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| 7/26/13
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Oblivion (Anthony Gonzales/Joseph Trapanese)
- All New Review |
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Buy it... |
only if you found the hybrid orchestral and electronic music for this film engaging in
context, and even then, beware of a long album presentation that relies upon ambience and
style rather than any specific complexities.
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Avoid it... |
if you expect to hear music as interesting as that of Tron: Legacy, the team of Anthony
Gonzales and Joseph Trapanese struggling to conjure more than very simplistic and derivative
ideas for this assignment.
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| 7/21/13
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Patriot Games (James Horner)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
only if you are an established enthusiast of James Horner's highly introverted, largely
synthetic scores for light rhythms and specialty instruments.
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Avoid it... |
if the lack of a dominant theme or other true identity for this film franchise is only the
beginning of your problems with Horner's seemingly misdirected, underplayed approach to it.
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| 7/15/13
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The Challenge (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you would be satisfied with lesser forms of the brutal action in First Blood, the swelling
mannerisms of Poltergeist, and the thematic structures of Under Fire in a slightly ethnic
package.
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Avoid it... |
if you're simply curious about the ability of The Challenge to provide the same kind of
highlights as the scores listed above, even if this score does offer these offshoots in
surprisingly dynamic sound quality.
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| 7/10/13
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Rosewood (John Williams)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
if you're prepared for the same restrained pacing and outward respect as heard in John
Williams' JFK, but this time saturated with the distinctly authentic flavor of America's Deep
South.
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Avoid it... |
if the bluesy Americana feel created by harmonica, fiddle, piano, guitar, and jaw harp, as
well as numerous ensemble gospel vocals, might negatively distract you from Williams' subdued
orchestral beauty in this score.
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| 7/5/13
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Inchon (Jerry Goldsmith)
- Updated Review, With Additional Album |
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Buy it... |
only if you consider yourself a staunch collector of Jerry Goldsmith's works, because while
Inchon is a decent composition, its terrible recording nearly ruins the listening experience.
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Avoid it... |
if you demand a truly vibrant and engaging representation of the war genre from an otherwise
reliable Goldsmith, though the sound quality issues are mostly to blame for this score's ills.
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Buy it... |
if you are roused by basically functional, patriotic music that takes action to a brainless
but evenly consistent level of unoriginality.
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Avoid it... |
if any small measure of James Horner's self-quotation habits make you grind your teeth, for he
should win an award for how thoroughly he adapts his previously written scores into this one.
|
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| 5/8/13
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Filmtracks migration to a new server complete |
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After residing on a series of dedicated servers since 2000, Filmtracks has migrated to a
cloud-based server that is at least 20% slower than the most recent (2010) dedicated server.
This downgrade was necessary due to the site's financial insolvency. The move could save
Filmtracks $150 or more per month in costs, depending on outgoing bandwidth (traffic)
levels.
The configuration of this server has been more challenging than prior builds for Filmtracks,
in part because of the different server behaviors and properties of cloud-based hosting and
the extremely bare build of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 available to this particular cloud. If
you discover a feature of the site that is not behaving properly, please report the bug so
that I can squash it promptly. A few minor issues (Amazon pricing on the reviews, the counter
on the Scoreboard, etc.) have already been fixed.
Hopefully, this lesser hosting solution will be a temporary measure and within a few years
Filmtracks can move up to the dedicated resources (namely, faster processors) that have always
kept the site extremely responsive and easy to maintain over the past 13 years. In the
meantime, this was the only option other than the closure of the site.
While donations to Filmtracks will likely no longer be necessary to fund the site's basic
costs, they are always appreciated, and I plan to put all future donated money towards
continued development of the site.
-- Christian Clemmensen, Filmtracks owner and editor
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Buy it... |
only if you desire a likable and faithful souvenir of the film's musical numbers and the jazzy
and snazzy original jingles written for source applications.
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Avoid it... |
if only twelve minutes of immense and entertaining orchestral score from Joel McNeely near the
end of the soundtrack cannot justify the entire product for you.
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