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Favorite Soundtracks?


Ernest Buckley

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I grew up in the 80s so...

 

1) My all time favorite soundtracks are by John Carpenter. He not only directed his movies, but composed the music for them. The soundtrack to Escape From New York is probably my favorite with The Fog coming in a close 2nd. His soundtracks are so moody...

 

2) It`s tough putting John Williams in 2nd place because his melodies are so tremendous but I`m big into mood when it comes to soundtrack so Carpenter had to #1. Anyway, Star Wars and Superman soundtracks were and still are so incredible and beautiful.

 

3) Hans Zimmer... so many to choose from but my all time favorite are the Batman Dark Knight series and Superman Man of Steel...

 

4) The soundtrack to the Secret Life of Walter Mitty... if you have not seen the movie, go see it. And the soundtrack... so well done...

 

What are some of your favorites?

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In each of these the soundtrack really made the film:

 

Mark Isham: Film Music – Never Cry Wolf & Mrs Soffel

Mark Isham: The Beast

Peter Gabriel: Passion – The Last Temptation of Christ

Thomas Newman: American Beauty

Cliff Martinez: Traffic

Wendy Carlos: Clockwork Orange

Sally Potter : Orlando

Vangelis: Bladerunner

 

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Have never been really big into movie themes, but there have been some TV themes that I really liked.

 

  • UFO and Space 1999 - Barry Gray
  • The Avengers (the original British TV show) - Laurie Johnson
  • Hill Street Blues and Rockford Files - Mike Post
  • Star Trek (The Original Series) - Alexander Courage
  • Emergency - Nelson Riddle
    Couple interesting things about this - the sound track is built around the audible tones used to activate the Klaxon alarm in the fire station. Also two of the main actors, Bobby Troupe and Julie London, were well known in the Jazz world. Bobby also wrote the hit song "Get your kicks on Route 66")

 

 

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I'm so bad at multi-tasking that either I'm in primary watching mode or primary listening mode. With movies, I'm in watching mode, so the music works on me subconsciously 99% of the time and after the film is over I hardly remember a thing about the soundtrack. Except when the music is particularly and strikingly good, or just plain bad.

 

Like what I call "the tinkling piano notes of deep feelings" that gets used over and over and over and over ad infinitum. Bad - and all my watching companions I'm sure are tired of hearing me ridicule this when it invariably sounds during some huge percentage of dramas and romcoms.

 

But I am on the watchout for good "playlist" soundtracks - you know, like Tarantino's. Which are always good. "Stuck In The Middle With You" comes to mind.... Scorcese also employs playlist soundtracks, but IMnotsoHO, I think Tarantino is much better at it. Wes Anderson is good at this also.

 

One that did actually reach my conscious mind in a big way was Jon Brion's for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And the great Beck song in the movie, "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime".

 

For big blasting orchestral soundtracks, I like the style in the really old stuff - 40s, 50s. I just watched the 1948 production of Hamlet that Laurence Olivier directed and starred in, and the soundtrack, by William Walton no less, is fantastic. What a great film all round - except for the awful weeping Ophelia....

 

So many of those old movie soundtracks - the composers were all steeped in classical music and I'm always hearing imitations of Rachmaninoff in them - quality varies of course, but by and large those old soundtrack composers were very, very skilled.

 

And the musicals, of course. West Side Story, right? Singin' In The Rain, right? School of Rock, well.....it's a fun movie.

 

nat

 

 

 

 

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Peter Gabriel: Passion – The Last Temptation of Christ

Soundtrack to "Planet of the Apes"

Soundtrack to "Heat"

 

I don`t know if this is funny, scary, or sad... or all of the above...

 

I didn`know there was any music in "The Last Temptation of Christ"...

 

Saw it once... it really hit me hard... never watched it again.

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I don`t know if this is funny, scary, or sad... or all of the above...

 

I didn`know there was any music in "The Last Temptation of Christ"...

 

Saw it once... it really hit me hard... never watched it again.

 

I'm telling you EB, I'm the same way. In a good movie, the soundtrack just goes straight to my subconscious most of the time, and I don't remember a bit of it. And when I'm doing music alone, I might as well be blind and floating in a timeless land of only-sounds.

 

nat

 

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I'm telling you EB, I'm the same way. In a good movie, the soundtrack just goes straight to my subconscious most of the time, and I don't remember a bit of it. And when I'm doing music alone, I might as well be blind and floating in a timeless land of only-sounds.

 

nat

 

I agree, if the music is done really well, you won`t notice it the first time. It`s such a part of the movie, its almost like its not there.

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With movies, I'm in watching mode, so the music works on me subconsciously 99% of the time and after the film is over I hardly remember a thing about the soundtrack.

 

Like what I call "the tinkling piano notes of deep feelings" that gets used over and over and over and over ad infinitum. Bad - and all my watching companions I'm sure are tired of hearing me ridicule this when it invariably sounds during some huge percentage of dramas and romcoms.

 

 

 

Its interesting how soundtracks affect one's sense of a film. I'm the exact opposite. The soundtrack determines my level of (emotional) engagement with the film. The industry standard is a formula film begets a formula soundtrack - think blockbuster, or fast action, or violent thrillers, as example, not always of course.

 

"The tinkling piano notes" should be prohibited:D. I've been reading about and listening to industry composers and a lot of them feel constricted and trapped by directors and producers who only want the formula stuff: " I want something like John Williams or Hans Zimmer." So we get tinkling piano, star wars glory, gorilla epic drums, etc. No wonder the music isn't memorable.

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The soundtrack for Forrest Gump is pretty cool too.

 

 

Phil is right it is a compilation soundtrack of really great songs which work well with the movie. Two others I can think of in the same vein are:

 

Traffic by Cliff Martinez

Until The End Of The World - complied by Wim Wenders

 

 

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Phil is right it is a compilation soundtrack of really great songs which work well with the movie. Two others I can think of in the same vein are:

 

Traffic by Cliff Martinez

Until The End Of The World - complied by Wim Wenders

 

 

As for compilation soundtracks... that`s almost another thread but I think The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has an amazing compilation soundtrack. It`s the first one that comes to mind for me... so well done... I know some of the songs were specifically written for the movie but there are some older tunes there that work so well with the scenes... the most memorable would be David Bowie`s tune Major Tom being sung while Walter ponders whether or not he should get on the helicopter. Great scene... great music... great movie.

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Certainly, one of my favorites is Elmer Bernstein's score for "Animal House." I think that may have been the first time that a comedy like that was backed up by such a completely straight, serious score, and it worked brilliantly as a counterpoint to the craziness on the screen.

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I grew up in the 80s so...

 

1) My all time favorite soundtracks are by John Carpenter. He not only directed his movies, but composed the music for them. The soundtrack to Escape From New York is probably my favorite with The Fog coming in a close 2nd. His soundtracks are so moody...

 

2) It`s tough putting John Williams in 2nd place because his melodies are so tremendous but I`m big into mood when it comes to soundtrack so Carpenter had to #1. Anyway, Star Wars and Superman soundtracks were and still are so incredible and beautiful.

 

3) Hans Zimmer... so many to choose from but my all time favorite are the Batman Dark Knight series and Superman Man of Steel...

 

4) The soundtrack to the Secret Life of Walter Mitty... if you have not seen the movie, go see it. And the soundtrack... so well done...

 

What are some of your favorites?

 

Anything Fellini/Nino Rota.

 

AMARCORD

LA STRADA

et al

 

Michelle LeGrande’s incredible score for UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG

- a working-class operetta. LeGrand had to write music for every word

in Jaques Demy’s screenplay. Basically, that means LeGrand had to

co-write the screenplay.

 

I saw the 50th anniversary 3 color digital restoration this year and I was floored.

 

(Greatest gas station scene in cinematic history FTW.)

 

[Youtube]4h-w5qM2VMM[/Youtube]

 

 

 

 

 

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