Howard, Elfman & Williams

Actors get the fame, directors get the credit, but soundtrack artists get your heart. To see any movie -- good or bad -- without a musical score is to rob that film of its emotional core and several pairs of underwear. Whether you know these guys (and gals) or not, you definitely know their music. In the Soundtrack Legends series, MRFH gives giant twinkies to the people who did the tunes.

James Newton Howard (Scores from 1986 - Now)

James Newton Howard is all over the place. Seriously. You try to pin this guy down to just one musical genre, and he slips out from your fingers to do an Irish jig before retiring to a nice period horror piece. Comedy, romance, drama, suspense, what have you, Howard is probably the "you know, that guy" of the scoring community. You've heard his stuff, but you probably never attributed it to him.

So where have you heard him? No doubt you're one of the trillions of semi-intelligent life-forms that watched the TV show "E.R." at one time or another -- Howard's the man behind that theme. Ah, you say. THAT guy.

As some film composers become the golden child of certain directors, James Newton Howard has been joined at the hip with M. Night Shyamalan since The Sixth Sense. That score, as well as Unbreakable and Signs was composed by Howard, who managed to make them all creepy, simple and yet different at the same time. In fact, the score to The Sixth Sense is probably one of the most subtly brilliant horror soundtracks of the past couple decades, contributing to both the film's sense of fear and melancholy.

I bought The Fugitive score on cassette (still have it around here somewhere) shortly after the movie's release, and I still love the bombastic chase music, which was re-used for movie trailers many years after that. Funny enough, Howard's score to the light-hearted comedy Dave was one of the first five CDs I ever bought, and I still really enjoy listening to that all the way through. Comedies are great opportunities for good scores, versus horror (which is a lot of "reaction" music and less of themes).

Other film soundtracks done by Howard that you might know include Flatliners, Alive, Falling Down, Outbreak, My Best Friend's Wedding (actually a really, really good score) and the most recent, Dreamcatcher.

Although Howard has the Shyamalan connection to his fame, I gotta be fair and admit -- he's got the residual stench of being associated with the Kevin Costner flops Waterworld and The Postman as well (so, we recognize that a score can be good even if a film is bad, and vice-versa).

3 Movie Scores By James Newton Howard You Must Own:

(1) The Sixth Sense (Soundtrack at Amazon.com): Simple piano stuff, but it sticks with you for a looooong time -- one of the key factors to building up the suspense and eeriness of this flick.

(2) The Fugitive (Soundtrack at Amazon.com): Get this not only for the great "action" music, but also for the very moody sax solos

(3) Dave (Soundtrack at Amazon.com): Light, fun and best of all -- inspirational!

Danny Elfman (Scores from 1985 - Now)

I guess this week's film composer theme is Directors and Their Pet Music Men. Danny Elfman cannot be mentioned without pointing to the guy who put Elfman's score in 99% of the movies he made: Tim Burton. Burton and Elfman are an eccentric and dark duo: Burton provides gothic, twisted visuals while Elfman does the same, just audibly.

Elfman first teamed up with Burton for the cult classic, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, and hasn't stopped yet. Stop me if you can't remember the main themes to these movies: Beetlejuice. Edward Scissorhands. Batman. The Nightmare Before Christmas. Mars Attacks! Okay, maybe that last one was a bit tricky. Still, Danny Elfman's music is decidedly spooky, yet not freaky-spooky across the board. The theme to Beetlejuice, with pounding pianos, choir choruses and haunting (heh) horns is one of my all-time favorite themes (and hey, you gotta love the intro to it, with the mournful "daylight comes... and me wanna go home..." line in there). Batman, too, got such a royal treatment with an instant-recognition theme that it blew the weak Prince soundtrack out of the water.

In short, if Burton made it and Elfman scored it, it's in my collection (including Planet of the Apes and Sleepy Hollow. Just that good.

Danny Elfman's not just about Tim Burton either. You ever watch a little show on TV called "The Simpsons"? Yeah, that's Elfman's music dancing away behind the opening credits and most of the musical bits (not the songs, tho).

There are several movies where Elfman lent a hand to partial scoring -- the "March of the Dead" theme in Army of Darkness was his, but the rest of the score wasn't. He also did the supplemental score to the Academy Award-winning Chicago as well.

If you look through a list of all of the films that Elfman's scored over the past couple decades, there's way more hits than duds, which is saying a lot in the listen-and-forget world of soundtrack scoring. Peter Jackson's The Frighteners got a really good treatment by Elfman, as did Sam Raimi's Darkman and Spider-Man. Huh, bet you didn't know that last one, didja? Aside from the ones already mentioned, there are two incredibly classic main themes that Elfman has contributed: the titles to Men In Black (do yourself a favor and get a copy to remind yourself how good the score was against Will Smith's crappy rap) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

3 Movie Scores By Danny Elfman You Must Own:

(1) Beetlejuice (MRFH review, Soundtrack at Amazon.com): Awesome main theme, along with a couple tunes by Harry Belafonte.

(2) Men In Black (MRFH review, Soundtrack at Amazon.com): Another great title theme, along with a score that doesn't take itself too seriously.

(3) Edward Scissorhands (Soundtrack at Amazon.com): Sad and beautiful, a must-have.

John Williams (Scores from 1959 - Now)

Yes, we all recognize that Williams should be on a page of his own, but he's just a man like any other. A man who kicks serious composing tuckus in the film scoring world, that is. I bet he lies in bed at night, cackling evilly that his plan for music world domination is nearly complete. Plus, if he does another Spielberg score, he gets Indiana Jones for a weekend to entertain the kids!

Between farming out his services to the Bearded Masters -- Steven Spielberg and George Lucas -- John Williams is probably the most famous and well-known composer on the planet. Just to amuse you, however, we'll pretend like you don't already know which films we're going to mention, and then you can act all surprised like on Christmas morning.

Obviously, we must start with Gidget, and later, Gidget Goes to Rome. What? You say I'm making this up? Hey, look it up yourself pal! Even the great Zen master must begin somewhere in orchestral janitorial service. But while The Poseidon Adventure began to launch his career upward over twelve years after he began scoring, it really wasn't until 1975 and a little musical ditty that went something like this -- duh DUM, duh DUM -- that sent him into flight. Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, and even Jaws 2 made Williams into a bona fide superstar. And that was just in the SEVENTIES! Come the eighties, and the streak didn't end; in fact, Williams managed to top his bad old self with two scores that rivalled even Star Wars and Superman.

Yah ever heard of E.T. and Indiana Jones? I thought so.

When the re-release for E.T. rolled around last year and they began running the trailers in the theaters, my friend made perhaps the best summary of the John Williams experience. She said, "Dude, when that music starts playing, you get goosebumps." Amen to that.

With so many extraordinary successes, it's surprising that John Williams didn't crash and burn afterward trying to recapture his former glory. We should probably all admit that on a certain level, Williams did sell out to make a quick buck: there are numerous sequels (Star Wars comes to mind) where his themes are reheated and served as symphonic leftovers -- still good, but nothing new. And there are quite a few less-than-memorable duds. Yet the crash hasn't happened, no burn is going on, particularly since Williams dominated the nineties with two new classics: Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, both released during the same year. Jurassic beat you over the head with a triumphant blend of horns, and Schindler sucked the tears right out of you with one of the saddest tunes ever made.

John Williams still is quite busy, and even managing to reinvent himself from time to time. While the Harry Potter theme is too simplistic and dumb for my taste, Catch Me If You Can had one of the most terrifical themes from 2002. Hats off to the master!

3 Movie Scores By John Williams You Must Own:

(1) Star Wars (Soundtrack at Amazon.com): All three original flicks have incredibly exciting tunes, like Darth Vader's theme, the attack music for Endor, and the "you're getting a medal" tune from A New Hope. Oh, and the title music's not bad.

(2) Indiana Jones (MRFH review, Soundtrack at Amazon.com): A score to get you pumped up to do ANYthing, even fight evil Nazis!

(3) E.T. (Soundtrack at Amazon.com): The flying theme would be the theme to my childhood... unforgettable.