LOTR Composer, and all around cool Canuk Howard Shore was born on this day in 1946 in Toronto, Canada. But I won’t hold that against him 😉

Ringer Spy Anthony takes a deep look into Shore’s work, I found the results interesting.

I’ve noticed something about movies that Howard Shore does the music for. They are critically acclaimed. I got a list of many of the movies he composed music for in the last decade, from IMDB and looked them up on Roger Ebert’s site and RottenTomatoes.com.

Many of the reviews from Ebert are 4 stars…and very few are below 3 ½ or 3.

On RottenTomatoes.com, a percentage of positive reviews from a large group of critics, many movies scored above 60%…giving it a “fresh” rating rather than “rotten.”

I don’t know if this correlates that good music subconsciously alters critics opinions, or if Howard Shore only takes good scripts, or if it’s just a coincidence, but it does add to the stack of evidence hinting that Lord of the Rings will be a critically acclaimed box office smash (a rare phenomenon).

Key

Movie Title ~ Music By Howard Shore.
Ebert’s Review out of 4 stars.
Rotten Tomatoes.com

Yards. The (2000)
***
59%

High Fidelity (2000)
****
88%

Dogma (1999)
***1/2
88%

Analyze This (1999)
***
75%

Game, The (1997)
***1/2
75%

That Thing You Do! (1996)
***
92%

Looking for Richard (1996)
***
100%

Crash (1996)
***1/2
46%

Truth about Cats & Dogs, The (1996)
***1/2
100%

Se7en (1995)
***1/2
100%

Nobody’s Fool (1994)
***1/2
N/A

Ed Wood (1994)
***1/2
100%

Philadelphia (1993)
***1/2
100%

Guilty as Sin (1993)
***
N/A

Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
***
N/A

Single White Female (1992)
***
N/A

Kiss Before Dying, A (1991)
***
N/A

Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)
***1/2 ~ later ****
100%

By the Way…Heavenly Creatures directed by Peter Jackson got a ***1/2* from Ebert, and 88% on RottenTomatoes.com.