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| 5/31/11
- | American Gangster: (Marc Streitenfeld)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you seek a very competent adaptation of Blaxploitation tones into a rhythmically
aggressive, atmospherically creepy orchestral and synthetic blend.
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Avoid it... |
if the haze of a dirty, murky environment for the majority of the score cannot sustain your
interest after several engaging cues of distinct 1970's attitude for the title character at
the start.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 5/28/11
- | Blades of Glory: (Theodore Shapiro)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if even average, spoon-fed parody scores of absolutely no distinctive personality rouse you
with their head-spinning diversity.
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Avoid it... |
if you require your parody scores to truly take themselves seriously, because the tone of
Theodore Shapiro's music for this film is too cute and airy to be considered worthwhile as a
standalone listening experience on album.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 5/25/11
- | Lust, Caution: (Alexandre Desplat)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you consistently appreciate Alexandre Desplat's ability to accentuate the tasteful drama in
a film without taking any chances in terms of the depth of his emotional reach.
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Avoid it... |
if the lack of true passion, suspicion, romance, and danger in this music makes it too safely
inoffensive to engage you as thoroughly as you expect for a film of this melodramatic agony.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 5/22/11
- | Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs: (Mark
Mothersbaugh)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if ten minutes of majestic orchestral and choral highlights for this animated fantasy film are
enough to float a
highly frenetic and often challenging score that accomplishes its task with ease.
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Avoid it... |
if your lack of interest in shifty parody scores with inconsistent personalities consistently
limits your
appreciation of even their occasional solitary highlights.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 5/18/11
- | Limitless: (Paul Leonard-Morgan)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you suffer from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder that includes, but is not limited to,
unexplainable self-punishment, guilt-purging behavior patterns, unloving strangulation of
self-freedom, compulsive-ritualistic tendencies, and inertly reverting to default,
counterproductive conduct.
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Avoid it... |
if you have an affectionate attachment to your brain cells, because you'll discovered several
of them missing after sitting through the album of this brash, mechanized noise.
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| Rating: | *
Read the entire review
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| 5/15/11
- | The Adjustment Bureau: (Thomas Newman)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if the generically computerized rhythmic chase scores of this generation no longer interest
you and you seek the same atmospheric effect from Thomas Newman's reliably eclectic collection
of oddly compiled instruments.
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Avoid it... |
if the only thing that connects less with you emotionally than generically computerized
rhythmic chase scores is precisely Newman's usual rattling and clunking rhythms, a sound that
unfortunately disappoints in this aimless application.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 5/13/11
- | Medal of Honor: Frontline: (Michael Giacchino)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if the maturity of Michael Giacchino's own distinct style is what you had considered lacking
in the previous "Medal of Honor" scores.
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Avoid it... |
if you really have no confidence in the quality of any score for a video game, because by this
entry in the series, Giacchino's "Medal of Honor" music could compete favorably with any major
film score.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 5/11/11
- | Medal of Honor: Underground: (Michael Giacchino)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you itched to hear Michael Giacchino branch out from the John Williams mould after the
first "Medal of Honor" score and start exploring his own styles with the same standard of high
quality.
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Avoid it... |
if the reason you enjoyed "Medal of Honor" was precisely because of its close stylistic
similarities to Williams' music, for this subsequent entry rumbles into more intimate
territory.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 5/9/11
- | Medal of Honor: (Michael Giacchino)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you want to hear Michael Giacchino's first breakthrough score, for despite residing in the
video game genre, "Medal of Honor" is an engagingly robust orchestral work worthy of a motion
picture.
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Avoid it... |
if the strikingly obvious similarities between this music and John Williams' Indiana Jones and
the Last Crusade might hinder your ability to enjoy its other, more original merits.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 5/6/11
- | The Homecoming: A Christmas Story/Rascals and
Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn: (Jerry Goldsmith/James Horner)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if pleasant and predictable extensions of familiar trademarks from Jerry Goldsmith and James
Horner are interesting enough to warrant curiosity in this compilation of two of their obscure
television works.
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Avoid it... |
if you have no need to hear stripped-down siblings to half a dozen larger scores from each
composer.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 5/3/11
- | First Knight: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you maintain at least a moderate collection of Jerry Goldsmith's most robust action scores,
because First Knight valiantly connects the styles of his 1970's classics with the bombast of
his best scores of the late 1990's.
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Avoid it... |
on any album if you have little tolerance for Goldsmith in unintentional parody mode, for he
pushes the nobility and melodrama to downright silly heights here, and especially avoid the
incomplete and badly rearranged 1995 commercial product.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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