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November - December 2024
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12/30/24
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The Cowboys (John Williams)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
on the far superior 2018 album presentation to hear John Williams channel Aaron Copland and famous Western-genre film composers in
a rambunctious orchestral romp.
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| Avoid it... |
if you have little tolerance for Williams' Americana writing, this work representing some of his earliest, vivacious and heartfelt
tones with distinctive harmonica and acoustic guitar.
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12/27/24
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The Flim-Flam Man (Jerry Goldsmith)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on either the fuller 2000 or 2020 albums if you seek a superior presentation of Jerry Goldsmith at the forefront of his creative,
parody Western mode.
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| Avoid it... |
if the use of harmonica, banjo, accordion, and accelerated tack piano to augment the wild symphonic comedy overwhelms an otherwise
decent character theme that informs most of the work.
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12/23/24
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Images (John Williams)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
only if you have witnessed the hysterically awful movie and can embrace the reason for the score's highly disturbing and
discordant, avant-garde stylings.
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| Avoid it... |
unless you want to hear music so terrible that it's funny, including the sounds of a man taking a shit (or having an orgasm) during
murder scenes.
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12/20/24
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Backdraft (Hans Zimmer)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you own several masculine scores from later in Hans Zimmer's career and seek his first, highly successful and enjoyable
large-scale merging of an orchestra and choir with his electronics for beefy bravado.
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| Avoid it... |
if no variation on Zimmer's militaristic tones and simplistic themes will fit with your preference for subtlety and delicacy, this
work slapping you across the face with unrestrained heroism.
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12/16/24
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Pete 'n' Tillie (John Williams)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
on its lone album release with Stanley & Iris to hear the well-developed, lightly dramatic narrative John Williams intended for use
in the film.
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| Avoid it... |
if your interest cannot be sustained by Williams' intimate character scores with repetitive melodies, or if you expect to hear the
song adaptation alongside the score.
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12/13/24
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Arsène Lupin (Debbie Wiseman)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on either of its albums if you seek one of the most engaging, powerful, and thrilling orchestral action scores to be produced
during the 2000's.
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| Avoid it... |
if immense Gothic style, deep bass resonance, and relentless brass layers cause you only headaches, no matter their elegance and
sophistication.
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12/9/24
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The Long Goodbye (John Williams)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
only if you appreciate the unique strategy employed by the director for the soundtrack of this film, a single bluesy jazz song
adapted for nearly every moment of music in the picture, even source material.
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| Avoid it... |
if you've heard that one song and receive no emotional response from it, because the bevy of its instrumental variations are
unlikely to change your mind.
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12/6/24
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Uncommon Valor (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on the official 2010 or 2024 albums if you seek cleaner sound quality for the score's famous Star Trek-derived action cues from the
climax of the film.
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| Avoid it... |
if you expect the challenging and arguably racist, stereotypical instrumental applications in the first two-thirds of the score to
compete in any manner whatsoever with the unoriginal but still entertaining aforementioned action highlights.
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12/2/24
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The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (John Williams/Michel Legrand)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
on its sole album for an excellent survey of the moderately decent John Williams score and wretched Michel Legrand rejected score
for this picture.
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| Avoid it... |
if you hope to hear Williams express the same enthusiasm or appeal in the western genre as he mustered for The Reivers and The
Cowboys.
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11/29/24
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What Lies Beneath (Alan Silvestri)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you are prepared to appreciate a technically adept adaptation of Bernard Herrmann's score from Psycho for the horror sequences
in What Lies Beneath.
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| Avoid it... |
if the surprisingly and disappointingly mundane and sparse orchestration of Alan Silvestri's suspense cues for the first half of
the film cannot compensate for those snappy moments of Herrmann inspiration later on.
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11/25/24
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The Paper Chase (John Williams)
New/Updated Review, Separated From a Dual Review
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| Buy it... |
for its charming but somewhat anonymous love theme, which dominates the short score in John Williams' comfortable, early 1970's
methodology.
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| Avoid it... |
if you strive to hear satisfying substance in the suspense and comedy portions of the score, these passages losing their battle
with surrounding source music.
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11/22/24
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Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you are absolutely prepared for a wacky tone of exuberant children's music clearly inspired by Raymond Scott, Carl Stalling,
Danny Elfman, and James Horner's own familiar styles.
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| Avoid it... |
if you have little patience for scores that fail to combine their many strikingly disparate parts into a cohesive listening
experience on album.
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11/18/24
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Cinderella Liberty (John Williams)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you have a soft spot for John Williams' 1960's light drama and romance sound, Cinderella Liberty translating it into a bluesy
breeze for harmonica.
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| Avoid it... |
if you expect much substance to this score outside of its two soft, song-represented themes, the remainder functioning as barroom
source material.
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11/15/24
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The Mask of Zorro (James Horner)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you admire James Horner's career and wish to hear him take his trademark style of writing in a splashy and fascinatingly
different ethnic direction, resulting in one of the most engaging and flavorful action scores of the digital era.
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| Avoid it... |
if you have no love for Latin instrumentation or were not impressed by the more robust and mature evolution of this score in The
Legend of Zorro.
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11/11/24
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The Sugarland Express (John Williams)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
if you have an intellectual curiosity for John Williams' diverse but mostly understated character score that opened his
collaboration with Steven Spielberg.
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| Avoid it... |
if you expect this score to express a convincingly dramatic heart despite having the harmonica and guitar solos to make that
happen.
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11/8/24
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Species (Christopher Young)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you appreciate Christopher Young's usual intelligent combination of wondrous, thematic beauty and jarring horror techniques.
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| Avoid it... |
if you've been enticed by the score's beautiful opening seven minutes and expect the entire work to reflect that style of tonal
fantasy appeal, only a handful of other cues refraining from dissonant thrashing.
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11/4/24
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Earthquake (John Williams)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
only for John Williams' album rearrangements where his two primary themes are allowed time to develop in variations that don't
exist in the film version of the score.
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| Avoid it... |
if you have no interest in hearing the least appealing disaster score of this era from Williams, a short and fragmented effort that
struggles to form a cohesive narrative due to questionable strategy.
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11/1/24
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Nightbreed (Danny Elfman)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
on any album if you seek the most creatively adventurous and instrumentally diverse horror score of Danny Elfman's early career.
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| Avoid it... |
if only fifteen minutes of thematic beauty and fantasy intrigue cannot compensate for an onslaught of brutal symphonic horror
material that otherwise dominates the work.
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