Marian Schedenig

Nor do you shoot with anamorphic widescreen lenses. Or create one of the most demanding CGI sequences of its time, inventing the particle system in the process.

But there's VI right after V... Marian - who hasn't watched II in a long time because he wants to get the SE and III to VI first.

And made Monkey Island movies instead.

The Haunting sounds clearly like 90s Goldsmith to me. It's of course entirely possible that he reused themes he'd originally written in the late 80s (see The Russia House), but if that is the case, he certainly did much reworking of the original material. In any case, The Haunting is a flawed score with some truly wonderful moments.

Someone I know () keeps phantasizing of some big musical epic based on Narn i Chîn Húrin. I keep telling him about Sibelius' Kullervo. He still hasn't heard it. Indeed. "Both rings are round", but they have far more in common than he was ready to admit. Invisibility items, broken swords that are reforged, a ring granting vast power that corrupts nearly everyone who's heard of it... Not to mention that both works draw a lot of their influences from the Edda.

They should've hired Michael Land instead.

John Adams must like Rosenman as well. After all, he's recorded an album with his scores. Philip Glass has an interesting quote in FSM's Goldsmith memorial issue. I don't remember it exactly; from what I recall, it's not quite clear how highly he thought of Goldsmith, but he obviously did consider him an important, professional film composer, and one of the best of his time (mind you, someone else might read the quote and interpret it differently ).

I still haven't seen Incredibles (shame on me!), but I'm a big fan of Nemo, and I've always been somewhat disappointed by Bug's Life. I wonder where Cars will figure for me. Marian - who won't get to see it until September (unless the DVD is out really soon, that is).

Great songs, mind you.

No, your dry spell was already broken by that Transformers issue.

Lion King is a lovely score, but at times dangerously close to Mozart. Overall, it's certainly nice, but I don't see anything particularly outstanding about it. The best thing about that soundtrack are the songs (the movie versions). Hm. Examples? I know Rimsky Korsakov re-orchestrated some of Mussorgsky's operas, and there's a lot of debating which versions are better (not to mention all the other changes, at least to Boris Godunov). Other than that, this is news to me. Of course, there's Mussorgsky's piano work Pictures at an Exhibition, which is most popular in the orchestrated version of Ravel. In this case, Ravel usually gets a prominent orchestration credit on CDs and in concert programmes. Comparing various versions of the work shows how important his contribution is (the original version and the famous synth version all sound quite different).

Basically, LOTR is just (well, more or less) the final chapter of the whole body of Tolkien's writings. Which, as we know, fills plenty of books by now.

It can be a really tough read (Unfinished Tales even more so though, and I'm sure the HoM series takes it another step further), but it's brilliant. I still think someone should make some sort of "documentary" TV series out of it. And/or a cycle of symphonic poems. Ainulindalë screams for a musical treatment (whether anyone could give justice to the text is a different matter...), as does the pure score of Akallabêth. ...and of course, the Lay of Leithian is opera material. Aet (Michael Nyman)

They're not "expanded universe" for sure. Rather, perhaps "universe in construction". Bear in mind that plenty of things "officially" changed after both the original and revised editions of LOTR, and those contains errors also. In many cases, there's a whole series of partly contradictory plot outlines for the same story and/or characters. No, Lucas was not the first to do this (and Tolkien wasn't, either); and let's not even get into the whole Riddles in the Dark confusion. As for Unfinished Tales, I'm currently re-reading them, and promptly found an error in PJ's FOTR. Tolkien explains, in a lengthy footnote, why Isildur didn't have "horses fit for riding" on his journey that led to the Disaster at the Gladden Fields... That's one of the great things about Tolkien, there's far more detail to pretty much every single event and sentence than is obvious from just reading LOTR. The Patriot

It's what you get when you hire Zimmer as an orchestrator. The Patriot

I only know the OST, and have never seen the film. But what score there is on the CD is fine, and the final track is brilliant. The Patriot

Depp was great, and Rush was of course fine as well. Even the first 15 or 20 minutes of the movie were really promising. But in the end, I think it's only barely watchable, if at all. Me, I'm having my own pirate summer. I started with listening to CutThroat Island, then watched my DVDs of Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk, then picked up Master and Commander on DVD. And only two days ago I've once again started to play Monkey Island. I want to be a fireman! The Patriot

Orchestration is an inherent part of good music. Orchestrating a piece of "chords" is a major contribution, and I still doubt that you can write a great orchestral score without doing at least the crucial orchestration yourself. Of course, I haven't heard much Menken yet.

Small Soldiers is wonderful. And it certainly has its share of inspired little oddities. I don't remember how many of these are on the OST though.

Or better, don't.

He's a very good composer. GOF shows he's good at least, but it's not his best score. A gift for melodies? I've heard few good Zimmer melodies. Especially his "big" themes are usually quite primitive; not only does the entire orchestra seem to play the same notes, they even constantly play notes of the same length. ...and thanks for proving my point.

No, only some of the greatest scores in the history of film... :?

He may be the obvious and "cheap" choice... but Zimmer is certainly a strong contender here. As for Nyman: He's one of my favourites.

What? Remember Supergirl? Brrrrrr! The film and the soundtrack deserved each other. Too kitschy for me taste! I haven't seen the film. I'm sure it's horrid (and I didn't find the original Superman too good, for that matter). I do believe that the score on CD drags somewhat, and I rarely play the CD, but I don't doubt that Goldsmith would have written great stuff if the movie had been interesting enough. As it stands, the main title/suite is outstanding. I actually prefer it to the Williams march (which I'd rather label "kitschy", or at least cliched, than SG), and for good reason it was Goldsmith's standard encode piece for his last concerts (a tradition thankfully continued by Brosse). The Trekkies win... not!

Nevertheless, I would have "liked him for Superman". Seriously, if I had to pick a composer of choice, he's the only one I'd consider if he were alive today. I can't see a modern Williams score for this, and I wouldn't even want Goldenthal to handle it.