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May/June 2016
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6/26/16
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10 Cloverfield Lane (Bear
McCreary)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you appreciate surprisingly intelligent psychological horror scores that balance their
discomforting passages with lyrically enticing moments of accessibly tonal suspense.
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| Avoid it... |
if you are the type to over-analyze your film scores, because there are enough intentionally
counterintuitive choices made by Bear McCreary here to potentially leave you somewhat
dissatisfied with his approach.
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6/18/16
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Back to the Future Part III (Alan
Silvestri)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on the chronologically-ordered, 2015 expanded set if you've always loved the themes from the
original Back to the Future score but were discouraged by the simple regurgitation of them in
the first sequel; they are explored more intelligently in this final entry.
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| Avoid it... |
if you seek the tight cohesion, overwhelming sense of wonder, and full thematic spectrum of
the first score, for Alan Silvestri does lose some of its original themes and, in a few ways,
its feeling of magic in his attempt to explore new territory.
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6/11/16
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Back to the Future Part II (Alan
Silvestri)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on the comprehensive 2015 set if you simply can't get enough of the boisterous and lovable
adventure themes from the original film, all of which reprised (sometimes too frequently) for
similar situations on screen in the sequel.
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| Avoid it... |
if you feel no need to complete your trilogy of Back to the Future scores, for the second
installment is, outside of some minimal new suspense material for alternate realities, largely
redundant and surprisingly poor in sound quality on even the expanded album.
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6/5/16
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Back to the Future (Alan Silvestri)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
without reservation if you, like the majority of modern film music collectors, have awaited a
proper treatment of Alan Silvestri's fantastic and memorable score on album for decades.
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| Avoid it... |
on the 2009 Intrada 2-CD set if you are a casual enthusiast of the film who seeks only the
best of the score material to accompany the famous songs on the soundtrack, in which case the
original, best-selling album should suffice.
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5/26/16
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Jaws 2 (John Williams)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you have lost patience with the original Jaws score's famous themes and want to hear them
integrated into a strong set of fresh and surprisingly optimistic new ideas from John Williams
for this sequel.
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| Avoid it... |
if you live and die by the two-note rhythmic motif representing the shark, because Williams
applies the idea in less frequent and far less intelligent ways in the sequel.
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5/21/16
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Jaws (John Williams)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on the impressive 2015 2-CD set if you seek to conduct a definitive study of one of the most
effective film scores of all time, or on the immense 2000 re-recording if you want to hear
that classic music translated decently into contemporary sound quality.
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| Avoid it... |
on all the albums if you recognize, like many John Williams collectors do, that this remains a
great score only truly appreciable in the context of the film, a challenging listening
experience on album for merely casual entertainment.
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5/14/16
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Cocoon: The Return (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
only if you are absolutely in love with the music from Cocoon, because this sequel score is
largely a regurgitation of nearly every moment from that stronger work.
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| Avoid it... |
if you're expecting to hear James Horner take the franchise's sound in a fresh new direction,
despite the extensive infusion of more vintage jazz into the equation.
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5/9/16
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Executive Decision (Jerry
Goldsmith)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on the expanded 2016 album if you enjoy all forms of Jerry Goldsmith's brass-led, predictably
procedural action music, even if it is highly derivative of his other action works and lacking
in many truly engaging instrumental applications.
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| Avoid it... |
if you don't need to hear Goldsmith on auto-pilot in a recording that is oddly flat in
ambience, and especially avoid the original 1996 product that omitted many of the composer's
more nuanced ideas for the work.
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5/4/16
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Indecent Proposal (John Barry)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you apologize for even John Barry's most mundane 1980's and 1990's regurgitation in the
romantic drama genre, a style of music without any distinctive variation in Indecent Proposal.
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| Avoid it... |
if your already sufficient collection of Barry's music negates your need for endless
repetition of soft, pleasing phrases and a stubborn adherence to tired instrumental patterns
that fail to capture any of the agony, tension, and passion inherent in this film's plot.
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