Soundtracks

If I could yawn at this as much as I want to, my lower jaw would be displaced enough for me to swallow a baby elephant. Then again, I'm really, really tired of all this Marvel crap to begin with.

Actually the first minute is a reprise of the Man of Steel theme (which was a great soundtrack by Hans Zimmer), but then it switches to the Vigilante (Batman) theme.
 
Here is my favorite part of the Man of Steel soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. Great slow build-up. This is the during the last two scenes of the movie right before the end credits roll:

 
I like soundtracks from older movies (60s-70s). Henry Mancini's music from the Pink Panther movie series is classic; but my favorite movie soundtrack music from that era was the jazz-funk-rock of Lalo Schifrin, who scored the Dirty Harry series, Enter the Dragon, Bullitt, and many more.


James Horner did a pretty good job of aping Schifrin's style in the soundtrack for the early-80s Eddie Murphy vehicle 48 Hrs.

Other jazz and soul artists did some great movie scores too. Herbie Hancock's work on Blow-Up was a good example. His "Bring Down The Birds" from that movie was the main sample used on Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart" from the early 90s. I also really enjoy Willie Hutch's soundtrack to the 70s blaxploitation film The Mack - not as well-known as Curtis Mayfield's contributions to Superfly or Isaac Hayes's work on Shaft (also both fantastic), but it holds its own.


Along the same lines: old TV theme music from the 1970s. I'd love to hear a jazz group do an extended jam on the theme to Barney Miller, for example.

A cool niche genre of music is "soundtrack music for movies that don't exist." Two examples:

The James Taylor Quartet, a British group led by the eponymous Hammond organ player (not to be confused with the American singer-songwriter known for "Sweet Baby James"), has covered a lot of older tunes from TV and movies, like the themes from Starsky and Hutch, Goldfinger and Mission Impossible. They released an album of original spy-movie soundtrack music called The Money Spy-der in 1996.


There's a group called Federale, which shares a couple of members with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, that specializes in original spaghetti-Western soundtrack music for nonexistent movies. I saw them open for BJM once; it was really cool seeing that kind of music performed live.

 
Never knew there was a soundtrack discussion 'round here (no idea why). It's good to know, though; I love soundtracks! I think my favorite ones are The Lord of the Rings (part of the reason those are my favorite movies ever is Howard Shore's score). Titanic is also brilliant, The Lion King is too.

I never really thought about a "favorite composer", but I love Hans Zimmer's stuff (the aforementioned The Lion King, his Batman scores, plus his versatility on all sorts of different genres; The Ring is especially magnificent), Marco Beltrami's Scream scores are nothing short of iconic, and John William's Harry Potter soundtracks are also very good.

I could spend all day listing movie scores I've listened to and enjoyed, LOL.
 
I like Hans Zimmer best on The Lion King. His post - Batman Begins work is pretty hit or miss imo.
 
I loved Zimmer on The Lion King, The Thin Red Line, The Last Samurai and Gladiator (which are all pre-Begins, admittedly), the Dark Knight trilogy and Inception. I think I don't remember any other work of his.

My favourite is probably Line - what a magnificent work.
 
Well... I went to see Man of Steel in the cinema and I don't even remember anything about the fucking movie, let alone the music therein. Granted, it's been 5 years, but still.. And I haven't seen BvS yet.

And while I've seen The Ring many times when it was hot and remember it quite well, I don't remember any music actually being there, but maybe that's just me.

So what I said above still stands :)
 
Well, Zimmer's score for The Ring was the one which, I believe, popularized the "quiet soundtrack" style most horror films tend to use. It's barely noticeable, but it's there, and it makes a huge difference.
 
Well... I went to see Man of Steel in the cinema and I don't even remember anything about the fucking movie, let alone the music therein. Granted, it's been 5 years, but still.. And I haven't seen BvS yet.

And while I've seen The Ring many times when it was hot and remember it quite well, I don't remember any music actually being there, but maybe that's just me.

So what I said above still stands :)
If you don't remember the destructive Battle of Metropolis finale in Man of Steel (much less the soundtrack), i think you slept through it and need to watch it again.

Only then can you watch the sequel Batman V Superman. However, only watch the Ultimate Edition of B V S. It is the longer version where the plot makes sense. The shorter theatrical version jumps around too much.
 
Oh yeah, I remember the finale. Vaguely. It had no emotional depth for me whatsoever, to quote a certain reviewer, it was like watching shit in the washing machine. MoS felt to me as if they wanted to ape Nolan's Batman, but lacked the talent - it felt like a very dark movie that was however never actually heavy or epic in any way. Sorry.
 
Zimmer has done some great stuff, but since The Rock, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and The Last Samurai I feel he started to get less memorable. Williams hardly need any further presentation, the guy is a legend and has continued to put out stellar soundtracks. (Favourite: Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith). James Horner's work on Titanic of course needs to be mentioned as well as his work on Braveheart. Personal favourite but less known example would be Thomas Newman's soundtrack for Road to Perdition (2002) starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.

As for soundtracks in general, Top Gun is number one though. Some brilliant original songs plus fantastic work by Harold Faltermeyer.
 
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