Of Johnny, Joe, and the Rest

Just to name my favorites.

My all time favorite composer is the man who is also the most famous of them all: John Williams. Like all of them, he too has a distinctive style which he sometimes over-uses, but at least his over-use is more subtle (you'll learn that I'm biased when it comes to Johnny). And without him Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Indiana Jones, Minority Report, Harry Potter, Superman and so many other movies wouldn't be what they are.

The second place is much harder to give away, but I'm going to go with Joe Hisaishi, the composer for Hayao Miyazaki and the Ghibli Studios. He's work is not always as strong or emotional as the work of the other composers I'll be talking about, but he is more versatile than all of them combined. I'm always amazed how different and fresh his scores are from the previus one. He's also very good at capturing the feel and the soul of the scenes, creating themes that fit the movie perfectly.

After those two I don't really have any favorites. Danny Elfman and Michael Giacchino are both very good, Danny being especially important to me for bringing life to Tim Burton's films. Giacchino's The Incredibles and Ratatouille were fabulous, and he made Alias even more exciting.

Other composers that have made scores that are very important to me include Alan Silvestri, Ilan Eshkeri, Tamiya Terashima, Randy Edelman and Elliot Goldenthal. Nobuo Uematsu is also close to my heart. Steve Jablonsky also seems very interesting.

There's one more composer that needs to be mentioned. My hate-love relationship with Hans Zimmer is closer to love at the moment, mostly because of Kung Fu Panda. Don't get me wrong, Zimmer is a fabulous composer with such gems as The Lion King, Gladiator and King Arthur, and obviously very talented at making strong, powerful themes. My problem with him is that he's lazy. Listen to Gladiator's The Battle, the main theme of Pirates of the Caribbean, and the movie before Gladiator which name I can't remember. Notice how the 'minor theme' of Gladiator is exactly the same as the main theme of Pirates? Frustrating. I love Zimmer when he's original, and hate him when he uses the same stuff over and over again because the producers are too lazy to ask anything different.

Proper entries after this one.