> Chappie - or should it be CHAPPiE? (2015) - ***

Sounds about right. If you like this mode for Zimmer, could bump it up a bit. Fun romp, but I remember little of it now.

> Game of Thrones Season 5 (2015) - ***

Dead-on. At this point the music really is pretty same-y, and the album lengths did them no favors. Better music that justified the extending lengths was to come!

> Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) - ***

I would bump this up to four stars, myself. I disliked it at first, but it's really grown on me over the years. Its brutality and unrelenting energy across action sequences really endears it to me! Brothers in Arms remains among the best Holk has done. I can understand why others would like it less, but to me, it's a perfect fit for its film. As far as action goes, that is. The string sections got quite a bit of praise at the time, but to me, they're the weak link, being drab and boring with no pathos or intensity. I genuinely think the film would have been better off with silence in some of these. But overall, a pretty damn fun and impressive work. (I still wanna see what Powell might have done, though.)

> Black Mass (2015) - **½

Mehhhhhh. I found his comments interesting about the performance instructions, but it's a drab, overlong, boring score on album. But at least it's tonal, and I found it appropriate background for reading a crime article.

> Skylanders: SuperChargers (2015) - **½

Oh god, gotta check that out!

> Terminator Genisys (2015) - ***

Definitely agree with this assessment. It's a fun score and probably the best of the lot outside of Sarah Connor Chronicles and ~maybe~ T3, but that's not saying a lot.

> Home (2015) - ****½

This defines hidden gem. A stunning work with a stupefyingly infectious and joyous main theme. The film's not half-bad, but it suffered in comparison to the previous year's HHTYD 2 and Mr. Peabody and Sherman. Towards the Sun is such a good song too!

> Pan (2015) - ****½

I'll indulge my fanboy tendencies and say this is a five-star score. Sure it's derivative and lacks the transcendent themes of HTTYD, but this is a stunning work, bursting with joy and energy and hemmed with a certain melancholy that accompanies childhood nostalgia. This score also makes me wonder why Marianelli's was tossed, because how different could his approach have been from what they asked from Powell? In any case, this goes down as one of the best replacement scores I can think of (in that it is a quality replacement score, not that it's better than its predecessor, since we rarely get to hear the original.)

Side note, I had a fun find at my local theater. There was a teaser poster up from when it was supposed to be released in early 2015, and it has Marianelli's name on it. I got it when they took it down, and it's a fun conversation starter hanging on my wall.

And a final also, I just love Powell's wry sense of humor. "Homewrecker" lol.

> “My assistant sent me reviews complaining about how loud the music was
> [in the final mix]. I got the best review I’ve ever got - complaining
> about the whole film, saying ‘the composer’s trying to sound like the
> greatest hits of John Williams’, not just John Williams but the greatest
> hits - and thinking ‘holy shit, they must have cranked it up too
> much.’”

I know that we score fans can get myopic about our opinions... But in what world can *that* be said as a negative comment???

> -----------------------

> Next time: “I remember the first time being in awe of the music of John
> Powell and felt there’s no way I can get through this.”

Oh, now I'm excited to see what this could be referring to.