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Best of 2007


Jacob

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December 1st is here and with the year nearly over I think it's a good time to take a look back and nominate the best releases of 2007 so far. And also being familiar with only a few new scores I'd like to know everyone's recommendations.

Best New Release: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (The Complete Recordings)

Best New Score: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

There are only two other scores from this year that I can say I'm familiar with, both of which I have a good opinion of:

Beowulf

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Others I'm cursorily familiar with and would like to spend more time with:

Stardust

Bridge to Terabithia

The Bourne Ultimatum

Shrek the Third

Others I'm interested in but am completely unfamiliar with or are yet to be released:

The Water Horse

The Golden Compass

Enchanted

Alien

Monsignor

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Bee Movie

Spider-Man 3

Amazing Grace

Transformers

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Too early to tell. I've yet to hear Magorium, Golden Compass, PS I Love you, Atonement, and I'm sure several others I can't think of.

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My favourite of 2007 so far is Dario Marianelli's Atonement. Second is Giacchino's Ratatouille and third is The Evening by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek.

I'm preety happy with this year's Zimmer's outputs - Pirates III[ /i] and The Simpsons. Debney's Lair (at least the fragment I know from Ubeda) and Giacchino's MoH: Airborne are also very successful efforts and it doesn't matter that they were composed for a video game and not a movie. Another Italian guy, Carlo Silotto wrote very captivating soundtrack to Nomad.

Powell's Bourne's Ultimatum and Andrea Guerra's Pursuit of Happyness were quite enjoyable too. I like Arnold's Amazing Grace but I am not really sure if it's from 2007 and not 2006.

Golden Compass by Desplat is the most anticipated score of mine now (though his Lust, Caution is said to be preety good too). I care for Howard's Water Horse much less, nevertheless I'm still curious what it will be. I'm also eagerly waiting for Kaczmarek's score for War and Peace. From what I've heard so far, sounds very good.

Semi-failures: Spiderman III by Chris Young, Eastern Promises by Shore, Beowulf by Silvestri and Harry Potter 5 by Hooper.

Failures: The Transformers by Zimmer, Powell, Vangelis, Newman and some unknown MV guys (officially credited to Jablonsky, but I hardly heard anything distinct of him), Stardust by Ishkeri, Number 23 by Gregson-Williams, Disturbia by Zanelli, The Reaping by Danna....

There have probably been some other scores this year which I cannot recall at the moment.

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Both Nomad and Persuit of Happiness were '06, Amazing Grace is '07. I disagree about Stardust, but I can understand your dislike.

Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford and 3:10 to Yuma are pretty high on my list, I can tell you that.

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Both Nomad and Persuit of Happiness were '06, Amazing Grace is '07. I disagree about Stardust, but I can understand your dislike.

Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford and 3:10 to Yuma are pretty high on my list, I can tell you that.

I get confused by the release dates. Whatever. :D

Yuma worked good in the movie, but outside it was unspectacular for the most part (I like the Morricone-inspired finale tracks though). I'm preety undecided about AoJJbtCRF, so I try not to make any judgement at the moment.

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Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford and 3:10 to Yuma are pretty high on my list, I can tell you that.

Agreed. 3:10 is one of the few really great scores from Beltrami, it has a high resemblence of something Morricone would have done. Not surprising, considering he was trained by the legendary composer.

Jesse James was spectacular as well. I ordered it long ago and am really frustrated that it has not arrived yet. Have you heard Cave's and Ellis' score to The Proposition? That is very good as well.

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POTC: AWE and OotP would both make it into my top 20 film scores of all time, so defenetly them. I don't have the RotK CR, but I'm expecting them to be great when I get them for Christmas. I didn't really like Ratatouille that much.

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So far the best new music I've heard this year is John Debney's Lair. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is pretty good, but could've been better. Beowulf is nice, but I am looking forward to a possible eventual bootleg with the proper score without the bothersome modernisms. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I find more enjoyable than Goblet of Fire, but it's still a far cry from any of the John Williams ones. I haven't listened to The Golden Compass in full yet. What I heard sounds nice, but not impressive. I like parts of Stardust, but I have not yet been able to find anything of particular interest in there. But I haven't listened to that one in full yet either.

I wonder what are your thoughts on Stardust? Which tracks are the best? Is there any good action/adventury music in there?

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POTC: AWE and OotP would both make it into my top 20 film scores of all time, so defenetly them. I don't have the RotK CR, but I'm expecting them to be great when I get them for Christmas. I didn't really like Ratatouille that much.

Of all time....of all time???

*cough...splutter* ahem...

To be honest, there's been nothing new this year that I truly thought 'wow' about. Sure, some stuff has been good - Beltrami's output, Lair, Pirates and Simpsons have good parts. And I was initially impressed by Stardust, but it kind of lost steam after that.

I second the 'meh'.

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Thank God for rereleases and complete releases this year, otherwise there'd be nothing. 2007 will be remembered as the year we got the complete Return of the King, Monsignor, and the proper complete Alien.

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This certainly has been THE year for rereleases. And I haven't even bought RoTK. Alien, Monster House, The 'Brubs, Wind and the Lion, Monsignor, Navajo Joe....great stuff. Movie-wise, 2007 has been far less exciting than 2006. Score-wise, I can't complain. Not a good year, no. But, for my money, it is solid enough to get me through with my optimism intact. Besides, there is so much old stuff to listen to....I'm happy to have less demands made on my ear from new stuff. 10-15 scores I enjoy a year is plenty.

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Here are my winners from one of the weakest years on record...

- Pirates of the Caribbean (Hans Zimmer)

- Bridge To Terabitha (Aaron Zigman)

- The Last Sin Eater (Mark McKenzie)

- Guild Wars: Eye of the North (Jeremy Soule)

- Eastern Promises (Howard Shore)

- Zodiac (David Shire)

- Angel (Philippe Rombi)

- I Know Who Killed Me (Joel McNeely)

- Lair (John Debney)

- Ratatouille (Michael Giacchino)

- MOH: Airborne (Michael Giacchino)

- Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium (Alexandre Desplat/Aaron Zigman)

- As You Like It (Patrick Doyle)

- Island of Lost Souls (Jane Cornish)

- Rescue Dawn (Klaus Badelt)

-Erik-

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I have to say this year was pretty light as far as good scores go.

Some that I think are worth at least mention are two opposing styles.

"Enchantment" is really cute and has some great songs and is not the best score but a good one at least.

"Rendition" is another really well done score but I think it's been ignored by most people.

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This certainly has been THE year for rereleases. And I haven't even bought RoTK. Alien, Monster House, The 'Brubs, Wind and the Lion, Monsignor, Navajo Joe....great stuff. Movie-wise, 2007 has been far less exciting than 2006. Score-wise, I can't complain. Not a good year, no. But, for my money, it is solid enough to get me through with my optimism intact. Besides, there is so much old stuff to listen to....I'm happy to have less demands made on my ear from new stuff. 10-15 scores I enjoy a year is plenty.

Did Navajo Joe get a new release?

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New scores:

The Bourne Ultimatum by John Powell

Relies heavily on the material from previous scores, but with electronic elements considerably toned down, I would say it's the best of the three. And it actually sounds like John Powell (well, mostly), which is rare enough.

Ratatouille by Michael Giacchino

It wasn't quite stunning though, I admit. But it's probably the most enjoyable feel-good score of the year.

Zodiac by David Shire

Sparse and intelligent.

The Good German by Thomas Newman

A bit cold, but then again such were the scores of that era. Good job!

La Sconosciuta by Ennio Morricone (which is a 2006 score, but came out here just now)

Dark and often brutal. Not the kind of score that I hear from Morricone very often. Impressive.

Other releases:

No matter what I think of the music The Return of the King pretty much dwarfs everything this year, presentation-wise. And some music in the latter half is quite spectacular.

The expanded Godzilla was also quite a revelation. I didn't realize that it was so good. It's probably my favourite Arnold score now.

The Sea Hawk is better and better with each listen.

There wasn't much to choose from. Is that a sign of lack of creativity or I'm getting old already?

Karol

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This was a great year for original movie songs. Not such a good year for original movie scores.

Besides "Order of the Phoenix," I can't recall anything standing out musically.

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Best New Release: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (The Complete Recordings)

Definitely. I liked both HP 5 and PotC III, but unfortunately haven't yet had the chance to check out some other new stuff such as Beowulf, Ratatouille and The Bourne Ultimatum. Gotta catch up on that.

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BTW, re: your sig- I assume you know that it's Dustin Hoffman, not Alec Baldwin, since it's really not funny in it's current form.

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