Composing Greatness: #24. John Williams - "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989)

Scene from Born on the Fourth of July

Welcome to Composing Greatness: a column dedicated to exploring the work of film composers. This will specifically focus on the films that earned them Oscar nominations while exploring what makes it so special. This will be broken down into a look at the overall style, interesting moments within the composition, and what made the score worth nominating in the first place. This will also include various subcategories where I will rank the themes of each film along with any time that the composer actually wins. This is a column meant to explore a side of film that doesn't get enough credit while hopefully introducing audiences to an enriched view of more prolific composers' work. This will only cover scores/songs that are compiled in an easily accessible format (so no extended scores will be considered). Join me every Sunday as I cover these talents that if you don't know by name, you recognize by sound.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Like (The Old) Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible:: Rogue Nation

Here's the general truth: I do not care about Tom Cruise nowadays. It is very likely that I will never see Mission: Impossible:: Rogue Nation. His recent string of action movies are the kind that don't appeal to me, even causing a trip to see Oblivion to leave me wondering if the movie was just bad or I had undiagnosed A.D.D. that made staring at the ceiling all the more interesting. Yet there is something that a more recent audience must accept that isn't entirely represented by his recent output: Cruise was actually a pretty good actor when he had subject matter that challenged him. True, these films challenge him to scale skyscrapers and dangle from planes, but what I mean is that Cruise is actually secretly good.