I was quite pleased with Danny Elfman's scores for EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and BATMAN RETURNS. After that, I really didn't find his work all that interesting.

I have personally been a bit more interested in the work of Howard Shore, James Newton Howard and even Hans Zimmer on a good day. (Zimmer in his early days did some really interesting work. And I confess to enjoying his work with Lisa Gerrard on GLADIATOR and the mock opera he did for HANNIBAL.) Howard Shore combined with David Cronenberg is usually a can't miss. His scores for THE FLY and DEAD RINGERS are two of the finest ones I have. And James Newton Howard has written interesting work since EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE, particularly when he worked with Night on THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE.

My childhood nostalgia always turns me to the classic scores by Williams, Goldsmith and Barry, though. And I'm still struck even by the Twillight Zone scores done by Bernard Hermann. That was some really eerie, and yet quite moving, music.

And James Newton Howard has written interesting work since EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE, particularly when he worked with Night on THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE.

Not to mention THE VILLAGE, which I find to be the best of his scores for Shyamalan even if the film turned out to be a disappointment. In fact, for me, it's JNH's finest score overall -- a very poignant work.

AndyDursin wrote:

And James Newton Howard has written interesting work since EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE, particularly when he worked with Night on THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE.

Not to mention THE VILLAGE, which I find to be the best of his scores for Shyamalan even if the film turned out to be a disappointment. In fact, for me, it's JNH's finest score overall -- a very poignant work.

I also love THE VILLAGE, but my favorite score of his for an MNS film is SIGNS-

I did put in RED DRAGON by Elfman earlier today at work and was listening to it....lol...it really is kind of lifeless. I disliked the movie intensely, feeling that MANHUNTER is a much superior film and more scary and creepy. RD was just a huge dud for me.

Almost time to purchase the Superman Box set! : )

I did put in RED DRAGON by Elfman earlier today at work and was listening to it....lol...it really is kind of lifeless. I disliked the movie intensely, feeling that MANHUNTER is a much superior film and more scary and creepy. RD was just a huge dud for me.

That movie was horrid and I knew it was going to be horrible as soon as it started and Elfman's score came blaring on-screen like THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. So predictable, obvious, and dull...lol. Makes Hans Zimmer's oddly subtle score for HANNIBAL -- a film that was even more reprehensible -- seem like a masterwork.

BTW after RED DRAGON, HANNIBAL and this year's HANNIBAL RISING (anyone even see that one?) I think it's high time to put the "franchise" out to pasture myself.

JNH has been a steady and reliable favorite of mine for a while now. Check out his new I Am Legend score!

AndyDursin wrote:

I did put in RED DRAGON by Elfman earlier today at work and was listening to it....lol...it really is kind of lifeless. I disliked the movie intensely, feeling that MANHUNTER is a much superior film and more scary and creepy. RD was just a huge dud for me.

That movie was horrid and I knew it was going to be horrible as soon as it started and Elfman's score came blaring on-screen like THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. So predictable, obvious, and dull...lol. Makes Hans Zimmer's oddly subtle score for HANNIBAL -- a film that was even more reprehensible -- seem like a masterwork.

BTW after RED DRAGON, HANNIBAL and this year's HANNIBAL RISING (anyone even see that one?) I think it's high time to put the "franchise" out to pasture myself.

I had no desire to see HR and don't ever intend to...of all those movies, the only two worth watching (to me anyway) are MANHUNTER and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

The score for HANNIBAL was actually pretty good, particularly that mock opera. Zimmer on a good day comes up with some fairly inventive and interesting material, sometimes in lower quality movies.

As for MANHUNTER, I must confess never being much of a fan of the film. I saw it when it came out in 1986 and saw it as an exercise in style over content. Too many perfectly framed shots or art deco moments. John Powers' review in the LA WEEKLY at the time summed it up pretty well - even the crime scenes looked like they were "designed", not like the place where something truly horrible had happened to human beings. A crucial scene between William Peterson and his son in a supermarket inexplicably changes the background behind Peterson to the point that I was completely knocked out of the scene. And that's without even getting into using "In A Gadda-da-Vida" for the climactic music. Once I saw the film with Mann's commentary (on the Anchor Bay Digimax release), some of this became clearer. Mann discusses his use of that song as being based on a real serial killer he had studied who used that song when he killed - but that kind of thing really has nothing to do with the story of the movie, and it's a jarring choice.

I found SILENCE OF THE LAMBS to be a far superior film, because it relocated the story from MANHUNTER to a more recognizably human place, with a lot less of the overt style cluttering the matter up.

Good points on MANHUNTER. The first time I saw it I was totally creeped out- there was something about the visual elemnts, the way the killer looked, etc. RED DRAGON completely missed out on those things in my opinion- I didn't find it as creepy or suspenseful. Ralph Fiennes (even with that huge tattoo on his back) didn't compare to how scary the killer looked in MANHUNTER when I saw it.

I don't remember much about Zimmer's score for HANNIBAL. I thought the movie was dumb, and I think I had the score at one point, but I must have given it away for lack of interest. I wouldn't mind hearing it now just to see if I made the right decision....probably not...lol...

Let me clarify re RED DRAGON vs MANHUNTER.

I had lots of problems with MANHUNTER, as stated, and believe me, I really WANTED to like that movie. I was a big fan of Michael Mann from "Miami Vice", and from what I knew at the time about the upcoming "Crime Story". So I really didn't go into that one with an axe to grind or anything. And in the years since, I loved HEAT and THE INSIDER, so it isn't a blanket thing with me.

As far as RED DRAGON, I thought the film was actually less interesting than MANHUNTER. At least MANHUNTER had the over-stylization to keep really interesting ideas on the screen. With RED DRAGON, it felt like we were seeing a replay of the script of MANHUNTER only on the sets from SILENCE and without any sense of narrative originality or urgency. I can't really fault the cast for this - Edward Norton and Ralph Fiennes are really good actors, but I'm really not a fan of Brett Ratner. The whole exercise felt empty to me, and I don't see any other place but Ratner for the responsibility.

I like MANHUNTER a great deal. In some ways I felt it was more "organically" suspenseful than SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, not needing that whole Gothic look, the portrayal of Hannibal as a Frankenstein-like monster, etc. But it is somewhat dated in some respects as David mentioned with the music, and I've never been a fan of Kim Griest, truth be told.

Certainly it is ten times the movie that RED DRAGON was. That film was so vanilla, boring, and stilted, it reminded me of a stock disaster film from the '70s with stars' names appearing in little boxes on the poster. Elfman's score set the tone right off the bat, and I found portions of it unintentionally funny -- such as when Philip Seymour Hoffman was burned alive. Not sure why everyone in the theater was laughing at that sequence but the entire movie felt like one big Check-Cashing venture for all the cast involved (even Norton was on autopilot), and outside of X-MEN 3 (which I was surprised to like a great deal), I've never been a fan of Ratner either.

Now, HANNIBAL was reprehensible in a whole different arena, a career low for Ridley Scott and a check-cashing venture for everyone involved there too...just mind-boggling how much money that movie made and how utterly disgusting it was.

I haven't liked Elfman's past few super hero scores but next to John Williams, he is clearly the best film composer working today. And as for the Family Guy joke... which other composer were they supposed to use? Sorry, but aside from maybe Hans Zimmer or MAYBE James Horner, the average Family Guy fan has no idea who the other film composers are. Was that joke going to work with James Newton Howard? Of course not. They used Elfman because, like it or not, he has a recognizeable sound and is one of the most well known film composers next to John Williams. I took the joke as a compliment.

It would have been funnier if he had said "Now we'll have to do the rest of this with Steve Jablonsky!"

DavidM wrote:I haven't liked Elfman's past few super hero scores but next to John Williams, he is clearly the best film composer working today. And as for the Family Guy joke... which other composer were they supposed to use? Sorry, but aside from maybe Hans Zimmer or MAYBE James Horner, the average Family Guy fan has no idea who the other film composers are.

I dunno, no other series has nearly as many obscure (really obscure) pop culture references as FG -- which is one of the reasons I love it -- that I think they could've done something a little less obvious.

But obviously Elfman was the clear choice since he's associated with THE SIMPSONS and the creators of the two shows hate one another, so it was a dig more directed at that than just a ragging on his music most likely.