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| 10/30/11
- | Sex and the City 2: (Aaron Zigman)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you've ever wondered if a parody of Middle Eastern film music stereotypes could be so
blatantly offensive that it transcends to racist levels, because Aaron Zigman creates a
bizarre musical dichotomy in this score that you may never hear again.
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Avoid it... |
if you can't fathom replacing the tender, heartfelt piano tones of the prior movie's score
with the broad strokes of Maurice Jarre's Lawrence of Arabia over rocking, contemporary pop
loops.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/28/11
- | Sex and the City: (Aaron Zigman)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you're an enthusiast of the concept and want to complete your collection of all three
albums for this film with Aaron Zigman's conservatively pretty, piano-led underscore.
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Avoid it... |
if you're a film score collector in search of superior romantic comedy music, because
originality (and the series' main theme, outside of one token cameo) is absent from this
effort.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/25/11
- | The Greatest Miracle (El Gran Milagro): (Mark
McKenzie)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if your heart melts when presented with unyielding melodic beauty for orchestra and varied
choir, a characteristic abundant in the consistently loving demeanor of Mark McKenzie's first
score in several years.
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Avoid it... |
if you are so bothered by what you consider religious propaganda films that the clearly pious
nature of this inspirational score will annoy you in its attempt to glorify the purity of
faith through wholesale tonal magnificence.
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| Rating: | *****
Read the entire review
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| 10/23/11
- | Jane Eyre: (Dario Marianelli)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you have always appreciated Dario Marianelli's ability to exercise technical mastery of a
subdued, respectful manner in his period dramas.
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Avoid it... |
if romantic warmth and a pleasant demeanor are your requirements of this, one of the gloomiest
musical representations of Jane Eyre to ever exist despite its challengingly rewarding beauty.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 10/21/11
- | Nanny McPhee Returns: (James Newton Howard)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if your appreciation of James Newton Howard's generically playful children's mode is strong
enough to forgive a wholeheartedly adequate but anonymous, passionless, and predictable entry
in the genre.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect any of Patrick Doyle's engagingly cohesive thematic identities from Nanny McPhee
to survive for this comparatively procedural sequel.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/19/11
- | Nanny McPhee: (Patrick Doyle)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you trust Patrick Doyle to filter the vintage comedy, fantasy, and drama styles of Danny
Elfman and James Horner through his own instrumentally diverse and lyrically consistent voice.
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Avoid it... |
if you have little patience for effectively heartwarming but ultimately derivative children's
music that deviates from its wholesome tones only occasionally for a few wicked comedy
sideshows.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 10/17/11
- | A Fish Called Wanda: (John Du Prez)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you can't resist the funniest, most effective orchestral sex cue in the history of cinema,
for John Du Prez highlights his otherwise breezy and predictable parody score with an operatic
"Humping" cue that is alone worth the search for the album.
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Avoid it... |
if less than five minutes of monumental symphonic glory is not worth the badly dated light
rock that inhabits much of the acoustic and electric guitar-led romantic and crime caper
material that dominates the remainder of the score.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 10/15/11
- | Zodiac: (David Shire)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if have appreciated David Shire's contribution in the context of the film, where it
adeptly adapts several sources of inspiration, including his own music of the 1970's, into the
tense and highly challenging environment of suspense and disillusionment.
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Avoid it... |
if forty minutes of atonal ambience meant purely to frustrate the listener with the fear of
unresolved mystery is not worth hearing Shire return to the mainstream after two decades.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/13/11
- | 1941: (John Williams)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you're among the many who have heard your local marching band crucify the famous title
march from 1941 and seek to enjoy the official performances of that sickeningly
positive idea as they dominate the entire parody score.
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Avoid it... |
if you don't believe that John Williams can do no wrong, because there is mental instability
to be gained from extended exposure to this, the most obnoxious score from the best period of
his career.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 10/11/11
- | Breach: (Mychael Danna)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you have the patience for a highly effective but understated suspense thriller that
compensates for its rather simplistic instrumentation with a strong narrative arc.
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Avoid it... |
if only ten minutes of Mychael Danna's melodramatic gravity at the climax of the score is not
worth his otherwise conservative approach to this character study.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/9/11
- | Jumper: (John Powell)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if hearing John Powell's standard chase mode manipulated with a variety of warped, exotic
tones is worth tolerating the absence of stylish orchestral flair and truly kick-ass action
sequences.
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Avoid it... |
if you can't stand scores that tease you with a fantastic theme and then abandon it for nearly
the entire remainder of the work.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/7/11
- | Burn After Reading: (Carter Burwell)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you've always maintained the ability to embrace and appreciate Carter Burwell's darkly
elusive musical structures and brooding tones, trademarks embroiled in a battle of wills with
sparse percussive brutality and slight noir elegance in this score.
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Avoid it... |
if the application of stark Taiko drum rhythms with metallic grinding effects to much of this
score makes it even less of a promising prospect for your existing cynicism about Burwell's
ability to write accessible music.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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| 10/5/11
- | The Last Legion: (Patrick Doyle)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you seek inspiration from Patrick Doyle's most robust and consistently heroic action mode
of the mid-2000's, an immense streamlining of the composer's own stylistic tendencies on a
grand scale.
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Avoid it... |
if your appreciation of Doyle's music is attached to his typically intelligent structural
applications, a habit not indulged to a great degree in this rather brutish expression of
grandeur.
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| Rating: | ****
Read the entire review
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| 10/3/11
- | Snakes on a Plane: (Trevor Rabin)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you heard something that really impressed you in the context of the film, because on
its score-only album, Trevor Rabin's music is sufficient and occasionally intriguing in its
orchestral techniques but ultimately a boring overall experience.
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Avoid it... |
if you get the feeling that Samuel L. Jackson's persona and the ridiculous plot warranted a
score with far more contemporary, bad-ass attitude than the relatively safe suspense and
horror methods applied instead.
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| Rating: | **
Read the entire review
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| 10/1/11
- | Forever Young: (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you can be swept away by a touch of elegance, a dash of adventure, and a heavy dose of
sentimentality from Jerry Goldsmith in his most predictable romantic form.
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Avoid it... |
if the few moments of soaring adventure resulting from the score's memorable flying theme
cannot justify the otherwise significantly mellow and understated majority of running time.
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| Rating: | ***
Read the entire review
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