 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, I'm not the biggest John Barry fan in the world, so I don't know if that's a help or a hindrance when trying to answer the question...
Underrated - Difficult one... I suppose "underrated" would be something that we really like from a film that not many people have seen, or maybe just inexplicably never mentioned. I really am beating about the bush here because I can't think of anything.
Overrated? - Well, I don't mind John Barry's languid melodies, in fact I love a lot of them, but I never understood the universal popularity of OUT OF AFRICA. It has some nice moments, but the Main Theme is extremely banal. I hate the way it resolves in that "and back to the beginning again" way.
I'm really posting this because Kevin mentioned FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, so it's a good opportunity for me to show my ignorance and ask a dumb question about John Barry. I had always assumed that the title song was by Barry, and not by Lionel Bart. I know that John Barry is credited as orchestrating Bart's theme, but even just "thematically" it is to me very much a John Barry melody. What's the story?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks Cat. It's just SO much like a John Barry tune that I thought he might have had more than an orchestrational (new word?) hand in it. By the way, I've just been running a few other John Barry melodies through my head that are similar to (Bart's) FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, and I keep going to THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM then... THE LAST RUN (Jerry G).
Anyway, back on topic....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Barry didn't even conduct the Monro recording of FRWL. That was Johnny Spence...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, bearing in mind that underrated and overrated is not the same as "is good" and "is bad", I would say ...
Underrated: Walkabout. It's like some niche score hidden behind all the greats, right? Wrong. It's one of the most important scores he wrote. And, in many ways, it's everything that's good about, say, Out Of Africa, except better.
Overrated: Star Crash. Yes, I own it. Yes, I play it from time to time. But I can't understand the number of people that seem to adore this score. For me, it's the most cheesy, manufactured, "let's get this job over and done with" thing I've ever heard from Barry.
As for the comment on Out Of Africa, well it is very popular and very highly rated which, of course, makes it an "it's overrated" target but even though it's not my favourite, I do think it is a truly beautiful and apt score.
Cheers
|
|
|
|
|
|
Underrated: The Scarlet Letter
Yes, it's a replacement score, and yes, it's derivative of many of Barry's dramatic works before it (particularly Dances with Wolves). But that doesn't mean that it can't be appreciated. The love theme from Scarlet Letter is particularly great with the counterpoint, heard in 'Love Scene'. The savage percussion and brass attacks are primarily an extension of Dances with Wolves.
I agree with this. I also really like Hester Rides to Town (or whatever it's called). Beautiful cue. The music and the lush imagery of Roland Joffe's vision worked wonderfully together.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I don't really have an overrated pick, but two that are underrated:
Enigma - beautiful main theme, the score has that hypnotic Barry quality and gets alot of play from me, especially at night when trying to decompress. The last great Barry score.
Masquerade - composed around the time of another great Barry score, The Living Daylights. Wanted this on CD the second I heard the music while watching the film in a theater back in 1988 and had to wait some 15 plus years for it (don't have the CD in front of me but I think it was Prometheus in 2005). One of my top five Barry scores.
|
|
|
|
|
|
all his Oscar winners are overated
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Underrated:
"The Deep"
Overrated:
"The Man WIth the Golden Gun" (even Barry himself isn't found of this one!)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Jun 22, 2021 - 10:55 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
mortenbond
(Member)
|
I am a Barry fanatic, but I never play Out of Africa. I know it is the BIG one, Oscar winning and all. But I find it sooooo slow - it slips out of my loudspeakers like syrup. The space between notes is so big that you almost have to play it at double speed to pick up the melody.
And the "sound design" of The White Buffalo". No thanks! Awful!
Don`t care much for Mike`s Murder, Day of the Locust, Hammer, Cotton Club, Svengali, most of The Deep, Boom, Four in the Morning, Mercury Rising, Svengali either.
Crazy about almost all the others, though.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Overrated: The Deep and The Black Hole. I really don't get the fuss about these two - every so often, I try and listen to them, and never really make it through more than a couple of tracks without losing attention. I find both very nerve jarring, somehow.
Whoa, THE BLACK HOLE is among my top 5 John Barry scores, though it's not that well known. I'd rather call it "underrated" than "overrated" then.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
