Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Music I Like: Conan the Barbarian - Basil Pouledoris

<No matter what you think of the movie itself (and I have a real fondness for it despite the fact that it gets almost everything wrong), this is great music to write by.

4 comments:

Jack Badelaire said...

Although Milius created a Conan that isn't Robert E. Howard's Conan, I think the movie, taken as a whole and apart from its source material, is one of the best archetypal "Sword & Sorcery" films ever made. If you ever listen to the director's commentary, Milius discusses how (and I agree with him) the production design, art direction, and almost every visual aspect of the film was done in such a way as to separate it from the historical world and truly exist as something out of time.

I'm too young to have seen this in the theater when it came out, but a few years ago one of the Boston indie theaters did a two-night midnight screening, and I went both nights. To see the movie on the big screen and to hear that utterly amazing score in a theatrical setting was mind-blowing. Experiences like that are one of the reasons, even with today's overblown ticket prices, I try to see every "spectacle" movie in the theater. No home system, no matter how good, can compare to the experience of seeing a film on the Big Screen.

James Reasoner said...

I actually saw this first at a sneak preview with some comic book writers. I'm convinced that there were a few differences between the cut I saw and the version that was released a few weeks later. It does look good on a big screen.

Anonymous said...

One of the best film scores ever. The movie is (just not really REH) but the soundtrack is better. That happens often such as with Jerry Goldsmith's OST for "The 13th Warrior."

Chris said...

Probably my all-time favorite film score as well. I love the movie, and I was lucky enough (i.e. old enough) to see it in the theater when it came out. Hell, I saw it 17 times over about five different theaters, including a drive-in. I remember Muscle and Fitness magazine devoting a couple issues to it, and I had all those pictures up on my bedroom wall.