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| 1/31/11 - | Composer John Barry has died at 77 |
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Famed for writing the music for nearly a dozen James Bond films and dramatic
powerhouses of the 1980's and 1990's, John Barry died yesterday in New York at the
age of 77. His family did not release a cause of death and indicated that his
funeral would be private. Barry retired from composing in the 2000's but remained a
favorite due to his four decades of popular and award-winning songs and orchestral
scores. He was one of the few remaining composers with ties to the smoke-filled
session rooms that date back to his start in jazz instrumentals, developing not
only the identity of the Bond franchise in the 1960's but also a larger symphonic
style that earned him multiple Academy Awards in that decade as well. His flowing
romance style of the 1980's, easily recognizable because of the composer's highly
consistent mannerisms, bridged the gap between film music and the mainstream in a
way that only a few of his peers have achieved.
Filmtracks recognizes his career by urging younger generations of film music
collectors to explore his most accomplished soundtracks, including
Born Free (1966),
The Lion in Winter (1968),
Somewhere in Time (1980),
Raise the Titanic (1980),
Body Heat (1981),
Out of Africa (1985),
Dances With Wolves (1990),
Chaplin (1992),
My Life (1993), and, to represent his
contribution to the Bond franchise, his final and superior entry,
The Living Daylights (1987).
Although he may not have written a score in the past ten years, his musical voice
has endured (and, in many ways, defied) the industry's shift away from his later,
once super-popular style of broad romanticism. Whether for better or for worse, his
stubborn methods of sweeping audiences out of their seats or subconsciously
inducing them to tap their feet on the floor were truly unique. Read more about his
career at Filmtracks' John Barry
Tribute.
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| 1/29/11
- | Red Sonja: (Ennio Morricone)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on any album only if you are an Ennio Morricone completist or seek one of the quirkier but
still effective scores to grace the sword and sorcery age in the early 1980's.
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Avoid it... |
if you never cared much for Basil Poledouris' music for the Hyborian Age and wouldn't want to
hear it romanticized in sometimes awkward fashion, especially as it caters to 1980's pop
culture at its conclusion.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/26/11
- | Home Alone: (John Williams)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on any of its albums if you seek one of the most memorable, purely innocent Christmas scores
in the history of film music.
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Avoid it... |
if the hopelessly optimistic, spiritually seasonal nature of John Williams' first cheery
children's score reduces it to a once-a-year kind of listening experience.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/23/11
- | Jade: (James Horner)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on either the bootlegs or the official, limited 2010 album only if you want to experience the
horror that James Horner must have felt when actually trying to write 20+ minutes of mundane,
mostly synthetic filler material for this unbelievably awful film.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect Horner to have written anything as compelling as the beautiful Loreena McKennitt
song or as interesting as the Igor Stravisnky piece both mixed so prominently with the score
throughout the film.
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| Rating: | *
Read the entire review
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| 1/20/11
- | Flesh + Blood: (Basil Poledouris)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on the 2010 Intrada album if you seek a bold, glorious, tonal, and rhythmically constructed
companion score to Basil Poledouris' Conan the Barbarian in its most obviously superior sound
quality.
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Avoid it... |
if you are not an audiophile and the score has never really enticed you going all the way back
to Varèse Sarabande's CD in 1992, in which case subsequent presentations of additional
material will likely not impress you.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/17/11
- | The Karate Kid: (Bill Conti)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on the comprehensive 2007 set with all four of Bill Conti's scores for the popular franchise
if you are a devoted enthusiast of either the films or Conti's distinctive blend of symphonic
and contemporary tones typical to the era.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the ethnic influence on these scores to shake the stylistic habits and
overarching tone that equally define the composer's Rocky scores as dated and repetitious.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/14/11
- | Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: (Jerry
Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on the 2010 La-La Land album if you're interested in hearing a superior presentation of one of
Jerry Goldsmith's most vibrant, thematically diverse, and arguably forgotten "Star Trek"
scores.
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Avoid it... |
on any of the albums if you want to hear the replacement music for the brainwashing sequences
in the film or if you expect Goldsmith's material for those scenes and concepts to match the
strength of the remainder of this otherwise entertaining entry.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/11/11
- | Rain Man: (Hans Zimmer)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you want to trace most of Hans Zimmer's enduring and arguably superior output from 1989 to
1994 back to its origin, because Rain Man was the initiation point for a wide variety of the
composer's later techniques.
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Avoid it... |
if the eleven minutes of Zimmer's likable, optimistic score on the 1988 commercial product
isn't enough and you expect the 2010 limited edition album or various score-only bootlegs to
provide a consistent, decent sounding presentation of the score's prettier parts.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 1/8/11
- | The Bucket List: (Marc Shaiman)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you appreciate the personality of both Marc Shaiman and his music, because this compilation
album is a
tribute to his heartfelt sensibilities, remarkable performance abilities, and enduring sense
of humor.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect the score for The Bucket List alone to carry the weight of this album, because
it's
tastefully restrained but underwhelming music that cannot compete with the depth of Shaiman's
better
scores.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/5/11
- | The Beach: (Angelo Badalamenti)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if the film's absolutely stunning title theme for whimsical orchestra and choir, occupying
just a third of the score's length, is worth wading through the extremely challenging
techno-brutal majority to find.
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Avoid it... |
if you're not familiar with the schizophrenic personality of this soundtrack, because the
highly collectible score-only album is a very mixed bag of stylistic discord.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 1/2/11
- | First Blood: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on the outstanding 2010 Intrada set if you seek by far the most superior presentation of an
action score that builds and maintains more character than most in existence, conveying the
sorrow of John Rambo with surprising warmth in its melodic highlights.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect to hear the same consistently explosive tone of action in First Blood that made
the subsequent two scores in the franchise (also by Jerry Goldsmith) so memorable.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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