Awko Taco Movie Moments

      I can't blog about outside reading without it being boring and I especially can't blog about Beloved without it being boring. So...I know this isn't relevant to English class, but I would like to talk about movie soundtracks. As a musician/composer, music in movies especially stands out to me. In exactly the same way memorable movie quotes and film characters find their places in popular culture, film themes and scores have dug their way into our collective subconscious, but in a much more subtle and less obvious way. I think that too many times we see a film score as simply a 'tool' in movie making. I cannot even stress how wrong that notion is. Soundtracks enhance movies to the point of salvation. For example, have any of you ever seen All The Kings Men? If you have, you know what the "Nail Em' Up" speech that I'm about to reference is. If you haven't ever seen the movie, scroll down to the bottom and please enjoy a quick tangent by Sean "Please Give Me An Oscar For This One" Penn. 
    Okay...so now that you've watched that, I want you to imagine this guy doing his speech without the background music. HE WOULD LOOK LIKE A FLAMING PSYCHO. Nobody would vote for that, and we wouldn't be on the edge of our seats all like "Woooo! Nail em' up!! That's right Willie Stark, you done tell the government who's boss!". Instead we'd be all like "Go home, Willie. You're drunk." But we didn't tell Willie Stark to go home because James Horner created a magnificent theme with an upbeat that pushed Penn through to the end of that speech. There's so many scenarios when these types of things happen. I'm sure most of you have seen the Lord of the Rings, yes? And if you haven't...sorry but we can't be friends anymore. Anyways, what if King Theoden didn't have background music while he was giving his big battle speech before the Rohirrim charged at the massive orc army on the Pelennor Fields? The scene would be 12 times less powerful and we'd just be all like "Crap, I hope they don't die or anything" but instead we're all like "WOOOO! 'MERICA!!" so THANK YOU HOWARD SHORE. Anyways, I leave you now with a list of some of my favorite soundtrack composers that made would-have-been awkward moments into the most powerful scenes in movies.

1. Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption, Skyfall, Finding Nemo, Road to Perdition, The Road, The Green Mile, etc etc).

2. Hans Zimmer (Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes, Transformers)

3. Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings, Twilight...not that I even like that movie, but we'd all be laughing at Bella instead of feeling sad for her if his music wasn't playing in the background)

4. And there's like infinity others, but I don't have time to list them all and it's not like anybody is going to read this anyways.

Link: Sean Penn as Willie Stark in All the King's Men, "Nail 'Em Up" speech.