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August - October 2015
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10/23/15
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Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Jerry
Goldsmith)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you've always appreciated the first Gremlins score but seek that foundation of style and
themes with more robust orchestral structures, a devious sense of suspense, and a matured
application of synthetic effects.
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| Avoid it... |
if you are deterred by Jerry Goldsmith's detours into the realm of pure silliness, for the
personality of the sound effects and rhythmic mayhem in this sequel score, along with tons of
source adaptations, is among the quirkiest of his career.
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9/3/15
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Batman (Danny Elfman)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you have any affection for vibrant, exciting, and tragic superhero scores, for Danny
Elfman's Batman is among the best ever recorded.
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| Avoid it... |
if Elfman's famous theme for the character has become too overexposed for your liking, or if
you disapprovingly recall some of the passages that reveal the composer's inspiration from
others' works.
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9/1/15
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Batman Returns (Danny Elfman)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you prefer your Batman score to better reflect the morbidly tragic sensibilities of Danny
Elfman's dominant style in his early career works.
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| Avoid it... |
if you expect the same heroic power and resonance of the vastly superior orchestral
performances, recording, and mixing you heard in the production of the music for Batman.
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8/28/15
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Magic (Jerry Goldsmith)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you are a devoted Jerry Goldsmith collector who never had the music
previously available from Magic on the rare 1993 SPFM Tribute album.
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| Avoid it... |
if your film music funds are limited and you desire far
better Goldsmith entries elsewhere in the Varèse Sarabande Club
series.
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8/22/15
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Krull (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you enjoy any of James Horner's early action scores, for this one embodies his distinct
1980's style and foreshadows many of his later classic scores for blockbuster adventures.
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| Avoid it... |
if the derivative rhythms, motifs, and instrumentation of Horner's action style of this era
have lost their appeal over the years for you as his music has cannibalized itself and
matured.
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8/19/15
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Commando (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you are attempting to maintain a complete James Horner collection and dauntlessly tolerate
his early rhythmic action style pounded on electronic pads and steel drums.
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| Avoid it... |
if you expect to hear a superior, orchestral paramilitary superhero score along the lines of
Predator or Rambo, because there is some tongue-in-cheek disregard at work in Commando's
cheesy music.
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8/16/15
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Searching for Bobby Fischer (James
Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you can never turn away the rambling, shifty piano rhythms that James Horner uses to
represent complex minds at work or, to a greater extent in this score, his broad, string-based
character themes for dramatic contemplation.
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| Avoid it... |
if three or four tracks of the primary, ambitious, rhythmic orchestral theme cannot outweigh
the generic atmosphere that stews with minimally emotive volume during the rest of the album.
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