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| 2/27/10
- | The Hurt Locker: (Marco Beltrami/Buck Sanders)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you want to shatter the sanity in your head with an incredibly challenging, dissonant
musical extension of the sound effects used to convey the alienating suspense of the
impossible circumstances in the film.
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Avoid it... |
if you purchase your soundtracks with the intent of enjoying them, for the depressing
pseudo-music for The Hurt Locker is so frightfully obnoxious that even suicidal people may
find it too disturbing to put them into the right mood for killing themselves.
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| Rating: | *
Read the entire review
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| 2/25/10
- | The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus:
(Mychael Danna/Jeff Danna)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you have long appreciated the style of Terry Gilliams' imagination on screen and
desire an equally creative interpretation of those sensibilities in a genre-defying,
instrumentally ornate score of restrained melodrama.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the composing team of brothers Mychael and Jeff Danna to overwhelm you
with thematic or stylistic consistency in this work, the absence of which being
necessary for the film but producing a somewhat nebulous atmosphere on album.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 2/22/10
- | Up: (Michael Giacchino)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if your heart was broken by the tragic whimsy of Michael Giacchino's theme for the primary
couple in the context of Up, its combination of vintage jazz and waltz rhythms both affably
light-hearted and remarkably intimate at the forefront of the film's mix.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the compressed, download-only album presentation of this score to do any justice
to the dynamic range of the original recording when attempting to appreciate it on anything
other than headphones.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 2/21/10 - |
Review Update and "Modern Classics" Rankings |
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The survey of modern classics, as defined by Filmtracks visitors' cumulative internal search
engine totals, has now concluded. Next are a dozen reviews of noteworthy new scores from 2009,
a few of which will be nominated in this year's Filmtracks awards in March. After that, there
is no set schedule for coverage. Expanded surveys of the works of Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman,
Patrick Doyle, and Christopher Young are still in the works, though several existing reviews
require the addition of recent album releases. Also expect to see coverage of 2010 scores in a
more timely manner.
As promised due to propular demand last year are the rankings of how the "modern classics"
existed in Filmtracks' logs. To see how they were selected for coverage, as well as the list
of titles rejected from this round of reviews, read more...
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| 2/18/10
- | The Mission: (Ennio Morricone)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if your collection is absent of a single Ennio Morricone score, for there would be no better a
place to start than the timeless melodic brilliance of the three heartbreaking themes at the
center of The Mission.
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Avoid it... |
if nothing less than a challenge-free listening experience from beginning to end will suffice,
in which case the substantial amount of disturbing, dissonant material on the second half of
this score's album may be a deterrent.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 2/16/10
- | The Core: (Christopher Young)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you have long ago lost patience with the array of insipid, mundane trash usually recorded
for blockbuster disaster films, in which case Christopher Young's score for The Core will
impress you with surprising intelligence in its sustained volume.
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Avoid it... |
if you can't handle being challenged by a composer who tosses aside the notion of easy,
harmonic statements of a bold theme in every action cue and instead offers the kind of robust
"wall of sound" that will overwhelm you with its transcendent structures.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 2/14/10
- | The Crow: (Graeme Revell)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you desire a complete representation of the music heard prominently in the film, because
while the song compilation figures heavily in that mix, Graeme Revell's score is crucial to
maintaining the film's supernatural atmosphere.
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Avoid it... |
if the bleak, industrial tones that dominate Revell's score are too grating to justify three
or four cues of subdued but compelling romance material from a restrained orchestra and
intriguing collection of exotic instruments and voices.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 2/11/10
- | Out of Africa: (John Barry)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if broad John Barry romanticism of consistently dramatic tonality melts your heart, in which
case Out of Africa is among three or four scores of absolute certainty for your collection.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect this score to sound anywhere near as decent in its recording quality as some of
Barry's equivalent works, or if you desire a plentitude of thunderously melodramatic
performances in the ranks of Dances With Wolves.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 2/9/10 - |
Two New Features Debut at Filmtracks |
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The two most frequently requested additions to Filmtracks by its readers are now
available at the site. First is the expansion of options in the formatting of the
audio clips in the reviews, allowing more people to listen to the samples than ever
before. Second is the debut of an RSS feed for subscribers who wish to be notified
when new content is published at the site.
Read more about these features and other, future projects...
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| 2/7/10
- | Behind Enemy Lines: (Don Davis)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you specifically seek five to ten minutes of harmonious grandeur or synthetically
rocking action sequences that you appreciated in the film.
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Avoid it... |
if you prefer not to be reminded of half a dozen other composers' music when trying to
assemble this completely unfocused score into some semblance of a unified work.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 2/5/10
- | Gettysburg: (Randy Edelman)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you, like most viewers of this film, became enamored with Randy Edelman's blatantly heroic
music, a simplistic pleasure considered by the mainstream to be a wholesome statement of
nobility.
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Avoid it... |
if you have ever been remotely bothered by Edelman's amateurish thematic structures,
non-existent textural creativity, or cheap blend of symphony and electronics, all of which do
an incredible disservice to the historical complexity and gruesome conditions of the American
Civil War's most famous battle.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 2/3/10
- | Solaris: (Cliff Martinez)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if an extremely conservative and alienating combination of tone, instrumentation, and rhythm
typical to the scores of Clint Mansell, Jon Brion, and Philip Glass is your ticket to deep,
quiet, and meaningful contemplation.
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Avoid it... |
if you have feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness, pessimism, emptiness, anxiety, or
hopelessness, in addition to suicidal thoughts, appetite loss, fatigue, persistent aches,
excessive sleeping, or loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including
sex.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 2/1/10
- | Back to the Future Part III: (Alan Silvestri)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you've always loved the themes from the original Back to the Future score but were
discouraged by the simple regurgitation of them in the first sequel; they are explored more
intelligently in the final entry.
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Avoid it... |
if you seek the tight cohesion, overwhelming sense of wonder, and full thematic spectrum of
the first score, for Alan Silvestri does lose some of its magic in his attempt to explore new
thematic territory.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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