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| 1/30/07
- | A History of Hitchcock: Dial M For
Murder: (Compilation) - Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
only if it's available for $0.99 and you don't own subsequent Silva compilations of
music from Hitchcock films.
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Avoid it... |
if you'd rather seek a superior 1999 compilation combining all of Silva's
Hitchcock-related offerings into one set.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 1/25/07
- | The Queen: (Alexandre Desplat)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you want an upbeat variant on Alexandre Desplat's score for Birth, or you appreciated the
score's light touch in the film itself.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect any sense of regal authority or genuine sorrow extending from Desplat's
surprisingly flighty and prickly score.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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1/23/07 - | The 2006 Academy Award
Nominations |
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Nominated for 'Best Score' are Gustavo Santaolalla for Babel, Thomas Newman for The
Good German, Philip Glass for Notes on a Scandal, Javier Navarrete for Pan's Labyrinth, and
Alexander Desplat for The
Queen. These nominations are the first for Desplat and
Navarrete. Unlike previous years, there is no clear front-runner in this field. Santaolalla
won the award last year for his often criticized Brokeback
Mountain, an award widely considered by the film score community to be the poorest
Oscar choice for a score since Anne Dudley's The Fully Monty won over a vastly superior
field in 1998. This marks only the second time in the past decade that John Williams has not
been nominated, with both years featuring no new score from the Hollywood favorite (2003,
2006). Tell us what you think of the nominations at the Filmtracks Scoreboard!
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| 1/21/07
- | Lonesome Dove: Classic Western Film Scores II:
(Compilation)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you want a fantastic performance of a suite from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and some of the
remaining selections are of interest to you.
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Avoid it... |
if you conversely lack interest in the highly varied and somewhat unpredictable series of
inclusions.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/17/07
- | The Promise: (Klaus Badelt)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you want to hear a group of China's best orchestral players and singers translate an
unproven composer's truly American sound into a magnificent blend of style and beauty.
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Avoid it... |
if the simplicity of Klaus Badelt's constructs, still rooted in the basic chord progressions
that have defined his career, detract from the authenticity of the genre.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 1/14/07
- | Eragon: (Patrick Doyle)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you can imagine enjoying Patrick Doyle's hopelessly positive and treble-rich repetitions of
blatantly heroic and slightly cheesy fantasy themes.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect your sword and sorcery scores to shake the floors with a genuine sense of dread
and solemn contemplation (to go along with those grandiose themes).
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/11/07
- | Blizzard: (Mark McKenzie)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you can't resist seasonal choral and orchestral beauty and are rooting for the career of
Mark McKenzie like most other dedicated film score collectors.
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Avoid it... |
if the hopelessly saccharine nature of children's music for the holidays is simply too much
major key for you to handle.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/8/07
- | Pan's Labyrinth: (Javier Navarrete)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you seek an exotic, rich fantasy score with thematic integrity and grand, tonal schemes
while maintaining a persistent sense of dread in its dissonant accompaniment.
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Avoid it... |
if you are easily exhausted by extremely dense, complicated, and emotionally conflicted
scores, no matter their beauty.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/6/07
- | The Departed: (Howard Shore)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you enjoy contemporary guitar performances (acoustic and electric) set to snazzy tango
rhythms.
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Avoid it... |
if the overtly stylish and surprising Latin flavor reaches beyond your acceptable boundaries
of the American mob film genre.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/4/07
- | Blood Diamond: (James Newton Howard)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you can appreciate an extremely diverse collection of percussion and vocals over a relatively
simplistic orchestral construct.
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Avoid it... |
if the pieces of music you've heard from the score sound far too similar to Hans Zimmer's
stereotypical Media Ventures sound to salvage the worth of the album.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/2/07
- | The Fountain: (Clint Mansell)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you are a dedicated fan of impressionistic scores and/or appreciated this score's minimalistic,
repetitive constructs in the film itself.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect your journey to spiritual enlightenment to include intellectual complexity, harmonic resonance,
or satisfying resolution.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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