Since I’m unlikely to see many movies in theaters before
Oscar season rolls around in September or October, I’m going to start a series
all about what I consider to be great film scores and great TV theme songs.
Now, when I say TV theme songs I don’t mean “Where Everybody Knows Your Name”
by Gary Portnoy from Cheers, though that is an admittedly great song, nor do I
refer to The Rembrandts’ catchy “I’ll Be There for You” from Friends, nor do I
call attention to The Friendly Indians’ “I Know You Know,” just one great part
of the always underrated Psych. No I mean the instrumental themes that catch
your attention just as they capture the essence of the show or the mood of the
times in which the show is broadcast. If you don’t know what I mean, I’d keep
reading and then stay tuned if I were you. (I will be taking one or two days to
talk about some great TV themes with lyrics just in case you were afraid I wasn’t
going to.) Some TV themes I love are just plain catchy and that’s why I love
them, but some are just astonishing in their brilliance. The exact same goes
with the film scores. Their success, however, goes far more hand-in-hand with
their ability to evoke honest emotion at just the right time or to lay a strong
foundation for a truly fun or exciting scene. A film score somewhat defies the
norms of filmmaking. A bad one can hurt a movie, but it can’t really ruin it in
the same way poor cinematography or atrocious editing can. On the other hand, a
brilliant film score can transcend a film. Listening to a brilliant film score
after having viewed the film brings you back to the emotions you felt while
watching. I’ll share some of my favorites and why I think they’re great. I’m
going to be mixing up chronology of release and broadcast years and
interweaving film and TV as well as writing up every single one differently
depending on what clips musical segments I can find. Sometimes I’ll have a
single article for a great, but lesser known, composer and his work. Other
times I’ll have multi-part, multi-day articles on celebrated composers such as
John Williams and Max Steiner and the work of his I find particularly good, as
well as the work of lesser known (at least outside of the realm of hardcore
screen media followers) film and TV composers who deserve may have received
their fair share of acclaim, but to whom far less public attention is paid than
they wholeheartedly deserve (such as Ennio Morricone and Mike Post).
I hope you enjoy because I certainly know I’ll have an
absolute blast doing these write-ups. I might get something up today, but I probably won't.
I'll be looking forward to the write ups.
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