|
|
|
|
|
May/June 2017
|
6/23/17
|
Dick Tracy (Danny Elfman)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
|
| Buy it... |
if you can forgive Danny Elfman for merging a pompous and extravagant superhero theme of
Batman heritage with grandiose, George Gershwin-style romance to fill the awkward gaps between
Stephen Sondheim songs.
|
| Avoid it... |
if you expect there to be any continuity in film or on any semblance of an appropriate
soundtrack album between the Elfman score and Sondheim songs, their chaotic co-existence
primed to make your head spin.
|
|
6/12/17
|
Stanley & Iris (John Williams)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
|
| Buy it... |
only if you are an extremely avid collector of John Williams' softer dramatic techniques and
appreciate the very restrained tone of his most conservative character scores for small
ensembles.
|
| Avoid it... |
on especially the earlier album for the score if you have no interest in exercising patience
with one of the composer's most underachieving and ineffective scores for an equally
disappointing film.
|
|
6/2/17
|
The Black Cauldron (Elmer
Bernstein)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
|
| Buy it... |
if you appreciate massively symphonic and surprisingly serious scores for your animated
pictures and have lingering affection for Elmer Bernstein's obsession with the ondes martenot
instrument.
|
| Avoid it... |
if you are accustomed to hearing transparent themes, easy concepts, and mostly bright attitude
in your animated film scores.
|
|
5/24/17
|
The Rocketeer (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
|
| Buy it... |
if you grew tired of James Horner's later, more seriously weighty dramatic scores and prefer
the unrestrained enthusiasm of his early adventure works, among which The Rocketeer is one of
the best.
|
| Avoid it... |
if the overly-consistent innocence of Horner's soaring themes only serves to remind you of a
composer rolling shamelessly in a bed of his own favorite musical constructs.
|
|
5/15/17
|
Seven (Howard Shore)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
|
| Buy it... |
only if you are prepared to be bludgeoned by Howard Shore's menacingly churning and
frightfully depressing, growling, bass-heavy score, heard in its only consistent, impactful
form during the climactic execution scene.
|
| Avoid it... |
on the original commercial album if you expect it to contain either of the opening or closing
credits songs or any consistent representation of the film's incredibly oppressive mood.
|
|
5/10/17
|
Scream 2 (Marco Beltrami/Danny Elfman)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
|
| Buy it... |
on the 1998 album if you seek just a small but surprisingly adequate taste of the most
memorable Marco Beltrami cues from the first two scores in the Scream franchise.
|
| Avoid it... |
on that 1998 product if you desire a more faithful representation of Beltrami's improved
symphonic and synthetic blend for Scream 2 and the associated Danny Elfman music for that
film, in which case the 2016 album is the clear winner.
|
|
5/7/17
|
Scream (Marco Beltrami)
Expanded Review
|
| Buy it... |
on the 1998 album if you seek just a small but surprisingly adequate taste of the most
memorable Marco Beltrami cues from the first two scores in the Scream franchise.
|
| Avoid it... |
on the longer 2011 product if you expect the stock suspense and horror material from Scream to
compete favorably with its contemporaries or, for that matter, its own sequels.
|
|
|
|
|
|
