[Nick Zwar]

It’s fine to disagree; reaction to these things is obviously personal and subjective. I saw LADYHAWKE once in the late 80s, and found the music obnoxiously annoying, as if it actively worked to undermine the action on screen. Literally all music? Of course not, I didn’t even remember most of the music, but I did remember that it repeatedly worked against the movie, enough for me to tune out of the movie (and I haven’t seen it since). But if you love the movie or the score, well, good for you, more power to you. I sure don’t want to talk anyone out of it.
Indeed, I like the music on album now as it is. 🙂

[Nick Zwar]

I know Thor loves LADYHAWKE, which is surely one of the most controversial film scores of all time. First time I saw LADYHAWKE, the music really put me off, and I know I was not the only one. It’s not so much that it is “anachronistic”… I mean, one can rightly argue a romantic film score performed by a symphony orchestra in BEN HUR is just as “anachronistic”. It’s a film score, not source music, so it doesn’t have to be “of the time”.

The synthesizers in Vangelis’ score for THE BOUNTY were certainly “anachronistic”, and the electronic music approach for a historical drama a new one, but it worked well, the music supports the movie. That’s where LADYHAWKE failed for me… the music did not support the movie, it distracted from it, it often felt like an intrusive distraction in the movie and worked even against it. I have since come around to enjoy it on album though. 🙂 (Haven’t seen LADYHAWKE in decades.)

[Nick Zwar]

What sounds “cheap”? Sounds like an orchestra with additional synthesizers.
(Presumably more expensive than just the orchestra without synthesizers.)

[Nick Zwar]

I don’t know any of his 80s scores that sound “cheap”…. Even the purely electronic ones, like CRIMINAL LAW, tend to be very well constructed.
Goldsmith used almost always “standard” samples, because he treated synthesizers like any other instrument, preferring to find out what he could do with the standard sounds rather than have custom sounds made.
I have always enjoyed Goldsmith’s blend of orchestral and electronic sounds, it gave many of his scores a very unique and individual sound palette.

[Nick Zwar]

Hollow Man is like a mix of TOTAL RECALL and BASIC INSTINCT (incidentally all Paul Verhoeven films).

It’s one of the great “sci-fi concept” scores Goldsmith was so good at; Goldsmith was excellent at scoring science-fiction movies with musical ideas and motives representing concepts within the movie.

[Nick Zwar]

First Knight is excellent indeed.

[Nick Zwar]

Haha… yeah, the Monkey Island scores by Michael Land are great, I actually do listen to them apart from the game. Of course, I also loved the games. I played Ron Gilbert’s THE RETURN TO MONKEY ISLAND (the belated sequel) when it came out and had a lot more fun playing that than I have from watching most movies today.

[Nick Zwar]

As the say gois “A bad Goldsmith is always better than some good by others”

Yeah, that’s true. Interestingly, as far as I’m concerned, HOLLOW MAN and NEMESIS is up there with the best with them.

[Nick Zwar]

My latest box set is this:

It’s 12 discs of the music of Pierre Boulez plus one disc with an interview. Perhaps I am strange, could be, but I really enjoy quite a bit of Boulez’ compositions. When I first encountered them, I admit, I was puzzled… His first piano sonatas sounded at first to me like random notes…
It was “Sur Incises” that made me really listen… it was a composition that “clicked”, and it’s one of my favorite works of modern music. I don’t know why, but I find at least some of Boulez’ compositions highly “soothing” in a strange way. I find Boulez was an interesting personality and I’ve seen him a couple of times in concert as a conductor. So while this box doubled up on a few things I already had, I had to get it.

[Nick Zwar]

I like all Jerry Goldsmith scores (well, okay, except for ANGIE), but of course I don’t like them all the same. Still, I would rank HOLLOW MAN with the best of them, it’s one of the most elegant and exciting scores of his later period. Likewise STAR TREK – NEMESIS, absolutely terrific score. And LOONEY TUNES – BACK IN ACTION is wonderful, very charming and full of energy.

[Nick Zwar]

I have always had an affinity for computers, and periodically play video games. By that I mean the first video game I ever played was Pong—I don’t think you can get much older than that. (I did not have this game as a kid, but a friend of mine did.)

Back with some friends in the 80s, I played on the NES completely through the first two Zelda games and Super Mario Bros. 3… Then I didn’t play for years. Then, in the late 90s, I played the first two Tomb Raider games, Total Annihilation, and all the Monkey Island games (that were available at the time). Then I stopped playing for years again. In 2017, I bought the then-new Nintendo Switch because I really, really wanted to play Mario again.

The thing with Super Mario Bros. games is… I have to play them completely through… all the way, every level, every star or moon or whatever. And say what you want—they do get insanely difficult at times. At least for such a casual player as myself.

Which inevitably, sooner or later, leads to situations like the one pictured below (from New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe… perhaps my favorite “classic” Mario game), where I curse that §$%§! piece of §%&! “one-wrong-move-and-you-are-dead” plumber! (Yes, that is an actual screenshot of me playing the game in 2019.)

So I have periods where I play one or more games intensively, and then sometimes years where I don’t play any video games at all.
These last few months, I have not really played many video games because I spend my time on other (presumably more important) things—but I still like video games.

As far as music is concerned: yes, some of it has been really great. I mean, by nature, most (though not all) video game music is mood- rather than context-specific, so it is generally not very dramatic music, but rather sets the atmosphere. It must not be too specific or dramatic, because oftentimes it has to be able to be played in a loop, depending on how long a player stays within a certain scene. So it’s different from film scores in many ways. Some of it is quite nice. Grant Kirkhope’s music for Mario + Rabbids, for example, is terrific, with many charming melodies, songs, twists, and turns. The music was performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Nic Raine, so I guess film score fans certainly know these names (James Fitzpatrick was listed as the orchestra manager).

There was some music with a definite “Danny Elfman” touch in an early level of Super Mario Odyssey (I’m pretty sure it was an intentional reference).
I do have a few soundtracks of video games, like the BALDUR’S GATE III soundtrack (which came with the game, which I played a bit last year—but on the PC, not a console), and some of it is indeed very good and very “filmic”.

[Nick Zwar]

I participated in THE CHAIRMAN campaign.

[Nick Zwar]

Two “live to picture” concerts I have attended that were splendid:

KOYAANISQATSI
FANTASIA 2000

I’m sure because these movies are basically just images and music, they lend themselves to these types of concerts more than movies with lots of sound effects and dialog.

[Nick Zwar]

I can see why you said that…. both Tori Amos and Agnes Obel are singer/songwriters with a classical piano background, so I see the connection. I actually do have all of Tori Amos’ albums and liked Agnes Obel from her debut album “Philharmonics”.

[Nick Zwar]

Agnes Obel – Aventine
Sorry, I didn’t pay attention to the fact that the cover doesn’t have any text.

[Forfatter]

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