll sit in the corner, drink the blood of Kali and think about what I’ve done. 

Thumbs up if you think @Falstaft has the germ of an amazing podcast in this article.  Imagine a primer on musical techniques of film scoring, with examples from Williams and others, illustrating elements of composition for the musically uninitiated. Rather than doing episodes on individual film scores like so many podcasts have, you could explore tools of the trade like stretto, fugue, ostinato, etc. The Underscore podcast feinted in this direction a bit before it fizzled, but your knowledge base could really make it soar. Think it over!

I'm actually curious how this piece came together, @Falstaft.  Did you cold-email the Times with a proposal?  Did they come to you as a relevant expert, wanting something to pin to the release of the film?  Was it always going to be a multimedia project?  Did you have to give them specific timestamps for the music and video embeds?
 
Let's hear the DVD extras on this!

Silverback.

Heck of a montage for “Duel of the Fates”! They got ten films in there! (Sadly missed the relevant scene in Solo as far as I could tell.) This was a treat to watch even at fingernail size.
 

I’ve never seen Williams at the Hollywood Bowl, but as a CSO four-timer, I can’t complain. Every year when these reports and videos surface, it’s like attending a wedding for someone you love: the happiness isn’t quite yours, but you’re glad it’s there and glad to crack off a piece of it for yourself. 

@JWilliamsFan1999, his catalogue is very deep and however deep you dig in it, you'll only find gems.
 
I love his Henry Mancini-inspired How to Steal a Million:, one of his first bigger jobs for a bigger film with big names:
 
 
Images is a very experimental out there score for only strings and strange percussion, this is the most accessible piece:
 
 
The complete film recordings of Eiger Sanction are a recent discovery for most of us, and its diversity and emotional power blew our collective minds:
 
 
Black Sunday is a groovy terrorist thriller score recorded very shortly before the original STAR WARS:
 
 
The Fury is a grand over the top horror score, a throwback to 50s B flicks and Bernard Herrmann scores:
 
 
The River is a joyous rich take on 80s rural Americana:
 
 
Always is mostly a small-scale romantic score with some grand standout powerful moments:
 
 
Minority Report is a scifi crime thriller from one of his most beloved golden ages (1997-2005):
 

Welcome Rafie! Great to have new fans around here
 
 
Where to begin? Clearly you're well versed in his blockbuster scores, but in recent years I've found his scores for dramas even more rewarding.
 
For sweeping yet intimate, and overflowing with emotional themes and flute & piano solos, check out War Horse:
 
Memoirs of a Geisha is one of his best, dripping with atmosphere and Japanese instrumentation but with its roots in Williams' trademark sensibilities. Beautiful solos for cello and violin throughout.
 
Tintin is modern yet with a foot in the door of his classic blockbuster adventure scores (especially Indiana Jones)! Great themes and swashbuckling tracks throughout:
 
And of course there's Hook, one of his greatest scores. Incredible themes, some of the best action music of his career, and an all-time performance from the LA musicians. Amazing!
 

Heck of a montage for “Duel of the Fates”! They got ten films in there! (Sadly missed the relevant scene in Solo as far as I could tell.) This was a treat to watch even at fingernail size.
 

I’ve never seen Williams at the Hollywood Bowl, but as a CSO four-timer, I can’t complain. Every year when these reports and videos surface, it’s like attending a wedding for someone you love: the happiness isn’t quite yours, but you’re glad it’s there and glad to crack off a piece of it for yourself. 

“John Williams was able to write this at a piano! With a bunch of pencils!”

I just listened to the Main Titles and unfortunately I don't think I'm going to like this score much. LB, like the Variety article says, uses hundreds of musicians to record hours and hours of music, and yet the result is always so... thin. So processed. He tries so hard to be grand and epic, but doesn't know how to get there except by creating this "wall of sound", one of Zimmer's worst tendencies that Balfe exaggerates.
 
It's kinda like Shakespeare (?) quote: "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

I think #1 is a very good De Palma thriller (but quite different from the later films), #3 is solid as well, and #4 essentially starts a string of films that form the series as we know it today. Not by rebooting anything, mind you, it's just that the fourth one is where the series finds the formula that it sticks to from that point on. #4 to #6 are uniformly excellent in my mind. Different people have different favourites among those three, personally I don't feel a need to rank them. Except that musically, the last one is a big letdown.

So was anybody at opening night of this?  What did they play?  Nothing on Twitter yet.  While we wait, though, feast your eyes on this poster...
 
https://twitter.com/thecinemadoctor/status/1675546753196789761
 

Heck of a montage for “Duel of the Fates”! They got ten films in there! (Sadly missed the relevant scene in Solo as far as I could tell.) This was a treat to watch even at fingernail size.
 

I’ve never seen Williams at the Hollywood Bowl, but as a CSO four-timer, I can’t complain. Every year when these reports and videos surface, it’s like attending a wedding for someone you love: the happiness isn’t quite yours, but you’re glad it’s there and glad to crack off a piece of it for yourself.