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What Is The Last Score You Listened To? (older scores)


Ollie

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Sure. I recently had the misfortune of seeing LAND OF THE LOST, where he was obviously asked to resemble Jerry Goldsmith scores from 60's and while it wasn't deep it was kind of fun. And different!

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But you can't deny he's been offered his chances to demonstrate such prowess. One example is Let Me In, which could have really let him stretch his wings a bit, but ultimately another disappointment.

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I find the whole thing drab. Even the end credits aren't that great, putting on display again Giacchino's struggle with dramatic theme writing.

The whole thing sounds like an amateur trying to play around with the tools that's worked for more seasoned horror pros like Young (ex. boy sopranos, pretty themes, various extended techniques, etc), but doesn't quite know what to do with them himself.

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That Giacchino can't act his way out of a paper bag compared to Chris Young in the horror genre shouldn't require a mention here. Young has done some forceful stuff even in recent years.

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But you can't deny he's been offered his chances to demonstrate such prowess. One example is Let Me In, which could have really let him stretch his wings a bit, but ultimately another disappointment.

Good end title, drab score.

I don't know gentlemen. It's not the kind of score I listen to a lot but I thought it was really well done.

Love the freezing stillness of it. It felt genuinely creepy and it got into characters very well. Something guys like Christopher Young simply cannot do.

As far as drama and themes of this film go, I'd say Giacchino did an ace job. One of his best scores, dramatically. Not as exciting on album.

Karol

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His ostinati writing has become pitiful. And while i still have a soft spot for RATATOUILLE and maybe two cues from UP, this is awfully slim pickens for a guy as productive as MG is.

This.

But some here will say such a pittance of a ratio is awesome and the next best thing to John Williams!

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Love the freezing stillness of it. It felt genuinely creepy and it got into characters very well. Something guys like Christopher Young simply cannot do.

As far as drama and themes of this film go, I'd say Giacchino did an ace job. One of his best scores, dramatically. Not as exciting on album.

Karol

I breezed through the movie - the swedish thing was much better - and found the music inoffensive but far from a huge accomplishment. There sure was too much of it doing hardly anything throughout.

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Love the freezing stillness of it. It felt genuinely creepy and it got into characters very well. Something guys like Christopher Young simply cannot do.

I don't know. What you describe as "freezing stillness", I hear as a score with the right ingredients, but no sense of direction or intelligent craftsmanship. Granted I haven't actually seen the film, it really doesn't take much to work in a modern horror picture. But the actual writing as heard on album often leans on the bland side. Nothing that hasn't been done better before.

That said, there are some neat moments in there.

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Love the freezing stillness of it. It felt genuinely creepy and it got into characters very well. Something guys like Christopher Young simply cannot do.

As far as drama and themes of this film go, I'd say Giacchino did an ace job. One of his best scores, dramatically. Not as exciting on album.

Karol

I breezed through the movie - the swedish thing was much better - and found the music inoffensive but far from a huge accomplishment. There sure was too much of it doing hardly anything throughout.

Of course, the Swedish version is better. And it does so without much music at all.

But, as far as American remakes go, this one wasn't too bad (pointless as it way). The would have overscored it anyway and, as far as these things go, I thought this was farily well done. It's a tough thing to score, if you think about it. And especially as done by western director.

I probably like this score because it's one of the few challenges Giacchino set himself in his career. Most of his work, as enjoyable as it may be, doesn't really go a lot of places. Again, dramatically.

Karol

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Feeling bewildered by Mr. Cremers rabid defense of overblown comic spectacles i stopped by at Spotify's recommendation of Debney's IRON MAN 2. Surprisingly, they went back to brawny Goldsmith 90's tunes, didn't they?

 

 

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Strangely the same fate befell JNH's GREEN LANTERN (industrial rock mixed with a First Knightish fanfare). Maybe a devil's bargain...if you ant the Goldsmith-lite tune, we get the terrible rock music!

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I have to know, are most people on here just not familiar enough with MG's Lost to make a judgement on it, or do folks not like it? It's rarely mentioned in his defense as what it is, namely, his greatest accomplishment, and an admirable one.

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I have to know, are most people on here just not familiar enough with MG's Lost to make a judgement on it, or do folks not like it? It's rarely mentioned in his defense as what it is, namely, his greatest accomplishment, and an admirable one.

From memory the Lost score was an attractive sound and quite lyrical, which is is unusual for Giacchino. I liked its overall aesthetic. But it absolutely wouldn't be what I'd be hoping for in a dinosaur adventure score.

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LOST is alright for what it is, but it's small potatoes really. But yeah, probably Gia at his best, although I have a fondness for THE INCREDIBLES (never rated UP or RATATOUILLE though - too schmaltzy in that sickly Pixar way).


I'm honestly surprised at all the sudden Giacchino hate. I guess it's in the in thing these days.

That's what the Nolan fanboys said when the backlash started. The truth is most of the haters already felt that way--it just became more acceptable to voice their opinions.

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I have to know, are most people on here just not familiar enough with MG's Lost to make a judgement on it, or do folks not like it? It's rarely mentioned in his defense as what it is, namely, his greatest accomplishment, and an admirable one.

From memory the Lost score was an attractive sound and quite lyrical, which is is unusual for Giacchino. I liked its overall aesthetic. But it absolutely wouldn't be what I'd be hoping for a dinosaur adventure score.

The thing is, there's a lot of dense and savage material in there that I think would suit such a film nicely. But, can he retread that ground and do it with the same conviction? I dunno.

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LOST is alright for what it is, but it's small potatoes really. But yeah, probably Gia at his best, although I have a fondness for THE INCREDIBLES (never rated UP or RATATOUILLE though - too schmaltzy in that sickly Pixar way).

I'm honestly surprised at all the sudden Giacchino hate. I guess it's in the in thing these days.

That's what the Nolan fanboys said when the backlash started. The truth is most of the haters already felt that way--it just became more acceptable to voice their opinions.

Lol this is a message board not the sociopolitical landscape.
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It's dense and savage, but never scary. With Gia it always sounds like he's just having fun. There's never that icy intellect behind the music that you sense when Williams went atonal in the JURASSIC PARK films--the thing that made those moments chilling.


Lol this is a message board not the sociopolitical landscape.

We don't live in a vacuum.

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Listening to a couple awesome finale cues.

Sharky, that second one has some moments that I think are genuinely chilling. One of his best cues. Jacob's theme is haunting. And Ben's is excellent as well, even in the stripped down chord only version here. He used to be able to do that well.

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I have to know, are most people on here just not familiar enough with MG's Lost to make a judgement on it, or do folks not like it? It's rarely mentioned in his defense as what it is, namely, his greatest accomplishment, and an admirable one.

Well, yeah.

But I was talking about his film work. He's not had a chance to do a lot of dramatic work in it. Lost is something else.

Karol

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Hanz Zimmer is Co scoring A.D. the Bible continues. If you can call that wretchedness scoring.

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I have to know, are most people on here just not familiar enough with MG's Lost to make a judgement on it, or do folks not like it? It's rarely mentioned in his defense as what it is, namely, his greatest accomplishment, and an admirable one.

I love it in context. It supports the show wonderfully and has it's own unique sound. Out of context, not so much. Then again, it doesn't really have to be a good listening experience to be great.

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Sharky, that second one has some moments that I think are genuinely chilling.  One of his best cues.  Jacob's theme is haunting.  And Ben's is excellent as well, even in the stripped down chord only version here.  He used to be able to do that well.

 

I don't know why, but listening to those I grin and bob my head, but I never get that hopeless sinking feeling, sweaty palms or so on that I get when Williams does darkness. This is a great example.

 

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Hanz Zimmer is Co scoring A.D. the Bible continues. If you can call that wretchedness scoring.

What is it, an oud and a wailing woman?

It was the sound of guitars.
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Hanz Zimmer is Co scoring A.D. the Bible continues. If you can call that wretchedness scoring.

What is it, an oud and a wailing woman?

The sludge that Zimmer and co produced for the Bible miniseries was awful too.

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Memoirs of a Geisha by John Williams

Lair by John Debney

Earthquake by John Williams

Last Airbender by James Newton Howard

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Last Airbender by James Newton Howard

A slow burner. It's on from time to time and it's one of the few things from the 2010's i like to revisit.

Agreed. I was not entirely sold on it at first either and it took quite a long time for me to get behind the concept. JNH seemed to be in a very Zimmer "2-note theme" mode when he wrote this as his themes are very economic although he does develop his "avatar" theme well throughout. For some scores a single theme is enough, for this one I felt it could have used more and stronger ones to mirror the characters and the narrative as though the heroes receive a theme or two the villains were treated much more obscurely and get all sort of small devices throughout which feels to me a bit unfocused and JNHs underscore tends to meander here. Hearing the complete score with slightly added choral presence raised the score in my eyes and it fleshed out some of the ideas further. And yes it has surprisingly become one of those scores I come back to regularly, especially for the spectacle of Flow Like Water.

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The Last Airbender is great. One of my favorite JNH scores.

Angela's Ashes :music:

Angela's Ashes is great. One of my absolute favourite JW scores.

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I'm honestly surprised at all the sudden Giacchino hate. I guess it's in the in thing these days.

Agreed. What perplexes me is that everybody that picks on Giacchino seems to live in an alternate universe where he didn't write videogame scores (which are mostly brilliant), only the stuff for film and TV series.

I would love him to return to his early sound, but likely that wouldn't work in today's productions.

His music for Small Soldiers: The Videogame (before Medal of Honor) shows a creative and thematic style that he hasn't topped since. It's awesome and super fun !

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