Sat, March 29, 2008

The Rock is among the very best action movies of the pre-Bourne era, when the rules of the game were forever altered as we learned that action movies could be both awesome and resonant. Its thrilling, bombastic score is playing in my car this week, and today it landed on my favorite track – possibly my favorite piece of film music not composed by John Williams – "Fort Walton, Kansas" from the film's energetic, romantic epilogue. Every time this track plays I'm captivated by it.

I'm normally not a fan of Hans Zimmer's scores: his pounding synth-orchestra style is too noisy for me, and lacks for emotion. But, contrary to all that, The Rock is a great score, and "Fort Walton, Kansas" is its gem. It starts soft and builds slowly, reminiscent of Zimmer's excellent – and uncharacteristically intimate – work on True Romance. Then the twangy guitar is joined by the orchestra, and things get awesome. It builds, and builds, and Vanessa Marcil flashes a winning smile, and it's over. It never fails to start the accompanying movie scene playing in my head, and it always leaves me wanting more. And it's under two minutes long, so you can check it out if you haven't heard it: The Rock: Fort Walton, Kansas

Update: I realized I should include the movie clip, too, so you can enjoy it in context. The Rock: Fort Walton, Kansas

Update again, 8 years later: Due to an unrelated copyright complaint, I'm technically on thin ice with my web host, so I'm removing this content just to make very sure nobody else hassles them about this site. DreamHost are wonderful people, and they have been great to work with for many years. I don't want to trouble them, and I really don't want to get kicked off their lovely servers.

Here are some great ways to enjoy the content referenced above, while fairly compensating the appropriate rights-holders:

Fort Walton, Kansas - by Hans Zimmer

The Rock - by Michael Bay, starring Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris (and, most importantly, William Forsythe and John Spencer )