Music For Your Ears

I just got back from seeing Stardust (review to come later, by Kiznox) and I have to tell you, it has one of the best musical scores I've ever heard in a movie. That got me thinking. Movies have produced some of the best music ever. I'm not talking about music you'd hear on the radio, I'm talking about the big orchestrated numbers. The ones with the huge arrangements of instruments and are used to create some emotion or drive the action.

We have all of John Williams' work from Star Wars, most notably "Duel of Fates" (which is my personal favorite), Danny Elfman's Batman theme, and Howard Shore's (correct me if I'm wrong with his name) music from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. These composers, along with many others, have produced theme songs from movies such as The Godfather, Jaws, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Superman, The Terminator and the Bond series. John Williams is probably the most recognizable, due to his Star Wars music. Ever since then, he's been everywhere.

While these songs are amazing, big movies like that aren't the only ones with musical scores that just blow me away. A movie called Bad Company with Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins has an amazing number and it's in a movie that you wouldn't think would have great music. While Stardust made me happy with the music, it wasn't the movie that made me think about this. Believe it or not, I was watching Speed (yes, the movie with Keanu Reeves) and I realized how much I loved the music from that movie. It makes me happy that there is much time devoted to making the musical score in movies, especially action movies, exceptional. Music drives the emotion or fuels the action or is just damn awesome to listen to. I hope this never goes away.