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| 1/30/10
- | Back to the Future Part II: (Alan Silvestri)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you simply can't get enough of the boisterous and lovable adventure themes from the
original film, all of which reprised (sometimes too frequently) for similar situations on
screen in the sequel.
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Avoid it... |
if you feel no need to complete your trilogy of Back to the Future scores, for the second
installment is, outside of some minimal new suspense material for alternate realities, largely
redundant and poor in sound quality.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/27/10
- | Back to the Future: (Alan Silvestri)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
without reservation if you, like the majority of modern film music collectors, have awaited a
proper treatment of Alan Silvestri's fantastic and memorable score on album for decades.
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Avoid it... |
on the 2009 Intrada 2-CD set if you are a casual enthusiast of the film who seeks only the
best of the score material to accompany the famous songs on the soundtrack, in which case the
original, best-selling album should suffice.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 1/25/10 - |
Filmtracks to Eliminate Major Awards Coverage |
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After decades of frustration with the ridiculous methodology and dubious merit of the
"Best Original Score" categories (and their variations) at major awards ceremonies,
Filmtracks will no longer provide coverage of such fraudulent popularity contests.
Notes about the award consideration earned by scores and composers will continue to be
marked in the individual reviews and composer tributes, but no special mention of the
major international awards (nominations or winners) will be made on Filmtracks'
homepage or in the awards section of this site. That latter directory of information
will, in the forthcoming weeks, be stripped of its database of past winners of Oscars
and Golden Globes and will concentrate on only those awards published by this site and
its esteemed peers within the soundtrack community.
Read more about the reasons for this permanent dismissal of industry awards...
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| 1/23/10
- | Monster: (Brian Transeau)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you are an enthusiast of BT's style of electronic experimentation, because the audience for
this score on album is squarely aimed at those who appreciate the romantic side of his
sensibilities.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect anything about Transeau's music to adhere to even the most basic conventions of
film music structure, for this is a score that plays more like a solo album than a soundtrack.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/21/10
- | Excalibur: (Trevor Jones)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
on any of the various bootlegs if you seek a competent, though not complete presentation of
the decent but rather sparse Trevor Jones score and borrowed Carl Orff and Richard Wagner
classics.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the Jones material to live up to the hype generated in the mainstream by the
Wagner and Orff music, because everything that he accomplished in a limited role in Excalibur
would be better explored and executed in The Dark Crystal not long after.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/18/10
- | Remember the Titans: (Trevor Rabin/John Debney)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
on the Trevor Rabin promotional album if you noticed the composer's conservatively symphonic
and soothingly melodic score amongst the dominating song placements in the film.
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Avoid it... |
on either the commercial song compilation or Rabin's promo if you want to hear a score that
strongly addresses the cultural aspects of the film, in which case the rejected score by John
Debney is a fascinatingly diverse (though ultimately incomplete) listening experience.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/16/10
- | Amélie: (Yann Tiersen)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you seek a direct, culturally precise extension of the feel-good spirit of the film, with
Yann Tiersen's whimsical waltzes and pretty solo performances matching the title character's
innocence perfectly.
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Avoid it... |
if you hear accordions in your nightmares, because their intimately dry and exuberant
performances in this score could torture a person not accustomed to the stereotypical extremes
of Parisian romance music.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/14/10
- | Somewhere in Time: (John Barry)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you find yourself regularly apologizing for the inherent simplicity and hopelessly sappy
melodrama of John Barry's trademark romance scores of the 1980's.
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Avoid it... |
if you subscribe to the understandable "once you've heard one Barry romance score, you've
heard them all" line of thinking, because Somewhere in Time is among the composer's most
conservative, albeit lovely string-dominated scores.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/11/10
- | Bad Boys: (Mark Mancina/Nick Glennie-Smith)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you appreciated the driving energy of Mark Mancina's score for Speed and seek a natural,
more orchestral evolution of that sound (along with some genuinely spirited reggae personality
for the two leads).
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Avoid it... |
if you detest what filmmakers Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay have done to the intellectual
expectations of blockbuster film music, in which case Bad Boys serves as a frustrating marker
of origin for that sound.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/8/10
- | Basic: (Klaus Badelt)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you become entranced by serviceable and mechanical military thriller scores of a
variety that Klaus Badelt and other Media Ventures graduates seem to have no problem churning
out.
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Avoid it... |
if you want any of your expectations to be surpassed by this bland, uneventful exercise in
electronic textures and token ethnic accents.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 1/5/10
- | The Natural: (Randy Newman)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you seek the early pinnacle of Randy Newman's career, one of the most defining, effective,
and memorable sports scores of all time.
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Avoid it... |
if you have little tolerance for Newman's vintage jazz and Aaron Copland sensibilities, both
of which saturate the score outside of the bold performances of the primary, inspirational
fanfare and its associated theme of redemption.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 1/2/10
- | Seven: (Howard Shore)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you desire twenty minutes of Howard Shore's menacingly churning and frightfully
depressing low brass score, heard in its only consistent, impactual form during the climactic
execution scene.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the commercial album for this soundtrack to contain either of the credits songs
(opening or closing) or any consistent representation of the film's incredibly oppressive
mood.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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