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| 3/31/11
- | Fantastic Mr. Fox: (Alexandre Desplat)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on the regular CD album 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 on the only lossless
product available for the soundtrack 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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| 3/29/11
- | Broken Arrow: (Hans Zimmer)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you wonder what Hans Zimmer would write if given a Spaghetti Western, because Broken Arrow
is his best merging of his passion for Ennio Morricone's music and his early Media Ventures
blockbuster sensibilities.
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Avoid it... |
if you love being pounded into submission by the overbearing staccato movements and bass
domination of Zimmer's later action scores, a sound that eventually had very little do with
the kind of instrumental nuances heard in this surprisingly well-balanced score.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 3/27/11
- | Link: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
only if you require the ultimate tool of derangement (a bizarre and unlikely stylistic blend
of Gremlins and Hoosiers) with which to plunder the sanity of your dwelling partner or repel
possible mates.
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Avoid it... |
even if you consider yourself a faithful collector of Jerry Goldsmith's 1980's scores, because
Link is a rare circumstance in which the composer nearly ruined an already suspect film with a
totally inappropriate score.
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| Rating: | *
Read the entire review
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| 3/24/11
- | Battlestar Galactica: (Stu Phillips)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on the 1999 re-recording released by Varèse Sarabande if you only casually seek the
highlights of the 1978 pilot episode, conducted by the composer himself and featuring vibrant
sound quality.
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Avoid it... |
on the 2011 Intrada series or 1996 4-CD promotional set unless you truly consider yourself a
devoted fan of the original show and its music, because these presentations can be both
redundant and overwhelming when considered in sum.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 3/21/11
- | Mrs. Doubtfire: (Howard Shore)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you need conservatively pretty, fluffy, and cheery orchestral ambience to improve your mood
without any significant deviations over the course of forty minutes.
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Avoid it... |
if you value the creativity in tone and instrumental application evident in other Howard Shore
works, for Mrs. Doubtfire is about as streamlined as light romantic comedy and drama scores
can be.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/18/11
- | Surrogates: (Richard Marvin)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you specifically noticed the strong brass performances of the score's compelling title
theme or its more harmonious synthetic ambience in the context of the film.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect Richard Marvin to provide a truly unique sense of creative style in his
symphonic/synthetic blend to match the technological intrigue of the concept.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/15/11
- | Tropic Thunder: (Theodore Shapiro)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you want the rush of an explosive action parody score, one that touches briefly and
haphazardly upon so many stereotypes in film music that it'll make your muscles spasm and head
spin.
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Avoid it... |
if you value continuity or originality, because both are practically nonexistent by necessity
in Theodore Shapiro's otherwise effectively wild music.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/11/11
- | Little Fockers: (Stephen Trask)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you seek a competent extension of the franchise sound established by Randy Newman as well
as material nearly identical to Stephen Trask's own recent score for The Back-Up Plan.
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Avoid it... |
if five to ten minutes of energized, jazzy highlights for this film's primary theme can't
salvage over half an hour of largely standard parody procedures.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/8/11
- | No Strings Attached: (John Debney)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you are an extreme enthusiast of either this movie or John Debney's predictably
contemporary light drama and romance style.
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Avoid it... |
if you see no upside to 27 minutes of mundane but functional and, in its thematic and
instrumental applications, intelligent music on a fragmented score album.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 3/5/11
- | Solaris: (Cliff Martinez)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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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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| 3/2/11
- | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I:
(Alexandre Desplat)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you are a genuine enthusiast of Alexandre Desplat's trademark mannerisms and seek what is
essentially a very strong compilation of the composer's best techniques in a variety of
individual settings.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect to hear Desplat create a cohesive identity of his own for this film or extend
existing ones from his predecessors, a monumental disappointment in terms of the continuing
continuity issues that plague the music for this franchise.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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