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| 3/31/10
- | Capricorn One: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on the 1993 GNP Crescendo or 2009 Collector's Choice albums if you seek a fantastic
rearrangement and re-recording by Jerry Goldsmith of this brutally propulsive score.
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Avoid it... |
on those albums if you prefer the sparse and harshly raw version of the score recorded by
Goldsmith at MGM for the film itself, of which the 2005 Intrada Records album is a very loyal
representation.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 3/30/10
- | Rent-A-Cop: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you want the irresistible title theme that brought Jerry Goldsmith as close as he'd ever
come to the sound of a vintage James Bond song.
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Avoid it... |
if the idea of hearing Goldsmith imitate Bill Conti's light rock style causes you significant
consternation, regardless of the composer's safely standard rhythmic material for mostly
synthesizers in the suspenseful half of the score.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/29/10
- | Islands in the Stream: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
only if you appreciated Jerry Goldsmith's introspective score in the context of the film,
where the music reflects the subtleties of the ocean and the story's lead character.
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Avoid it... |
if you want this highly personal, touching score to exude much outward warmth, for it is
content in its own introverted sphere of lonely ambience at low volumes.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/28/10
- | I.Q.: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
only if you're attempting to complete a Jerry Goldsmith collection, because as cute and
affable as this comedy score is, there's not much substance outside of a high profile melodic
adaptation and some catchy 50's-style rhythms.
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Avoid it... |
if you cringe at the prospect of hearing Goldsmith rely upon "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" as
the primary thematic identity for this film (and break no new ground in other parts).
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/26/10
- | Players: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if Jerry Goldsmith's convincing light romance melodies offer you consistent enjoyment, for
Players contains both a melancholy trumpet theme of noir-like despair and a redemptive
acoustic guitar, woodwind, and piano theme of conventionally pretty heart.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the structurally impressive, but brief tennis-related fanfare provided by
Goldsmith for the film to convey the same level of alluring appeal as the composer's later
propulsive sports themes.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/25/10
- | The Accidental Tourist: (John Williams)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
only if you have already established a liking for John Williams' highly repetitive, subdued
character scores of relatively simplistic development.
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Avoid it... |
if you have become accustomed to the inherent warmth and sense of magic that emanate from the
complexities of Williams' many superior character scores.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 3/23/10
- | Black Sunday: (John Williams)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you seek a grim, but intelligent maturation of John Williams' morbidly suspenseful thriller
material that developed throughout his disaster scores of the 1970's.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect any part of this score to rival Williams' famous alternatives in 1977, for as
technically precise as his subdued ideas for Black Sunday may be, they are not as memorable in
most of their elaborations.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/19/10 - | Filmtracks announces a new awards format and 2009 winners |
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To celebrate the best year for film music in quite some time, Filmtracks reveals its nominees
and winners for 2009 as part of an all-new format for the site's awards section. Three
categories will now exist for each year: "Top Film Scores," "Top Composers," and "Top Film
Cues." The nominees for "Top Film Scores" in 2009 are:
• Agora (Dario Marianelli)
• Avatar (James Horner)
• Couples Retreat (A.R. Rahman)
• Drag Me to Hell (Christopher Young)
• Lesbian Vampire Killers (Debbie Wiseman)
• Pope Joan (Die Päpstin) (Marcel Barsotti)
Visit the new awards section to view the
winner (and other categories). The three-category format has also been extended to
Filmtracks' selections for 2007
and 2008. All previous years
have been entered into the system to reflect past choices without any commentary or expansion.
In the future, these years' pages will be updated to match the current format as time permits.
Please note that previous years featuring split drama and musical/comedy categories (1995 to
1998) have been condensed, with notation about the eliminated scores in those years. For more
information about these changes or to browse all years, visit the Filmtracks Awards index
page.
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| 3/17/10
- | Pope Joan (Die Päpstin): (Marcel Barsotti)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you consistently appreciate conservative but beautiful historical melodrama of an
engagingly tragic and harmonic personality.
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Avoid it... |
if the resonating sound of restrained symphonic grandeur with solo and group choral
lamentation is too stereotypical in its application to a religious setting to satisfy your
desire for non-traditional approaches to otherwise predictable film scores.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 3/15/10
- | Lesbian Vampire Killers: (Debbie Wiseman)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you're ready to grab the nearest crucifix and battle the undead to the sound of monumental
and glorious Gothic magnificence of extreme harmonic force, robust symphonic and choral
colors, and memorable thematic grandeur at unsafe volumes.
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Avoid it... |
if you simply can't accept the fact that the best parody scores in any genre make little
attempt to hide their influences, because Debbie Wiseman's impressive adaptation of vampire
and horror genre stereotypes will remind you of several existing scores.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 3/13/10
- | Fantastic Mr. Fox: (Alexandre Desplat)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you desire a faithful representation of the music heard in the film, from the plethora of
likable songs from many decades ago to Alexandre Desplat's extremely perky parody score.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the twenty minutes of Desplat's plucky, bouncing score to heal your
schizophrenia, for it achieves its aim in providing a manic atmosphere for the film's
characters at the expense of a sane listening experience.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 3/11/10
- | Creation: (Christopher Young)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you have longed for Christopher Young's return to straight-forward dramatic writing, in
which case you'll be rewarded with an elegant, undemanding score with plenty of emphasis on
harmonious meandering in the treble.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect to be overwhelmed by any cue prior to the last one, for those concluding six
minutes are a melodramatic gem that makes the rest of the relatively subdued score seem purely
atmospheric.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 3/9/10
- | The Informant!: (Marvin Hamlisch)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you agree that every composer should be allowed to come out of retirement and return to his
roots one final time, especially if it can be done with both precision and a sense of humor.
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Avoid it... |
if you are horrified to be reminded of the era of Marvin Hamlisch's dominance in 1970's
mainstream jazz and light romance and, on a related note, you couldn't stand the Austin Powers
scores that parodied him and his contemporary peers.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 3/7/10
- | Agora: (Dario Marianelli)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you appreciated Dario Marianelli's super-popular scores for period romance dramas like
Pride & Prejudice and Atonement but have waited to hear him apply that tragic romanticism to
the impressively massive orchestral scale of V for Vendetta and The Brothers Grimm.
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Avoid it... |
if you simply cannot accept the application of stereotypical wailing female vocals and
regional flutes in an obvious sonic battle against Latin chanting and orchestral bombast for
the war between pagan knowledge and Christian fervor at the time of the Roman Empire's
collapse, even if these elements are masterfully employed.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 3/5/10
- | District 9: (Clinton Shorter)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you appreciated the hybrid African, symphonic, and electronic blend of mournful vocals,
deeply chopping ostinatos, and scrappy percussion barrages in the context of the sleeper hit.
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Avoid it... |
if you would find little merit in the guilty pleasure of hearing a merging of styles from Hans
Zimmer's Tears of the Sun and Batman Begins in the ten minutes of harmonious highlights of
this score.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/3/10
- | Un Homme et Son Chien: (Philippe Rombi)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you easily become encapsulated in piano-dominated light romance with a fair dose of
melancholy heart, in which case this lovely score is your ticket to late night sorrow.
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Avoid it... |
if you're expecting to hear music with as much dramatic range as Rombi's classic 2007 score
for Angel, which remains a superior alternative because of its greater exposition of fully
symphonic magnificence.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 3/1/10
- | Drag Me to Hell: (Christopher Young)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you never tire of hearing Christopher Young overachieve in the horror and thriller genres,
in which case you'll be rewarded with hell-raising explosions of symphonic creativity rarely
heard in any genre.
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Avoid it... |
if the wild inconsistency in structural flow inherent in any effective horror score of massive
proportions threatens to negate the surprising intelligence of Young's tackling of the gypsy
element in this work.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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