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Archive:
'screen gems'

John Williams - Jurassic Park: Hold on to your butts

Thursday, July 27, 2006
Since the mid-1970s, John Williams has never been lacking in notoriety. Jaws, Towering Inferno, Close Encounters, Superman, Star Wars... these film scores made him a household name, gaining fame and respect for work that is generally restricted to devotees and cultists only. The Star Wars album even managed to break into the public's consciousness, becoming best-seller on the Billboard charts for 1977 and inspiring an awful ...

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Lalo Schifrin, Portishead and downtempo music

Monday, July 10, 2006
In retrospect, I probably should have saved Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Anthology for the last album on the tunequest. It would seem fitting that my last song played should be the last song on this album: Mission Accomplished. Alas, it is not to be; I finished listening to that album just moments ago. However, there are other suitable songs for that distinction. At the moment, it's reserved for ...

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The Cinematic Orchestra - Man With a Movie Camera: Watch it

Saturday, July 1, 2006
The Cinematic Orchestra is a relatively new addition to my library, arriving late last year. the group's style is a kind of downtempo modern jazz with flavors of hip hop and rock and electronics that, as the name of the band implies, give it a sound like a very cool soundtrack. In fact, that's what Man With A Movie Camera is. A couple years ago, the group ...

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james bond, meet john mcclane

Wednesday, June 28, 2006
michael kamen's score to licence to kill is very reminiscent of his score for die hard. it has a very 80s sound to it, with the familiar james bond motifs grafted onto it. it makes sense; the two films are only a year apart. the results aren't too bad, though i didn't particularly care for his die hard music, or kamen's style in general. however, he does ...

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Where are the Dust Bros?

Monday, June 26, 2006
Wouldn't you know? as soon as I bring up my film score classification difficulties, I am presented with yet another challenge. Fight Club. Both the film and the soundtrack by The Dust Brothers are, I do say, fantastic. but I am torn between keeping the score with my other filmtracks or moving it closer to its musical brethren. In either case, the fact remains that this ...

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K-pax: Electronic, Score, or Electronic Score?

Saturday, June 24, 2006
If I didn't already know differently, I would never have guessed that the soundtrack to K-pax was from a movie. indeed, it plays more like a backroom-in-the-club chill-laced downtempo record than a film score. This is the only record by Edward Shearmur that I have, so I don't know whether this is out of the ordinary for him, but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it ...

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elfman bats .500 this week

Saturday, June 24, 2006
in baseball that's great. on the tunequest, not so much. two danny elfman scores from 1996 made their way through my ears to my brain this week: mission: impossible and mars attacks! and while i enjoyed both films more than the general public seemed to, i had a mixed response to their scores. this week marked the first in the 4 years i've owned those scores that ...

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lawrence of arabia

Thursday, June 15, 2006
great film. great soundtrack (particularly the overture).

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Danny Elfman - Men in Black

Friday, June 9, 2006
The score to the first Men in Black motion picture features the usual trademark quirkiness one would expect from composer Danny Elfman. This soundtrack is good, with stellar opening and closing title suites as well as good thematic material and interesting action cues. The score also noteworthy in that it's one of the earliest examples that I can think of that mixes electronic percussion with a ...

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