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   CURRENT NUMBER OF:
     • Years Online: 28
    • Editorial Reviews: 2,284
   • Unique Albums Covered: 3,333
  • Reader Messages Posted: 493,362
 • Reader Votes Cast: 2,662,299


   CURRENT BEST-SELLING SCORES:
       1. The Wild Robot
      2. Solo: A Star Wars Story
     3. Dune: Part Two
    4. Avatar: The Way of Water
   5. Cutthroat Island
  6. The Mask of Zorro
 7. Tomorrow Never Dies
8. Willow
   CURRENT MOST POPULAR REVIEWS:
         1. Batman (1989)
        2. Beetlejuice
       3. Alice in Wonderland
      4. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
     5. Spider-Man
    6. Raiders of the Lost Ark
   7. Doctor Strange: Multiverse
  8. LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring
 9. Titanic
10. Justice League
Nosferatu
That Christmas
Spellbound
Mufasa: The Lion King
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Wicked
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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2/2/25 2 Days in the Valley   (Jerry Goldsmith/Anthony Marinelli)
All New Review
Buy it... on the 2012 album with Jerry Goldsmith's rejected score to hear one of the composer's more curious diversions of the 1990's with a dose of familiar comfort.
Avoid it... if you believe that Anthony Marinelli's alternative score of thrashing rock and minimal intelligence is a better fit for this terrible, trashy flick.
1/30/25 Dinosaur   (James Newton Howard)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you regularly enjoy dynamic, entertaining, and ethnically diverse animation scores that paint with as many vibrant colors as the films' visuals.
Avoid it... if you require more than an obvious rearrangement of styles and themes from Hans Zimmer's The Lion King and Jerry Goldsmith's The Ghost and the Darkness for this score's highlights.
1/26/25 The Lady in Red   (James Horner)
All New Review
Buy it... primarily for intellectual curiosity, as James Horner's first solo film score contains hints of his later dramatic melodicism and 1930's big band jazz affinity in a very small-budget rendering.
Avoid it... unless you can overcome the extremely sparse sound of the recording, Horner doing his best with minimal players and navigating a plethora of cost-conscious source pieces from the 1930's.
1/23/25 Sudden Death   (John Debney)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... only if you're a sucker for stale and predictable orchestral action music for an equally formulaic film.
Avoid it... if you seek any kind of uniquely redeeming element to elevate this otherwise competent score beyond the rest of its tired class.
1/20/25 Heidi (TV)   (John Williams)
All New Review
Buy it... on the 2023 Quartet Records presentation for the best sound quality of any album available for this wholesome and occasionally dramatic children's score.
Avoid it... if you expect the orchestral majesty of the score's thematic highlights to carry much weight in the rest of the work, which is more understated and mundane by Williams' later standards.
1/17/25 The Talented Mr. Ripley   (Gabriel Yared)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... only if you seek the competent and rousing selection of standard jazz pieces from the 1950's, the introverted and reflective score by Gabriel Yared largely overwhelmed by that surrounding material.
Avoid it... if you expect the score to trend towards Yared's more palatable work for Message in a Bottle or City of Angels rather than reprising the chilly atmosphere of The English Patient.
1/13/25 The Reivers   (John Williams)
All New Review
Buy it... if your affinity for John Williams' sensitive character themes can accept the addition of folksy attitude and some outrageously exuberant comedy passages.
Avoid it... on any album if you expect a full and true treatment of the score as heard in the film, though several options combine to satisfy in relatively good sound.
1/10/25 Octopussy   (John Barry)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... on the 2024 album if you prefer John Barry's sentimental and conservative James Bond scores of the 1960's and 1970's, for Octopussy is one last return to that traditional style.
Avoid it... if you believe the formula of the early Bond scores by Barry favors overly repetitive motifs and action rhythms, in which case the two more experimental franchise scores following Octopussy are better suited for you.
1/6/25 Jane Eyre (TV)   (John Williams)
All New Review
Buy it... on the 2023 Quartet Records album to appreciate an important foreshadowing of John Williams' later romantic inclinations, this score containing one of his career's most compelling love themes.
Avoid it... if you demand to hear the integrity of Williams' engaging set of three themes in their original narrative relationships, for the film version of this score has never been released.
1/3/25 For Love of the Game   (Basil Poledouris)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you seek the final exploration of heartfelt personal triumph and broad strokes of Americana in Basil Poledouris' celebrated career.
Avoid it... if you expect the primary themes of this score to firmly reside in your memory, the work's tone mostly perfect but the melodies lacking the lasting punch needed in this genre.
12/30/24 The Cowboys   (John Williams)
All New Review
Buy it... on the far superior 2018 album presentation to hear John Williams channel Aaron Copland and famous Western-genre film composers in a rambunctious orchestral romp.
Avoid it... if you have little tolerance for Williams' Americana writing, this work representing some of his earliest, vivacious and heartfelt tones with distinctive harmonica and acoustic guitar.
12/27/24 The Flim-Flam Man   (Jerry Goldsmith)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... on either the fuller 2000 or 2020 albums if you seek a superior presentation of Jerry Goldsmith at the forefront of his creative, parody Western mode.
Avoid it... if the use of harmonica, banjo, accordion, and accelerated tack piano to augment the wild symphonic comedy overwhelms an otherwise decent character theme that informs most of the work.
12/23/24 Images   (John Williams)
All New Review
Buy it... only if you have witnessed the hysterically awful movie and can embrace the reason for the score's highly disturbing and discordant, avant-garde stylings.
Avoid it... unless you want to hear music so terrible that it's funny, including the sounds of a man taking a shit (or having an orgasm) during murder scenes.
12/20/24 Backdraft   (Hans Zimmer)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you own several masculine scores from later in Hans Zimmer's career and seek his first, highly successful and enjoyable large-scale merging of an orchestra and choir with his electronics for beefy bravado.
Avoid it... if no variation on Zimmer's militaristic tones and simplistic themes will fit with your preference for subtlety and delicacy, this work slapping you across the face with unrestrained heroism.
12/16/24 Pete 'n' Tillie   (John Williams)
All New Review
Buy it... on its lone album release with Stanley & Iris to hear the well-developed, lightly dramatic narrative John Williams intended for use in the film.
Avoid it... if your interest cannot be sustained by Williams' intimate character scores with repetitive melodies, or if you expect to hear the song adaptation alongside the score.
12/13/24 Arsène Lupin   (Debbie Wiseman)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... on either of its albums if you seek one of the most engaging, powerful, and thrilling orchestral action scores to be produced during the 2000's.
Avoid it... if immense Gothic style, deep bass resonance, and relentless brass layers cause you only headaches, no matter their elegance and sophistication.
12/9/24 The Long Goodbye   (John Williams)
All New Review
Buy it... only if you appreciate the unique strategy employed by the director for the soundtrack of this film, a single bluesy jazz song adapted for nearly every moment of music in the picture, even source material.
Avoid it... if you've heard that one song and receive no emotional response from it, because the bevy of its instrumental variations are unlikely to change your mind.
12/6/24 Uncommon Valor   (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... on the official 2010 or 2024 albums if you seek cleaner sound quality for the score's famous Star Trek-derived action cues from the climax of the film.
Avoid it... if you expect the challenging and arguably racist, stereotypical instrumental applications in the first two-thirds of the score to compete in any manner whatsoever with the unoriginal but still entertaining aforementioned action highlights.
2004 FILMTRACKS NOMINEE: Ray
Ray
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My interview with Philip Klein about The Madness
JB11sos - February 5, 2025, at 1:41 p.m.
1 message  (58 views)
Now Playing: Wednesday, February 5   Expand
Roman - February 5, 2025, at 7:22 a.m.
2 messages  (47 views) - Newest: February 5, 2025, at 10:22 a.m. by JBlough
Hans & friends pt 13b - 2024 - House of the Dragon, 3 Body, Fallout, Borderlands
JBlough - February 5, 2025, at 5:30 a.m.
1 message  (150 views)
Top ten scores of 2024 (attn: Craig!)   Expand
A. Rubinstein - February 5, 2025, at 12:39 a.m.
8 messages  (160 views) - Newest: February 5, 2025, at 4:24 p.m. by Robert Taylor
Quigley Down Under coming from Intrada!   Expand
Faleel - February 4, 2025, at 7:09 p.m.
4 messages  (159 views) - Newest: February 5, 2025, at 5:19 a.m. by JBlough
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