Hlao-roo

Dyer -- always the Williams devotee. Thanks a bunch, Joe.

Apparently you haven't heard Jerry Goldsmith is better. It's a fact. A flat fact. You can't argue with facts. Sorry. How do I know? I asked the folks at the Film Score Monthly message board, and they're never wrong. Soon, I will be one of them. Join us, Merkel, and together we can help to crush this senseless rebellion spreading the outright lie that John Williams is the master. It is...your destiny.

For a while, Rosewood and Seven Years in Tibet were widely considered Williams's two finest achievements of 1997. Since then, there's been a revival of sorts, it seems, of The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Amistad, and increasingly, people seem to embrace the two Spielberg scores as the superior of the four. I think this just goes to show the greatness of 1997 in Williams's career. In my book, unless Catch Me If You Can somehow ends up being the most brilliant masterwork of Williams's career, 2002 won't come close to matching what Williams accomplished in 1997. Every score in '97 was fresh and had its own character; sadly, the same can't be said of 2002.

I bet you and Evan Driscoll might have something in common...

Well, of course, everybody runs.

No.

Wait a minute, Steven, I think you've got it wrong here. Read the story again: it's "Donna," "Mike," and "Jerry."

"Anderton's Great Escape" blatantly revisits a motif from "Ludlow's Demise" and "The Quidditch Match." That case has nothing to do with style.

Minority Report is easily among Spielberg's most entertaining films ever, and is, believe it or not, a vast improvement over Philip K. Dick's so-so story. Don't get me wrong, Dick's premise was brilliant, but his plot was contrived and over-convoluted and no doubt would have translated poorly as a cinematic piece. As expected, the film isn't high-brow enough for certain people and for several snotty critics, but Spielberg accomplished precisely what he set out to do: create a hybrid of several different styles and genres. If that means compromising a meticulous investigation of each and every philosophical idea and moral dilemma suggested by Spielberg's vision of the future, so be it. There was definitely Raiders-caliber action in there, and I loved it. None of the acting was particularly spectacular (unlike the magnificent work of Haley Joel Osment and of Jude Law in last year's A.I.), but it was solid and convincing, as we've come to expect from a Spielberg's direction. Samantha Morton's Agatha was the stand-out. Cruise may have seemed completely undaunted in several of the chase sequences, but Anderton's reveries, his interaction with Agatha and his wife, his vulnerability to drug addiction, and the sly humor throughout go a long way in humanizing the character in my mind.

I doubt that Williams, at this stage in his career, would be willing to undergo the exertion of integrating score and song track as Don Davis had to do for the Wachowskis for the first film. I wouldn't want anyone else other than Davis working on The Matrix sequels. And certainly, his gift for marrying the standard orchestra with electronics and as well as appropriately spotting the use of the electronics eclipses Williams's by far. It may not have had a strong lyrical theme, but the brass waxing/waning motif was a clever touch and reminiscent (for me, at least) of Goldsmith's repeated figure in Patton.

And how 'bout that Mark Isham, huh? A Windham Hill Artist trying to make it as film composer! In the late eighties, who'd've imagined Isham writing music for something like Impostor?

Get out, Morlock! We don't serve your kind here! ...or something. Ah, what the heck, welcome.

Let's take a look at the last few dozen or so John Williams movie albums (pseudo-chronological order)... Born on the Fourth of July and Always: MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK ALBUM Stanley and Iris through Far and Away: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK Home Alone 2: Lost in New York: ORIGINAL SCORE Jurassic Park through Amistad: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK ...and then it gets screwy... Saving Private Ryan: MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK Stepmom: MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK Angela's Ashes: MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE The Patriot: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SCORE A.I. Artificial Intelligence: MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK Minority Report: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SCORE So I've no idea what makes Minority Report so much like The Patriot...

Hey, now, Uni is the true detective around here. ...although something of such a tragic scope may be beyond him. I don't know Weebo personally, but his A.I. promo and "John Williams Costco" projects were among the most ambitious and -- most important -- generous undertakings I've ever witnessed by a fan for his fellow community. He is definitely missed.

John Williams launched the year with a fantastic exultant piece in "Call of the Champions," but he hasn't impressed considerably since then. Minority Report continues his disturbing trend of increasingly prosaic, hackneyed action cues that are rife with sonic intensity and orchestrational intricacy but which are utterly bereft of emotional immersion on any level. I do miss the John Williams of '97, who seemed to bring a unique creative sensibility to each successive project.

Dan Hobgood was actually somewhat disappointed with it. Naturally, it's still better than anything John Williams has ever composed, but it's still...lacking...he admits.

He seems to know a lot about Hollywood period. ~Harry How I feel for him, then.

Of course, one wants to hear Williams do it better Yeah, right Um, I was being serious. Try humming "Zam the Assassin and The Chase Through Coruscant" or "Jango's Escape" vs. humming, say, "The Fire Dragon" from Goldsmith's Thirteenth Warrior" or the action cues underscoring Mulan's heroic maneuvers in Mulan or "The Drones Attack" from Star Trek: Insurrection. I'm not trying to attack Williams's style in any way; I'm just saying that Goldsmith's action music tends to be more melodic and way easier to hum/whistle/etc.

I'm expecting something like a standard Howard Shore suspense score...except hopefully more engaging.

This isn't entirely relevant, but recently, Goldsmith's adventure scores have been very tonal -- just check out The Mummy and The Thirteenth Warrior. In fact, in terms of lyricism (not tonality), Goldsmith's adventures scores are whole lot more melodic and hummable than Williams's latest.

About the four-note evil motifs... Yeah, he's been fond of that approach lately; I think it started with The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Frankly, it disturbs me a bit that he might heading into James Horner territory in this respect...

Surely you intend to say precedes...

The first reaction would be a firm no, but then you realize vague the question is, and then you realize how subjective (silly) these things are, and then you say, "Gee golly, who cares? We all love his music, and that's all that matters."

Oh yes, that brilliant Battle of Geonosis music...it sounded so, so...eclectic.