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   CURRENT NUMBER OF:
     • Years Online: 28
    • Editorial Reviews: 2,280
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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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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.
12/2/24 The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing   (John Williams/Michel Legrand)
All New Review
Buy it... on its sole album for an excellent survey of the moderately decent John Williams score and wretched Michel Legrand rejected score for this picture.
Avoid it... if you hope to hear Williams express the same enthusiasm or appeal in the western genre as he mustered for The Reivers and The Cowboys.
11/29/24 What Lies Beneath   (Alan Silvestri)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you are prepared to appreciate a technically adept adaptation of Bernard Herrmann's score from Psycho for the horror sequences in What Lies Beneath.
Avoid it... if the surprisingly and disappointingly mundane and sparse orchestration of Alan Silvestri's suspense cues for the first half of the film cannot compensate for those snappy moments of Herrmann inspiration later on.
11/25/24 The Paper Chase   (John Williams)
New/Updated Review, Separated From a Dual Review
Buy it... for its charming but somewhat anonymous love theme, which dominates the short score in John Williams' comfortable, early 1970's methodology.
Avoid it... if you strive to hear satisfying substance in the suspense and comedy portions of the score, these passages losing their battle with surrounding source music.
11/22/24 Honey, I Shrunk the Kids   (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
Buy it... if you are absolutely prepared for a wacky tone of exuberant children's music clearly inspired by Raymond Scott, Carl Stalling, Danny Elfman, and James Horner's own familiar styles.
Avoid it... if you have little patience for scores that fail to combine their many strikingly disparate parts into a cohesive listening experience on album.
11/18/24 Cinderella Liberty   (John Williams)
All New Review
Buy it... if you have a soft spot for John Williams' 1960's light drama and romance sound, Cinderella Liberty translating it into a bluesy breeze for harmonica.
Avoid it... if you expect much substance to this score outside of its two soft, song-represented themes, the remainder functioning as barroom source material.
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Mary (Timothy Williams)   Expand
ArborArcanist - January 19, 2025, at 11:16 p.m.
2 messages  (68 views) - Newest: January 20, 2025, at 6:17 a.m. by Craig Richard Lysy
Music for David Lynch's films and shows   Expand
AhN - January 19, 2025, at 9:25 a.m.
5 messages  (135 views) - Newest: January 20, 2025, at 4:17 a.m. by trstnvnk
John Morgan (of Morgan and Stromberg) passed away   Expand
Faleel - January 18, 2025, at 7:51 p.m.
3 messages  (136 views) - Newest: January 19, 2025, at 5:58 a.m. by Craig Richard Lysy
Now Playing, 18 January   Expand
Christian Kühn - January 18, 2025, at 1:51 p.m.
12 messages  (106 views) - Newest: January 19, 2025, at 10:38 a.m. by Faleel
Bear McCreary: Themes and Variations Tour   Expand
Celadiel - January 18, 2025, at 9:48 a.m.
2 messages  (125 views) - Newest: January 19, 2025, at 9:37 a.m. by Jay
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Review and site status: first half of 2024
Christian Clemmensen - July 27, 2024, at 10:41 a.m.
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