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March/April 2015
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4/19/15
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The X-Files (TV) (Mark Snow)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on the comprehensive 2011 and 2013 4-CD sets spanning all of the seasons of Mark Snow's impressive contributions to the concept if you desire most of the
noteworthy and prominent cues heard within the context of the show.
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| Avoid it... |
on those pricey sets and instead seek the 1996 single-CD release if you have no interest in the more dynamic, humorous, and strikingly beautiful music from the
show's later seasons and instead want the darker, atonal, and atmospheric music from the first three seasons.
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4/12/15
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A Far Off Place (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
only for James Horner's lyrical primary theme if you're a sucker for the grand romanticism
that results from the composer's typical expressions on broad strings.
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| Avoid it... |
if ten minutes of that pleasant, sometimes impressive lyricism does not merit an entire score
of poorly developed instrumentation for the locale and lackadaisical action motifs.
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4/1/15
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Fantastic Voyage (Leonard Rosenman)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
only if you are already explicitly aware of Leonard Roseman's score for the film and, like
many collectors, waited decades to hear its alternately challenging and revolutionary
techniques on album.
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| Avoid it... |
if you don't care for the consistently messy layers of atonal dissonance that Rosenman can
often produce, especially considering the relative rarity of the album releases for the score.
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3/29/15
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The Last Starfighter (Craig Safan)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you gravitate towards the best of the noble and heroic themes for bold brass that seemed to
be everywhere in 1980's science fiction movies.
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| Avoid it... |
if cheesy 1980's ray gun sounds and other obnoxious electronic accents in the rest of the
underscore are simply too much vintage arcade ambience for your evolved ears to handle
nowadays.
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3/20/15
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Filmtracks announces its 2014 award nominees and winners
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Filmtracks celebrates the best film music of 2014 with its annual nominees and winners in the
categories of "Top Film Scores," "Top Composers," and "Top Film Cues." The nominees for "Top
Film Scores" in 2014 are:
Visit the 2014 awards section to view
the winners (and other categories). For more information about these awards or to view
the results from previous years, browse the Filmtracks
Awards index page.
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3/17/15
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Tarzan (David Newman)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you long lamented the absence of David Newman from view in the action and adventure realm,
for Tarzan is a triumphant return and evolution of the composer's style into the blockbuster
mould of the 2010's.
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| Avoid it... |
if you cannot tolerate even the best incorporations of temp track influences in your film
music, because while Newman expertly balances fresh ideas with the derivative desires of the
filmmakers, learned ears can still hear the connections.
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3/12/15
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Mr. Peabody & Sherman (Danny Elfman)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you easily absorb the positive energy that exudes from Danny Elfman's more mainstream
children's music, this entry an entertaining diversion saturated with amusing in-jokes.
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| Avoid it... |
if you demand truly memorable moments of awe or a neatly sustained narrative, neither of their
absence fatal to this work but both nagging flaws.
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3/7/15
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The Monkey King (Christopher Young)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if the massively bombastic and harmonic mode of Christopher Young has been key to your enjoyment of his prior classic scores, this one
unashamedly extroverted in its rotation between attractive character suites.
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| Avoid it... |
if your enjoyment of any humongous adventure and fantasy score requires a cohesive musical narrative based upon strong central themes,
neither of which existing in obvious quantity here.
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3/1/15
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Filmtracks announces CD sale
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Filmtracks hasn't sold off portions of its collection since its last auction in 1999, and the time has come to make some of
this oversized inventory available to the site's readers once again. The proceeds from this sale will be used to ensure
Filmtracks' fiscal viability through its major redesign later in 2015. This is a low-tech sale (buyers can e-mail the site
with offers) but the inventory is easy to sort and search. Both promo copies, with barcodes that are punched, and retail
copies are available for many titles, including some top collectibles.
More info is available on the sale page: http://www.filmtracks.com/sale/
The collectible items that don't sell here will eventually end up on Amazon or eBay, though the buyer will pay the same (if
not more) and Filmtracks will take a 15% hit due to fees. Anyone who wants to make a bulk order offer is more than welcome to
do so at a discount. Thanks again for everyone's support!
-- Christian Clemmensen, Filmtracks owner and editor
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