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1982 was a hell of a year for film scores - Discuss!


Jay

Best and most underrated scores of 1982  

48 members have voted

  1. 1. What do you think are the three best scores of 1982?

    • Night Crossing by Jerry Goldsmith
    • Conan the Barbarian by Basil Poledouris
    • Rocky III by Bill Conti
      0
    • Poltergeist by Jerry Goldsmith
    • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by James Horner
    • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial by John Williams
    • Blade Runner by Vangelis
    • The Thing by Ennio Morricone
    • The Secret of NIMH by Jerry Goldsmith
    • Tron by Wendy Carlos
      0
    • The Challenge by Jerry Goldsmith
      0
    • An Officer and a Gentleman by Jack Nitzsche
      0
    • Yes, Giorgio by Michael J Lewis & John Williams
      0
    • First Blood by Jerry Goldsmith
    • Monsignor by John Williams
    • 48 Hrs by James Horner
      0
    • Gandhi by Ravi Shankar & George Fenton
      0
    • Sophie's Choice by Marvin Hamlisch
      0
    • Trail of the Pink Panther by Henry Mancini
      0
    • The Dark Crystal by Trevor Jones
  2. 2. What do you think are the most underrated scores of 1982?

    • Night Crossing by Jerry Goldsmith
    • Conan the Barbarian by Basil Poledouris
    • Rocky III by Bill Conti
    • Poltergeist by Jerry Goldsmith
      0
    • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by James Horner
      0
    • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial by John Williams
    • Blade Runner by Vangelis
      0
    • The Thing by Ennio Morricone
    • The Secret of NIMH by Jerry Goldsmith
    • Tron by Wendy Carlos
    • The Challenge by Jerry Goldsmith
    • An Officer and a Gentleman by Jack Nitzsche
      0
    • Yes, Giorgio by Michael J Lewis & John Williams
    • First Blood by Jerry Goldsmith
    • Monsignor by John Williams
    • 48 Hrs by James Horner
    • Gandhi by Ravi Shankar & George Fenton
    • Sophie's Choice by Marvin Hamlisch
    • Trail of the Pink Panther by Henry Mancini
      0
    • The Dark Crystal by Trevor Jones
    • I don't think any of these scores are underrated.


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19 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Quite the contrary, I find the horror genre to offer more interesting things now than in a long time. But you'll have to look outside the mainstream, or traditional orchestral stuff. There are lot of great synthwave horror scores these days, for example.

 

Do you mean people like Disasterpeace?  It Follows was pretty good I agree, but those scores are hardly the norm.

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40 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

Thor hears a couple of okay scores and thinks the industry is better now than ever.

 

A couple? I would guess I hear on average several hundred more new scores every year than most people here. Last year, for example, I listened to about 700 new scores.

 

Recent years have seen a resurgence in wonderful new horror talent - directors like Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, Mike Flanagan, Adam Wingard, Julia Ducournau etc. Some have gone on to bigger Hollywood projects, others have stayed in an indie landscape.

 

Likewise, there have been a lot of great new horror scores - both for these filmmakers and beyond (also videogames). Either eerie, acoustic landscapes like THE VVITCH, POSSESSOR, COLOR OUT OF SPACE or great new synth scores that follow in the tradition of John Carpenter. IT FOLLOWS was mentioned. A few others that have entered my collection: THE NEON DEMON, CONDEMNED, MANDY, RAVE PARTY MASSACRE, THE MURDER PACT, MANIAC, NERVE, MAYHEM.

 

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the year 1982 (other than the new synth scores pointing back towards this period of time), which I hope we will get back to at some point.

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Well, I remain the only one for whom NIMH is one of my 3 favorites (it's one of my favorite Goldsmiths period), but it's nice to see a few others join me in calling it one of the most underrated.

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16 minutes ago, Thor said:

A couple? I would guess I hear on average several hundred more new scores every year than most people here. Last year, for example, I listened to about 700 new scores.

 

Why do you torture yourself like this?

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It's actually great. For one it's my job. Second, I feel like an explorer. Sure, one encounters a lot of trash, but also a lot of gems. I recommend the activity to everyone with the sparetime.

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I was trying to think of Scandinavian films and scores from 1982 of note. I was only 5 years old, so I can't remember watching any at the time. There's obviously Bergman's FANNY & ALEXANDER, but I can't remember if it had original score and if so, what it sounded like.

 

Norwegian legendary film composers Geir Bøhren & Bent Åserud broke through this year, with PAKKETUR TIL PARADIS, but I have not seen it. We did talk a bit about it in my retrospective interview with them a few years ago, though.

 

Am I missing some noteworthy ones?

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16 hours ago, danbeck said:

The lullaby is ok, but the intense moments are also what I love more in Poltergeist: Twisted Abduction, Night Visitor, Rebirth, Night Of The Beast and (the best of all for me) Escape From Suburbia - These tracks are incredibly intense but never fall into the “pure noise” category we so often have in horror scores nowadays, they always maintain a thematic base (with great themes like the “beast” theme, the “light theme” and use of dies irae in the later).

 

And what they do to support the action is extraordinary. I'm tempted to say the film works best if you don't watch it "regularly" but instead focus fully on the score (at the expense of any dialogue) and fill in the the blanks (edited & dropped bits) from memory. How Goldsmith derives a *musically* dramatic arc from scenes like Rebirth is outstanding. The film would make for one of the best LtP experiences I can think of.

3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Well, I remain the only one for whom NIMH is one of my 3 favorites (it's one of my favorite Goldsmiths period), but it's nice to see a few others join me in calling it one of the most underrated.

 

I didn't think either Night Crossing or NIMH were underrated, and were it not for my three other picks, they would easily be prime contenders. But they're good enough that I'd say if anyone thinks they're underrated, then they probably are.

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4 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Who are the two people that think the E.T. score is underrated?

 

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I am open to this argument in that it is not yet conventionally accepted as one of the "canon" great musical masterpieces of all time, as it will surely be given enough time.

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I initially wanted to leave the 5 scores I knew would get the most votes out of the underrated section, but then figured I shouldn't assume I knew what the top 5 would be (turns out I was right though) so left them in

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  • 2 months later...

I just found this and the most underrated score  of 1982, mentioned only by Thor, was Victor Victoria by Henry Mancini. It was a beautiful score, not to mention the songs. This nearly 40 year old film was controversial in 1982 but now its quaint and tame.

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It’s too bad that Phillippe Sarde's score for ‘Quest for Fire’, aka ‘Le Guerre de Feu’ is not among the scores listed in these polls.

 

Although the release date for that film was 1981, the film would reach American movie houses in February 1982 and worldwide, later.  The soundtrack album release in the USA was by RCA Records.  I would image more listeners here would have gotten the impact of this score in '82.

 

I didn't get around to listening to this score until 1991.

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