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| 10/30/07
- | U.S. Marshals: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you are not bothered by a lack of distinctive personality in some of Jerry Goldsmith's
most predictable and pedestrian action scores.
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Avoid it... |
if you tend to be bored by Goldsmith's action music of the 90's when he simply goes through
the motions without providing a unique style to each individual score.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 10/28/07
- | Twilight: (Elmer Bernstein)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you are an avid Elmer Bernstein collector and can absorb the atmosphere of his somber
and morbid film noir-style atmosphere.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect any sense of lively engagement from the score, including Bernstein's tepid
reprise of his trademark themes from previous eras.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 10/26/07
- | Star Kid: (Nicholas Pike)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you can appreciate generic, but pleasant orchestral fantasy music for B-rate children's
films.
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Avoid it... |
if you tend to overanalyze scores that exist in that purgatory between low budget trash and
mainstream Hollywood form.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/23/07
- | Soldier: (Joel McNeely)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you're prepared to hear a merging of Jerry Goldsmith's action and Elliot Goldenthal's
instrumental arrangements for the purposes of wildly frenetic and creative action romps.
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Avoid it... |
if mere instrumental creativity alone cannot sustain your interest in a score that has no
cohesive goal or thematic identity.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/20/07
- | Snow White: Tale of Terror: (John Ottman)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you appreciate John Ottman's often extreme instrumental creativity in his horror and
fantasy music, regardless of how emotionally draining the music can be.
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Avoid it... |
if the Gothic beauty that lures you to this genre in Ottman's career requires lengthy
statements of straight, harmonic elegance to justify your attention.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/16/07
- | Six Days, Seven Nights: (Randy Edelman)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you enjoyed the calypso and reggae flavor to the score in the film, including the
performance by Taj Mahal shown on stage.
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Avoid it... |
if you value coherence and adherence to stylistic boundaries in your scores, or if you've
never been fond of Randy Edelman's somewhat plastic action material in the past.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/13/07
- | The Replacement Killers: (Harry Gregson-Williams)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if there is no limit to the amount of sampled rhythms and sampled sound effects that you enjoy
from the early days of the Media Ventures library.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the memorably sorrowful theme for the primary character in the film to occupy
any more than two minutes on album.
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| Rating: | *
Read the entire review
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| 10/11/07
- | Pleasantville: (Randy Newman)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you appreciate Randy Newman's more serious, dramatic efforts of the 1990's, even if they're
spiked with a few trademark jazz and comedy cues.
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Avoid it... |
if the extent of your interest in Newman's work rests firmly in the realm of his comedy scores
and song performances.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/6/07
- | Amazing Stories: (John Williams/Various)
- Expanded, Updated Review |
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Buy it... |
on the 1999 Varèse Sarabande re-recording if you only have a passing, casual interest
in this series and its wildly varying musical styles.
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Avoid it... |
on the second Intrada anthology set if you seek the highlights of the series in original form,
most of which appear on the first and (mostly) third anthologies.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 10/3/07
- | Paulie: (John Debney)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you can find John Debney's pleasantly overachieving score inexpensively in a used-CD
bin.
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Avoid it... |
if predictable light drama from the composer, similar in its anonymous tones to many of his
other like-minded scores, doesn't justify a scant 24 minutes on album.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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