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Covering the best and worst of original film and television music from America's Big Sky Country since 1996, Filmtracks is your spirited home for comprehensive, humorous, and controversial soundtrack reviews. Join our community to support this niche music genre!
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10/17/21 Looney Tunes: Back in Action   (Jerry Goldsmith/John Debney)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you can appreciate and enjoy Jerry Goldsmith's masterful talent for parody on a grand orchestral scale, his work thoroughly referencing classic cartoon stereotypes and his own, previously established genre techniques.
Avoid it... if you appreciate those Goldsmith's talents but find them challenging in the context of the rapidly changing genres of single-minute cues defined by frantic, energetic flair and mayhem.
10/14/21 Aladdin (1992)   (Alan Menken)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... on the original 1992 CD pressing if you seek to hear Aladdin as it was meant to be, an entertaining and humorous collection of songs with strong melodic adaptations in the accompanying underscore.
Avoid it... on the 2004 "Special Edition" album if you expect to find previously missing score material or a satisfying and comprehensive presentation of the songs with the lyrics of the original theatrical release.
10/10/21 Beauty and the Beast (1991)   (Alan Menken)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... on the definitive 2018 expanded set if you want only the best that the animated musical genre has to offer, for Beauty and the Beast is arguably the top such film of all time.
Avoid it... on any of the earlier albums if you seek a decently mastered or satisfyingly complete presentation of Alan Menken's melodically rich score for the film.
10/7/21 The Little Mermaid   (Alan Menken)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you are one of the few remaining fans of musicals who hasn't already formed a polarized opinion about this film, because its main ballad and two calypso songs alone are cinematic classics.
Avoid it... if you've never been impressed with Alan Menken's superior and equally awarded works for the subsequent Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, the seeds of which clearly evident in especially the score here.
10/3/21 Avatar   (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you have any affinity for James Horner's recognizable career techniques and instrumentation, for Avatar is a masterful merging of all of those familiar ingredients into a powerhouse of an achievement.
Avoid it... if you seek to judge the sum of Horner's contribution to Avatar from the extremely limiting 78 minutes available on the initial commercial album, a presentation lacking the majority of the score and showcasing some of the most blatant portions of Horner's tiresome self-referencing.
9/29/21 Total Recall   (Jerry Goldsmith)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you continue to admire Jerry Goldsmith's top-notch, energetic, cohesive action and fantasy material that is saturated with his trademark rhythmic and instrumental flair of the 1980's and 1990's.
Avoid it... if you prefer an earlier generation of Goldsmith action that didn't rely as heavily on such considerable synthetic accompaniment to the orchestra, the electronics a pivotal component of the fantasy atmosphere in this entry.
9/25/21 T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous   (William Ross)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you were among the very few people who appreciated William Ross' score in the context of the putrid IMAX film, the music predictably workmanlike but better than expected.
Avoid it... if you expect highly original themes and instrumental styles from the career orchestrator, neither of which demanded of Ross for this humorously poor project.
9/20/21 The Land Before Time   (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you're enamored with James Horner's classically lyrical orchestral work for the animated children's film genre, because The Land Before Time is the gold standard by which all his other related scores would be compared.
Avoid it... if you expect the melodies and comparatively few action cues in this score to rival the rambunctious intensity of Horner's concurrent work for Willow.
9/15/21 Inchon   (Jerry Goldsmith)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... only if you consider yourself a staunch collector of Jerry Goldsmith's works, because while Inchon is a decent composition with two alluring themes, its terrible recording nearly ruins the listening experience.
Avoid it... if you demand a truly vibrant and engaging representation of the war genre from an otherwise reliable Goldsmith, though the recording's performance errors and lingering distortion issues are mostly to blame for this score's ills.
2001 FILMTRACKS NOMINEE: A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind
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Welcome to the Fifth Generation of the Scoreboard (2021)   Expand
Christian Clemmensen - October 17, 2021, at 1:07 p.m.
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Roman - October 20, 2021, at 7:35 a.m.
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Soundtracker94 - October 19, 2021, at 1:53 p.m.
10 messages  (126 views) - Newest: October 20, 2021, at 6:48 p.m. by James Charles Taylor
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Updated composer photos debut as Filmtracks celebrates 25 years
Christian Clemmensen - September 23, 2021, at 1:21 p.m.
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