Desplat13

Up until now, I had kept from commenting on the Clone Wars, trying to decide what exactly my stance was on the situation was. I will say that I am, unashamedly, a Star Wars prequel fan. But I must say that I really wish that they were not cheapening what I believe to be a quite good six part saga, by making these. It seems obvious that all they are doing with this is milking the franchise. Whereas the prequels had heart, and were completing a story, all this looks like is an excusing to use more 'cool' CGI effects. I could be wrong, but even if these end up being well done (which I doubt), it still will have added nothing to an unrivaled saga that should have been left alone. At least, those are my thoughts.

Wasn't that one of the main driving forces of the whole movie?

Nope, sorry...... Like I said, I consider drama to be a genre, with elements in nearly every other genre. I consider the drama genre to be the one that appeals to very strong emotions, and likes to fling the audience between them. Many good comedies have elements of drama in them, for sure, but they are not dramas. They are comedies. Same with action/adventure. Drama certainly should get worked in there, but they are not drama movies, they only have those elements. Practically all movies are genre combinations, it is just some of them lean heavily one way, while others lean different ways. But good movies take what will help the story from all the different genres and put them in. The predominant genre is decided by what the director (and others involved) want to get across. I consider The Dark Knight to be a combination of the following genres, in order: Suspence Action Drama Horror (to a much lesser degree) These elements combine to tell the story Christopher wanted told. This one is hard to classify, because it has quite an even smattering of the first three listed. But it seems silly to me to classify Raiders of the Lost Ark as drama, when it clearly is predominately adventure. That does not mean that it doesn't have elements of drama in it, but it would not be classified as drama. I could easily be wrong here, that is just how I had always thought of it.

Nope, sorry. Drama is just one genre, with aspects that get worked into most other genres. But no, movies are not all about drama.

I, for one, probably cringed quite a bit more without the gore, than if it had it. It has been a while since a movie has done such a good job of giving the same feeling, without artlessly showing gore. I much prefer the tastefullness of how it was handled. Any second rate film can show blood. But it takes skill to bring about the same cringes without blatantly showing it on-screen, and, if done right, is far more effective. That said, I do not think this movie deserves to take the place of Wall-e as best movie of the year so far.

I watched The Dark Knight last night, and had probably only heard about 30 seconds or so of the music before-hand, and absolutely none of the Joker's theme. As far as the Jaws comparison, the Joker's theme on-screen does not compare to the Jaws theme on-album. I have never watched Jaws all the way through, pretty much only clips and previews, but there is absolutely no comparison. What is interesting about the 'theme', though, is that Zimmer is better than I thought at sound-design. I think perhaps he should change his title from composer to sound-designer, and just have more of a musical sensibility in his sound design. Then hire a different composer to compose the actual score. I think that could have worked very well for this movie, with Zimmer doing the sound design (Joker's theme) and James Newton Howard doing the score. Because it is a stretch to call the Joker's theme music, Zimmer could have collaberated it tonally with the actual music, and it is possible other quirky thematic sound-design possibilities could have opened up. Just some thoughts.

This is why the word 'perfect' is meaningless in art.

For sure. But I still don't like what Zimmer did with it. In fact, a much LESS listenable and hummable score could have worked far better than what was there.

But...but... That cuts me deeply... But I am willing to think that The Dark Knight is better than Batman Begins, if only because I want to so desperately just because James Newton Howard says it is great. And really, he should know. I like it so much better when he writes his own music, and doesn't defend other people's.

colinthomson is on a crusade ladies and gentlemen! A round of applause! You bet I am.

Exactly. Why is everyone 'alright' with this score because it adds fine noise and rhythm to the on-screen images? Why stop there?

So, I have a question, not having seen the movie yet. Is it distracting having a different actress play Rachel Dawes? Which is the better Rachel?

So....did anyone here decide to take the risk? Does anyone here have an ebay username "dennismk"? If that is what it claims to be......$64.78 is a steal.

Who?

If these are in chrono order, than it would be the second to last one, which would be "The Cell" by Groove Addicts. But I don't know if they are, and I couldn't find The Mummy listed in their trailers to cross-check. I was just able to find The Mummy trailer music listing, but none of the pieces are the same as the Narnia ones, though the two pieces in The Mummy were both written by people who wrote music for the Princes Caspian trailer. So, in other words, I have no clue.

OK, then, here's an announcement. Check with me before any of you go throwing away (or any type of destroying) film score rarities.

But there was no saber choreography, just spinning. No more of this...

Wow. How did you people have time for anything else? Couldn't agree with you more, and I will check into the movies you listed. I am completely open to old movies, just ignorant.

Completely. There's no reason why Dooku couldn't have run to Utapau and served Grievous' role. His death had no real effect on the story and it would have been nice to have Lee's gravitas for a bit longer. I agree. I liked Dooku much more than Grievous as the light-saber wielding bad-guy. Some people thought Grievous was cool, but I don't know. He seems like the weakest character of the Star Wars 'sith' (stretching the definition).

But were you knowledgable, at 19, of the movies that were made 40 years before you were born? By the way, Buster Keaton has been a hero of mine since like 12 or so

I'm in that same boat. Except with me, I didn't start getting into film scores until probably '04 or '05, so I have had a lot of listening to do to catch up on everything.

Well, it has been a little longer than it normally is between reviews, but here is my review of Horton Hears A Who. Please feel free to discuss it in either the comments section of the site, or in this thread.

I didn't say good artist. I try to write music, which is art, which makes me an artist. Does not mean my art is worth anything, or that I am a good artist. Anways... Charlie Brigden was saying that the only composers who get the A-list distinction are those who have written scores for movies such as SW or LOTR or Gladiator. I was saying that (I didn't think) Goldsmith had done any movies of that type of cultural impact. I was calling into question Charlie's way of defining A-list'ers, not calling into question Goldsmith's talent. In fact, I was using Goldsmith's OBVIOUS talent to discredit that A-list definition. That is ALL I was saying. I am as interested in becoming familiar with Goldsmith's music as the next person, and I love what I have heard. I mean it. I LOVE it. It is awesome. Why do you people all assume I think he wasn't a good composer? I can't figure out where I led you into thinking that. Goldsmith was INCREDIBLE, and I know it. I want to own every score he ever wrote. Unfortunately, funds do not allow for that at the moment. And no, I don't think I had heard of the three movies listed. Of course, it seems like somewhere I must have heard of them, but I don't recall it. That Gremlin Rag is certainly a fun piece. Is that at all the style of the score?

I really don't watch a lot of movies. I love art, but it has its place. I am somewhat of an artist, and if I spend too much time appreciating other people's art, I do not have enough time to improve my own. Thus, I watch some movies, I listen to a lot of music (since that is my art-form), but I am not a 'watch every movie out there' sort of guy.