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I've been having ear orgasms today while cruising through the score to The Dark Crystal. Gorgeous fucking music, by the way.

Anyone have some favorite scores that weren't composed by John Williams? (You can mention them too, of course, but his work is so iconic and staple that I consider it given that you like the music of Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws, etc.)

Poltergeist has a wonderful score by Jerry Goldsmith. It has that right balance of subtle horror and wondrous awe that I think helps make the film an even better horror movie, reminding you that as freaky and scary as it is what's happening to the family, there's an element of the amazing here in seeing this spiritual side of the world at all.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly has an iconic main theme, which is an awesome theme, but I think two even better pieces of music come at the end of the movie, Reverie of Gold, and Il Trio, that help escalate the score overall.

I have many more, but it's late, I'm tired, and maybe this won't be a commentless topic when I look at it again tomorrow.

A couple of favs off the top of my head:

Back To the Future
Predator
Hook
Jurassic Park
Suspiria
Cujo
Dawn of the Dead
Tron
The Fly
Pirates of the Caribbean
LOTR

I would also like to concur with the score for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Shit was epic.

Just got through Inception's score by Hans Zimmer. Time is a fantastic piece.

Inception's score was subtly intense for a Hans Zimmer score.

The Fly is another awesome Jerry Goldsmith, Phil.


Couple of mine I forgot last night:
Princess Mononoke. Joe Hisaishi does beautiful scores for Miyazaki movies; this one just happens to be my favorite, especially Ashitaka's theme.

Conan the Barbarian has probably one of the best scores ever written. Epic in all the right ways.

I find the score of the Last Samurai very good.

Le grand bleu probably has the best score ever tho

Any of Hans Zimmers work for Nolan is amazing. I have a few standard scores in my soundtrack playlist:
1) The Dark Knight
2) Inception
3) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
4) Sunshine
5) 28 Days Later
6) 28 Weeks Later
7) One Hour Photo

oh yes, 28 days later is awesome

No loving for John Williams?
Star Wars
Jaws
Raiders...

Elmer Bernstein - Animal House. One of the few comedies to have a "straight" score. Which made it even funnier.

Sunshine is one of my favorites as well.

They Live





actually, while I dig the premise of the movie, the score was the same 5 synthesizer notes played on a loop...

Frank said:

Sunshine is one of my favorites as well.

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Yeah, it's just so amazing and honestly the theme is one of those musical cues that literally makes me swell with emotion. It's just powerful.

More Hans Zimmer adoration for The Rock, one of the best pairings of music and action visuals.

I thought I heard some bits from 28 Weeks Later and Sunshine in Kick-Ass.

You did.

The soundtracks for The Proposition and The Other Bolyn Girl both come up on one of my Pandora stations a lot. Haven't seen either movie, but the soundtracks are good.

Highlander and Batman were both awesome.

sixpackshaker said:

No loving for John Williams?
Star Wars
Jaws
Raiders...

Click to expand...

Did you read the first post? He's basically assuming everyone who posts here already gets a music-boner for Williams, since odds are it's true.

I'll throw Howard Shore (LotR and King Kong among others) into the ring as a man who knows his way around a baton. Also, Danny Elfman in some cases does some amazing work. I do have to admit he tends to re-use the same feel in a lot of his scores, though, since he ends up working on the same kinds of movies a lot. Lastly Alan Menken, who's done pretty much all the best Disney soundtracks (Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback, Hercules) among other great things (Little Shop of Horrors).

CynicismKills;438801][QUOTE=sixpackshaker said:

No loving for John Williams?
Star Wars
Jaws
Raiders...

Click to expand...

Did you read the first post? He's basically assuming everyone who posts here already gets a music-boner for Williams, since odds are it's true.

I'll throw Howard Shore (LotR and King Kong among others) into the ring as a man who knows his way around a baton. Also, Danny Elfman in some cases does some amazing work. I do have to admit he tends to re-use the same feel in a lot of his scores, though, since he ends up working on the same kinds of movies a lot. Lastly Alan Menken, who's done pretty much all the best Disney soundtracks (Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback, Hercules) among other great things (Little Shop of Horrors).[/QUOTE]

I skim...

especially when there are lists involved.


Erich Korngold - The Adventures of Robin Hood - that film actually saved his life.

CynicismKills;438801][QUOTE=sixpackshaker said:

No loving for John Williams?
Star Wars
Jaws
Raiders...

Click to expand...

Did you read the first post? He's basically assuming everyone who posts here already gets a music-boner for Williams, since odds are it's true.

I'll throw Howard Shore (LotR and King Kong among others) into the ring as a man who knows his way around a baton. Also, Danny Elfman in some cases does some amazing work. I do have to admit he tends to re-use the same feel in a lot of his scores, though, since he ends up working on the same kinds of movies a lot. Lastly Alan Menken, who's done pretty much all the best Disney soundtracks (Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback, Hercules) among other great things (Little Shop of Horrors).[/QUOTE]

I was assuming sixpack was being facetious since he listed the exact same films as I did, but nope, he and Green Lantern have the whole reading problem in common.

Howard Shore didn't score King Kong; he left the project due to creative differences with Peter Jackson. James Newton Howard came on late and composed the score in six weeks.

In no particular order:

Gladiator
Stardust
Speed Racer
Star Trek (all of them, though the newest one is my favorite)
LOTR (Extended Edition Soundtrack)
Pirates of the Caribbean (all three)
Harry Potter (all of them)
Watchmen
Master & Commander
The DaVinci Code
Sherlock Holmes
Amelie
The Hunt for Red October

Also, if you love soundtracks, try music by ES Posthumous, Erdenstern, Kerry Muzzey and Immediate. A lot of this is used in movie trailers or has the feel of trailer/soundtrack music.

Two of my favorite all-time scores are

Brick, esp. Emily's Theme
The Crow Not the soundtrack, the score (I bought both back in 1994, and I still regularly listen to them.)

Others I like:
The Abyss
Fight Club

I like Elfman, too, even though it's been cool to hate on him lately. I think Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands are his best.

Brick is a good one that goes unnoticed for its low-tech, but its simplicity is part of its charm.

escushion;438834][QUOTE=CynicismKills;438801][QUOTE=sixpackshaker said:

No loving for John Williams?
Star Wars
Jaws
Raiders...

Click to expand...

Did you read the first post? He's basically assuming everyone who posts here already gets a music-boner for Williams, since odds are it's true.

I'll throw Howard Shore (LotR and King Kong among others) into the ring as a man who knows his way around a baton. Also, Danny Elfman in some cases does some amazing work. I do have to admit he tends to re-use the same feel in a lot of his scores, though, since he ends up working on the same kinds of movies a lot. Lastly Alan Menken, who's done pretty much all the best Disney soundtracks (Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback, Hercules) among other great things (Little Shop of Horrors).[/QUOTE]

I was assuming sixpack was being facetious since he listed the exact same films as I did, but nope, he and Green Lantern have the whole reading problem in common.

Howard Shore didn't score King Kong; he left the project due to creative differences with Peter Jackson. James Newton Howard came on late and composed the score in six weeks.[/QUOTE]

Oops, I forgot about that. Still though, I enjoyed the King Kong score.

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fade said:

Two of my favorite all-time scores are

Brick, esp. Emily's Theme
The Crow Not the soundtrack, the score (I bought both back in 1994, and I still regularly listen to them.)

Others I like:
The Abyss
Fight Club

I like Elfman, too, even though it's been cool to hate on him lately. I think Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands are his best.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I think he catches a lot of flak because on the surface his scores to tend to be similar, but I still enjoy them. I agree on your choices too, I think those are the ones he handled best. I like Nightmare Before Christmas a lot too, though I think everyone who's ever bought a shirt at Hot Topic thinks the same.

A quick suggestion:

Elmer Bernstein and Sergio Leone are two of my favorite composers in older films. Bernstein's scores for The Magnificent Seven and To Kill a Mockingbird are absolutely amazing. Leone's work in A Fistful of Dollars is good but is score for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ranks among my favorite of all time. It works so well with the cinematography of that movie to really make it feel epic.

Michael Giacchino is the best new composer working in Hollywood today, hands down. The soundtracks Speed Racer, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Star Trek are mind blowing. They are all incredibly unique to the films they are written for and I absolutely love them.

John Williams certainly has a pedigree and has done some amazing work, but he cribs a lot from other composers and reuses themes from his own work way too often for my liking. Star Wars was liberally "inspired" by Gustaf Holsts' "The Planets" especially the Mars movement. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter are three films that immediately jump to mind that share more than a few themes. Sometimes I feel like he's over the hump and is running out of musical ideas. It's a shame, really. Hans Zimmer sometimes falls into the same trap of reusing musical themes from film to film. It's sometimes hard to tell the scores from Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Inception apart. In fact I'd go so far as to call Inception's score the weakest part of the movie.

How has this thread gone so long without mention of Battlestar Galactica (re-imaged series)

This is probably one of the most haunting, adrenaline pumping, tear-jerking sound tracks there is.

FnordBear said:

How has this thread gone so long without mention of Battlestar Galactica (re-imaged series)

This is probably one of the most haunting, adrenaline pumping, tear-jerking sound tracks there is.

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because it's not a movie?

I must admit I'm not the biggest Zimmer fan. He reuses a LOT. First time I heard Pirates of the Caribbean, I thought, this is the same as Gladiator. Even worse, the first time I heard Gladiator, I thought, wow, this is just Mars by Holst. I searched around online and found some sites also comparing the Mars and Gladiator, and I also found that the Holst estate had sued Zimmer over the Gladiator soundtrack.

Baerdog said:

Elmer Bernstein and Sergio Leone are two of my favorite composers in older films. Bernstein's scores for The Magnificent Seven and To Kill a Mockingbird are absolutely amazing. Leone's work in A Fistful of Dollars is good but is score for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ranks among my favorite of all time. It works so well with the cinematography of that movie to really make it feel epic.

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Sergio Leone directed the Dollars Trilogy (which was amazing), but he wasn't the music maker. Ennio Morricone was the composer. He's done over 500 scores and received a lifetime achievement Oscar a couple years back.

Though Leone did work closely with Morricone, made suggestions (seeming to have good rapport with him) and was so enthusiastic about Morricone's work that music was recorded for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly while it was still filming, and was then played on-site to help motivate the actors, Leone didn't do any of the music himself.

---------- Post added at 05:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:40 PM ----------

fade said:

I must admit I'm not the biggest Zimmer fan. He reuses a LOT. First time I heard Pirates of the Caribbean, I thought, this is the same as Gladiator. Even worse, the first time I heard Gladiator, I thought, wow, this is just Mars by Holst. I searched around online and found some sites also comparing the Mars and Gladiator, and I also found that the Holst estate had sued Zimmer over the Gladiator soundtrack.

Click to expand...

Probably not a James Horner fan in that case either, huh?

DOH! I can't believe I got the two mixed up. Yes, I was certainly talking about Enrico Morricone. Thanks for the catch.