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Post by Southall on Jul 29, 2013 10:12:11 GMT -8
I hope Jon doesn't mind me plugging my reviews here. Perhaps a bit of discussion about a few scores might be generated. Anyway, my latest review is Patriot Games, seemingly a little-liked score but one which I think is worth deeper consideration. www.movie-wave.net/?p=3861
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Post by Pawel Stroinski on Jul 29, 2013 10:38:03 GMT -8
Great stuff, as always, James
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Post by Southall on Jul 29, 2013 10:57:50 GMT -8
Thanks Pawel. Good to see you here!
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Post by Jon Broxton on Jul 29, 2013 11:32:14 GMT -8
Plug away. I'm very happy you're posting here at all
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Post by Craig Richard Lysy on Aug 1, 2013 11:25:11 GMT -8
You know James, this was a fine review of a difficult score. I have to agree on all points. I was happy to revisit this score.
All the best.
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Post by Pawel Stroinski on Aug 3, 2013 13:50:16 GMT -8
The score is difficult but through rewatching the movie and listening to the expansion, I found a new understanding and liking of the score.
My favourite realizations were, really, how Horner constructs a coherent atmosphere with an action cue like The Hit, while completely and by design ignoring the action on-screen and not adhering to possible major synchronization points and the sense of irony brought by a major-key terrorist theme used almost specifically in dissonant harmonic background.
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Post by Southall on Aug 3, 2013 14:10:29 GMT -8
It's interesting (and odd) that the director didn't like the score at all but still hired Horner for the next one!
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Post by Pawel Stroinski on Aug 3, 2013 14:51:26 GMT -8
Yeah, and later said that still, Patriot Games was better ;D
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Post by Jon Broxton on Aug 5, 2013 15:18:57 GMT -8
James, I noticed that you mentioned in the JNH thread that Snow Falling on Cedars started out being a total bore to you, and now you really love it... and similarly, with Patriot Games, the score has grown on you over time.
I'm noticing that this is becoming a trend in me too, where scores I once dismissed entirely I'm now recognizing as being amongst the best in a compser's work. For example, Elliot Goldenthal, I used to completely overlook INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE and ALIEN 3, but now I have come to feel that they stand with scores like TITUS and FINAL FANTASY as being career-highs.
Has this happened with anyone else on other scores?
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Roman
Scoring Assistant
Quick tip: Never let a werewolf drive your car.
Posts: 114
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Post by Roman on Aug 5, 2013 18:45:12 GMT -8
Has this happened with anyone else on other scores? Actually this happened with Williams' first Harry Potter score for me. I thought it was OK, but I kept directly comparing it to "Fellowship of the Ring". And it just paled in comparison. I ended up revisiting the score about five or six years later and it really opened up for me. One of my favorite from Williams in his later career. Two other scores that snuck back into "oh this is really good": Grusin's "The Firm" and JNH's "Restoration".
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Post by indy2003 on Aug 6, 2013 5:40:32 GMT -8
Has this happened with anyone else on other scores? Goldsmith's Planet of the Apes did nothing for me when I first heard it. I picked it up at a fairly early stage of my film score collecting, and the other Goldsmith scores I had heard up to that point had been very melodic affairs (as so many of his scores are). Now I recognize POTA for the brilliant score that it is and find it a very rewarding experience.
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Roman
Scoring Assistant
Quick tip: Never let a werewolf drive your car.
Posts: 114
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Post by Roman on Aug 6, 2013 6:32:58 GMT -8
Goldsmith's Planet of the Apes did nothing for me when I first heard it. I picked it up at a fairly early stage of my film score collecting, and the other Goldsmith scores I had heard up to that point had been very melodic affairs (as so many of his scores are). Now I recognize POTA for the brilliant score that it is and find it a very rewarding experience. I recently picked up this score and I have to say it really is an amazing work. But I know where you're coming from. If I had picked this up ten years ago or so, I would have hated it. If this came too early in my Goldsmith collecting I might have just ignored his work from the sixties all together and missed out on some great scores.
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Post by Pawel Stroinski on Aug 6, 2013 6:50:38 GMT -8
James, I noticed that you mentioned in the JNH thread that Snow Falling on Cedars started out being a total bore to you, and now you really love it... and similarly, with Patriot Games, the score has grown on you over time. I'm noticing that this is becoming a trend in me too, where scores I once dismissed entirely I'm now recognizing as being amongst the best in a compser's work. For example, Elliot Goldenthal, I used to completely overlook INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE and ALIEN 3, but now I have come to feel that they stand with scores like TITUS and FINAL FANTASY as being career-highs. Has this happened with anyone else on other scores? Actually, my first contact with Conan the Barbarian was the Milan release and I downright hated it. A few years I fell in love with it after hearing the Varese program. Now I'm a proud owner of the Prague re-recording and, due to sound quality issues, didn't go with the Intrada.
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Mike Skerritt
Intern
Friend. Roman. Countryman. Maker of waffles.
Posts: 67
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Post by Mike Skerritt on Aug 8, 2013 12:43:18 GMT -8
I'm noticing that this is becoming a trend in me too, where scores I once dismissed entirely I'm now recognizing as being amongst the best in a compser's work. For example, Elliot Goldenthal, I used to completely overlook INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE and ALIEN 3, but now I have come to feel that they stand with scores like TITUS and FINAL FANTASY as being career-highs. Has this happened with anyone else on other scores? This has happened to me, and specifically with Goldenthal. MICHAEL COLLINS and SPHERE are two scores that just didn't appeal to me all that much on first listens, but now are among my favorites of his work. Goldenthal himself has become one of my top three or four favorite composers as my tastes have changed over the years. I find there to be a singular beauty in even his most difficult work. Beyond that, this also happened to me with Goldsmith's ISLANDS IN THE STREAM, which I dismissed for many years because it didn't reach out and grab me. But over time I kept going back to it, and ultimately its restrained beauty pulled me in completely. As for PATRIOT GAMES, I probably don't need to go on and on about it in yet another forum, but suffice to say it's one of my favorite Horner scores and quite unique among action scores in the last 25 years. It gave that movie a haunted spirit it wouldn't have otherwise had.
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Post by Pawel Stroinski on Aug 11, 2013 1:27:22 GMT -8
What takes me the most are two very unusual choices for such a movie, a very brave move by Horner and one not easily understandable, albeit making a lot of sense.
The first thing I think I discussed - how Horner created The Hit to build a sense of ever-growing paranoia as Ryan realizes the scope of Miller's plan and sees what happens to his family.
The other thing is a major key theme for the terrorists (as opposed to a tragic minor-key theme for Sean Miller himself), which is where I sense Horner's irony, potentially inspired by the quite ironic itself, usage of Clannad's Harry's Game in a mystical way. Using a major-key sound (often over a dissonant bassline) hints at the misguided patriotism (I think so!) at heart of the terrorists' action.
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