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12/31/00 - With only one week left until the end of the
December Theme of the Month's voting time, John Williams is still leading
in both the "best composer" and "best score" categories of the 1990's,
including high showings for Schindler's List, Jurassic Park,
Hook, Far and Away, and Star Wars: The Phantom
Menace. James Horner is in a solid second place, with three of the top
six places going to Legends of the Fall, Apollo 13, and
Braveheart. Jerry Goldsmith is a distant third, with only Russia
House placing in the top 25. Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman round out
the top five composers in the results thus far. You can view the full
results and vote one more time before polls close on January 6th: Check it out!. What
do you think so far about the "best of the 90s" election? Is Williams
really light years ahead of all the other modern composers? Sound off at The Filmtracks
ScoreBoard...
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12/28/00 - The Fugitive: (James Newton Howard) --All new
review-- "Over the years, James Newton Howard has written a plethora
of suspenseful action music for the big screen. This Harrison Ford
adaptation of the original television series by the same name marked an
Academy Award nomination not only for best picture, but also best score.
Both the film and its music were embraced publically as well, with the
film becoming known as one of the best suspense/drama entries of the
decade and spurring a sequel (of sorts). Howard's score went on to sell
very well in the consumer market, and is held with high praise by
collectors of Howard's music. That said, I don't like the score. The film,
however, is among my recent favorites, which presents a problematic crisis
for me as an avid score fan. Not often does a favorite film of mine have a
score which completely fails to interest me on album. The Fugitive
is such a case...." ** Read the entire
review.
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12/27/00 - Forrest Gump: (Alan Silvestri) "Who can forget
the magic and beauty of the main theme of Forrest Gump? Supported
by a syncopated line based on an open fifth interval, the piano voices a
lyrical, bittersweet melody. The melody bounces along, just as the
feather bounces across the screen in the wind, before being taken up by
the strings. According to Silvestri, the opening "feather theme" was
written with surprising ease. Silvestri related the story of how he
watched the opening reel of the film, rushed home to compose the main
titles theme that night, and thought he'd "had it made." As it turned
out, though, the theme, while perfect for the opening scene, did not fit
in with any other scene in the film. The feather theme instead serves as
a bookend for the score, in the same way that the feather functions in the
film as a metaphor for the vicissitudes of life...." Read the entire
donated review.
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12/26/00 - Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: (Cliff
Eidelman) --All new review-- "The final installment of the original
Star Trek crew represented the pinnacle for the series of feature films
following the adventures of the Enterprise. With the franchise reborn on
television and the fate of the films in serious doubt (after the
horrendous fifth film in 1989), director Nicholas Meyer, who had been
responsible for the success of Wrath of Khan in 1982, returned to
the series for one final, grand exit. His concern was that the series had
repeated too many of the same cliches and motifs over the past few films,
causing audiences to lose interest in a series that was essentially
beating a dead horse. The story of Star Trek VI was a refreshing
display of everything that makes a sci-fi film great: a poetic story, a
rousing villain, a frightening new technology, and a crew of heroes
fighting as underdogs because of their aging status in a bright new
future. Meyer decided that the film should be an ominous tale of betrayal,
death, capture, ancient hatred, cloaked deception, and, of course,
destruction on a planetary scale...." *****
Read the entire
review.
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12/25/00 - Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas to All! In
the spirit of the holidays, Filmtracks thanks all of its readers who have
stood alongside this site over the past 4+ years. Eat, drink, and be
merry. ...And also check out Brendan Anderson's Filmtracks
Christmas Poem on the ScoreBoard!
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12/22/00 - Black Beauty: (Danny Elfman) --All new
review-- "Marking the height of Elfman's orchestral majesty of the
1990's, Black Beauty would be one of Elfman's last classically
influenced, fully-orchestral scores before experiementing with a more
minimalist, electronic sound. Still fresh off of critical success for
Sommersby and popular success for Edward Scissorhands and
The Nightmare Before Christmas, Elfman's score for Black
Beauty largely unknown because of the film's obscurity and the
soundtrack album's disappearance from stores shortly after its release.
Some fans of early Elfman scores label this effort as the last of the
great, orchestral era for the rising composer, citing it as a parting
tribute to Elfman's growing classical talents in front of a full
orchestra... talents which would be placed on a back burner by the
composer for many years...." **** Read the entire
review.
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12/21/00 - The 2000 Golden Globe Nominations are out! For
"Best Original Score - Motion Picture," there are six nominees: Tan Dun
for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Maurice Jarre for
Sunshine, Ennio Morricone for Malena, Rachel Portman for
Chocolat, Stuart, Wilkinson, and Paxton for All The Pretty
Horses, and Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard for Gladiator. The
critical front-runners are Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Gladiator.
Rachel Portman's score for Chocolat, as well as All The Pretty
Horses, will be released on album by Sony Classical on January 9th,
2001. Maurice Jarre's Sunshine was released on album by Milan
Records earlier this year.
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12/20/00 - Medal of Honor: (Michael Giacchino) "Any CD
collector's dream! From the moment you first hear this soundtrack, it will
never leave your side. Michael Giacchino shows his talent in this
soundtrack, and it is only his second U.S. soundtrack (What we have here
is a future John Williams!). Never before have I heard such inspiring,
gorgeous, tense, quiet, bombastic, and fast music! This soundtrack uses a
good mix of all the classical styles, and every track is sure to bring a
surprise around the corner. Although Giacchino is very similar is his
music style to John Williams, he tends to use strings more often then
Williams. (especially the cellos) It is a rare occasion to find a break in
the music that the cellos aren't busy playing their complex music.
Giacchino did a downright incredible job on this soundtrack. Every
collector should have this CD. Believe me, you will not regret it...." Read the entire
donated review.
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12/19/00 - Get Carter: (Tyler Bates) "In what could be a
breakout effort for its composer, Get Carter is a score that very
much mirrors the sharp edge of the motion picture. In a vengeful story of
violent action, the film exists along similar lines as other cult, action
flicks in the modern setting. In response, Tyler Bates composes a short
score that captures the basic emotions of anger, revenge, and madness. The
music, as an alternative to regular song placement in the film, is, in
reality, a sort of extension of the alternative rock that can be heard on
the film's sister album release. Dominated by percussion elements, the
score is essentially a series of rhythms and beats that are accentuated
where needed to coincide with the action on the screen. To that end, the
music in the film functions like a heartbeat that propels the action to
each climax, and then yielding to a new rhythm for a subsequent scene..."
** Read the entire
review.
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12/18/00 - Only You: (Rachel Portman) --All new
review-- "Having only begun to introduce her lush, orchestral romance
scores to the film score community, it would be Only You that would
propel Rachel Portman onto such projects as Addicted to Love,
The Cider House Rules, and The Legend of Bagger Vance. Her
work for Only You caused an international stir that would lead to
this score being re-used for everything from mass wedding ceremonies to
national beauty pageant competitions. It is the most eloquent example of
her mastery at using large string sections of orchestras to portray faith,
hope, romance, and ultimately, happiness. Whether or not Portman's style
is something you find listenable might depend on how much of a hopeless
romatic you are, but nevertheless, Only You epitomizes the style of
Portman's music that has become so popular around the world...." ***** Read the entire
review.
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12/15/00 - Free Willy: (Basil Poledouris) --All new
review-- "Remaining as one of Poledouris' hidden gems, Free
Willy is a much better than average childrens' adventure score. Many
critics of film music, including some professionals, have slammed this
score, referring to it as "yawn-inducing" or "overzealous childsplay."
These labels are nonsense. For the first two Free Willy films,
Poledouris composed a wealth of sensitive and imaginative orchestral
music, paving the way for Cliff Eidelman's similarly impressive score to
the third film. Fans of Poledouris often associate him with loud,
pulse-pounding action scores for movies such as Conan the Barbarian
and The Hunt for Red October. You'd be surprised what he can
produce, however, when the story is more humble. His Free Willy
music is very much of a "family version" of his equally aquatic Red
October score...." **** Read the entire
review.
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12/14/00 - Robocop: Prime Directives: (Norman Orenstein)
"Almost fifteen years after Paul Verhoven's introduction of Robocop
to the mass popular culture, a new series of four made-for-television
films will soon debut, once again featuring Robocop as the cyborg-cop
serving the public trust, protecting the innocent, upholding the law, etc,
etc, in Delta City. Why beat a dead horse? I can only imagine... but here
he is, once again. The four mini-films, entitled "Dark Justice,"
"Meltdown" (which sounds like something we saw in the first feature film),
"Resurrection," and "Crash and Burn," are all scored by Canadian freelance
composer Norman Orenstein. With the help of GNP Crescendo, the label most
friendly to the sci-fi genre of film scores, portions of all four
television film scores will be made available on one CD shortly after the
start of 2001..." * Read the entire
review.
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12/13/00 - The Ultimate Star Trek: (Compilation) "It seems
that a new collection of Star Trek themes is produced once or twice
every year, each one clamoring over another in order to feature the theme
of the newest television or movie release. The pride of each release since
early 1999 has been the inclusion of Star Trek: Insurrection, which
is, ironically, the theme that is least interesting in recent Star
Trek memory. Nevertheless, undaunted by redundancy, the Varese
Sarabande label is ready to please those die-hard Trek fans who are
grasping to the last, dying breaths of Voyager and wondered when or
if there will be another feature film. This compilation isn't much
different from others in the genre; it takes performances of all the
famous themes by orchestras around the world (well, around the places
where musicians' fees aren't astonomical) and arranges them into a
pleasant listening order..." ** Read the entire
review.
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12/12/00 - The Lost Child: (Mark McKenzie) "Scoring once
again for a Hallmark Hall of Fame motion picture, Mark McKenzie blesses
yet another relatively unknown film with a quality orchestral effort. In
this case, the film is Hallmark's 206th, The Lost Child, starring
Academy Award winner Mercedes Ruehl and premiering on CBS on November
19th, 2000, before working its way onto video. It is the story about the
initial shock, but eventual joy experienced by a woman who discovers
through an Internet search that she is a full-blooded Navajo. McKenzie's
score is fully orchestral, and it continues a trend in his career towards
scoring family films for television and home video. As to be expected, his
music stands a level beyond most other such compositions in its thematic
development and performance. As always, he begins with a lovely theme and
interpolates it throughout the rest of the score..." *** Read the entire
review.
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12/11/00 - Courage Under Fire: (James Horner) --All new
review-- "Coming off of the extraordinary year in which he had
composed Braveheart, Apollo 13, and Legends of the
Fall, among others, James Horner suffers a sort of lapse during 1996
and 1997 until Titanic would forever change his career. Horner's
score for Courage Under Fire is a compilation of styles that would
eventually be developed in his later scores. It was almost as though he
was testing a number of thematic and stylistic elements in this score for
possible elaboration at a later date. People kind to Horner would label
such a score as a "transitional effort" while harsh critics would go so
far as to say that this score is perfect evidence that Horner is a hack
and overuses his own material. As such criticism pertains to Courage
Under Fire, I fit somewhere in between...." *** Read the entire
review.
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12/9/00 - Hook: (John Williams) --All new review--
"Long after the muddled film became an asterisk in the career of Steven
Spielberg and audiences largely forgot about it, John Williams' massive
score for the live action Peter Pan adventure continues to outpace many of
his other scores in album sales. The disjointed film, jumping from
location to location, modern to mythical, caused Williams the burden of
composing and establishing several different themes and motifs in the same
score. To successfully keep pace with frenetic movement and countless
characters of the film, Williams composed an enourmous mass of music for
the film, and much of it would resemble several scores that would come for
him in the future. Pieces had already been interpreted from Home
Alone and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for Hook,
and much of the undeveloped material would later blossom in Far and
Away, Jurassic Park, and even Star Wars: The Phantom
Menace. It was almost like Hook was a testing ground for ideas,
some of which reaching a spectacular maturity in the score, while others
were simply rambling teasers from Williams' pen...." ***** Read the entire
review.
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12/8/00 - James Newton Howard is the talk of the town these
days, and Filmtracks has been receiving nonstop feedback about his works
during November. With The Sixth Sense, Dinosaur, and now
Unbreakable all building popular momentum this past year, Howard
continues to gain more fans. Today, his thematic and action-packed score
for Vertical Limit hits the screens, and he has already begun
working on next year's pictures. As part of a new agreement with Disney,
Howard has finished portions of 2001's Atlantis and will score
2002's Treasure Planet. In the meantime, he is also putting the
finishing touches on the romance Unconditional Love and is planning
for two additional large-scale scores next year (in addition to
Atlantis). To celebrate James Newton Howard's achievements and
answer some of your questions about his career, a Filmtracks
Howard Tribute has been established, containing biographical
information, quotes, and a filmography with links to reviews.
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12/7/00 - The Shadow: (Jerry Goldsmith) --All new
review-- "Who knows what guilty pleasure lurks in the hearts of men?
The Shadow knows... In fact, if there were ever to be the need to identify
the ultimate "score of guilty pleasure," then Jerry Goldsmith's The
Shadow could be it. It's the type of score that you'd never know about
unless you were there to hear it when it hit the theatres. The film itself
was a total critical flop. But its quirky personality, led by its charge
to mimic the very superhero genre it belonged to, caused it to be an
undeniable romp. The film's highlight is its remarkable sound effects,
whooshing through a Gotham-like setting with a classical, yet electronic
touch. Goldsmith reacted well to both the film's lighter side, as well as
the sound effects. His music is overblown and silly, mocking everything
from Batman to Lawrence of Arabia with an youthful
exuberance not always heard in Goldsmith's darker scores. Just like those
who created the wacky story and visuals, you get the sense that Goldsmith
had more fun scoring The Shadow than he did for the typical
romances and kiddie films he had otherwise been engaged with at the
time...." **** Read the entire
review.
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12/6/00 - The leader in the December Theme of the Month vote
is the master himself, John Williams. Hundreds of Filmtracks fans voting
for the "best scores" and "best composer" of the 1990's have so far
elected Williams in a landslide over James Horner and Jerry Goldsmith for
his achievements in the decade. Five of the top fifteen scores elected are
Williams' compositions, with Schindler's List and Jurassic
Park at the very top. You can view the full results and vote once a
week throughout the month of December: Check it out!. What
do you think so far about the "best of the 90s" election? Is Williams
really light years ahead of all the other modern composers? Sound off at
The Filmtracks
ScoreBoard...
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12/3/00 - The Contender: (Larry Groupé) "A well-known
associate of popular new composer John Ottman (and the conductor and an
orchestrator of the cult favorite score for Incognito), Larry
Groupé has been composing his own scores for films and events for
several years. He is credited by many for providing the attractively sharp
punch to many of John Ottman's scores of the late 1990s. Many of the
industry insiders I have spoken to have mentioned Groupé as a
potentially big name in the future of film music. In 1999 and 2000,
respectively, Deterrence and The Contender represented two
of the largest film scoring assignments that Groupé has landed thus
far, with The Contender being the first full, mainstream film for
which he could spread his wings. To celebrate Groupé's achievements
of the past two years, Citadel Records has released both scores on one
lengthy album..." *** Read the entire
review.
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12/1/00 - The December Theme of the Month is on! With
Filmtracks' choices for the best, overrated, and underrated scores
of the 1990s featured in the last three Themes of the Month, December is
your month to elect your favorites. The "best of the past year"
vote, which usually occurs every December, will appear in January, 2001,
so that we can celebrate the best of the entire decade past. Please
consult the rules and extra information about this vote before
proceeding. The vote started November 29th, 2000, and will conclude
January 6th, 2000. Manual recounts shall be conducted at the discretion of
the Filmtracks Canvassing Board. Vote for the
best!.
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