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Posted: |
May 16, 2011 - 11:59 AM
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By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
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Thomas Newman's music leaves me cold - I've heard Up Close and Personal, Pay It Forward, Series of Unfortunate Events, and Little Children, all of which really didn't have much of an impact on me.
It's odd that I feel this way about him, as David Newman is among my *favorite* composers.
Not so odd. Though the Newman brothers share some musical sensibility, they are very different composers.
While I'm partial to "Little Children," I don't know that it's an entry-level Thomas Newman score, and none of the rest of those are among my favorites of his. If you can, have a listen to "Meet Joe Black," "American Beauty," "Scent of a Woman," "Fried Green Tomatoes," "Angels in America," or "Road to Perdition." (I'm forgetting some others, I'm sure.)
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If you can, have a listen to "Meet Joe Black," "American Beauty," "Scent of a Woman," "Fried Green Tomatoes," "Angels in America," or "Road to Perdition." (I'm forgetting some others, I'm sure.)
Excellent list, and I would add "The War" (1994).
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If you can, have a listen to "Meet Joe Black," "American Beauty," "Scent of a Woman," "Fried Green Tomatoes," "Angels in America," or "Road to Perdition." (I'm forgetting some others, I'm sure.)
Excellent list, and I would add "The War" (1994).
I agree with all of the above [Good/Great scores that I own and listen to maybe twice a year] and then the rest of his scores are well...garbage. He never creates any themes or well...anything. Everything is scene specific and while the it does work in the above scores and quite possibly for all the film he has scores, he's become so "good" at cranking out these kind of scores that it all sounds so bland, generic, and well...trash.
You know you are in trouble when other composers can mimic you're style so well that it shows the lack of skill needed to create that kind of work. Case in point is GONE BABY GONE by Harry Gregson-William which is a terrific score that I would bet anything that the workprint had NO TEMP SCORE.
Someone just told HGW that "this film needs something like what Thomas Newman did in ROAD TO PERDITION" and he delivered.
If you are a fan and love his work, more power to you( ! ) but he isn't unique in that odd way that Danny Elfman is where you can just tell it is an Elfman score vs an Elfman knock off.
I was disappointed with his Pixar output as well although FINDING NEMO came very close to actually having themes rather then music that fit together well.
I would love to eat my words and be knocked out if he scores something like THE AVENGERS or the eventual BATMAN reboot.
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Not familiar with the 80s stuff, Thor, but I too was baffled by that statement. In fact after thinking about it for a while I assumed it was meant to be ironic.
Newman's a class act, whether doing the big orchestral stuff or the quirkier small-scall stuff. Surprised he's been relatively quiet of late (and I have to say I was a bit disappointed in The Adjustment Bureau, which had its moments but felt like an "easy" thing for him to have written).
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Thomas Newman is to me at the same place that Gustavo Santaolalla is in that I like some of the work and then the rest bleeds in together to just sound like the same thing.
I feel T. Newman in particular has gotten in a state where someone like Steve Jablonsky's SAM AT THE LAKE (from TRANSFORMERS) sounds exactly like something he would have made and not some knock off.
Again, this isn't a knock against the man, his work, or his craft because he is a seasoned composer and I cannot deny the greatness of LITTLE WOMEN or ROAD TO PERDITION. Maybe I got it all wrong or maybe my taste sucks... up to you.
I just saw JARHEAD recently and was rather let down with the score and surprised how the source music had more emotional weight then the film score.
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If you can, have a listen to "Meet Joe Black," "American Beauty," "Scent of a Woman," "Fried Green Tomatoes," "Angels in America," or "Road to Perdition." (I'm forgetting some others, I'm sure.)
Excellent list, and I would add "The War" (1994).
I concur with all those, my favs by him are Angels, Meet Joe Black, Road to Perdition, I love a few tracks from Shawshank the last two are worth the price of the CD alone, ESPECIALLY Fried Green Tomatoes, one of my most favorite films. That ending of them walking to the car with the sun fading in the back and the music swelling is one of those cinematic scenes, that to me, is a PERFECT marriage of music and imagery. Get's me emotional and the hairs stand up on my arm every single time I see that scene.
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