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| 4/29/08
- | Les Misérables: (Basil Poledouris)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you want a truly distinct and overwhelmingly morbid Basil Poledouris score, the final
masterpiece of his illustrious career.
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Avoid it... |
if a deeply inflective, massively rendered, and heavily layered melodrama for this famous
story is too shamelessly characteristic of the transparent tactics of tear-jerking by Broadway
productions for your film score tastes.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 4/26/08
- | Incognito: (John Ottman)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you seek one of the most rhythmically and instrumentally creative scores of the digital
era, and the highlight of the first dozen years of John Ottman's mainstream composing career.
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Avoid it... |
if you are easily overwhelmed by wildly percussive scores that dazzle you with their
fiendishly executed diversity of sound.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 4/22/08
- | Elizabeth: (David Hirschfelder)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you appreciate highly tumultuous, dissonant chanting for full chorus and orchestra leading
a score of significantly weighty gloominess.
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Avoid it... |
if you prefer your grand period scores to lure you with lush, harmonious performances of theme
and a lack of stereotypical instrumentation for the genre.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 4/20/08
- | Warriors of the Silver Screen: (Compilation)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you want to fill an entire afternoon with some of the most heroic music ever written for
the big screen, all of which presented in outstanding sound quality.
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Avoid it... |
if you are deterred by the significant emphasis on Golden Age representation on this and
similar sets from Silva Screen.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 4/18/08
- | The Mark of Zorro/The Crimson Pirate:
(Compilations)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you want a collection of the definitive swashbuckling
works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Miklos Rózsa, and
other Golden Age composers.
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Avoid it... |
if you are interested solely in the sparse inclusion of digital era scores on these albums.
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| Rating: | ***/****
Read the entire review
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| 4/15/08
- | Cinema Choral Classics: (Compilation)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you seek one of the most powerful compilations of choral film music ever
produced for album.
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Avoid it... |
if the overbearing nature of most of the selections on this compilation is too wild
and noisy for your taste.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 4/11/08
- | L.A. Confidential: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you admire the tension of Jerry Goldsmith's highly rhythmic and brutally percussive scores
of the 1970's.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the seductive noir elements to convince you of the era or if you have little
patience for Goldsmith's stock 90's action structures.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 4/9/08
- | The Game: (Howard Shore)
- All New Filmtracks Review, Replacing a Donated Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you are familiar with the score's role in the film, and are comfortable with the
understated style of Howard Shore's thrillers of the 1990's.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect any interesting instrumental or thematic development in an otherwise bland and
atmospheric effort.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 4/6/08
- | Devil's Advocate: (James Newton Howard)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you are a sucker for unrestrained religious horror music, with all the expected
crescendos of choral beauty and tumultuous orchestral rhythms.
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Avoid it... |
if a series of over-the-top and in-your-face statements of religious power is just
as offensive to you as the blasphemous Al Pacino dialogue included from the film.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 4/1/08
- | Air Force One: (Jerry Goldsmith/Joel
McNeely/Randy Newman)
- Expanded Review |
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Buy it... |
if you enjoy Jerry Goldsmith's stock 1990's action style, no matter how derivative and
predictable.
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Avoid it... |
on the commercial album if you expect any of Joel McNeely's surprisingly good material or the
majority of the Russian motifs heard in the film. Also avoid Randy Newman's highly overrated
rejected score.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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