I read the whole thing. I made it a weekly installment project one year where I just bit off a reading session every weekend until I finally finished it after however many months. I actually always listened to this soundtrack as my background music when I did this reading. The Anna parts of the book are consistently great, but it really gets in the weeds sometimes with the Levin-focused sequences. Ultimately a bit difficult not to feel like it’s a bit bloated, but I still had great appreciation for it as an overall work.
Expanding, it borrows a lot on Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony (I’m sure as an ohmage), which is one of my favorites and makes perfect sense for the setting of Anna Karenina. The music nerd in me wants to end the shutout.
Tchaikovsky develops this more in the movement (The whole symphony is worth a listen), but here is the introduction of the theme:
Heard here with the whole Yiddish flair added in AK:
I like it a lot as I like this style and the source material. Dr Jones though.
You obviously never used the Bladerunner soundtrack as a study aid or sleep aid, listening to it dozens of times. Your loss, it is excellent. Did Chariots of Fire get a nomination? Van Gellis also did the sound track to the original Cosmos.
Don’t get the hate for St Elmo’s fire. It’s one of the most under rated theme songs cause the movie is mediocre, but it’s a great song and pretty unique for themes. It’s also one of the few (only?) instrumental themes that was a legit hit (was a top-20 song and got regular airplay).
Yes, Braveheart is great too, but don’t think it’s a lopsided choice.
Gangsta’s Paradise vs. The Matrix-I’m already a fan of the Gangsta’s Paradise song and that track from The Matrix is a bunch of nothing to me. Easy selection for me.
Old Boy vs. Crimson Tide-The Old Boy song literally sounds like people dancing around in a ballroom and from what I’ve heard about that movie, I don’t think that’s what’s going on. Maybe it’s an ironic use of music but I ain’t ever gonna find out. Crimson Tide is basically peak Zimmer, when he was still willing to use a real orchestra (for some stuff). It has all the movement you want in a cue like that and it’s well done, especially for the era. I’m thinking about remastering it to get it a modern update that I think it needs to reach its full impact. I personally worked with Hans Zimmer several years ago now and let’s just say it was an ‘experience’ that I will never forget. You can read that however you want. Crimson Tide is not Driving Miss Daisy or Days of Thunder from him, two songs that you could literally swap out their main titles and have basically the same thing. Hans actually put in some effort on this one and it remains one of my favorites of his.
The Da Vinci Code vs. The Wrestler-Not a fan of Bruce Springsteen’s music and that’s all I’m gonna say about this match up.
Braveheart vs. St. Elmo’s Fire-This was a closer match up than I expected. I had forgotten what the St. Elsewhere theme was until I heard this again. That song was played way too much back then, so I’m ready to memory hole it again. I thought about casting a troll vote because f Mel Gibson, but decided to go with the better selection (in my opinion).
Raiders of the Lost Ark vs. Anna Karenina-So far, I’m the only voter for Anna Karenina. Raiders, while possibly being my all time favorite movie has a very weak main theme. I think it’s among the weakest of what John Williams has done and I hate the cheesiness of the horns. It also doesn’t have the typical bass and strings undercurrent that offsets the sometimes cheesy nature of his horns. This is just a little timpani and snare and largely background strings that don’t take any of the attention away from the unpleasantness of the horns. In contrast, Anna Karenina has all the stuff it needs to sound great and basically worked as a palate cleanser from the Raiders cheesiness. It’s a borderline troll vote to vote against the Raiders theme, but I felt Anna Karenina was worthy of a vote.
Free Willy vs. The Exorcist-The winner is The Exorcist.
Jurassic Park vs. The Village-John Williams is redeemed by Jurassic Park and M. Night Shamelyman is going to have to wait for another opportunity to get a vote from me.
Blade Runner Blues vs. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-Because it’s Vangelis, because it felt like a 10 month long song, and because I nominated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Blade Runner Blues is gonna take a big fat L from me. Charlie is a great theme that works extremely well in the main title for that movie.
I am dead serious you could plop the Driving Miss Daisy theme in the main title for Days of Thunder and it would seem almost exactly the same. I don’t even know how he screwed that up.
Dustin Hoffman appears in the video rental store in an uncredited cameo as Jack Black talks about the score from The Graduate (1967). According to Hoffman, this was unscripted and unexpected. He was going to Blockbuster Video to rent a film when he saw the lighting from the film production crew and walked over to see what was happening. He knew director Nancy Meyers, who scripted a short scene with him in it.
Do you guys miss going into Blockbuster for a couple movies, popcorn, and a box of candy in preparation for movie night or think it’s just the nostalgia talking and it was overrated? I’m leaning former.
One of my most vivid memories was renting It’s Pat with my cousins when I was like 12. It was so bad that it was unintentionally hilarious and we still quote it often today and mimic Pat.
Fun fact - my last real job ever was Blockbuster Video.
Blockbuster was OK, but I really enjoyed going to the independent video rental store (I think it was called Hollywood Express) when I lived in Cambridge. It had a more eclectic selection, plus a section dedicated to major directors like Hitchcock and Scorsese. It really annoyed my then-future wife that I would basically look through the entire inventory each time before picking something out.
I actually used to go to the Blockbuster linked in that clip as it was the only good one in L.A. Normally, if you wanted anything off the beaten path you had to go to Hollywood Video and the closest/best one was I think in Hawthorne. You used to have to just go through everything but they had a lot of good not quite commercial older titles there that were impossible to find at Blockbuster.
