Bill Wrobel's DVD - Film Score Rundowns

personally liked the section after the river gorge battle starting 00:46:55, especially
00:47:14. Around 1:22:00 is the Skynet perimeter section that was nice.
Of course the whole root belief of this science fiction series is that
machines/software (Skynet) gained consciousness of itself and blew up humanity as
much as it could, then building “terminators” to finish the job. Well, it’s just a movie
because machines (a thing) cannot ever achieve consciousness of itself. Consciousness
imbues form, not the other way around! At least with Colossus: The Forbin Project the
computer did not achieve consciousness per se. It just out-maneuvered the creator,
processed faster.
Danny Elfman composed the music. It’s okay but nothing memorable. I liked
better his recent score for The Wolfman (I’d give it three *** stars). Of course I’d rather
have Elfman far more than Brad Fiedel! Cameron originally needed someone like Jerry
Goldsmith than Fiedel’s bare bones (or bare steel) “music.” Oh, well. It’s not a perfect
world by any means. I would go out of my way for a Goldsmith score, even if there were
only a few cues that grabbed my attention. Whereas I don’t go out of my way anymore
for Elfman’s music, or Horner’s music (I used to in Horner’s early career). John Williams
still commands respect but I never really warmed up to his music except in select scores.
His Superman is a masterpiece.
-Those Calloways (1965) *** [music ****]
http://www.amazon.com/Those-Calloways-Brian-
Keith/dp/B0000DZ3G5/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1292882820&sr=1-1
This is good Disney family fare with a nice cast but not directed or constructed
very well. Fortunately we have a marvelous music score by the great Max Steiner! I
already did a 53-page rundown of it on my site:
http://www.filmscorerundowns.net/steiner/those_calloways.pdf
-Dreamcatcher (2003) *** [music ***]
http://www.amazon.com/Dreamcatcher-Full-Screen-Morgan-
Freeman/dp/B0000AMRUL/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1292882929&sr=1-2
This is one strange movie based on a Stephen King novel! I like it, but then again,
I don’t like it! It’s a movie that I really would like to like better, quite sincerely—but I
can’t. I don’t like it enough to want to be married to it. When you get married to
something, you accept all of it—good and bad. The bad is so bad that I cannot really
endorse the movie fully, although the good is so good I’d like to recommend it
wholeheartedly. Overall excellent direction by Lawrence Kasdan, but to direct the train
wreck of parts of this movie is of no ultimate merit. The cast is terrific, but the way the
character development of this friendship between four rather psychic friends gets
radically detoured by a gross-out alien invasion. It’s interesting in some ways but this
foursome focus should’ve been a different movie in a completely different plot line. The
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