Film Score Discussion

[aiman04]

I though we can have a discussion about film scores. We can discuss anything from instruments to music editing.

I'm finding it hard to remember any good themes from films the last 10 years, I don't know what happened. Slow, drama type films are fine, but for big blockbusters I found that the scores are like toned down and/or forgettable. There are no recognizable character themes, but more like incidental scores, without meaningful melody to it. I don't remember anything from Man of Steel, they're loud, but nothing that I can hum while discussing it. Even Alan Silvestri, who I always recognized his cue before, sounds generic now (i.e. The Avengers).

There are a few exceptions, the Pirates of the Caribbean series were good, they should give more work to Klaus Badelt (he scored the first film). Michael Giacchino was also good earlier in his career, but he disappointed me with Super 8 and his later films. Alexandre Desplat is promising. But what really made me thinking about this is John Powell's work in the How to Train Your Dragon films. His work in them rekindle my hope. I really admire his score in these films.

I like grand orchestral score we often heard from 1970's to 1990's, probably started by the maestro John Williams. But but not necessarily all the time, depending on films but at least has memorable themes. Danny Elfman's Men in Black and Don Davis' The Matrix trilogies were great.

My favorite composers are John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Alan Silvestri (older films), Danny Elfman, James Horner, David Arnold, Trevor Jones, Brad Fiedel, Howard Shore, James Newton Howard, and my new favorite John Powell. I would also give my respect to Alfred Newman for the 20th Century-Fox fanfare.

Those we my thoughts. What do you guys think? Who and what kind of score is your favorite? What do you think the quality of film scores lately?