> The penultimate chapter in my brief travels of the lesser discussed Horner
> albums that I had yet to encounter myself. As before the previous parts
> can be found below:
> Part 1: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=133826
> Part 2: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=133940
> Part 3: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=133964
> ---------------
> Radio (2003)
> An inspirational sports drama from TV director/producer Michael Tollin,
> Radio follows the “based on a true story” tale of a South Carolina
> high school football coach (Ed Harris) who befriends and helps a young
> Black man with mental disabilities (Cuba Gooding Jr.). I vaguely remember
> seeing bits of this on TV in the mid 2000’s and thinking it was largely
> harmless fluff, though thinking back on it it’s most definitely a case of
> “trying to be “progressive” while instead being cringe” in pretty much all
> the ways one might imagine. Apparently critics at the time caught on to
> this moreso than pre-teen Ben as it got largely maligned upon release and
> only did so-so business at the box office.
> Scoring duties were given to James Horner who by the early 2000’s was
> firmly in his post-Titanic “recycling drama scores” phase that
> either gave us some great works (The Missing, Enemy at the
> Gates, The Four Feathers) or… this. As a score Radio is
> perfectly serviceable within the small scale drama sound that by this
> point seemed second nature to Horner and the central theme (“Radio’s
> Day”) is as amiable as one might imagine… though it’s distractingly
> close to the opening phrase of “A Whole New World” from Alan
> Menken’s Aladdin (1992). Most of the meager 26 odd minutes of score
> on the commercial album are just variations on the Main theme mixed with
> all the expected Hornerisms of the period though some thriller-esque
> intensity is brought forth for the first half of “Resignation” and the
> electric guitar performances of A Perfect Storm briefly emerge
> during “Night Game” accompanied by snare drums.
> Overall Radio is a perfectly middle-of-the-road Horner drama work
> that while it doesn’t do anything especially bad, also fails to do
> anything particularly memorable… either positive or negative. The album
> presentation thankfully presents all of the score tracks clustered
> together instead of interspersed with the various period appropriate
> songs, though the end credits song based around Horner’s primary theme
> (“Eyes of the Heart (Radio’s Song)” sung by India.Arie) is stuck at
> the front of the album. Anyway, unless one has a particular nostalgic
> fondness for this effort, there’s no need to go out of your way to track
> down the out of print album.
> Score:
>
2 1/2 out of 5
I need to find a more complete version of this. Does it exist somewhere? Does it flesh out a more satisfying score? Horner doing inspirational sports drama should be gold.
>
————————
>
Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)
> A biopic sports drama about the life and career of professional golfer
> Bobby Jones who won all four of the major men’s golf tournaments in a
> single season during 1930. Directed by Rowdy Harrington (Road House) and
> starring Jim Caviezel, Claire Forlani, Malcolm McDowell and Aiden Quinn,
> Bobby Jones was a massive box office disappointment and ran afoul
> with critics who panned the films simplification of Jones’ life and the
> monotones pacing. Having never seen the film I cannot comment, but
> considering I never see it mentioned anywhere nor have come across used
> copies of the DVD at secondhand stores… I figure no-one cares about it.
> Unless you happen to be a Canuck named Riley who desperately loves the
> music by James Horner.
>
Sadly, this is another instance where me and Riley do not
> agree as despite the very pleasant and amiable nature of Bobby
> Jones… this thing is incredibly repetitive and languid. Essentially
> what Horner has done here is take the opening theme from Braveheart
> (at least on the 1995 album) and driven that melody into the ground while
> supplementing it with one of the secondary themes from Field of
> Dreams and some lesser motifs from Bicentennial Man (itself a
> “recycled score” but with far more nuance and energy). Oh, and slather the
> whole thing with the composers then trademark Celtic instrumentation
> alongside a full orchestra and synths for good measure. The end result is,
> as mentioned earlier, quite amiable in tone yet does absolutely nothing to
> set itself apart from all the other Horner drama scores… and its pacing
> makes this a perfect album to fall asleep to.
> According to reviews of the film, the pacing therein is very monotonous
> and judging by the score album, I’d have to concede that it very much is.
> Honestly Bobby Jones reminded me of one of those City of Prague
> Philharmonic covers where the orchestration is mostly on-point but they
> somehow MASSIVELY screwed up the tempo so everything sounds like it’s
> stuck in sonic mud. That’s how Stroke of Genius feels. Anyway,
> despite all my griping about this one I can see where someone (i.e, Riley)
> could really love it for its easy going attitude and pleasant repeated
> thematic statements, though for me I’d rather just listen to the scores
> Bobby Jones is recycling ideas from.
For the curious,
> the album is currently readily available on digital platforms, so go and
> make up ones own mind on this. Or don’t. Either way, I’m definitely off of
> the Christmas card list for Riley now….
> Score:
>
2/5
HARD disagree!!! Dude, I love this score. The main theme is a total ear worm. There are passages that hit the soul strings. But yeah there is recycling blah blah. Maybe its because I first heard this when it came out and so its nostalgic for me. Funny how certain 2nd-tier Horner scores like this can wildly run the spectrum for people between indifference and completely infatuation. His career is unique that way.
>
———————————
>
The Forgotten (2004)
>
Hey, anyone remember this weird little Sci-Fi thriller about
> Julianne Moore trying to prove her memories of her son are real despite no
> physical evidence of him ever existing? And that at the end it’s all
> thanks to aliens?? Yeah, apparently hardly anyone else does despite the
> film doing decently at the box office (critics apparently hated it,
> though) leading this title to be… forgotten.
>
*ahem*
>
So James Horner got the gig to do the music and gives us a
> highly atmospheric acoustic-synthetic hybrid score that at times shows
> promises of something good… and then quickly falls apart. According to
> Clem’s review and hazy memories of trying to watch this many moons ago,
> the dichotomy in the score is to represent the maternal love of Moore’s
> character juxtaposed to the alien-thriller aspects. Makes perfect sense
> and could be rather intellectually engaging as music. Unfortunately Horner
> largely drops the ball by giving the maternal aspect an airy romantic idea
> not dissimilar to House of Sound and Fog or the New Age-y aspects
> of Titanic and then presenting the most lazy, atmospheric noodling
> for everything else. Thematically the score is centered around two ideas
> which play as counterpoint in the opening “An Unsettling Calm”: the
> aforementioned flowing primary theme heard on piano & violin and a
> darker, two-note motif often performed on metallic percussion. For obvious
> reasons the two-note motif becomes the dominating force for much of the
> runtime with the main theme finally reasserting itself in the closing trio
> fo tracks.
>
Of somewhat interesting note (though not really) is that
> Horner occasionally lets loose with some truly gnarly sounding industrial
> synth passages that burst out of seemingly nowhere that easily ranks as
> some of his worst material ever (previewed in the second half of
> “Remember”) Also worth mentioning is the inclusion of sound samples
> of children playing that opens and closes the score, again this apparently
> ties into the film but on album feels awkward and perhaps more disturbing
> than intended.
>
So yeah, this one is bad. The rather lovely if nebulous
> primary theme saves it from being utterly forgettable like Bopha!
> but once again one can’t help but feel Horner is delivering the bare
> minimum for this project. At the same time the mid 2000’s was the
> beginning of having studio thrillers or horror films eschew traditional
> thematic scores for “unsettling atmospherics” though there’s clearly a
> baseline attempt here to still be *somewhat* thematically driven… oh well.
> Unless one is a Horner completionist or wants to check out the fleeting
> but nice main theme, The Forgotten is one effort that is probably
> best left… forgotten.
OK, I’ll see myself out
> now.
> Score:
>
1 1/2 out of 5
Now this one we agree on. Horner scores in the category of low budget synthy keyboard pads and piano improvisation mode are .... pretty forgettable. Oooof!
N8
