Hans Zimmer is My Hero.

I might could have saved this for my 'Z' post, but... meh.  We'll go with 'H' for Hans.

A while back, I wrote this post about the approximate number of movies I've seen in my life. (Answer: give or take roughly 3,000 titles.)

The reason I even explored that question was to write about the music of those movies.  Film scores are a huge part of my life.  We played them in band.  They run through my head at random on a daily basis, depending on what I'm doing.  If my life had a soundtrack... oh, wait, it DOES!  Usually if I have my Mac or iPod anywhere available while I'm working or doing stuff at home, the odds are pretty high that I'll be playing the soundtrack/complete orchestral score from some movie or other.

I even have a quirky gift of being able to hear a piece of music from a film and match it up action for action or line for line and tell you what's happening in the movie at that moment.  Not watching the screen.  It's a pretty useless gift, but some of my friends who can't do it find it pretty cool.
Marilyn: (listening to the soundtrack from the first Narnia film, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.) "Ok, what's happening now??"
Me: "The CGI map has given way to a live shot of the battlefield.  Peter and Edmund are watching the White Witch and her army advance. Orius is about to say "Numbers do not win a battle." Peter will reply "No, but I bet they help."
Marilyn: (Puts in the movie, selects the scene, presses play and all plays out (including the music) just as I said.) "How do you do that?!"

Movie music is meant to make you feel.  It punctuates the motion on screen to evoke pity or joy or sadness or fear or love or confusion or any of another thousand emotions that need to be gotten across to you, the viewer, to make a connection with a character/characters or situation.  The music that's playing in the background is every bit as important- maybe more so- as the lines the characters say.

Having seen nearly 3,000 movies in my life, each with their own unique score and orchestrations, that's a LOT of music swirling around in my brain.  Yet out of ALL of those, there is one soundtrack that always rises to the top.  One that is always on my playlist.  One that I love the MOST.

That film is the 3rd installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, At World's End.  Maybe it's because it's the end of a trilogy and climaxes all of the action into one epic piece.  Whatever it is, I love it.

Hans Zimmer is the man who wrote the score.  He. is. amazing.
He's written over 100 movie scores in his illustrious career, including (but certainly not limited to)
Rain Man
The Lion King
The Prince of Egypt
Black Hawk Down
Gladiator
Pearl Harbor


Teaming up with Jerry Bruckheimer (a genius in his own right), Zimmer composed the themes for the Pirates franchise.  And I am in complete musical heaven. :)

I told my husband that the end all, be all of anniversary/birthday/Christmas gifts for the rest of my life would be if he could contact Mr. Zimmer and get him to write a theme/score for my life.  I'm not holding my breath for DH to come through on that one.  But it would be awesome!

Here are 3 of my favorite pieces from the 3rd Pirates film.  Enjoy.