I haven't seen any music threads around here recently, so I thought I'd bring the noize. Here's the question of the day:
I have quite a few film scores in my music collection, but it occurs to me that most of my favorite soundtracks are for movies that I really like. Seems like that would be an unlikely coincidence, if I were only judging by the music.
For example, I really dig Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings soundtracks. But how much of that is because the music is really good, and how much is because it reminds me of movies that I enjoy watching?
So here's the question, for those cine-musi-philes among us: What's your favorite score from a movie that you didn't like? Or alternately, what's your favorite score from a movie that you've never seen? Soundtracks to TV shows or video games also apply.
This might be too specific a topic to get much of a response, but hopefully there are still enough opinionated know-it-alls around here to make for an interesting discussion. Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
The original Star Wars movies. I think the music is 90% of why I was so enthralled with them as a kid. Still love the Star Wars score, even if I've kind of gotten past the movies.
Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :
Good call. I even have a lot of fond feelings for the Episode I score, and that movie was beyond silly.
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
Trent Reznor did an amazing job with The Social Network. The movie, while well made, is pretty flat.
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
Though two of my favorite scores, Jurassic Park and Braveheart, are outstanding regardless of how great the movies were.
Posted by Taalcon (Member # 839) on :
Love the scores for Spitfire Grille (James Horner) and Black Beauty (Danny Elfman). Never seen the films.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
I think Tron: Legacy only makes sense if you view the whole thing as one big music video for Daft Punk's soundtrack.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
The New Moon soundtrack is one of my all-time favorites.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Love the song "More". Mondo Cane is not my kind of film.
Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :
'The Village' by M. Night Whatever. The film is pretty awful. The score is absolutely beautiful.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Aros: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The score was as flat as a pancake. 4 movies in, John Williams' studio phoned in a bombastic, pointless piece of cheese... sort of like they've been doing for 20 years. That's what you get when you hire a bunch of 23 year old USC film scoring students who just want to go along to get along.
That's just my theory, I don't even know who actually worked on it.
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Aros: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The score was as flat as a pancake. 4 movies in, John Williams' studio phoned in a bombastic, pointless piece of cheese... sort of like they've been doing for 20 years. That's what you get when you hire a bunch of 23 year old USC film scoring students who just want to go along to get along.
That's just my theory, I don't even know who actually worked on it.
Jeez, you're right. I just figured that if Williams wrote it . . . it had to be better than the movie. And though it does have the Raiders theme (which IS awesome, though cheesy), the rest is almost as bad as the flick.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Well, Williams hasn't written much in a couple of decades. I won't say he's a scam artist. But he's participating in something that looks to me, as a composer, like a scam.
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jhai: I think Tron: Legacy only makes sense if you view the whole thing as one big music video for Daft Punk's soundtrack.
And how many other film scores can you name which have also warranted a remix album? Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
The thread is about movies, but I'll mention a television show here. I like the scoring for ABC's Once Upon A Time. But I don't like the show.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Well, Williams hasn't written much in a couple of decades. I won't say he's a scam artist. But he's participating in something that looks to me, as a composer, like a scam.
I've noticed his scores just don't hook like they used to. I think the last time I saw a movie where the theme stuck with me afterwards was Inception.
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did win a Grammy. But Williams hasn't really rocked it since Episode I.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Seconded for Inception...I heard the soundtrack before I saw the movie, on the radio, and was blown away by it...and the movie was okay.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I liked almost all of the music in August Rush, but didn't really care for the movie at all. It wasn't really a soundtrack per se, since it had a lot of non-original music, but I liked the original songs, and I think the Kaki King numbers were original too, written for the film.
Most of my favorite scores are for movies and shows I also really, really like. Gladiator, How to Train Your Dragon, Gettysburg, Glory, Les Choristes, Avatar TLA, Battlestar Galactica, Pirates of the Caribbean (in bits and pieces...some of it sucked), Inception.
Posted by adenam (Member # 11902) on :
My sister really likes the music from Troy and plays it a lot where I can here it so now I like it too. Watching the actual movie was pretty awful though.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Ack, I hated that score. James Horner is, in my opinion, the supreme hack of symphonic film music. Forget Williams, forget everyone.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Orincoro, what movie scores do you like?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Shrek 1 and 2 include good music, but I'm not sure I'd call it scored.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Orincoro, what movie scores do you like?
Lots. It happens a couple of my most hated were mentioned.
Some personal favorites are There WIll be Blood, by Johnny Greenwood, Nick Cave's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Christopher Young's Rounders (parts of it- others are too kitschy), I like a lot of the work of Tomas Newman and Hans Zimmer, though not all of it by any stretch (for instance, loved American Beauty, hated Cinderella Man). I like some work by Eliot Goldenthal, such as Public Enemies, which has in my opinion one or two of the all time best passages of film score ever conceived.
Rarely though do I associate the greatest film scoring with the biggest budget films. It also has a great deal to do with the director and the editor- a score can be fantastic on paper, and a film can ruin it, or elevate it. For instance, the editing of James Horner's "score" for Avatar turned the gripping brass passages into stupefyingly dull drones by jump-cutting back to the same motif over and over, and over again. I say "score," only because it's unclear to me how much new material that score actually contained- the primary motifs had already appeared in previous films.
Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas, both Williams' collaborators, are both very conservative when it comes to mixing, even though both are typically exceptional at sound. I find this often suits William's scores, which are, if anything, incapable of any degree of intimacy or real tension.
But as I said, a film can elevate a score as well. Spike Lee turns a workmanlike score by Terence Blanchard (which otherwise sounds like a very self-conscious reflection on Carter Burwell's Fargo) into one of my all time favorites.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: James Horner is, in my opinion, the supreme hack of symphonic film music.
I actually own the soundtrack for Glory on tape from when the movie first came out.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Independence Day, David Arnold. Love it. The movie is laughably bad, but it's still a guilty pleasure.
Stargate is a great one, too. Can't remember the composer at the moment.
I love overtures, in general, now that I think about it. They make me happy.
(edit: Hah! Just remembered Arnold did Stargate, too. That's probably why it came to mind.)
[ January 06, 2012, 05:26 PM: Message edited by: rollainm ]
Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :
I wasn't thinking of this at first, but this thread reminded me of one of my favorite soundtracks, which is Peter Gabriel's score for The Rabbit-Proof Fence.
I found it in a bargain bin many years ago and bought it on a whim. It took a while to grow on me, but it eventually became one of my favorite albums. It's more than the collection of cues that many soundtracks are. He re-worked it for the CD, and the structure of the album make the already excellent music a totally immersive experience.
I didn't really know much about the movie aside from what I could infer from the liner notes and the track titles. But over several years of listening to it, I built up an impossibly grand imaginary film in my head to accompany the music.
Eventually Netflix came along, and one day I decided to finally watch The Rabbit-Proof Fence. It was a pretty good movie. But it fell so dramatically short of the movie I'd imagined it to be that I was crushingly disappointed when it ended.
It's still one of my favorite soundtracks. But there's a certain irony in a movie being ruined by the score being too good. I probably would have liked the film better if James Horner had done the music. Never thought I'd say that.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
I like the score for Monsoon Wedding. The movie is not too shabby either, but the music outshines it.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
I love Basil Poledouris' score for Conan The Barbarian; I think the movie is great, too, but the score by itself is a cinematic experience.
Posted by Taalcon (Member # 839) on :
quote:Ack, I hated that score. James Horner is, in my opinion, the supreme hack of symphonic film music. Forget Williams, forget everyone.
While that may be true of some of his material, he has done some genuinely great stuff. Spitfire Grille, as I mentioned above, as well as Willow, Legends of the Fall, Apollo 13, and Land Before Time. Each of those, IMHO, are fantastic stand alone listens.
Posted by Sa'eed (Member # 12368) on :
Not from a bad movie but rather from a forgotten (though excellent) movie:
Another great Horner soundtrack (from a bad movie): KRULL.
I love Legend, but objectively it's not a great movie. Anyway, great soundtrack.
But yeah, Tron Legacy would have to be the most dramatic case of (soundtrack)>>(movie).
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
All Dario Argento movies (even the not-so-great ones) have awesome soundtracks provided by GOBLIN.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Another great Horner soundtrack (from a bad movie): KRULL.
I love Legend, but objectively it's not a great movie. Anyway, great soundtrack.
But yeah, Tron Legacy would have to be the most dramatic case of (soundtrack)>>(movie).
I loved Krull.
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: But yeah, Tron Legacy would have to be the most dramatic case of (soundtrack)>>(movie).
I admit to owning and listening to the Tron: Legacy score by Daft Punk in my car just because I think the music is pretty great (despite the obvious dramatic flair presumably contributed by Hans Zimmer's involvement in the music).
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
The Hours Candyman The Da Vinci Code The Village
There's also another column for movies that were only good because of the music.
Hobbes Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
There's a sense in which I love Krull, too.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I certainly love saying the word 'Krull' over and over. In fact, I'm doing it now.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:There's also another column for movies that were only good because of the music.
I waffle about whether Passion of the Christ belongs in that category, or in the category of bad movies with good soundtracks.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
A couple people have mentioned it already, but, the Villiage was a phenominal soundtrack.
Mediocre movie. Though, I do enjoy it because the trees are pretty.
Posted by Architraz Warden (Member # 4285) on :
Most of the soundtracks I'd mention are already here, so I'll cover some sure to be less popular choices (woo Zimmer on most of them I guess).
Waterworld - Amazing percussion on the tracks, and somewhat unusual instruments (IE not the typical orchestra types). Crimson Tide - Go brass! The Peacemaker - Also go brass!
Also I recall Beyond Rangoon very enjoyable (very low-key for Zimmer). Gladiator was about the turning point my opinion of Zimmer's scores. As mentioned above, it was very inconsistent, more bleh than good. And if you really want to play in some love-it or hate-it soundtracks, I immensely enjoy the soundtrack to Blackhawk Down.
Oh, and by no means a bad movie (very good one actually), but [i]The Incredibles]/i] score is really fun.
Edited: Repeatedly.
[ January 10, 2012, 10:36 PM: Message edited by: Architraz Warden ]
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
quote:Originally posted by Taalcon:
quote:Ack, I hated that score. James Horner is, in my opinion, the supreme hack of symphonic film music. Forget Williams, forget everyone.
While that may be true of some of his material, he has done some genuinely great stuff. Spitfire Grille, as I mentioned above, as well as Willow, Legends of the Fall, Apollo 13, and Land Before Time. Each of those, IMHO, are fantastic stand alone listens.
Again, I reference Braveheart.
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
The recent remake of 3:10 to Yuma was pretty good and kept my attention throughout, but it would have been pretty forgettable if not for an amazing sequence at the end. I won't provide spoilers, but this song mixed with the context of the scene made for one of the most memorable movie moments I've had.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
Also, I forgot to mention. Cowboy Bebop has a friggin' awesome soundtrack. My favorite moment, I think, is the le feau (sp?) episode, and the sequence where it's showing his flashback. The seatbelts played a cover of "On the Run" there, and it was awesome.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
The Mission was not a great film (although not bad). But it had an amazing Ennio Morricone score.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I like The Mission quite a bit, but I agree it's not going to push everybody's buttons. But the score is incredible.
Love Affair is a dumpy movie, but the soundtrack is really good.
Posted by Sala (Member # 8980) on :
Ahh, The Mission. I'd forgotten about that movie. I LOVED the score but somewhere in the passage of time the CD got pushed to the back of the pile. I'll have to pull it out again.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: The Mission was not a great film (although not bad). But it had an amazing Ennio Morricone score.
I love the opening scene of that movie. Good movie, amazing score. Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
Also, I totally forgot that this was about bad things, and bad movies in particular. As I don't think Cowboy BeBop is bad, I am a silly poster.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Maybe I should watch it again (The Mission). I liked some aspects of it very well, but I thought it had some very boring stretches.
Posted by Misha McBride (Member # 6578) on :
A large number of video games and anime are scored by Yoko Kanno. I haven't seen a whole lot of anime in general so I'm sure some of it is mediocre, but her music is pure gold and IMO you can't go wrong with any of it. I highly recommend Wolf's Rain OST 2, I never get tired of listening to it. This is probably my favorite track, specifically the flute, piano and string arrangement from 1:36 to 2:43.
[ January 15, 2012, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: Misha McBride ]
Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :
Sousei no Aquarion series didn't work for me at all, but the collaboration between Yoko Kanno and another composer made for some awesome electric/traditional instrumentation, particularly this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFruaQFardA 1:48 it gets going.
I have more, but it's snowing outside! WEE!
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Hmmm, maybe I should go back and watch The Mission too.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Since the topic is drifting, Yasunori Mitsuda wrote absolutely gorgeous music for the games Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. I daresay the songs in Chrono Cross taken as a whole, may be the greatest video game soundtrack ever written.
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