Thursday Token Themes

Welcome a weekly feature here at Movies With Abe. I’m a hugely enthusiastic fan of film scores, and music is far too often an element of cinema that goes unrecognized. Therefore I present a platform for a look – or rather, a listen – to some fantastic film scores. I’ll be selecting a composer and one or more of their film scores for your listening pleasure, embedded from YouTube.

This week’s featured composer is Marco Beltrami. The New York-born musician has earned two Oscar nominations in the past four years, most recently sharing a mention for Best Picture winner “The Hurt Locker” with Buck Sanders. “The Way I Am” is a melancholy meditation that underlines the depth of the characters’ lives, and that intensity is found in “Man of His Word,” a gorgeous track from 2007’s “3:10 to Yuma.” Previously, Beltrami has written the music for some fast-paced thrillers, including “Live Free or Die Hard.” The track “Lucy in the Elevator” is a pensive action score that’s both slow and exciting. His more distinctive score for the 2006 dud “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” is more stylized and specific, mainly because it’s a different kind of movie that most of the films for which he composes the music. Previously, he worked on the subtle, eerie main titles of “I, Robot,” and succeeded in achieving the challenging task of creating a new anthem for the Terminator series that was both familiar enough and still new for “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.”

The Hurt Locker (2009)



3:10 to Yuma (2007)



Live Free or Die Hard (2007)



The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2006)



I Robot (2004)



Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)