[Closed] Now Playing - Part XV

Timeline Jerry Goldsmith

One of Jerry's last scores, and a bloody excellent one at that. Goldsmith's knack for writing powerful, testosterone-filled music is on full show here, and it makes for a very entertaining 48 minutes!

A sadly underrated (and by that I mean rarely talked about on this forum ) score.

Yeah!!

NP: Forbidden Kingdom - David Buckley

I'm liking this quite a lot. Not an excellent score but I find the action cues very enjoyable and the swashbuckling type music is very entertaining IMO. A nice experience!!

NP: "Closing Of The Year" from Toys - Trevor Horn & Hans Zimmer

I know it's toooooo early for this song, but I love it so much! And it's nice to hear wintery songs on these hot humid days...

Orchestration-wise, yes, Hans made a lot of mistakes here.

NP:AVP requiem

THe first 5 tracks are pure dynamite.

I love Goldsmith and Horner homenages

Correction. BRILLIANT SCORE!



-Erik-

Maybe...

Yeah. 's alright.



NP: The Potato Factory - Carl Vine
What a bloody magnificent theme! Epic and dramatic and seemingly rather overblown for the subject of the film (which, incidentally, Ive never seen, so I can't really know for sure), and a beautful, very chamber music / Golden Age sensibility of scoring.
Many thanks to Franzie for introducing me to this composer!

Christ, talk about underrating the classics!

Still, if you're relatively new to film music, then some of the 'classics' aren't necessarily the best place to start. But I think once you've been a film music fan, or at least been part of a film music group like this one for a few years, general consensuses are created. Hence, Temple Of Doom IS a classic!

It's not my favorite either but I still think it's a 5 star score. IMHO, it's the second best score ever composed... next to Raiders. Yes, I'm a Indy homer but my God those two scores are hard to beat!

-Erik-

NP : THE ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE - Robert Mellin & Gian Piero Reverbieri



For anyone British and over a certain age ( 40+ ) this is a joyous trip down memory lane of school holidays TV.

The themes and melodies contained in this score are still a joy to this very day and a few people on this board may be familiar with a few tracks from this because I included them on a TV compilation CDR I did some years ago.

All this Temple of Doom talk got me to listening to my DVD rear channel extraction of the score. While some sound effects do interfere with the music there are a pile of previously unreleased cues that are pretty much left alone in the rear channels.

Stuff like the absolutely brilliant "The Bridge" cue which is all percussion just before Indy cuts the ropes. I listened to this cue by itself then I threw in the DVD and watched the scene. Easily one of the most suspenseful cues I've heard from the pen of Williams.

And what about all the ridiculously difficult action music that follows. While listening to the complete score from start to finish some listeners will be absolutely exhausted but I think it's easily one of John Williams most rewarding scores. It showcases Williams brilliant ability to write stunning themes with brilliant orchestrations... he does it like no other. And the numerous sync points Williams has to hit during the action scenes are mind blowing. The entire "Escape from the Temple" is one sync point after another with four or five themes coming in a out all the while still sounding musical. And while some composers would dumb things down for such crazy action sequences Williams keeps the level of brilliance at unmeasurable heights.

Williams also showcases his wonderful choral writing in such cues as "Stealing the Stones" where he channels the great Miklos Rozsa and creates a spine tingling cue that is one of my most requested unreleased pieces of Williams music. I hope one say I can hear this one with a proper stereo mix.

And of course now adays composers just phone in the end credits or have their music editor edit something together for them. Back in the day Williams was one of the best at creating scintillating end credit cues that perfectly blended all the major themes into one cohesive stand alone piece of music. Williams' Temple of Doom end credits go down as one of the all time best. The counterpoint between Indy's theme and Shorty's theme is simply superb.

Again, I think Temple of Doom is one of the all time best scores. Top 3 for sure!

-Erik-

PS - I think Steven or Bregje wrote that this is the only film in the Indy trilogy (see that I didn't mention KOTCS there) where Indy is at his most heroic. I tend to agree. His initial reason for going to Pankot was Forture and Glory but then turned into a rescue mission when he heard the screams of the slave children while stealing the stones. One of the last shots in the film is of Indy walking up to the village, holding Willie in one arm and Shorty in the other (with the Raiders March playing underneath) while all the saved salve children rush right by them to there waiting parents. That just sums it up right there. I love the tracking shot of the parents running to there kids with arms wide open. Indy saved the day! I LOVE IT!!! I'd have to say that Temple of Doom has the most satisfying conclusions of any of the Indy films.

Gotta agree with you, there!

Actually that may well be the primary reason why I've never been able to get into this score.

The Lost World Jurassic Park

Listen to tracks like 'Rescuing Sarah' and 'The Raptors Appear', that's jazz action scoring! It's great!

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