TownerFan

We talked about several topics, not just the Disaster Movie collection. You'll hear soon. The FSM edition of Poseidon is still essential of course because it contains also The Paper Chase and Conrack.

Tomorrow!

He won't win. Competition is strong this year, plus there might be the feeling he already got enough awards. If the Academy has some sort of common sense, they could give him a special award outside the competition.

I too sincerely hope Tom Newman will finally get his own statuette. I fear JW might be out of the games, unless the film proves to be truly outstanding and get sweeps in other categories too. If I were a betting man, all my chips would be on Joker. It has written Best Score winner all over the place. Glad you loved The Irishman too, Disco Stu!

Yes, I've seen it (and I loved it). There is minimal score, yes, and it's gobbled within period songs, but we have seen strange things happening in this Oscar category, so who knows (plus, the score just got a nomination from the Society of Composers and Lyricists).

You're welcome, Jay! So far, my own personal favourite scores of the year are Randy Newman's Marriage Story and Powell's HTTYD 3. They're both truly excellent scores that illustrate in the best way possible why I love film music. But I get the feeling that Williams' The Rise of Skywalker might join the podium

It seems 2019 has been a pretty decent year for Hollywood film music. Quite a few interesting scores both by veterans and emerging composers, so I think there is latitude to see a nice group of people being nominated at next year's Oscars for Best Score. Of course we haven't heard some of those yet (mostly Williams' TROS and Tom Newman's 1917), but it's not hard to imagine they will end up in many Best of the Year lists. So, based on award buzz, industry talk and my own common sense, here's my predictions of which scores will be nominated next January (which are not necessarily my own favourites of course): Joker - Hildur Guðnadóttir Marriage Story - Randy Newman 1917 - Thomas Newman Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - John Williams Us - Michael Abels Runner-ups: Avengers: Endgame - Alan Silvestri Frozen II - Christophe Beck Little Women - Alexandre Desplat Toy Story 4 - Randy Newman Potential Threats: Harriet - Terence Blanchard A Hidden Life - James Newton Howard How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World - John Powell The Irishman - Robbie Robertson Jojo Rabbit - Michael Giacchino The most likely winner imho is Guðnadóttir's Joker and it's easy to imagine why: the film was beloved by critics and audience, the score got mentioned and noticed by many people, and Hildur's popularity skyrocketed thanks to this score and her work on Chernobyl (plus, she's a woman, and we know how this also plays a role in Hollywood's politics nowadays). But perhaps this is going to be finally Tom Newman's time for his long overdue statuette and the score for Sam Mendes' war epic got a lot of positive buzz and mentions in the first reviews that came out last week. However, Randy Newman's exquisite Marriage Story is a major threat, as it's a great score by a beloved industry veteran who still has to win for original score. Michael Abels' effective score for Us has also been noticed and well-reviewed and it might be an almost sure-fire nomination. John Williams' last Star Wars score will certainly get the token nomination, but the chance of winning are likely very remote (but perhaps Disney/LFL will campaign hard to try getting JW his sixth statuette). As for the runner-ups, Desplat is probably the most likely nominee, as he's an Academy favourite and the film is getting great reviews and buzz. Disney might push Frozen II to get a score nomination this time (the first movie ended up being disqualified for the usage of pre-existing music) and the film is already a hit. Silvestri's Avengers might also be a good nominee given the film's popularity and the fact he's well-respected by his peers. The potential "threats" are all films and scores that got positive reviews and/or are associated with films that got award buzz, so perhaps a few of them might end up mixing the cards.

We didn't touch this specific point in our conversation for the podcast (it's coming, guys, I promise! I'm working on it as we speak), but I imagine JW didn't want it included for some reason.

Don’t know where to put it, but this thread seems the most congruous: https://www.etonline.com/live/20191127123822-retro-john-williams-shares-backstory-of-home-alone-score A brief interview from back in the day, featuring also a nice moment with JW playing Somewhere in My Memory at the piano.

hopefully sooner!

The set exists the way it does because JW asked to present it this way, otherwise it would have been three separate releases. You'll hear more in the podcast I recorded with Mike and Tim Burden, hopefully in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

They played our heartstrings of course, with the music and the cherished memories of the original film. It's a pretty well executed commercial, but reminded me how honest Spielberg has always been in not doing a sequel to his masterpiece. However, he and Melissa Mathison actually wrote a treatment for a sequel right after the film's release in 1982. It was called E.T. 2: Nocturnal Fears, but luckily it never went beyond an idea on paper: https://genius.com/Steven-spielberg-et-ii-nocturnal-fears-annotated

You'll soon discover

I can assure that all three scores sounds MUCH better than the previous releases.

Bundling these three scores together was a request from JW himself. You'll learn more soon in an upcoming podcast with Mike on The Legacy of John Williams