Movies’ soundtracks—the good and bad… (horror, actors, watching, David Bowie)

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Ben Hur is on right now on TCM, and I'm listening to the music. An almost-complete symphonic score weaving in and out of the scenes, for 3 hours! Amazing. I'll stay up until the chariot race--can't miss that! One of the greatest live action movie scenes ever.

[KathrynAragon]

Hey, I thought of this song from a great movie as I was reading BanjoMike's excellent response:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLaCypGOLgc

[DiffuseGlow]

The main theme for Casualties of War by Ennio Morricone.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1syYNwfRrn8

[danderson400]

Originally Posted by KCZ

No one has mentioned Gone With the Wind? Tara's Theme and Escape from Atlanta were just perfect and could never be mistaken for anything except GWTW.

Tara's Theme is right up there for sure.

Flashdance has some good songs too. "Imagination" performed by Laura Branigan and the title theme, performed by Irene Cara are really good too.

There was another movie that had Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes singing at the end, does anyone remember that one?

[suzy_q2010]

Originally Posted by danderson400

Tara's Theme is right up there for sure.

Flashdance has some good songs too. "Imagination" performed by Laura Branigan and the title theme, performed by Irene Cara are really good too.

There was another movie that had Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes singing at the end, does anyone remember that one?

This?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plKnAI7Gv4c

[danderson400]

Yes, that one. It and Tara's Theme from GWTW were two of my favorite movie songs ever.

[Veritas Vincit]

One of the things I've noticed is that pretty much as a rule every orchestral sweeping score is attributed by people to John Williams while every more modern, but very 'epic'-sounding score is attributed to Hans Zimmer. I remember back in the day on music download platforms so many themes would be mislabeled.



I guess it's a compliment to those two composers that they're so intimately associated with a particular style of movie music, but it also shows that even though most people have favorite movie themes and they can indeed be much more popular than actual pop songs, few people pay close attention to who is the creator of said music. When a pop song comes to our attention we ask 'who performs it?' but when we hear a movie theme we just ask 'which movie is that from?'.

[KathrynAragon]

Originally Posted by suzy_q2010

This?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plKnAI7Gv4c

Bingo, beat me to it.

[katharsis]

I have not read all the threads, but movie soundtracks that I own and listen to frequently are:

The Good, the Bad an the Ugly
Paint Your Wagon
Dances with Wolves
Cider House Rules
Far From the Madding Crowd
Shakespeare in Love

[danderson400]

I can't think of the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High without hearing "We Got the Beat" performed by The Go-Go's. Can't think of that movie without Belinda Carlisle's voice....