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January/February 2026
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1/13/26
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The Lookout (James Newton Howard)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
for the warmth and occasional attitude of James Newton Howard's guitar-driven themes for the main character, the highlights of this work worth
bypassing the bulk of suspense material.
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| Avoid it... |
if ten minutes of emotive and inspiring highlights from those contemporary stylings cannot merit an otherwise dull and forgettable remainder.
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1/11/26
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A Little Princess (Patrick Doyle)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
for Patrick Doyle's lovely lyricism conveyed through orchestral beauty and girls' vocals, this work embodying the composer's romantic
inclinations well.
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| Avoid it... |
if you've never been able to truly reconcile the strong influence of Indian instrumentation in this fairy tale musical environment, the mix of
cultures in the soundscape not as comfortable as it could have been.
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1/9/26
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The Sum of All Fears (Jerry Goldsmith)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
if you seek Jerry Goldsmith's last robust action score along with an unusually prominent contribution of original and source songs heard in the
film.
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| Avoid it... |
if you expect more than fifteen minutes of truly unique, choral and solo vocal music from Goldsmith in a score otherwise defined by its
occasional bursts of the composer's trademark action and predictable suspense material.
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1/7/26
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The Hunt for Red October (Basil Poledouris)
Updated Review, With Additional Album
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| Buy it... |
only on the 2025 expanded set to hear this score in satisfying sound quality, Basil Poledouris' intelligent blend of orchestra, synthetics, and
choir yielding a uniquely dynamic sonic environment.
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| Avoid it... |
if you expect the full score to match its memorable highlights due to the studio's withholding of the money needed to record pivotal cues with
an orchestra.
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1/5/26
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Richie Rich (Alan Silvestri)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
for its brief moments of dramatic redemption late, the remainder perfectly functional but tending to dwell on repetitive statements of the main
theme for the entitled little shit of a main character.
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| Avoid it... |
if you always value Alan Silvestri's action music, even in the children's genre, because that mode is disappointingly emasculated in this
unyieldingly chipper score.
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1/3/26
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The Great Debaters (James Newton Howard/Peter Golub)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
for the respectfully conservative mood this score generates, its pleasantly anonymous demeanor serving the story well without striving for any
melodrama.
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| Avoid it... |
if you want to remember any of it after it's done playing, the tandem of composers instructed to restrain the gravity of the music to an extent
that it could be considered lifeless.
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1/1/26
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Une Femme Française (Patrick Doyle)
All New Review
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| Buy it... |
for predictably pretty Patrick Doyle drama on strings and woodwinds, the melodies of this work somber but serving the story well.
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| Avoid it... |
if you demand passion and resonance in your scores of this genre, this music's performances sometimes mechanical and lacking any true romantic
spark.
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