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| 3/30/12
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Predator (Alan Silvestri)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you seek one of Alan Silvestri's most enduring and memorable scores, led by an extremely catchy percussive
rhythm highlighting the score's menacingly primal thematic ideas.
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Avoid it... |
if any horror score without grand, fluid themes, and especially one with a driving militaristic personality,
isn't worth the price of any of its albums.
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| 3/26/12
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Speed (Mark Mancina)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
on any album if solid action scores excite you despite their somewhat underdeveloped
electronic rendering, or if you wish to hear Mark Mancina's major action debut on the big
stage.
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Avoid it... |
if you prefer the more established and matured Media Ventures-related sound that would develop
from this mould for action films a few years after Speed, in which case Mancina's own Speed 2:
Cruise Control is a better place to start in this franchise.
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Buy it... |
if you expect a fair amount of chest-thumping aggression from the percussion and brass
sections in a largely dissonant stew of brutally rhythmic stomping.
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Avoid it... |
on the original commercial album if you demand a well-rounded presentation of the music
actually heard in the film (some of which had not been written as of the product's assembly),
in which case the outstanding, three-CD set of 2012 should be your goal.
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Buy it... |
if you're tired of the formulaic habits of the scores in the Star Trek film franchise and seek
a truly unique, melodramatic sound that perfectly matches the menacing tone and excellent
pacing of the film's narrative.
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Avoid it... |
on the original commercial album if you desire the roughly fifteen minutes of material in the
film and its trailer that was omitted from that product, some of which quite noteworthy for
enthusiasts of Cliff Eidelman's intriguingly intelligent score.
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Buy it... |
if five minutes of pretty, sentimental highlights for orchestra and acoustic guitar from
George Fenton are enough to justify an otherwise rowdy and inconsistent blast of bluegrass and
comedy spirit.
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Avoid it... |
if you have no interest in hearing the British composer take a wild stab at humorous bluegrass
outbursts, despite his success in producing several truly wild cues that perhaps
unintentionally poke fun at the culture of America's Deep South.
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| 3/9/12
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Wilde (Debbie Wiseman)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
if you never fail to be impressed by grandiose expressions of melodramatic tragedy, Debbie
Wiseman's immense orchestral presence for this biography a gripping reflection of the tortured
beauty of life as seen by the titular character.
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Avoid it... |
if you can't stand being pummeled by symphonic melancholy that hammers home its demeanor with
little variation during its entire, lovely but tiring length.
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