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January/February 2023
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2/26/23
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Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Leo Birenberg/Zach Robinson)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
for the re-recordings of the Al Yankovic songs and excellent score by Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson, who supply parody orchestral music
with an engaging narrative and undeniable heart.
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| Avoid it... |
if you have absolutely no tolerance for Yankovic's sense of humor, because the application of all the music to this film is done purely
in his style of panache.
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2/22/23
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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 of 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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2/17/23
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Serengeti: A Journey to the Heart of Africa (Alan Williams)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you have always admired Alan Williams' workmanlike and often overachieving orchestral music for nature documentaries, for this one
offers highlights that rival the composer's best career material.
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| Avoid it... |
if fifteen minutes of utterly gorgeous melodic passages cannot compensate for twenty minutes of really solid but somewhat disjointed
animal vignettes despite Williams' ability to maintain his narrative during that time.
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2/13/23
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Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you have already established an affinity for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and seek a thematically faithful extension of
that sound with a little more instrumental spice, primordial hysteria, and exotic mysticism.
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| Avoid it... |
if your favorite parts of Star Trek II are the relentlessly brutal, driving action cues, for their disappointingly anonymous
replacements are a new, obnoxiously pitch-defying Klingon theme and vaguely atmospheric Vulcan material.
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2/8/23
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Downton Abbey: A New Era (John Lunn)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you have always appreciated John Lunn's airy and lovely music for the concept and seek his continued maturation of those
familiar tones into loftier cinematic reaches.
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| Avoid it... |
if even Lunn's increasingly broader orchestral ensembles cannot tempt you to explore whimsically fluffy British historical
drama music with a touch of jazz and French romance.
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2/4/23
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Superman: The Movie (John Williams)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on both the 1998 Varèse Sarabande re-recording and the 2019 La-La Land Records set for the highest-quality
presentations of one of John Williams' most memorable and classic scores.
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| Avoid it... |
on any of the releases of the original recording prior to 2019 if you are deterred by the archival, analog sound quality
that long restricted the dynamic range of Williams' composition and often varies from track to track.
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1/28/23
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Top Gun: Maverick (Lorne Balfe/Harold Faltermeyer/Various)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you love the blissfully nostalgic tone of the film itself, for the sequel's soundtrack is appreciably thoughtful in its
continuation of the 1986 film's themes.
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| Avoid it... |
if you expect Lorne Balfe and Hans Zimmer to supply refreshingly compelling or complex new material that is not derived at
least in part from the prior score or the new and returning songs.
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1/24/23
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Jurassic Park (John Williams)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you are prepared for a superior John Williams crossover score that connects the high-flying fantasy of his early 1980's
triumphs with the more complex rhythms, instrumentation, and density of his 1990's works.
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| Avoid it... |
on the heavily rearranged edits of the score for the 1993 and 2013 albums if you can obtain the 2016 or 2022 sets that
finally offer the complete, chronological presentation of this large-scale adventure and horror classic.
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1/19/23
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Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (Theodore
Shapiro)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you value catchy parody scores that are impossible to forget, Theodore Shapiro at the top of his poopy game for this
wildly comedic fantasy venture.
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| Avoid it... |
if you are a humorless prude who believes that Captain Underpants is one reason why God punishes humans with violent
natural disasters.
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1/15/23
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Stargate SG-1 (Joel Goldsmith/Various)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on the 2001 GNP Crescendo and 2018 Dragon's Domain albums if you desire a satisfyingly comprehensive selection of original
music from the first season of the show.
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| Avoid it... |
on either the 1997 Milan or 2017 Intrada albums, the former a repetitive rearrangement of material from David Arnold's
original film score and the latter a sparsely rendered shell of what this concept's music once was.
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1/10/23
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The Next Karate Kid (Bill Conti/William Ross)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you lament the lack of sustained lyrical highlights in the first three scores of this franchise, Bill Conti and William
Ross adding surprisingly heartfelt romance to the familiar equation.
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| Avoid it... |
if weak action sequences, a synthetic pan flute, and incongruous orchestral handling between Conti and Ross cause this
score to frustrate when not expressing its melodic grace.
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1/5/23
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Braveheart (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on the outstanding 2015 or 2022 La-La Land sets if part of the attraction to this score is your affinity for the film, because
the music, despite its derivative nature, is an integral and beautiful piece of the Braveheart tapestry.
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| Avoid it... |
if you are a studious and pragmatic collector of James Horner's works and are expecting a unique and powerful experience on the
same level of the superior Legends of the Fall and Apollo 13.
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