Overall, I like most of his output. His action writing is very similiar in most of his scores with the similiar instrumentation and effects. Not nearly as varied as was Goldsmiths. His main title music is miminal and not developed in many scores, unlike some of the other major composers we all like. One of his strengths is his very good percussion. I really like a lot of this especially in scores like Collateral, Interpreter, Blood Diamond, Waterworld.
Some of his music like Sixth Sense and Stir of Echoes work very well in the films and make those films even better, but are hard to listen to on their own away from the films. But thats what they were written for. I like King Kong, Hidalgo and Blood Diamond all quite a bit, and all three have simple but good themes that work well. Vertical Limit is a very nice score also for a very tired film. Scenery good but story worn out and tired. The score far superior though. I liked that one a lot. Dave is excellent as his most of his scores like that, Emperor and Junior, etc. Wyatt Earp is very nice and I like Outbreak and Just Cause. His animated stuff is pretty good too. Dinosaur has some great cues. Space Jam is kind of fragmented but has some good stuff. Peter Pan and Atlantis too. Ovcrall, his output is pretty good. I rank him pretty high of all the current composers, but on my all time list he ranks around 15 with several of the Golden Age composers ahead of him, Goldsmith, Williams and a few others there also. However, there arent all that many today that I look forward to each time, he is one of those I do. Have not gotten Lady in the Water yet, but look forward to it.

nuts! You're very cool, but quit it with these holier-than-thou posts about great composers, like Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard--they make no sense, because you rave about them in private and pile on heaps of praise, too; who cares if people on the board know you like their music, and not just Marco Beltrami and Alexnder Frenchsplat! And where the frak is my Casino Royale iTunes score!!?? (that's the core of the issue, haha!)

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Originally posted by sean:
Sorry, John, but I, too, am confused; I was actually reminded of zimmerito for the first time in a while reading the opening of this thread.

nuts! You're very cool, but quit it with these holier-than-thou posts about great composers, like Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard--they make no sense, because you rave about them in private and pile on heaps of praise, too; who cares if people on the board know you like their music, and not just Marco Beltrami and Alexnder Frenchsplat! And where the frak is my Casino Royale iTunes score!!?? (that's the core of the issue, haha!)

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HAHA; hell, even my own mother claims I'm getting too cynical with my film music these days. And I've always thought that JNH was a solid composer and he will continue to do so, I'm just not as impressed as others are. Color me blind, I guess. I guess the biggest prasie I've layed upon him was at King Kong's release; and to be honest, I haven't listened to it since. He's done better action material (i.e. Waterworld). I am interested in Blood Diamond though. I haven't seen the film and I was hoping the score was better than The Interpreter. Any thoughts outside of John's?

And relax on that last one, Sean-san; it'll be there shortly.