The wonderful James L. Brooks followed up his massive, Oscar-winning success Terms of Endearment with this satirical take on news reporting, Broadcast News, which seems just as relevant today as it did when it was made in 1987, lamenting as it does the loss of real news reporting to the fluffy, inane, non-reporting which passes for news programming today.  (When I think about tv news nowadays, I can't help but recall the Monty Python sketch at the Marcel Proust competition, where the judge declared "You're all crap, so I'm going to give the prize to the girl with the biggest tits!"  Is this how interviews for news presenters are conducted these days?)  With an excellent case, led by William Hurt, Albert Brooks and Holly Hunter, the film was quite a success.

These days, Brooks has developed a relationship with composer Hans Zimmer, enticing the composer to write some wonderfully lighthearted scores, but on the last film before that relationship began, the director turned to Bill Conti, one of the most prolific and popular composer of the 1980s.  Conti is the only major living film composer whose work is so barely represented on CD, but 2005 has seen a concerted effort to begin to put that right, with Broadcast News included in the second successive batch of Varese Sarabande CD Club releases to include a Conti score.  Conti is a talented composer, capable of writing full-bodied orchestral scores as well as anyone, and so it's quite heartening to see his past works finally begin to see the light of day on CD.

In some ways, Broadcast News is similar to the scores that Zimmer would go on to write for Brooks later on.  Dominated by very light orchestration, heavily featuring the piano, it is an easy-going, charming, frequently delightful effort.  Several cues feature pop beats which are firmly rooted in 1987 and these do make things a little too cheesy, but fortunately there is plenty of music without the beats.  Anchored around a couple of strong main themes, it is very hard to dislike.  Along with the piano, there are frequent solos for flute and guitar; the dramatic score is rather simple, and all the better for it.  As the score progresses, there are a few more emotional passages, though the orchestration still never becomes too heavy, ensuring that this is a consistently pleasant listening experience throughout.  There are also a few lovely source pieces ("Italian Embassy", "Dinner Dance") which are just as lovely and relaxing; and even a couple of news themes built in!  (Conti had written countless news themes in real life before doing this film, so he should have been quite well-at-ease writing them.)