Good morning (presumably), John!

Without further ado (about nothing), here are my picks for 2007. Ask me again tomorrow, and this list prolly looks different...so don't ask me again tomorrow!

1 – Spider-Man 3 (Chr. Young) ***** –
Perhaps AWE should be on top of this, but considering how very few blockbusters Young has on his CV, I kinda have to hand him the palm. And that jazzy cue for the fight between Peter and Harry? AWEsome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBWso_ohXq8

2 – Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s End (HanZ et al.) ***** –
A towering achievement, very diverse, VERY chest-thumping, and VERY enjoyable. “Up Is Down” (“The Green Flash”) is prime HanZ/MV/RC material! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebBlzzvf7Dc

3 – The Last Legion (P. Doyle) ***** –
Not quite as towering an achievement, not very diverse, but also VERY chest-thumping and triangle-tingling, and VERY enjoyable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkyQyaS9rhg

4 – The Last Sin Eater (M. McKenzie) ****½ –
Love the tuneful melancholy of this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdnWLu-3jkI

5 – Lair (J. Debney & K. Kaska) ****½ –
Again with the chest-thumping...if only I had a chest to thump along, this would surely be the score to do it with! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMr4_gqfEnc

6 – Angel (Ph. Rombi) **** –
Lovely score, a modern Delerue of sorts, and yet one that I rarely re-visit. JBlough said something along the same lines...but the upbeat tracks are great! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49nwJ2SHkEI

7 – Eastern Promises (H. Shore) **** –
Love the typical Shore melancholy of this one, even if it’s not quite as tuneful. That final track is surprisingly powerful, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j-JBko8zKk

8 – Surf’s Up (M. Danna) **** –
A nice change for Danna, whose scores also very often have a strong melancholic current about them...something Canadian, perhaps? But the upbeat tracks are great! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT1pQCk2v1g

9 – Heroic Age - Kikan (N. Sato) **** –
Typically schizophrenic Sato score, but with one of the honest-to-Big-Guy-in-the-Sky, absolutestly SCOREGASMATASTIC tracks I’ve ever heard. CHILLING CHORUS! CRASHING CYMBALS! TINGLING TRIANGLES! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-rqDUaBcaw

10 – Elizabeth – The Golden Age (C. Armstrong & A. R. Rahman) **** –
I can’t ever recall a single lick of this score, but I like it alright when it’s playing. Go figure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVgdKjlezJI

Composer of the Year: Joe Hisaishi (moreso on the quantitave strength of his scores in 2007, than any particular highlight)

Track of the Year: TIE between “Main Titles” from Heroic Age – Kikan (N. Sato) listed above, and this gem from Hisaishi’s The Sun Also Rises, “A Miraculous Recovery” with a cello solo to die for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tf4D74-8GI

Thanks again for curating this!

CK

> Track of the Year: TIE between “Main Titles” from Heroic Age – Kikan (N.
> Sato) listed above, and this gem from Hisaishi’s The Sun Also
> Rises, “A Miraculous Recovery” with a cello solo to die for:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tf4D74-8GI

Very interested to check out the Sato score.

> Very interested to check out the Sato score.

From the "Main Title" I linked to you can access the entire album. Getting the actual CD back in 2013 proved expensive and required the help of an fellow gradute student from Japan! It's one of those cases where a single track warrants the acquisition of the entire CD, though.

Ah, I see that I scoregasmed about this even back then: https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/index.cgi?read=132848 and https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/index.cgi?read=132964

> 2 – Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s End (HanZ et al.) ***** –

> A towering achievement, very diverse, VERY chest-thumping, and VERY enjoyable. “Up Is Down” (“The Green Flash”) is prime HanZ/MV/RC material!

And also prime Henry Jackman material, going off of the additional contributor credits.

> 6 – Angel (Ph. Rombi) **** – Lovely score, a modern Delerue of sorts, and yet one that I rarely re-visit. JBlough said something along the same lines...but the upbeat tracks are great!

It would be a heck of a lot easier to trace its Frank Skinner inspirations if there were, like, any Frank Skinner scores available outside of re-recordings of his monster music.

> 8 – Surf’s Up (M. Danna) **** – A nice change for Danna, whose scores also very often have a strong melancholic current about them...something Canadian, perhaps? But the upbeat tracks are great!

I finally got around to this one this year. Fun, if scattershot - though the latter is perhaps justifiable since if memory serves the movie was done as a kind of animated mockumentary.

> And also prime Henry Jackman material, going off of the additional contributor credits.

*edits meta-data tag straight away* At least I can say that there's some Jackman music represented in my collection...

> It would be a heck of a lot easier to trace its Frank Skinner inspirations if there were,
> like, any Frank Skinner scores available outside of re-recordings of his monster
> music.

Rest assured that you're one of a handful of people (like, one hand, ergo five) who has made that connection. I recognize the name Frank Skinner, know when and where to place him, but - unsurprisingly - haven't heard a note of his music.

> I finally got around to this one this year. Fun, if scattershot - though the latter is
> perhaps justifiable since if memory serves the movie was done as a kind of animated
> mockumentary.

I don't know what drew me to it back in 2008...perhaps the fact that Danna was scoring an animated film for the first (?) time, or that I liked the samples (on SAE?), or that it was a very limited release (by BSX?). "Scattershot" is probably the right term to describe it, but there's good material in those 28 minutes.

CK

> Good morning (presumably), John!

> Without further ado (about nothing), here are my picks for 2007. Ask me
> again tomorrow, and this list prolly looks different...so don't ask me
> again tomorrow!

> 1 – Spider-Man 3 (Chr. Young) ***** –
> Perhaps AWE should be on top of this, but considering how very few
> blockbusters Young has on his CV, I kinda have to hand him the palm. And
> that jazzy cue for the fight between Peter and Harry? AWEsome.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBWso_ohXq8

Wow, I must've REALLY ticked you off with Ahn's recent per decade thing, when I said the most overrated score of the 40s was Citizen Kane and the most overrated score of the 2000s was Spidey 3

> 3 – The Last Legion (P. Doyle) ***** –
> Not quite as towering an achievement, not very diverse, but also VERY
> chest-thumping and triangle-tingling, and VERY enjoyable.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkyQyaS9rhg

Pissed I somehow missed this one on my list, too. It's awesaome.

> Pissed I somehow missed this one on my list, too. It's awesaome.

At this point are there more scores off your list than on it that you actually wanted counted?

Sorry, Riles-man, but it's kinda true. (But not because of bad karma or something about Citizen Kane or Spider-Man 3.)

> At this point are there more scores off your list than on it that you
> actually wanted counted?

Hahaha almost, yeah. I'd say 4 of my Top 10 weren't put on my Top 10.

Ah well...these feel more silly fun than a recent Year End thing, so I don't care too much. Just feel dopey :P

This is an incredible list of great scores, and I remember there was some serious handwringing in 2007 about what a terrible year it was for good scores. We should be so lucky nowadays

It’s like seeing a unicorn!