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James Horner's Romeo and Juliet (2013)


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5 hours ago, Thor said:

Yeah, I know people rave about PENNY DREADFUL, but I just don't get it. It's merely OK, and not really the Korzeniowski I "signed up for".


I had the opposite reaction. Already a fan of Korzeniowski, when I watched the first season of Penny Dreadful, I was swept away by his music — to me all very much in his established sweeping post-minimalist romantic style (the cue I posted illustrates that quite thoroughly I think, and it was also very powerful in the show), albeit dark (*at times*) ...frankly I consider it some of his best work, and perhaps the best TV scoring of the past decade. It is FAR superior to something like Copernicus’ Star, which has moments/cues of greatness that are pure Korzeniowski, but also suffers greatly from some obvious temp-tracking (Pirates of the Caribbean being the most egregious).

 

5 hours ago, Thor said:

The ultimate sign to me, however, that Korzeniowski has been swallowed by more generic tropes, is the Netflix series LOCKE & KEY. Again, people rave about it, but it's just anonymous, insistant, at times even bombastic genre tropes without any trace whatsoever of his usual skill and style. So yeah.....ROMEO & JULIET 7 years ago was the last time he fired on all cylinders, but I have hope he'll return to that level again soon. He just needs the right director and project to work with.


Thor, writing this makes me question how carefully you really even listened to the three Penny Dreadful albums (I’ll already assume you didn’t have any interest in assessing his score in show context, where IMO it shines even more). Using Locke & Key as your “ultimate sign” that “Korzeniowski has been swallowed by more generic tropes” and is “without any trace whatsoever of his usual skill and style”...

 

well, Thor, maybe that’s because Locke & Key was entirely composed by a composer named Torin Barrowdale?

 

image.jpeg

 

That’s uncharacteristically sloppy of you, to pass such dismissive judgement on Korzeniowski for a score he had no involvement in whatsoever. I honestly have no idea how you would make that mistake, which apparently has been quite the significant influence on your opinion of Korzeniowski’s post-R&J output.

 

Yavar

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Korzeniowski was hired to score the pilot of Locke and Key when it was a Hulu show; When they dropped it and Netflix acquired it, Torin Borrowdale scored the entire season (including the redone pilot)

 

https://filmmusicreporter.com/2018/01/23/abel-korzeniowski-to-score-hulus-locke-key/

https://filmmusicreporter.com/2019/08/30/torin-borrowdale-to-score-netflixs-locke-key/

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34 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Thor, writing this makes me question how carefully you really even listened to the three Penny Dreadful albums (I’ll already assume you didn’t have any interest in assessing his score in show context, where IMO it shines even more). Using Locke & Key as your “ultimate sign” that “Korzeniowski has been swallowed by more generic tropes” and is “without any trace whatsoever of his usual skill and style”...

 

Yes, I've seen all the episodes. Decent show, and decent music. 

 

Sorry about the confusion regarding LOCKE & KEY. As Jay said, he was the first composer, and I remember being kinda excited about the news at the time. And then when I sampled the score later on (well knowing it was NOT Korzeniowski), I didn't care for it. Somehow, these two elements got mixed up in my mind, all these months later.

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You know, I haven't heard any Horner in some time, so I found myself having a pleasant time with the Horner highlight reel that this album was. I can't quite picture what any of this has do with Romeo and Juliet. But hey, I never really expected the masterpiece that most others did.

 

6 hours ago, publicist said:

R&J by Korzeniowski is also rather superficial and second-hand (Desplat, Nyman etc.), though it's admittedly a much more rounded listen than Horner's somewhat schizophrenic approach.

 

This.

 

I find myself actually having a hard time going back to the Korzeniowski score because of how worn out that formula has become for me. But I'll concede it has an appealing sound that probably worked well a contemporary rendition of R&J.

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6 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Is that a line from the film? I can't remember.

 

Unfortunately yeah, it is. It's a hilariously bad line, but Horner somewhat fell in love with it and decided to name one of the cues with that. 

 

Which is a shame, The Perfect Storm is a great score.

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32 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

 

A bit on the kitchy side, perhaps, but nice to have a cover that is different from the Korzeniowski one. Now to wait for someone to create track titles!

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Just discovered this and thought I'd see on here for people's opinion but I kind of knew what the consensus would be.  I'm an occasional viewer of this forum rather than a poster. 

 

I mean I am enjoying it.

 

Does anyone know if self-plagiarism was ever put to Horner?

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Yeah, I was thinking something similar yesterday: would it have been legally possible for two studios to sue each other because Horner self-plagiarised? Or rather, is it legally okay for Horner to self-plagiarise?

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10 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Yeah, I was thinking something similar yesterday: would it have been legally possible for two studios to sue each other because Horner self-plagiarised? Or rather, is it legally okay for Horner to self-plagiarise?

I think that actually happened once, he got sued, but I will have to google it another time. 

 

Here he talks about the problem of using his existing music and the studios:
 

 

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35 minutes ago, lemoncurd said:

I think that actually happened once, he got sued, but I will have to google it another time. 

 

Here he talks about the problem of using his existing music and the studios:
 

 

Ooh, this is interesting!

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I remember he was asked this question many years ago, and he answered something in the vein that he has a hard time 'remembering' his own music or something to that effect. Maybe someone has the full quote.

 

One of the things I regret now, is that I didn't ask him about the danger motif when I had the chance. It was written down ON MY BLOCK, but I never got around to it in my 13-minute interview.

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57 minutes ago, lemoncurd said:

I think that actually happened once, he got sued, but I will have to google it another time. 

 

Here he talks about the problem of using his existing music and the studios:
 

 

 

Still, he got away with it most of the times.

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15 minutes ago, Thor said:

I remember he was asked this question many years ago, and he answered something in the vein that he has a hard time 'remembering' his own music or something to that effect. Maybe someone has the full quote.

 

One of the things I regret now, is that I didn't ask him about the danger motif when I had the chance. It was written down ON MY BLOCK, but I never got around to it in my 13-minute interview.

 

 

He did answer all that quite thoroughly here, i. e. the Willow interview: http://jameshorner-filmmusic.com/category/articles-english/interviews-articles/

 

 

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4 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

 

He did answer all that quite thoroughly here, i. e. the Willow interview: http://jameshorner-filmmusic.com/category/articles-english/interviews-articles/

 

 

 

Hmm, I can't see a Willow interview. Do you mean the interview with Ron Howard?

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9 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

This was unpleasant to read.

 

Really? I found it a decent analysis, although rather skimpy in terms of actual Horner quotes on the matter. The closest is the one that comes first in the article.

 

I love WILLOW dearly, btw. Quotes and all; this never bothered me much with Horner in the first place.

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Just now, Thor said:

 

Really? I found it a decent analysis, although rather skimpy in terms of actual Horner quotes on the matter. The closest is the one that comes first in the article.

 

I was referring to the language, not the content.

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My gosh, what a mess. 

 

In a way, what happened to Horner was almost the exact same thing that hapenned with Gabriel Yared years ago: poor test screenings and an unfavorable response from the audience about the music, leading to idiotic film producers demanding a replacement score.

 

Karma is really a bitch, huh. Somewhere, Gabriel Yared is probably like this:

 

Nelson Muntz GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

 

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On 5/19/2020 at 8:47 PM, Thor said:

 

A bit on the kitchy side, perhaps, but nice to have a cover that is different from the Korzeniowski one. Now to wait for someone to create track titles!

I created a fake track list, just to give me some structure. ;)

 

1. Prologue

2. Introduction

3. Juliet

4. Romeo

5. Montagues and Capulets

6. Love Theme

7. Interlude

8. Change of Scenes

9. Time

10. Decisions

11. Romeo and Juliet

12. Finale

13. Our Love Is Like The Wind

14. Closing Credits

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Nah, for it to be a proper Horner score it needs to have cheesy melodramatic track title names. Stuff like "Our Love Shall Be Immortal" or for the finale "Together... Now and Forever".

 

It's a shame "There's no Goodbye... Only Love" was already taken by The Perfect Storm. 

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The funniest part is that despite the producers deciding to change the score for commercial reasons, the movie was still a box office bomb and a critical disaster (41/100 on Metacritic and 24% on Rotten Tomatoes).

 

I mean, Troy is pretty bad, but at least it was a hit at the box office.

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59 minutes ago, King Mark said:

whew. If they did that with Rise of Skywalker we'd have Music Composed and Conducted by Trailer Music Intern #2

No, Lorne Balfe!

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Damn. That’s called A B testing. We do it all the time in marketing. What a horrible way to choose a movie score.

 

 But given the situation, at least they went with data. Though I would have done more screenings. Maybe have had 5 parallel screenings to pick the right score.

 

Or to heck with it, release it as a second track on DVD. Why wouldn’t they do that? It’s already mixed and ready to go.

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Jeez. That sounds like an awful mess for everyone involved.

 

9 hours ago, crocodile said:

He got Troy-d alright.

 

Karol

 

Sure. Except Yared got screwed out of a major blockbuster that with a lot of buzz, and Horner got screwed out of a film that barely anybody's heard of.

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4 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

Damn. That’s called A B testing. We do it all the time in marketing. What a horrible way to choose a movie score.

 

 But given the situation, at least they went with data. Though I would have done more screenings. Maybe have had 5 parallel screenings to pick the right score.

 

Or to heck with it, release it as a second track on DVD. Why wouldn’t they do that? It’s already mixed and ready to go.

 

I mean these days we're getting two versions of Justice League. I'm sure a "pick your own film score" won't be too far away lol.

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5 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

Maybe have had 5 parallel screenings to pick the right score.

 

You'd have been fired for reckless spending, and rightly so.You don't need a hundreds of people to tell you that your movie sucks, 5 in a room should be enough.

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