> This is part of a series.
> - Here’s the last post on The Lion King, Dark Phoenix, etc.
> - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=119950
> - If you want the full set of links covering the Too Big To Fail era or
> earlier, click on my profile.
> -----------------------
> One would think getting into the final run of years in this era (2020,
> 2021, 2022, and early 2023) would mean having to spend a few paragraphs
> talking about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ll get there, but
> there were a number of works by this musical lineage in 2020 that merit
> discussion first:
> - Five were for films released in the first few months of that year when
> things still seemed normal
> - Another was for a film that had its premiere in March 2020 but ended up
> reaching audiences via a fall streaming release
> - One was for a film that had a festival showing in fall 2019 before
> ending up on VOD services in late 2020
> - Another was for a film that was shown at Sundance in early 2020 before
> ending up in virtual cinemas in summer 2020
> - Four were for 2020 films / shows that had no release pre-pandemic but
> likely had their scores completed before then
> - One was an album of concert suites that were probably recorded before
> the pandemic
> There’s also Mosul which was first shown at the 2019 Venice Film
> Festival before ending up on Netflix around Thanksgiving 2020, but Henry
> Jackman’s music (which he characterized as being cut from the same cloth
> as what he did for Captain Philips) didn’t get an album release.
> There were also several scores that I’ve confirmed had all or nearly all
> of their music completed in 2019 or early 2020 but sat on the shelf until
> March 2021 or later, and I’ll cover those in future posts along with all
> the other scores that were composed and recorded during/after the
> pandemic.
> -----------------------
> The Rhythm Section (2020) - **½
> Steve Mazzaro; produced by Hans Zimmer; add’l music by Lisa Gerrard;
> sequencer programming Omer Benyamin; technical score engineer Chuck Choi;
> technical assistants Steve Doar & Alejandro Moros; digital instrument
> design Mark Wherry;
> digital instrument preparation Taurees Habib & Raul Vega; Cynthia Park
> as Zimmer’s assistant
> TBTF discovery #73.
> This action film would be delayed numerous times and eventually limp into
> theaters to impressively low box office returns. Another composer was
> likely on it at the start; Adam Taylor had worked with director Reed
> Morano on her two prior films and episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale,
> and there’s an unconfirmed rumor that David Arnold was involved at some
> point. But Steve Mazzaro was announced as its composer two months before
> its release date, probably doing a last-minute “save the movie”
> replacement job. It certainly wasn’t the first time that Hans or someone
> else associated with this musical lineage (or a junior composer overseen
> by Hans, as was the case here) was brought in under such circumstances.
> Heck, by my count it was the forty-eighth such instance as of January
> 2020.*
> His score teeters on the edge of incoherence, as all of the Zimmer eras
> (the early years, MV, RC, and Too Big To Fail) inform different areas.
> Some chord shifts suggest the keyboard scores of Hans’ earlier years. The
> tension in Take The Contract recalls Interstellar but with
> Lisa Gerrard on top of it, while other passages with Gerard’s voice play
> more like her Media Ventures contributions. The track Marseille
> starts out feeling like Black Hawk Down and ends up thumping like
> Dunkirk. Mombasa from Inception lurks over the action
> piece Hunting. There are also nervous violin solos and even several
> tracks that allude to the midfilm Scotland sequences, with the
> album-closing piece Journey a stellar example of that latter
> element.
> Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson were producers on this film, and
> before it came out they brought in Hans and Steve to salvage the music of
> another one of their upcoming releases, though after they finished their
> re-score on that other film it would be shelved for more than a year
> thanks to COVID.
> *Here’s the list
> Completely replaced
> 1. Regarding Henry - Georges Delerue
> 2. K2 (European release) - Chaz Jankel
> 3. Point of No Return - Gary Chang
> 4. White Squall - Maurice Jarre
> 5. Face/Off - Mark Isham
> 6. Tarzan - Alan Silvestri
> 7. Remember the Titans - John Debney
> 8. Rat Race - Elmer Bernstein
> 9. Texas Rangers - Marco Beltrami
> 10. The Bourne Identity - Carter Burwell
> 11. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - Alan
> Silvestri
> 12. Something’s Gotta Give - Alan Silvestri
> 13. Phone Booth - Nathan Larson
> 14. Team America: World Police - Marc Shaiman
> 15. Hitman (2007) - unknown
> 16. TMNT - Marco Beltrami
> 17. Clash of the Titans (2010) - Craig Armstrong & Neil Davidge
> 18. Game of Thrones Season 1 - Stephen Warbeck
> 19. Arthur Christmas - Michael Giacchino & Adam Cohen
> 20. Planes - James Seymour Brett
> 21. 300: Rise of an Empire - Federico Jusid
> 22. CHAPPiE - Ryan Amon, Chris Clark & Rich Walters
> 23. Terminator Genisys - Christophe Beck
> 24. Pan - Dario Marianelli
> 25. Money Monster - Michael Andrews
> 26. The Legend of Tarzan - Mario Grigorov
> 27. Hacksaw Ridge - John Debney
> 28. The Crown Season 1 - Paul Englishby
> 29. Geostorm - Pinar Toprak
> 30. Blade Runner 2049 - Jóhann Jóhannsson
> 31. Pacific Rim: Uprising - John Paesano
> 32. Gemini Man - Marco Beltrami
> 33. No Time To Die - Dan Romer
> Replaced except for source music
> 34. Ella Enchanted - Shaun Davey
> 35. The Lone Ranger - Jack White
> Mostly replaced
> 36. Gears of War 2 - Kevin Riepl
> Partially replaced
> 37. White Fang - Basil Poledouris
> 38. Secret Window - Philip Glass
> 39. Constantine (2005) - Brian Tyler
> 40. Ghost in the Shell (2017) - Clint Mansell
> 41. Christopher Robin - Jon Brion
> 42. Ad Astra - Max Richter
> Partially replaced - Harry/Ridley section
> 43. Prometheus - Marc Streitenfeld
> 44. Exodus: Gods and Kings - Alberto Iglesias & Federico Jusid
> Not enough known to classify properly
> 45. Blade: Trinity - The RZA
> 46. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit - Julian Nott
> 47. Fast & Furious 6 - Lucas Vidal
Way too harsh on Rhythm Section, which I thought was an excellent action score that went surprising directions I didn't expect.
>
>
> Bad Boys for Life (2020) - ***
> Lorne Balfe; add’l music by Steffen Thum, Max Aruj, Steven Davis &
> Sven Faulconer; orchestrated by Shane
> Rutherfoord-Jones; conducted by Nick Glennie-Smith; music production
> services Queenie Li; drums Sheila E.
> TBTF discovery #74.
> The Bad Boys franchise is a great exhibit for the increasingly
> divergent musical preferences of its makers. The first inaugurated the
> Media Ventures action sound under Jerry Bruckheimer, while the sequel
> released eight years later was the prototypical example of the rap / rock
> coolness director Michael Bay looked for on many of his future scores.
> Only Bruckheimer returned for the long-awaited third film, and thus the
> music swung back to his preferred style and his preferred composer Lorne
> Balfe, who got a massive return on investment for doing those last-minute
> replacement scores for Geostorm and Gemini Man. Lorne
> couldn’t resist another opportunity to reinterpret another composer’s
> iconic idea, in this case Mancina’s from the first film. “Every one of
> my friends who’s not musical remembers it. It's definitely coming
> back.” He would also convincingly reproduce the legacy 90s Bruckheimer
> sound by evoking not just Bad Boys but The Rock as well.
> Lorne’s score was a fun dose of nostalgia, though the job would be
> somewhat bittersweet as the composer had to step away to take care of his
> sick father back in Scotland. “If it hadn’t been for my team, I
> wouldn’t have finished.”
I'd probably give it 3.5/5. Damn fun stuff.
>
>
> Rebuilding Paradise (2020) - ***
> Hans Zimmer & Lorne Balfe; add’l music by Boris Salchow, Peter G.
> Adams, Max
> Aruj & Steffen Thum; technical Music Assistants Michael Bitton, Alfie
> Godfrey & Mike
> Ladouceur; technical score engineer Chuck Choi; digital instrument design
> Mark Wherry;
> digital instrument preparation Taurees Habib & Raul Vega; electric
> cello Peter Gregson;
> electric violin Eos Counsell; guitar Michael Bitton; RC studio manager
> Shalini Singh;
> music production coordinator Queenie Li; Cynthia Park as Zimmer’s
> assistant
> TBTF discovery #75.
> Debuting at Sundance in January 2020, Ron Howard’s acclaimed documentary
> about California’s 2018 Camp Fire disaster had its release delayed by
> COVID before eventually emerging via a mix of traditional theaters,
> drive-ins, and video on demand (VOD) services. It was a rare documentary
> assignment for both credited composers, and the mix of the format and the
> tragic topic covered led the team to go for a slightly understated
> approach, one made up of slow chord shifts, somber but unemotive strings
> and piano, and solo instrumental accents (both acoustic and electronic).
> Lorne would characterize the film as needing “less is more. As soon as
> you go into the usual film scoring, where you’re trying to enhance every
> emotion, you’re turning it into a Hollywood moment.” The album gives
> off an appropriate sense of restrained perseverance, save for the exultant
> One Year Anniversary which plays like a hybrid of Zimmer’s early
> days and his melodic minimalistic present.
>
>
> Jungleland (2020) - ****
> Lorne Balfe; score technical assistant Max Aruj; orchestrated by Shane
> Rutherfoord-Jones;
> conducted by Johannes Vogel; music production coordinator Queenie Li
> TBTF discovery #76.
> Lorne’s role on this underground boxing picture was announced in August
> 2019, a month before the film’s premiere at the Toronto Film Festival,
> with the film eventually getting a limited theatrical release in November
> 2020 before moving to VOD services. Director Max Winkler didn’t want the
> music to reflect the grimness of the characters’ situation because “I
> don’t think these guys see their circumstances as depressing. I wanted our
> horns to reflect this optimist despite everyone telling him he should
> stop.” Balfe’s score was worlds away from anything he’d ever written
> for films, something much more reliant on wistful flute parts, restrained
> folk modes, and noble brass chorales that sounded nothing like Remote
> Control and instead suggested a melancholy-yet-hopeful hybrid of Aaron
> Copland and Philip Glass, as well as Renaissance composer William Byrd (a
> favorite of the director) on in its final album track. \
I think I liked both of these...? Don't remember them at all.
>
>
> The Call of the Wild (2020) - *****
> John Powell; add’l music & arrangements by Batu Sener & Paul
> Mounsey;
> orchestrated by John Ashton Thomas, Mark Graham, Andrew Kinney, Randy
> Kerber,
> Rick Giovinazzo, Pete Anthony, Jon Kull & Jeff Atmajian; conducted by
> John Powell
> The umpteenth adaptation of Jack London’s famed dog-centric adventure
> novel ended up being one of the last films produced by 20th Century Fox
> before its acquisition by Disney and thus became the first film released
> under Disney’s 20th Century Studios banner. Audiences seemed indifferent
> to the film, perhaps because its trailers suggested the movie had trotted
> into the uncanny valley by relying a lot on CGI animals for its episodic
> storytelling, and COVID lockdowns setting in a few weeks after its release
> dampened its long-term box office prospects. But John Powell suggested
> there were plenty of other challenges with getting it to the finish line
> anyway. “There were reshoots, and then the animation wasn’t finished.
> We made a lot of changes near the end. It was going to have a lot less
> dialogue than it ended up with, but it was the end of Fox, they got a bit
> frightened and added more and more dialogue.” At least the film was a
> nice way for Powell to reunite with director Chris Sanders who’d co-helmed
> the first How To Train Your Dragon, though Powell had a feeling
> that if Alan Silvestri hadn’t been tied up with work on Avengers:
> Endgame in 2019 that Sanders might’ve elected to work with him instead
> as he’d used Silvestri on his prior film The Croods.
> The story was an expansive, turn-of-the-century yarn, and Powell responded
> with something in the fantastical-yet-personal style of his Dragon
> scores coupled with an attempt at recreating the sound of the frontier
> without drifting into cowboy territory. “It’s a normal score, but I did
> introduce some fun instruments. If you get into the question of ‘what is
> American music,’ it’s influenced by Copland, who was very influenced by
> Shaker hymns and the orchestration of Debussy and Ravel. But that’s a
> little bit more Western than what we wanted. We are in the Yukon, not the
> prairies. I like the idea that everyone who went to that area of the world
> at that particular time was an immigrant, so I was really open to any kind
> of music. There are accordions, tin whistles, Irish flutes, a small
> ensemble of harmoniums, an ensemble of 12 banjos who also played mandolins
> and guitars. I wouldn’t say I tried to make it sound terribly American -
> even though there are banjos in it, they weren’t playing bluegrass, they
> were playing things you would perhaps get out of Ireland.” There was
> some novelty in 2020 to hearing such large-scale, folk-inflected adventure
> music since it really hadn’t resurfaced much since Basil Poledouris was
> writing such scores in the 1980s and 1990s.
> Coupled with all that would be the same densely orchestrated, explosively
> entertaining material that Powell had been consistently delivering over
> the last decade-plus. Coming on the heels of The Hidden World,
> Solo, Ferdinand, Pan, and How To Train Your Dragon
> 2, perhaps this approach was a tad too familiar for some listeners,
> never mind the absurdly sky-high expectations Powell had created for his
> work by this point. But many others, including me, found it a profound
> score with thrills and wonder in abundance, one chock-full of catchy
> themes, unique instrumentation, and mesmerizing moments of musical
> storytelling, perhaps none better than the mid-album track Buck Takes
> The Lead which found Powell operating near the peak of his celebratory
> music powers and was for my money the best piece of scoring that year.
> “He's taken over the sled and is now the leader and realizes that he
> has this and everyone respects him. I do love it when I can be
> joyful.” On a more personal note, it came out around the time I first
> skied in Whistler, which made an awesome mountain even more awesome and
> deepened my appreciation for the music, and it has become a reliable go-to
> album for solo skiing in the years since.
> As of this writing, this is the last film score he’s done in this
> adventurous style that he’d essentially perfected in the 2010s. Powell
> isn’t semi-retired as some have speculated, but as he nears 60 he has
> become more choosy about what he signs on to. The project he was planning
> to do after this was an opera with his old friend Gavin Greenaway, and his
> few COVID-era scores have been for decidedly different films with
> decidedly different musical needs than The Call of the Wild had - a
> crime film requiring only 12 minutes of score, a thriller, and a
> documentary. If The Call of the Wild ends up being the last such
> Powell composition, it was a heck of a way to go out. To quote this film,
> what an adventure.
Just relistened to this one a few days ago and yep, it still holds up as one of the best scores of the new decade.
>
>
> Film Suites Vol. 1 (2020) - ****½
> John Powell; performed by The Philharmonia Orchestra & Voices;
> conducted by José Serebrier
> The adventure would in fact continue a bit over the 2020 holidays, around
> which time Powell’s record label would release an album of concert suites
> of some of his film music performed by the orchestra that had premiered
> his Prussian Requiem a few years earlier. Powell had been talking
> about the concept publicly since at least 2014, right around when he was
> taking his sabbatical for that aforementioned oratorio. He’d even mused
> about radically reinterpreting some of them, namely Face/Off which
> he didn’t end up covering here, but the end product would largely play
> like a faithful orchestral and choral concert performance of his film
> arrangements. It definitely skimps on the quirkier side of Powell’s
> writing for films, and one could question if we really needed five whole
> minutes of Assassin’s Tango from Mr. & Mrs. Smith in the
> program, but for the most part it was a tremendously entertaining overview
> of many of Powell’s musical highlights from the last twentyish years,
> including a delightful performance of the playful The Great Tree
> from Endurance which was likely how many Powell fans discovered
> that underheard 1999 score even existed in the first place. Here’s hoping
> a second volume emerges in the near term.
> -----------------------
> Next time: “Flower power sounds.”
That sentence makes me think of the finale to 40 Year Old Virgin.
Anyhoo, great write up as always!
