This week, I wanted to discuss Patrick Doyle’s “Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein”, but then I saw the new “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” on Sunday and switched my mind. Therefore, “Frankenstein” will be reviewed next week. The movie "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation" is a 2015 American action spy film written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, from a story by McQuarrie and Drew Pearce and the fifth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. The film stars Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, Sean Harris, Ving Rhames, Simon McBurney, and Tom Hollander, with Cruise, Renner, Pegg, and Rhames reprising their roles from previous films. Rogue Nation is produced by Cruise, J. J. Abrams, and David Ellison of Skydance Productions. In the film, IMF agent Ethan Hunt is on the run from the CIA, following the IMF's dissolution as he tries to prove the existence of the Syndicate, a mysterious international terrorist consortium. I am a big fan of Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible”-franchise even though I am not a big fan of the actor. Tom Cruise is a famous member of Scientology, and his engagement for this “church” is mostly annoying. People say he is the real Nr. 1 behind the official chairman David Miscavige. Cruise’s criticisms of psychiatry and anti-depressant drugs, particularly the therapy for 9/11 rescue workers, and his efforts to promote Scientology as a religion in Europe resulted in a lot of controversies. The “Mission: Impossible”-series was created by Bruce Geller in 1966. The series was a typical cold war product, but became soon very famous for the main theme composed by Lalo Schifrin and the famous title sequence, started with a fuse being lit. As the fuse burned across the screen, clips from current episode were shown. Tom Cruise adapted for his movies the theme and also this teaser. Interesting is that the actual Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is rarely mentioned in the series. The plots took mostly place in fictional Slavic countries. I found a clip of the original theme. And this version is great because it is played live, with Lalo Schifrin on the piano. The “Mission: Impossible” franchise is one of the best in the last years. My favorite movie is still the first one because this is one of the best Brian De Palma movies ever. I love this director and his way of visual storytelling, but you have to admit that De Palma is best when he is directing screenplays from other authors, e.g. David Mamet’s “The Untouchables” or “Mission: Impossible” (script by David Koepp and Robert Towne). When De Palma is directing his own stories, he often gets lost in his own fetiches. The second “Mission: Impossible” was directed by the Chinese Action-specialist John Woo and has great action scenes with a minimum of a plot. Hans Zimmer composed the soundtrack that heavily relies on drums and electronic guitars. “Mission: Impossible III” , directed by J. J. Abrams, is in my opinion the worst in the series because the idea of this bomb in the head is such a crappy idea even though Tom Cruise gave again a great performance. “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” was far better even though I really hate Tom Cruise’s superman attitude in this movie. He seems to be unbreakable and unbeatable, and therefore, the character is really boring. I watched the fourth movie during my three years stay in China, and the franchise is very popular there. Therefore, I was not surprised to see that Cruise for the fifth one now co-operated with Chinese production companies. Because of this, he is able to put the movie very easily into the theatres. The Chinese government still allows just 25 foreign movies to be shown in the theatres per year to push the own movie industry and force people to see Chinese movies. By hiring local production companies, Cruise’s movie does not fall under this quote. Stallone did the same with the second "Expendable". Christopher McQuarrie directed the fifth “Mission: Impossible”, and this is also the fifth collaboration between Cruise and this director. The film is without any doubt the best action movie of this summer, and perhaps just the new James Bond movie “Spectre” can top the action scenes. The movie has a great mixture of suspense and action scenes, balanced with good humor, and shows also that Ethan Hunt is not a superman; he really had a hard time dealing with the mysterious woman, played by the attractive Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson. Furthermore, the plot has some nice twists. The music Joe Kraemer composed the soundtrack, and it is his third collaboration with McQuarrie. I never heard of Kraemer before, and during watching the movie, I liked the constant and various usage of the main theme and the overall orchestration of the soundtrack. So, let’s talk about this score here a bit. Kraemer, born 1973 and raised in Albany, New York, is an American film music composer. His father and his uncle were both musicians, and Kraemer began taking piano lessons at an early age. In high school, he befriended an older boy named Scott Storm, and this guy introduced Kraemer later to filmmakers Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie. While attending Berklee School of Music in Boston, Kraemer decided he wanted to be a film composer. First working as a sound editor, he started composing for television and film. Kraemer's first feature score was the 2000 film “The Way of the Gun”, a modern-day western, directed by Oscar-winner McQuarrie. When you listen to the score, it will remind you a lot of Michael Giaccchino’s “Jurassic World”, a score that I discussed a few weeks ago. Giacchino composed the music for Mission: Impossible 3 and 4. Kraemer also focused on an orchestral score and used heavily the popular main theme throughout the score, in my opinion very enjoyable. The music consists, in general, of action tracks and tracks that you can describe as suspense or atmosphere tracks such as “Solomon Lane”, “Good evening, Mr Hunt”, “The Plan”, "Grave Consequences” or “A Matter Of Going”. Kraemer is great at composing these suspense tracks, and the seven minute piece “The Torus” is one of the highlights of this score. In this scene, Cruise takes the challenge to jump into the torus to exchange the data disks The first track “The A400” is a great action track for the first scenes, and track 4 “Escape to Danger” (the percussion here reminds you of the ticking of a bomb) and track 6 “A Flight at the Opera” are nice action pieces, too. Track 5 "Havana to Vienna” gives you some local touch with some Kuba-music. A further great action track is “A Foggy Night in London” (with a longer version of Kraemer’s theme for this movie that is based on Puccini's "Nessum Dorma" song), and the final one “Finale and Curtain Fall” closes the score. There are also some lyrical and slower tracks, e.g. “A Matter Of Going”. The soundtrack is not the best action soundtrack this year, I still prefer “Jurassic World”, but you have to acknowledge that with Joe Kraemer, there is a fairly new face in the action genre who is able to use the full range of orchestral effects and has a great sense of drama and creating suspense. Watch here the trailer. Have fun and see you next week with “Frankenstein”, one of the best action scores of Patrick Doyle.. Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

The Oscar! Finally! It was 1976, and Jerry Goldsmith won the long-deserved Academy Award. On YouTube, there is a video clip about Jerry’s joy, his shyness and his love to his wife, a really adorable clip because you can see what a great personality Jerry Goldsmith had! Even though he should have known that he is one of the best film composers ever, he is still a little shy and overwhelmed with emotions that he finally got this trophy. I am sure he never thought that this will be the first and only Academy Award he ever will win. The movie “The Omen” is a British-American supernatural horror film directed by Richard Donner (“Lethal Weapon”), and written by David Seltzer. Seltzer later wrote a novel from his screenplay, but compare to the movie the novel is not so convincing because the visual aspects in this case are much stronger. The book preceded the movie two weeks before as a marketing gimmick as I read. The film stars Gregory Peck as Ambassador Thorn, Lee Remick as his wife, David Warner as the photographer who has the best death scene in the movie, Harvey Spencer Stephens as Damien, Billie Whitelaw as the satanic Mrs Beelock and Patrick Troughton. Here is the trailer: I saw “The Omen” at an age of 16, and it made a great impression on me, and, of course, I had tough nights afterwards…. This movie is a hell of a good movie, and as usual, the remake of such a classic is crap. Why is “The Omen” so great? It is the combination of a very good original script, Donner’s great directing, the very good and convincing cast, and especially Jerry’s music that made “The Omen” a classic. There is also an interesting documentation about the “Curse of The Omen”, in my opinion, just a marketing stunt, but it is worth watching. According to producer Harvey Bernhard, the idea of a movie about the Antichrist came from Bob Munger, a friend of Bernhard's. When Munger told him about the idea, Bernard contacted screenwriter David Seltzer. It took a year for Seltzer to write the script. Gregory Peck was interested in this role because “The Omen” was more a psychological thriller than a horror movie. Compare to John Carpenter’s “Halloween”, this might be true, but “The Omen” has still one of the most shocking scenes of all horror movies. I am thinking of David Warner’s death. The music During post-production, Donner and Bernhard asked Alan Ladd Jr., president of Twentieth Century Fox at that time, for more money to hire Jerry Goldsmith as the composer. Donner and Bernhard listened to a concert by Jerry Goldsmith in the Hollywood Bowl and were impressed. Ladd agreed to an increase of $25000 to hire Jerry, and the rest is history. Jerry said in an interview that he heard choral voices in his head when seeing the movie, and so he developed the idea of this Latin choral. Because he had not so much experience with choral writing at that time, he asked Lionel Newman for help who also conducted the music later. “The Omen” score is using Latin chorals like in Carl Orff’s famous work “Carmina Burana”, but it is a mistake to consider Jerry’s soundtrack as a similar work. “The Omen” is more like a black mass. The refrain "Sanguis bibimus, corpus edimus, tolle corpus Satani" (ungrammatical Latin for, "We drink the blood, we eat the flesh, raise the body of Satan") is used with alternating "Ave Satani!" and "Ave Versus Christus" (“Hail, Satan” and "Hail, Antichrist!"). The correct Latin would be "Sanguinem”, but I think they used the wrong word because it is easier to pronounce and works better in the lyrics. Now, I impressed you with my Latin, right? “The Omen” is not only because of the usage of this Latin words a great example of amazing movie music, it is also a masterpiece in creating suspense and atmosphere with the traditional orchestra. The way how Goldsmith uses the orchestra to create suspense and atmosphere is just perfect. You can argue what is the best soundtrack for a horror movie, Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” or “The Omen”, but for even though I love “Psycho”, I think “The Omen” is the better one. Except of these suspense and action tracks in the score – I especially love how Goldsmith uses the bass in the track “Friedhof track”, you have one of Goldsmith’s best love themes that captures the love between Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. I found on YouTube a great track of a live performance of “The Omen”, conducted by the Spanish film music enthusiast Diego Navarro who conducts regular film music concerts in Europe. Also, I attached the famous “Ave Satani” track, conducted by Lionel Newman. I personally enjoy very much Navaro’s conducting, he has so much fun with it, and even speaks the word while conducting. Jerry Goldsmith’s “The Omen” and also the soundtracks to the other two movies are great examples of timeless movie music. The music to the third one is totally different from the previous ones, and the music to the showdown is more like an opera. Again a live performance: Such a shame that it is composed to a really crappy movie, but now enjoy “Ave Satani”! Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

This is the first review of a score by Alan Silvestri on my homepage, so as usual some basic facts first. Silvestri is mostly known for his music to “Back To The Future” with Michael J. Fox, directed by Robert Zemeckis. The movie "Mouse Hunt" is a 1997 American black comedy slapstick film directed by Gore Verbinski in his directorial debut, written by Adam Rifkin and starring Nathan Lane and Lee Evans, and featured William Hickey who died shortly after the film was shot. It was the first family film to be released by DreamWorks Pictures, who released it in the United States on December 19, 1997. The film follows two Laurel and Hardy-like brothers in their struggle against one small but crafty house mouse for possession of a mansion which was willed to them by their father. The film is set in the late 20th century, though with styles humorously ranging from the 1940s to the 1990s. Here is trailer: The music A lot of directors have a long lasting collaboration with composers, and Zemeckes likes to work with Silvestri. Other examples of very good collaborations between composers and directors are Steven Spielberg and John Williams, Kenneth Branagh and Patrick Doyle, and, of course, Jerry Goldsmith with Franklin J. Schaffner, Fred Schepisi, Joe Dante and Paul Verhoeven. Alan Silvestri was born 1950 in Manhattan and started his composing career in 1972, composing the score for the low-budget action film “The Doberman Gang”. From 1977 to 1983, he was the main composer for the TV show “CHiPs”. Zemeckis and Silvestri first worked together on “Romancing the Stone”, the still very popular adventure movie with Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. Silvestri wrote a highly enjoyable score, and continued to work with Zemeckis on “Back to the Future”, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (for me one of his best scores), “Death Becomes Her” (1992, a funny black comedy), “Forrest Gump” (1994, one of the best movies ever), “Contact” (1997), “Cast Away” (2000), “The Polar Express” (2004), “Beowulf” (2007), “A Christmas Carol” (2009), and “Flight” (2012). In 1989, Silvestri composed the score for James Cameron’s still underrated SF-movie “The Abyss”. Silvestri is very popular for his scores for the original “Predator” (1987) with Arnie and “Predator 2” (1990) with Danny Glover. Since 2001, Silvestri has also collaborated with director Stephen Sommers, scoring the films “The Mummy Returns” in 2001 (Goldsmith scored the first one, a fantastic score),” Van Helsing” in 2004 (with lovely Kate Beckinsale), and “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” in 2009. His most recent work includes “The Avengers” in 2012, and “Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb” in 2014. I did not know that the composer also has a vineyard, Silvestri Vineyards, located in Carmel Valley, California. I decided to take his music to “MouseHunt” as the first score to review. This movie is half a good movie, but has some great scenes, and especially Christopher Walken as mouse hunter is given a hell of a performance. Gore Verbinski, know for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, directed the first family comedy for Dreamworks, but the movie is not always a family comedy because of some crappy scenes and some “over the top humor”. If you think that after watching a movie a mouse was giving the best performance, then this is not a good sign. The plot is set in a humorous indeterminate 20th century time period, with styles ranging from the 1940s to the 1970s. With a budget of $38. Mio, the movie was quite a success and wrapped up to a total of nearly $140 Mio. Silvestri’s score is composed in a style that is typical for him, high focus on the brass and percussion section, lovely melodies, a good sense of comedy and drama (mostly underscores with the brass section) and a wonderful end credits track. That you can hear right here. The score has 17 tracks, is sometimes a little bit repetitive, but because of his mixture of Micky mousing, sad tones, jazzy tunes and also heart warming melodies one of Silvestri’s best works and should not be missed in any collection. Looking at Silvestri’s it is astonishing that he is able to compose music for every film genre, and his special way of composing is highly adaptable to these genres. His special action tracks with his specific percussion and brass rhythm was one reason that the showdown of "Back To The Future" was so full of suspense. He is also one of the few composers who is also very good in the comedy genre, and his approach is similar to Marc Shaiman’s even though Shaiman is sometimes more sophisticated. What makes Mouse Hunt unique, is Silvestri’s usage of the bassoon, an instrument that is not very often used as solo instrument in film music scores. For "Mouse Hunt" it works perfect and underlines the little feet of the mouse in his way through the house. This mouse theme is the only theme in the score, but Silvestri uses it in a very convincing way throughout the score and underscores the funny aspect with serious music, such as Elmer Bernstein did with his comedy music. Because of this approach, the funny scenes have an even better effect on the audience even though they are sometimes too much over the top. The typical sense of this musical humour is the reason that the music is so enjoyable and much better than the movie really is. Fans of the composer seem to forget that Silvestri is not just good in his famous action tracks, he is great in his comedy score such as "Death Becomes Here" (1992) with a fabulous comedy-horror theme and in his most ambitious score "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"(1988). Recommendations for listening are especially these tracks: Funeral Prologue - wonderful gothic atmosphere Dying Wish – because of the lovely melody, played on the strings and the clarinet What are you doing – you will surprised what is happening in the middle of the track Nail Gun – a great action piece, and one of the best scenes in the movie Caesar’s Big Drag – one of the best tracks! (the Christopher Walken scene!) Flamming Doo – great action piece, and one of the reasons I love Alan Silvestris composing style And here one of the best scenes of the movie, have fun and watch the whole movie! Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

I was in the mood to discuss this week one of the best soundtracks for a modern horror movie, and because this is the first review of a Christopher Young score on my website, again, first of all, some basic facts. The composer Christopher Young was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, 1958, and graduated from Hampshire College in Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Arts in music. He then completed his post-graduate work at North Texas State University. In 1980, he moved to Los Angeles. Originally a jazz drummer, he decided to become a film composer when he heard Bernard Herrmann's music and studied then at the UCLA Film School under the famous film composer David Raksin. Young now teaches at the Thornton School of Music of the University of Southern California. Young is mostly known for his music for horror music, and his contribution to this genre is really astonishing. I remember when I first heard the music for “Hellraiser” how impressed I was that here is finally again an artist who knows how to use an orchestra and not just takes a synthesizer to make some electronic noise and call this later film music. Recently, Young scored a lot of the music for the third “Spiderman” by Sam Raimi. The background story is a little bit complicated, but it seems that Elfman and Raimi did not get along very well, and Young was hired, but then, Elfman stepped in again, and so there is now music of both composers in this movie. Unfortunately, there is no soundtrack album with Christopher Young’s music available even though his motive for the Sandman (“Birth of Sandman”) is really great. I found this music on Christopher Young's official website. http://officialchristopheryoung.com/music/ Young composed very modern music for the horror movies he was working on. This is not always easy listening, but Young has such a great talent to underscore these violent movies with a special atmosphere that I watched a few of these movies just to have a better understanding of the music. The movie “Hellraiser” (1987) is a British horror film, written and directed by Clive Barker, based on his own book “The Hellbound Heart”. I am in general not a big fan of modern horror movies. I prefer the old classics from the 40s to 60s. Most modern horror movies are just too violent for me. Often, I get the feeling that the makeup artists are the real creative people behind, and the only intention of these movies is to see how long people can stand to watch without going to the restroom and vomit. Therefore, “Hellraiser” was praised because it made a difference and really tells a story. Here is the trailer: “Hellraiser” is also full of violent scenes and shocking effects, but it has a good story and created with Pinhead a fascinating figure of modern horror movies. Furthermore, Barker has a great feeling for building up suspense and creating good twists. He had some trouble with some violent scenes, but also with nudity as he explained in an interview with the magazine Smahain: “Well, we did have a slight problem with the eroticism. I shot a much hotter flashback sequence than they would allow us to cut in.... Mine was more explicit and less violent. They wanted to substitute one kind of undertow for another. I had a much more explicit sexual encounter between Frank and Julia, with some spanking, but they said no, let's take out the sodomy and put in the flick knife." The main gadget of the “Hellraiser” series is a puzzle box. In the first “Hellraiser” movie, the main male character Frank Cotton buys this box in Morocco, and when he solves the puzzle, hooked chains emerge and tear into his flesh. The following story is another variation of the classical vampire motif, but it is the way how Barker is telling his story that makes “Hellraiser” into a classic of modern horror movies. The movie cost $1 Million Dollar, and make $14 Million, quite impressive, isn’t it? The music Barker wanted first the British electronic Band “Coil” to compose the soundtrack, but this idea was rejected, so editor Tony Randel suggested Young. Another interesting fact I found was that there was a big discussion about the title; Barker suggested “Sadomasochists from beyond the Grave”, and one woman on the team really suggested this title: “What a Woman Will Do for a Good Fuck”. Young’s music offers a great mixture of lyrical themes and shocking atonal and avant-garde music. The main theme is a great example of a haunting theme that you will never forget when you have heard it. The second track called “Resurrection” is the first highlight of the score. Young creates a wonderful haunting atmosphere with strings, brass and percussion; this piece underscores one of the most important scenes of the movie and is highly enjoyable. Track four, “The Lament Configuration” is a good example of the modern electronic effects, Young likes to use in his scores. Another example is “Seduction and Pursuit”, a piece that starts first with the motif for the Cenobites, and then continues with music composed in a highly modern style. Not easy listening, but fascinating when you see how this music works in the movie. Similar music you can hear in “Cenobites”, Young transforms the noise of the chains into music and created some additional music for the creatures from beyond. The last four tracks are the final highlights of the score. Young uses the motif he introduced in “Resurrection” for the track “Re-Resurrection”. Again, you have to imagine the time when this score was composed. Young brought an orchestra and lyrical themes back to the horror genre which was mostly dominated by Heavy Mental or lousy synthesizer scores, and we really have to be grateful for this. With “Uncle Frank” the showdown starts. Young uses the brass and string section to underscore the following violent scenes. “Another puzzle” is the last track of the score, a very lyrical track, and because of the title, you can imagine that the final scenes are not the end of the Cenobites and the “Hellraiser” story. The next movie “Hellbound” was more violent and has a lack of good storytelling. The positive thing is that we learn more about Pinhead, and again Young’s music was nearly the best part of the movie. He used the themes from the first one, but now also used a choir and again highly modern and avant-garde music. Young’s two “Hellraiser” scores are milestones in modern horror film music, so I highly recommend you to listen to both of them. And here the main title for “Hellraiser 2 – Hellbound”. Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

„Total Recall“, the original one by Pau Verhoeven, and not the remake, is a hell of a movie! The movie "Total Recall" is a 1990 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, and Michael Ironside. The film is loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". The film tells the story of a construction worker who suddenly finds himself embroiled in espionage on Mars and unable to determine if the experiences are real or the result of memory implants. It was written by Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Jon Povill, and Gary Goldman, and won a Special Achievement Academy Award for its visual effects. The original score, composed by Jerry Goldsmith, won the BMI Film Music Award. With a budget of $50–60 million, "Total Recall" was one of the most expensive films made at the time of its release, although estimates of its production budget vary and whether it ever actually held the record is not certain. I remember this movie very well because it was one of the first Arnold Schwarzenegger movies I saw in the movie theatre. At that time of my life, I was not such a big fan of Arnie, I preferred Sylvester Stallone with his “Rocky”-series, and also liked the first Rambo movie very much, and not only because of Jerry’s music. Therefore, the decision to watch “Total Recall” in a movie theatre, was first of all driven by the fact that Jerry composed the music, and Paul Verhoeven was the director. I had the music CD received a few days ago, but had some trouble with the score. The music sounded very repetitive, even violent in musical terms, was highly-action driven and not very lyrical, but also very enjoyable. At the same time, I also received the music to “Gremlins 2”, a music I liked more than “Total Recall”. Looking back at “Total Recall”, you can argue if this is perhaps Arnie’s best movie except “Terminator”. Critics compared “Recall” with “Rambo III”, and said that people should go and see Arnie because this movie is worth every dollar you spend on your ticket because you will have a lot of fun and will be greatly entertained. In my memory, this movie is also the first time I prefered an Arnold movie over a Stallone movie. Based on the story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick, a still enjoyable read, “Alien” writers Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett wrote a screenplay, but it was given from studio to studio. Finally, Dino De Laurentiis, took on the project. De Laurentiis who also produced “Conan” was not very interested to cast the Austrian Oak for this movie. He wanted Richard Dreyfusss; Patrick Swayze was also considered, and Bruce Beresford (“Driving Mrs Daisy”) as director. Even David Cronenberg was later attached to direct, and he wanted William Hurt in the leading role. There is a great comment about his work from Cronenberg: “"I worked on it for a year and did about 12 drafts. Eventually we got to a point where Ron Shusett said, 'You know what you've done? You've done the Philip K. Dick version.' I said, 'Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?' He said, 'No, no, we want to do Raiders of the Lost Ark Go to Mars.'" When the adaptation of Dune flopped at the box office, De Laurentiis similarly lost enthusiasm. Now Schwarzenegger stepped it. He persuaded Carolco to buy the rights to the film for $3 million and negotiated a salary of $10–11 million (plus 15% of the profits) to star, with an unusually broad degree of control over the production. The first thing Arnie did was recruiting Paul Verhoeven as director because Arnie was impressed by “RoboCop”. Verhoeven brought Gary Goldman in to develop the final draft of the screenplay, and also many of his collaborators on “RoboCop”, including actor Ronny Cox, cinematographer Jost Vacano, production designer William Sandell, and special effects designer Rob Bottin. With Verhoeven on board, the film became highly violent, rude and shocking brutal. There are so many scenes with death and violence in this movie that Verhoeven again had trouble to get a rating lower than X. Furthermore, this movie is one of the last major Hollywood blockbusters to make large-scale use of miniature effects rather than computer generated imagery. And, of course, Verhoeven was again attacked by feminist critics, especially because of one scene between Arnie and Sharon Stone and the comment “Consider this as a divorce.” You can also find a lot of people discussing if the movie is all a dream or reality for Quaid. The white light at the end is taken as an example of the dream theory – Quiad will be lobotomized, and also Jerry’s last track is called “End of a Dream”. You can decide what you want to believe and look for proof in the movie, there is enough for both theories, and it is one sign of Verhoeven’s genius that he created the end in this style. The music Jerry Goldsmith said about this score in an interview: “"Total Recall" was some of the best music I’ve written for a film. I was impressed with myself, even though I rarely listen to what I’ve finished. I’d written enough notes in that score for a Bruckner symphony! After that, I wanted a change from all of the action films I’d been doing. I realized that I wanted to do “people” pictures again, and held out until I got "The Russia House", "Sleeping with the Enemy", and "Love Field", movies where I could get lyrical again. "The Russia House" is now my favourite score, while my work for "Medicine Man" has some very lyrical moments.” To save money, the producers sent Jerry Goldsmith to Germany to record the music with a Munich orchestra. Goldsmith was not very happy with the performance; the orchestra was not familiar with his complex style of composing and orchestrating. Therefore, the recording was brought to end and Goldsmith went back to London to record the score with the National Philharmonic Orchestra which was more used to Goldsmith’s style. YouTube features the track Clever Girl performed by the Munich Orchestra, so this version can be compared with the later version on the CD. I could not find this track on YouTube anymore, so I have to deleted the link here. Goldsmith also admitted that the powerful main theme was a reminder of the Conan motif. I found a great live version here: And here you can find the version from the score - "The Dream", with the electronics The score consists of a lot of action pieces, and there is even more music on the Deluxe Edition that lasts nearly 74 minutes. The best action tracks are Clever Girl, The Big Jump and The Hologram (I especially like the electronics here which sound like a metronome clicking). What makes this score unique is the balance between the straightforward action-packed tracks and the more lyrical tracks such as A New Life. One of the best of these lyrical tracks is The Mutant when rebel leader Kuato psychically invades Quaid’s mind and reveals the true function of the machine buried beneath the mountain that will finally bring air to the Mars. This track is a perfect example of visual storytelling in music! In some tracks, Goldsmith uses a composing technique to transform the punches into music; not a new idea, but highly effective when watching these scenes with the music. Because of the high amount of chase scenes, the score is massively action driven with a dominance of the brass and the percussion sections. What makes this score very special is again Jerry Goldsmith’s ability to combine the sound of the traditional symphonic orchestra with modern electronics. “Total Recall” is the beginning of the very inspiring collaboration between Verhoeven and Goldsmith, and it is so sad that these two craftsmen did not work on more projects together. Jerry died, and Verhoeven seems to be not very welcomed in Hollywood anymore, but I am still sure that Hollywood could need a director like him because of his sense of visuals and drama and his ability to create highly action packed movies. The best action track of the score is the second last one, “End of a Dream”. This track, now 25 years old, is still one of the best action tracks ever written, and after listening you will understand my critical comments about the action tracks in “Jurassic World”. Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

Because of the death of James Horner, I decided to review another soundtrack by him on my website. The movie “Casper” (1995) is a family comedy ghost movie, directed by Brad Silberling. The movie is based on the Harvey character “Casper the Friendly Ghost” and stars Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman. The bad guys are played by Cathy Moriarty and Eric Idle. Ricci plays Kat, daughter of Dr. Harvey (Pullman) who is heading to an old house that is haunted by ghosts. Harvey's job is to get these ghosts out of the house, so they can cross over to the other side. That is what he thinks, but the real reason is that Moriarty and Idle want to have the treasure which is said to be hidden in the house. Soon Kat meets a teenager ghost named Casper who falls in love with Kat. His one wish is to be human again and maybe he can win the girl. I do not want to say more about the movie, so people who did not watch it, can still enjoy it. Here is the trailer: The music When I saw “Casper” 1995, I was really not the teenage target group with my age at that time, but what can I say: I always liked to see Christina Ricci, I really enjoy seeing ghost movies, and James Horner wrote the music for this movie, so I decided to watch it in the movie theatre, and had a great time. Okay, the final scenes are sometimes are little crap and also a little too sentimental, but the movie is still highly enjoyable. Some cameo appearance by Clint Eastwood and Dan Akroyd (track 5 “March Of The Exorchists”) are really funny. “Casper” is Horner at his best. This movie provided him with a lot of opportunities to use his skills in composing highly enjoyable music and playing with the orchestra to its fullest. I found a clip about James Horner composing the music: The first track “No Sign Of Ghosts” is already one of the highlights of the score. Horner creates with the strings from the beginning a haunting but also a funny atmosphere without using any electronics. The score nails perfect balance between creepy and funny. I really like how Horner uses the different sections of the orchestra, e.g. by introducing the beautiful love theme played on the piano. This first track has a great dramaturgic structure, and I love especially the different percussion instruments Horner is used on this first track. The second track “Carrigan & Dibs” features heavily on the theme for of our bad couple. Track four “First Haunting / The Swordword” underscores the first confrontation of Pullman and Casper’s ghost uncles. This track is great fun, has a “shocking” moment at the beginning and then reminds us during the fight of Errol Flynn’s swashbuckler movies and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s music. Most of the tracks are more lyrical than the first one, and that is the reason I highly enjoyed this track. One highlight of the quieter parts of this soundtrack is track 6 “The Ligthouse / Casper & Kat”, another wonderful interpretation of the love theme for Casper and Kat. Track 10 “Casper’s Lullaby” is for me the highlight of this soundtrack. Horner had such a great ability to write these kind of lovely and sentimentally tracks. This one gives us another wonderful interpretation of the love theme, played on piano and strings, before Horner ends this piece with a wonderful solo on the violins. This nearly six minute track is for sure one of the best tracks Horner ever composed. Here is the music: Great fun is also the next track “Descent to Lazarus”, a 10 minute piece of music. I do not want to talk about this and the next track because I would have to talk too much about the movie, and I do not want to be a spoil sport. You can skip the next two songs and listen to the end credits called “The Uncles Wing / End Credits”. Horner starts this track with a great jazzy part, and you will really think that it is sad that he did not compose more jazzy swing scores. After this jazz part, the orchestra opens up, and you can hear again all the lovely themes of the movie. These kind of tracks are timeless, and it seems that only Horner was able to compose this kind of music that still sounds fresh after 20 years. Horner used the orchestra in such a great way! Of course, there are similarities to earlier and later soundtracks, but let’s be honest: Who cares?, when you have such a great track that is over six minutes long and just fun! You can find some of the scenes of the movies on YouTube, but I highly recommend you to see the movie from the beginning. It is classical family entertainment and will be also for your kids pure fun. Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

I wanted to post this review last week, but the sudden death of James Horner made it necessary to write a post about him. I still cannot believe that he is dead and that there will be no more soundtracks by James Horner! The movie "Jurassic World" (2015) is the fourth installment of the Jurassic Park film series and the first installment of the planned Jurassic World trilogy, while also serving as a direct sequel to the franchise's first film, "Jurassic Park" (1993). It was directed by Colin Trevorrow, written by Derek Connolly and Trevorrow, produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley, and stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Omar Sy, BD Wong, and Irrfan Khan. Set 22 years after the events of "Jurassic Park", "Jurassic World" takes place on the same fictional Central American island of Isla Nublar, which is located off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, where a theme park of cloned dinosaurs has operated for nearly a decade. The park plunges into chaos when a transgenic dinosaur escapes from its enclosure and goes on a rampage. Here is the trailer: Universal Pictures intended to begin production of a fourth "Jurassic Park" film in 2004 for a mid-2005 release but development stalled while the script underwent several revisions. Following a suggestion from executive producer Steven Spielberg, writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver explored the idea of a functional dinosaur park. Once Trevorrow was hired as director in 2013, he followed the same idea while developing a new script with Connolly. Filming lasted from April to August 2014 in Louisiana and Hawaii. The dinosaurs were created by Industrial Light & Magic using CGI and by Legacy Effects using life-sized animatronics. Production was completed in May 2015. After a record-breaking opening weekend during which it became the first film to gross over $500 million, "Jurassic World" generated $1.6 billion in box office revenue, ranking sixth among the highest-grossing films of all time. It was also the second-highest-grossing film of 2015 and the highest-grossing in the franchise. Furthermore, it is the highest grossing film ever released by Universal Pictures unadjusted for inflation. The music This is the first review of a soundtrack by Michael Giacchino on my website, therefore, some basic information first. Born in New Jersey, Giacchino created as a teenager animation movies and began combining these movies with soundtracks. One of his teachers suggested Giacchino’s parents that their son should attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Giacchino said in an interview he loved the freedom at that school. He was able to get an unpaid internship at Universal and filled this position at night while attending school during the day and also working at Macy’s to pay his rent. 1990, Giacchino graduated with a Bachelor in Fine Arts. He later moved to Disney and got his first jobs in composing music for video games. His first major composition was the music for the video games of DreamWorks “Lost World”. Interesting is also that this game was the first to be recorded with an original live orchestral score. I am sure Giacchino never thought at that time that he would compose the music for a Jurassic Park movie later. Giacchino became popular for composing music for games such as the first “Medal of Honor” series and “Call of Duty: Finest Hour”. In 2001, J. J. Abrams hired Giacchino to compose the music for “Alias”and later for “Lost”. Brad Bird hired the composer for “The Incredibles”, his first feature movie score, and that score got nominated for a Grammy. Giacchino also scored for Pixar “Up” and won the Academy Award for “Best Original Score”. He also composed the music for the first movie of the new “Star Trek” franchise. I never watched “Alias” and “Lost”, no idea why, I just was not interested at that time in these two series even though my friends were big fans of “Lost”, but I thought it was too late after two seasons to step into the plot. Therefore, the first time I really recognized Michael Giacchino was for his music for “Ratatouille”, in my opinion, one of the best animation movies in the last years, and this score was the first soundtrack by Giacchino I bought. I still love this music, especially Giacchino’s ability to write wonderful melodies, and my idea was to discuss this soundtrack as the first score by Giacchino on my website, but then “Jurassic World” came out, so let’s talk about this. I watched “Jurassic World” when I was in Boston attending a summit of my business school. My first idea of that evening was listening to some live jazz music; I could not find one good place, so I decided to watch this movie on that Sunday. I did not know that Giacchino was writing the music, and just saw it at the end of the music. The soundtrack is a great mixture of lovely music that focuses more on atmosphere and very good action music later. Giacchino used John William’s majestic theme for various scenes and said: “It was a really targeted approach, as to where to include Williams' theme and where would make the most sense and where would we most appreciate it, as fans ourselves.” Because of the action packed scenes, action cues are a big part of the soundtrack, starting with Nr 5 “Clearly His First Rodeo”. Then we have a break with quieter tracks. Action comes back with track 10 “Fits and Jumpstarts”, I really like the first part of the track and how Giacchino is able to create atmosphere and suspense here. The piano part with the lovely melody here is so nice to hear. There are a lot of really noisy and quite impressive orchestrated parts of the soundtrack, and therefore, this is not an easy listening soundtrack at all. Giacchino really transforms the danger and the brutality of the dinosaur attacks in music. Examples are track 12 “Love in the Time of Pterosauria”, track 13 “Chasing the Dragons” (one highlight of the score”), track 14 “Raptor Your Heart Out” (great title!), track 15 “Costa Rican Standoff” (great beginning with the percussion and the brass section) and, of course, track 16 “Our Rex is Bigger Than Yours” (nice choir at the beginning, but I do not like the use of the choir in the second part of this track, a little over the top in my opinion). The action tracks are overall composed with a high amount of string movements and percussions, the brass section sometimes interrupts with “shocking” outbursts. Track 20 is called “Jurassic World Suite” (nearly 13 min long). To be honest, I have no clue what is the reason for this track. I can remember that some of this music was used for the end credits. Overall, I prefer the quieter parts of the score. I still think that compare to the high amount of action tracks, there is really not one track that is great from the beginning to the end. Each of these action tracks has just great parts. Compare the action tracks of this score with e.g. Jerry Goldsmith’s tracks, and you can find that Jerry was able to write perfect action tracks from the beginning to the end. My favorite track on the score is therefore Nr. 4 “As the Jurassic World Turns”. This five minute piece is for me the best track of the whole score. You really can hear how great Giacchino is in using the variety of a big orchestra. This track has wonderful melodies, a great usage of percussion, strings and the flute before Giacchino uses Williams “Jurassic Park” theme. This track as a whole is one of the best music composed this year so far. I listened to this track in the last three weeks nearly 30 times, and I just can admire Giacchino’s talent! This is really amazing movie music! From all the film music composers nowadays, Giacchino is one of the most talented, I am sure he will give us a bunch of great soundtracks in the following years. I attended the 50th birthday concert at the Royal Albert Hall and found a clip from it: Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

This week, I wanted to discuss the soundtrack of “Jurassic World”, but this shocking news changed my mind: “James Horner, the consummate film composer known for his heart-tugging scores for Field of Dreams, Braveheart and Titanic, for which he won two Academy Awards, died Monday in a plane crash near Santa Barbara. He was 61. His death was confirmed by Sylvia Patrycja, who is identified on Horner's film music page as his assistant. "We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent," Patrycja wrote on Facebook on Monday. "He died doing what he loved. Thank you for all your support and love and see you down the road." I was leaving my office in Mountain View when I saw a post from Intrada about the crash. At this moment, we all did not know what really happened, but a few hours later the death of Horner was announced. James Horner was a great film music composer, without any doubt one of the most talented people who ever composed music for films. On my website, I already discussed some of his work, and I will continue to do this, Horner composed over 130 soundtracks and a lot of them a true masterpieces! I was not always happy with Horners’ way of composing because of his attitude to steal from himself and especially from classical composers. Therefore, a frequent criticism has been this “musical borrowing”. Film music can be an homage to classical music; and why not using classical music as inspiration to create your own work? John Williams did this with “Star Wars” that reminds us of Richard Wagner. Jerry Goldsmith composed a lot of his music in a style that is similar to Bela Bartok or Igor Stravinsky, and Bill Conti was highly influenced by Gustav Holts “The Planet” when he composed his Academy Award winning score for “The Right Stuff”, but Horner copied a lot from classical works, especially Sergej Prokofiev and Aram Chatschaturjan, and did not mention this on his scores, so people think that this music was his own original work. In the last years, Horner also seems to become a bit lazy when composing music. Some of my friends told me they just have to buy “Braveheart”, “Titanic” and “A Beautiful Mind”, and they have all Horner soundtracks together. That is not true. Horner created a lot of wonderful music that was original. Goldsmith, Williams and especially Zimmer are composing in their very own similar way, so why not accepting Horner’s way of composing music as his own? The reason could be that Horner really copied music one by one from one soundtrack to another, and that gave him a bad reputation in the last years. Anyway: Never speak ill about the dead. James Horner will be truly missed; his ability to create beautiful melodies for intimate moments, his sense of drama and his talent to use the symphonic orchestra in all its richness were marvelous. Horner’s music will live forever, and all music fans will remember him as one of the most talented composers in the amazing world of movie music. My first idea was to talk about one of my favorite soundtracks here, but I think let’s celebrate Horner with examples of three of his most enjoyable scores. Rest In Peace James, and greetings to Jerry! The Mask of Zorro - “Plaza of Execution”: An American Tail - “Flying Away and End Credits”: Avatar - “War”: Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

„The Witches of Eastwick“ (1987) is one of my favorite scores by John Williams. Based on a novel by John Updike, “Mad Max” director George Miller brought an amazing cast together. Jack Nicholson as Daryl Van Horne gives one of his best performances, and Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon are playing the three dissatisfied women who get seduced by Daryl the devil. Williams’ score is a wonderful, and the dance of the witches is one of my all-time favourite tracks. The movie Critics mentioned the differences between the movie and the novel. While the film follows the basic structure of the novel, the movie is not as dark as the book. The setting is still Rhode Island, but the novel sets the time during the late 1960s. The plot of the book is especially in the end very different from the movie: The women share Daryl in peace until he unexpectedly marries their young, innocent friend Jenny, on whom they resolve to have revenge by giving her cancer through their magic. The witches then doubt their judgment after Jenny's death when Daryl flees town with her younger brother, Chris, as his lover. Daryl leaves their relationships strained and their sense of self in doubt until each witch summons her ideal man and leaves Eastwick. Wikipedia gives you an interpretation of the novel: While Updike described his book as about “female power, a power that patriarchal societies have denied", many scholars viewed it as strongly pro-feminist and rare case of a male novelist writing from women's points of view. Interesting is to mention that Winston Graham’s novel “Marnie” is also written by a woman’s point of view, and Alfred Hitchcock directed his second and last Tippi Hedren movie based on this book. By comparing the summary with the movie plot, and you will understand that the movie plot is more fun even though I think that some scenes just do not work, e.g. the tennis match is a little childish. With such a great cast, you will not be disappointed when watching the movie, and especially because of Jack Nicholson’s performance it is still fun to watch. Here is the trailer: The music John Williams was again nominated for an Academy Award for this score but did not win it that time. The soundtrack album consists of 14 tracks, and again I just want to mention only a few. “The Witches of Eastwick” is Williams at his best: you just have to admire his sense of composing music for drama, comedy and darker moments. The basic motif is the “Dances of the Witches” (the second track and the end titles), a modern version of the Dance Macabre. This Dance Macabre, or Dance of Death, is a genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death. You can find this Dance Macabre in lyrics, pictures and in classical music. They were produced as mementos mori, to remind people of the fragility of their lives. No matter how happy you are, the Dance Macabre reminds you that Death is everywhere and you can get died any time. In the 19th century and with the romantic ideas in literature and music, the Dance Macabre became very popular and composer such as Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz and Camille Saint-Saëns composed famous musical arrangements. Also in movie music, the Dance Macabre became very popular, e.g. Patrick Doyle used this theme for “Needful Things”. Williams’ “Dances of the Witches” captures perfectly the dark humour and contrasts it with a slight comedy tone. I especially love how Williams ends this piece, with a nice bow on the strings. The first track gives a nice introduction to the peaceful but also boring life in the city. Williams uses the strings and the piano to create a lovely atmosphere. Track three “Maleficio” is typical for Williams more dramatic music. This composing style, we already know from Williams’ well-known scores such as “Indiana Jones” and “Dracula”. “The Seduction of Alex” is another masterpiece of this score. Williams builds up atmosphere and suspense. Watch here the video of the scene. Track 6 “The Seduction of Suki and The Ballroom Scene” is the longest track and full of melodies. Williams uses all the musical facets of an orchestra and even though this track is nearly 30 years old, it still sounds fresh and lively, a perfect example of timeless film music. The next track is another highlight: “Daryl Arrives” underscores the turning point in the relationship between the three women and Daryl, the horns are used to give you an idea what dark moments are coming soon. Track 10 “Daryl rejected” is lovely in the use of the piano. Williams captured the feeling of Daryl’s loneliness. Another action highlight comes right after with “The Ride Home”. The next two tracks bring the story to an end, and the last one is a reprise of the Dance of the Witches. The movie is still very popular and ranks as one of the best fantasy comedies ever. George Miller is a hell of a director, and these days he just proves with “Mad Max: Fury Road” that he is still able to create a blockbuster that attracts even the younger generation who perhaps never heard the name of the director before. Williams is more popular because of his “Indiana Jones”, “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter” scores, but with “The Witches OF Eastwick” he really proves that he is one of the best composers in the film music genre. For me, “The Witches of Eastwick” ranks among “Dracula” and “The Fury” as my top three Williams’ scores. Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

Another Bill Conti score on my website, this time the James Bond score for “For Your Eyes Only”. Some fans think that the song is the best James Bond song ever. Even though Sheena Easton gives a great performance, I personally like the Shirley Bassey songs more, and I am also a big fan of a-ha’s “The Living Daylights”. The movie "For Your Eyes Only" (1981) is the twelfth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the fifth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It marked the directorial debut of John Glen, who had worked as editor and second unit director on three other Bond films. The screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson takes its characters and combines elements from the plots from two short stories from Ian Fleming's "For Your Eyes Only" collection: the title story and "Risico". In the plot, Bond attempts to locate a missile command system while becoming tangled in a web of deception spun by rival Greek businessmen along with Melina Havelock, a woman seeking to avenge the murder of her parents. Some writing elements were inspired by the novels "Live and Let Die", "Goldfinger" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". “For Your Eyes Only” is the result of a new approach in the James Bond era. “Moonraker”, the first and only James Bond score I discussed on my website so far, is great fun, but some critics and also some fans think that the movie was far over the top: too many gadgets, too many jokes and too much SF. Bond movies were getting bigger and bigger but it seems they were not as fun as the earlier movies. Therefore, “For Your Eyes Only” undertook a more serious approach. Director Lewis Gilbert and screenplay author Christoper Wood were was not again hired, instead Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson - stepson of James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli - took over, but Roger Moore still played James Bond. Former cutter John Glen was hired ass director, the gadgets were reduced to a minimum – Glen pointed out he wanted to show this new serious approach in the scene where the Lotus is blown up by itself -, the humor was still there as typical for the Roger Moore era, but the movie was now very realistic and had an unusually strong narrative theme of revenge. Additionally, the action scenes were not over the top and are sometimes, shocking brutal, especially the murder scene of Melina’s parents. In one scene, even Bond is really acting like a killer when he gives a bad guy in his car the final kick, so that the car is going over the cliff and killed the bad guy who murdered before one of Bond’s spy colleagues. “For Your Eyes Only” is still not my most favorite movie, I like “Moonraker” much more, but let’s discuss the music because Bill Conti’s attribution to the franchise is one of the best soundtrack in Conti’s career and one of the best Bond soundtracks ever. The music Bill Conti added to his traditional composing style a lot of the typical brass elements and added furthermore synthesizers to the music. His sense for melodies and atmosphere is really amazing here. Even though “Submarine” is not one of the best parts of the score, I highly appreciate Conti’s sense for building up suspense. In an interview with Emmy TV Legends, Bill Conti explained that John Barry was not able to do the movie and so recommended him. Conti was happy about the opportunity and mentioned that Bond producer “Cubby” Broccoli invited him, his wife and his two daughters to England for three months so that Conti could write "For Your Eyes Only". Conti wanted Barbra Streisand to write the lyrics and Donna Summer to sing it, but the studio suggested Sheena Easton. Conti was impressed when he listened to her singing because she was a terrific singer. Conti also explained that Michael Leeson who wrote the lyrics had created a fantastic ending line for the song, but title designer Maurice Binder wanted to start the song with the title For Your Eyes Only and therefore, when you see the title of the movie, the lyrics start with the main line “For Your Eyes Only”. Singer Sheena Easton was also the first singer in Bond history to appear on screen. “A Drive in the country” is a highly enjoyable piece during the famous car chase with the 2CV. The composing style is typical 80s, but also typical Conti. “Gonzales takes a drive” starts with some Mexican music and then switches after the murder of Gonzales to typical 80s action music, I am not a big fan of the this second part or that track. Another worse track is “Ski.. Shoot … Jump”, just suspense music, nothing more. Typical for “For Your Eyes Only” is that you have really very good music but also very weak tracks like the ones I mentioned before. “St. Cyril's Monastery” and “Run Them Down/ The Climb” are played when Bond is climbing up the way to Kristatos’ place for the final showdown. Both tracks are very good music, and you can explore again how Conti is building atmosphere, especially when 007 starts to climb. Conti even transformed the going up and down of the elevator into music. The last 20 seconds of “Run Them Down” is one of these tracks just Conti can compose: he uses the strings to build up suspense in such a great way, and then finally the percussion comes in before the track suddenly ends. These few seconds are just amazing, and one of the best reasons to buy this album. There is also a great instrumental version of the title song. Conti uses a trumpet instead of the vocals. I found a nice video with it: “The P.M. Gets the Bird/For Your Eyes Only” was on the first release of the soundtrack album the last track to a scene that is just childish. The extended edition ends with “Run Them Down…” My most favorite track is “Runaway”, the music composed to underscore the ski chase in the movie. Unfortunately, one stunt man died during the filming of this scene. Even today, this action scene is still amazing. “Runaway”, in my opinion not played loud enough in the movie, is a great action track, Conti at his best! By using the brass, the strings and the percussion (especially at the beginning), you can explore how gifted this composer is. Listen especially to the part of the music when Bond runs over the table, the music slows down a little bit, and then gets back into action again. Conti in my opinion beats in this piece even Jerry Goldsmith’s action music because Goldsmith was never able to compose such a straight forward piece of music which is so much enjoyable. Of course, John Barry is the best composer of James Bond music, but I have to say that I like Bill Conti’s music for this movie very much, the music is in my opinion the best part of the movie. For me, from all non-John Barry soundtracks, Bill Conti is the best. David Arnold did a great job when he was taking over as regular composer, but this we will discuss in the next weeks. Now enjoy the music to “Runaway”! Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

Let’s talk this week about „Titanic”. Wikipedia created a new genre for this movie, and describes “Titanic” as an “epic romantic disaster film”. Before Cameron beat himself with “Avatar”, “Titanic” was the most successful movie ever. The movie "Titanic" is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. Incorporating both historical and fictionalized aspects, the film is based on accounts of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. Here is the trailer: With an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, “Titanic” was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. A 3D version of “Titanic”, released on April 4, 2012 to commemorate the centennial of the sinking, earned it an additional $343.6 million worldwide, pushing the film's worldwide total to $2.18 billion. I was from the beginning a huge fan of Cameron’s movies. I love his “Terminator”-movies, consider “Abyss” as a highly underestimated movie, and for me, “True Lies" is Schwarzeneggers’s best movie. I remember sitting with my friends at an age of 25 together and watching “Aliens” for the first time. What a great movie, what a great music, and what a great cast! I already discovered Horners score on my website. With “Titanic”, some critics thought this will be James Cameron’s personal disaster because of the budget of over 200 million dollars. I also read that Cameron already spent 100 million without shooting any scene of the movie. Some journalist began to write articles that this upcoming fiasco will end Cameron’s career, and then “Titanic” became the biggest and most successful movie ever even though all people know how the movie will end: “Titanic” will sink! I can remember when I saw the movie for the first time in a movie theatre in Germany without a break, I was highly impressed by it: three hours emotions and great special effects. My mouth dropped open when I saw the sinking scenes, and when Leonardo died, the woman behind me began to cry, and she cried until the ending of the movie! I saw the movie three times in theatres, my brother 11 times when he was living in the US to practice his English, and we all agreed that this movie is one of the best entertaining movies we ever saw. Of course, the love story is a stereotype, but come on, who really expects from a Hollywood movie a realistic view on life? You want to cry, and you want to have a movie that pushes you beyond with its emotions, and “Titanic” is doing all of this in a perfect way. The music James Horner worked again with James Cameron, and with “Titanic” Horner composed one of the best selling soundtrack albums in history, also because of the fact that there was no single available to buy Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. People had to buy the whole soundtrack, and I suppose Horner became finally a millionaire because of this clever strategy. “Titanic” was selling over 30 million copies, and became the highest-selling primarily orchestral soundtrack ever. 2012, Horner released another soundtrack album “Back To Titanic”, and there is only one reason to buy this CD because you finally have the beautiful piano music for the drawing scene on it. I am not a big fan of the soundtrack. “Titanic” is again an example for the fact that in highly successful movies you normally just have average musical scores, no idea why this is mostly the fact. But James Horner won the highly deserved Academy Award: Jim Cameron originally intended Irish singer Enya to compose the music, and put together a rough edit of the film using her music as temporary soundtrack. Enya declined, and Horner entered “Titanic”. Horner composed the soundtrack having Enya’s style in mind, and that is the reason, I do not like most of the score. Enya is a nice artist, but her style is not suitable for an orchestral score. Horner hired Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebø to perform the wordless vocals. I did not know that Cameron did not want to have a song sung over the ending credits, but Horner disagreed and recorded the song with Dion, and then Cameron changed his mind. Funny to imagine that if Horner would have followed Cameron, one of the most successful movie songs would never exist. “My Heart Will Go On" ended up winning the 1997 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and Horner won the Oscar for the score. Horner really deserved an Oscar for music, but please not for “Titanic”, his other scores are far better. I just want to recommend a few tracks: “Southampton” and “Leaving Dock” are the tracks when the “Titanic” went to sea. These tracks contain all of the weaknesses of the score, imagine, Horner would have composed this track in the style of “Braveheart” without the vocals and the synthesizers! “Rose” is a beautiful version of the love theme, but I still prefer the piano only track from the second “Titanic” CD score edition. The best parts are the action tracks because there is not much Enya music in it, especially “Hard to Starboard” is a great piece of music. Here you can see what Horner can achieve with a full orchestra. The track is composed for the scene when the Titanic hit the ice, most of the track is wonderfully dramatic and shows Horner’s sense for drama. Track 9 and 10 are composed for the sinking, the most dramatic parts of the movie. “The Sinking” begins wonderfully with the strings, “Death of the Titanic” is more dramatic, but I have no idea why Horner uses these highly atonal parts from 5’10, this is not good music, this is often just atonal crap. Best track for me is “An Ocean of Memories”. This is such a lovely piece of music for a wonderful scene. With a “Hymn to the sea” the albums closes. The music is quite popular. Find here a version from a concert in Vienna: It was not my intention to write again such a long post, but I hope you enjoyed reading it. As I said, my website is highly subjective, but I want you all give something to think about and not just say always positive words about soundtracks. Find here the famous song: And a piano version of it: Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

I have to apologize for the long break and not writing a new review for the last weeks. I was enrolled in a Project Management class at UC Berkeley Extension due to my full-time job at Google and was not able to update the website and write a new review, but now I will keep on track again. Thank so much for the high amount of views on my website in the meantime. This makes me really proud; otherwise I would be an author without an audience. “Hoosiers” is one of my favorite soundtracks. It features a great combination of orchestra and synthesizer, has a wonderful main theme, and especially the last track with over 15 minutes is a wonderful piece of music. Goldsmith received another Academy Award nomination of this soundtrack, but in the end he lost again and did not win his second Oscar. This time Herbie Hancock with “Round Midnight” was the lucky guy. The movie "Hoosiers" is a 1986 American sports film written by Angelo Pizzo and directed by David Anspaugh in his feature directorial debut. It tells the story of a small-town Indiana high school basketball team that wins the state championship. It is loosely based on the Milan High School team that won the 1954 state championship. Here is the trailer: The movie stars Gene Hackman as coach of a small-town Indiana high school basketball team that wins the state championship. The script written by Angelo Pizzo is based loosely on the Milan High School team that won the 1954 state championship. Some critics mentioned that the heavy use of synthesizers it not suitable for a movie which is based in 1951 but this is really not a good argument. The movie is also shot by using modern cameras and modern film techniques, so why not having also a modern music? Pizzo and Anspaugh shopped the script for two years before they finally found investment for the project. Despite this seeming approval, the financiers only approved a production budget of $6 million, forcing the crew to hire most of the cast playing the Hickory basketball team and many of the extras from the local community around New Richmond. Gene Hackman also predicted that the film was going to be a "career killer." Despite the small budget, dire predictions, and little help from distributor Orion Pictures, Hoosiers grossed over $28 million and received two Oscar nominations (Dennis Hopper for Best Supporting Actor and Jerry Goldsmith for Best Original Score). Shortly after the film's release, five of the actors who portrayed basketball players in the film were suspended by the NCAA from their real-life college basketball teams for three games. The NCAA determined that they had been paid to play basketball, making them ineligible. The music A great idea is that Goldsmith used the ball dropping of a basketball on the floor and transformed this into music. For this approach, he recorded hits of basketballs on a gymnasium floor as additional percussion sounds. You can hear this especially in “You Did Good”, one of the best tracks of the soundtrack, “Get the Ball”, “The Pivot” and “The Coach Stays”. The last track offers a very nice version of the main theme with strings in the background. When I first bought the soundtrack, I just get a CD with a few tracks on it. Intrada, and again Thank you Douglass Fake!, published 2012 the complete score on CD with much more music. I did not know about this expanded CD and discovered it a few weeks ago, and that was the reason for writing this review. One of the new tracks I like very much is the track called “First Workout”, a short track, but I like it very much because of the heavy use of percussion and electronics. The rhythm of this track is wonderful, and you can really hear the ball dropping on the floor. In the last 25 seconds, you can hear again the wonderful main theme of the movie, in my opinion one of the best themes Goldsmith ever composed. The last track “The Finals” is a marvelous piece of music. It builds slowly up (nearly two minutes), and then the main theme and the action music start to underscore the last match. In the last five minutes, the music is more lyrical and comes to a wonderful ending. My favorite part of this track is from 8.03 to 10.02. Goldsmith, Pizzo and Anspaugh worked again together on the successful sports film “Rudy”, again a wonderful score that I will discuss in a few weeks. But now, enjoy the music to “Hoosiers”! Here I linked to the first minutes of the music with the wonderful main theme. Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2015, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.