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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2006 : 3:05:25 PM
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Whether it was a song score or an orchestral soundtrack?
Streets of Fire or the original Highlander would be two of my picks for the former.
I picked up a Streets CD last year and I'm surprised how many of the tracks still hold up twenty years later. Highlander's Queen score is a more, shall we say, acquired taste. But like their score for Flash Gordon, it has its devotees.
Lone Wolf McQuade would be my choice of a lousy movie with a great orchestral score (Ferdinand de Masi). That's the only thing that separates this dreary dumb shoot-em-up from your standard episode of Walker: Texas Ranger.
Conan the Barbarian deserves honorable mention... in fact, I would have made it my first choice, except that in all honesty I didn't totally hate the movie. Nonetheless, Basil Poledouris' score was outstanding, arguably better than many film scores that have won Oscars. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
1791 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2006 : 3:08:55 PM
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| MOONRAKER and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. |
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kdraut
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2006 : 7:30:39 PM
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Ah, the "Good soundtrack, bad movie" syndrome. I have a couple:
Judgement Night - The soundtrack featured alternate rock bands paired with rap groups. Cypress Hill with Pearl Jam, Dinosaur Jr. paired with Del Tha Funky Homsapien, lots of good songs.
American Werewolf in Paris - The soundtrack has a rare Refreshments song from one of their early EPs.
Godzilla (1998) - Actually a decent soundtrack for a horrible, horrible film.
http://www.kdraut.com/photo |
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Wanderer
Altar Boy of Jabootu
7 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2006 : 9:32:26 PM
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quote: Originally posted by zombiewhacker
Conan the Barbarian deserves honorable mention... in fact, I would have made it my first choice, except that in all honesty I didn't totally hate the movie. Nonetheless, Basil Poledouris' score was outstanding, arguably better than many film scores that have won Oscars.
Basil Poledouris is my favourite film composer - I particularly love the way he uses woodwind and percussion instruments in his scores!!!
Sadly most of the movies he has worked on have been absolute crap. It's weird though, he seems to compose some of his most beautiful music for the crappiest of film he's worked on.
THE BLUE LAGOON The central premise of two children shipwrecked on a desert island growing to adulthood in complete isolation had the potential to be a rich psychological character-study. Instead it's a badly written, badly acted skin-flick. Still, Poledouris' soundtrack is one of the all time great romance scores, up there with Nino Rota's "Romeo & Juliet".
QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER As an Australian I couldn't help but snigger at the plentiful geographical and historical errors in this film. But I loved Poledouris' bouncy, catchy score, which reminded me of the classic western scores of Elmer Bernstein and Max Steiner
LES MISERABLES (1998) I actually kinda liked this, but it does take some huge liberties with Hugo's novel so I understand why so many purists hate it. Poledouris' score is a lot more subtle, a lot less bombastic than you'd expect if you only knew the story from the stage musical version or if you only knew Poledouris for his work on "Conan". His score focuses more on the internal dramatic conflict in the story than the moments of bloody physical conflict - and I think it's an approach that fits with director Bille August and screenwrite Rafael Yglesias' take on the material. |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2006 : 11:20:38 PM
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Wicker Park I've considered writing a review of this thing for this site, but most of the songs (MOST of them) are pretty good, as is Cliff Martinez's score.
The Thin Red Line Okay, I didn't actually hate this movie, but it could have been a lot better. But the score may be Hans Zimmer's best. And "Journey to the Line" is one of the Best. Action. Cues. Ever.
Dune David Lynch's biggest booboo, but the score was great. Whoulda thunk Toto -- Toto -- could have turned this one out?
Alien Cubed-- uh, Alien 3 Hated the movie, but the score is nice and dark and scary. |
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Nowhere Man
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
 
USA
45 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2006 : 4:39:40 PM
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Solaris the remake.
The story was as incomprehensible as the original (and the book FTM) but the steel-drum sound was eerily appropriate. Gotta remember to get a copy.
Fred |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2006 : 6:45:04 PM
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| Interesting thing there, NM. Wicker Park and Solaris had the same composer. I had a feeling that he was emulating his Solaris score in Wicker and he may have even used outtakes, but damn it sounded good. Whoulda thought steel drums could sound ethereal? |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2006 : 12:27:50 AM
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quote: Originally posted by BradH812 [brDune David Lynch's biggest booboo, but the score was great. Whoulda thunk Toto -- Toto -- could have turned this one out?
Agreed. The four-note theme that starts the movie is awesome. |
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Juniper
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
616 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2006 : 12:47:23 AM
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Speaking of Jabootu's current subject BJGTW has one of my favorite Berstein cues, it's when Billy is praying to the Canyon Lady and there is this breathtaking helicopter shot(of course)of the canyon and the score swells to a cresendo and it's just so beautiful I can't stand it. And yes I know that moment is shamless padding but considering how they padded out the rest of the film with hot legislative action I'll take what I can get.
"The Devil Made this Movie for You!" |
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Freschel
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
   
USA
150 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2006 : 04:01:48 AM
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Star Trek The Motion Picture: Love the score but the movie puts me to sleep.
It's Coacoa Puffs, Bob. I have no idea why, but it fits the equation. |
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Cannon Fodder
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
   
Australia
176 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2006 : 07:27:43 AM
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Cliffhanger. A deeply average movie but I really liked the Trevor Jones score.
Stargate. Another average movie with a memorable score.
Live and Let Die. One of the worst Bond films but a great opening song.
Phantom Menace. I really liked John Williams score for this despite how well documentedly awful the movie was. Particularly I remember the music used for the threeway climax, each arc with its own motifs and the way the score neatly intercut between them.
Link A weak eighties horror flick with a great and catchy Jerry Goldsmith score.
Also, I too really loved the Highlander soundtrack, although I do like the movie as well. For some strange reason a group of friends I kept watching the 'Princes of the Universe' music clip over and over at one point. It might just have been for the comic value of the posturing of Freddy Mercury and Christopher Lambert. |
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Pip
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 04/05/2006 : 01:23:52 AM
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Red Dawn - stupid movie, pretty good music by Basil Poledouris.
The Good, Bad, Ugly - the movie is just endless and silly to me, but "The Ecstasy of Gold" is a great piece.
Mission: Impossible 2 Great hard rock for first eight tracts or so and ends with Tori Amos and "Nyah", a wonderful Spanish guitar tune.
Pip |
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Genrewriter
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
USA
210 Posts |
Posted - 04/05/2006 : 12:02:18 PM
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Star Trek V-The film is god awful (though I found it better than it's reputation...slightly) but Jerry Goldsmith's score is great.
"Well it's rather brutal around here, we're advising our clients to put everything they've got into canned food and shotguns!" |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2006 : 1:49:52 PM
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| Jerry Goldsmith was one of the greats. Wondering if anyone's ever seen the European cut of Legend with Goldsmith's score instead of Tangerine Dream? I haven't, but I've heard Goldsmith's music made a huge difference. |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
1126 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2006 : 4:21:29 PM
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You know, I'm probably the only person you'll ever hear say this but I liked Legend better with the TD score. Maybe just because I got used to it that way and it gave the film a slight cheese factor that made it better- it doesn't work so well taking itself more seriously and it wasn't one of Jerry's more brilliant scores (though nothing he ever wrote was below very good). And I like Yes so I like the Jon Anderson song at the end. *g*
Oddly, I've been trying to think of an entry for this thread and I just can't. I can think of one for the opposite though- good movie, unlistenable score. That would be Ladyhawke.
Coming soon- Eraserhead: The Musical!! |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
    
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2006 : 5:33:10 PM
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Zombie, I have seen the European version of Legend. It's still not great, but it's at least watchable, and Goldsmith's score really helped.
Ladyhawke's score was very nice at times, but more often it was 80's cheese; Sardu wasn't too far off. It may be harder to find good movies with really BAD scores, though; their directors usually can tell when a score is working or not. |
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