Reviews »
My take on CDs, DVDs, and scores from today and yesterday.
CD Review: Skyfall
Only having recently watched all the Eon-sanctioned Bond films (most of them for the first time) and discovering their scores (also for the first time), I didn’t go into the new Bond film/score with
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CD Review: Cloud Atlas
Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb we are bound to others—past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. David Mitchell’s “unfilmable” 2004 novel of
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CD Review: Notre Dame de Paris – The Music of Maurice Jarre
As more and more film music concerts are being performed, there will be opportunities to showcase the concert music of film composers and the need for concert arrangements of film music that goes beyond
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CD Review: Ruby Sparks
Out of the ashes of superheroes and the mid-summer slump rises a gem of a film. RUBY SPARKS stars Paul Dano as a lonely bestselling wunderkind facing writer’s block. When he meets the girl
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CD Review: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman sure has changed since the candy-colored days of Bif! Bam! Pow! Gone are the comic book origins and the jazzy swing of Neal Hefti and Nelson Riddle. Gone also are the whimsy and the
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CD Review: City Lights
In 1931, four years after THE JAZZ SINGER ushered in the sound era, Charlie Chaplin openly thumbed his nose at Hollywood’s new trend and released another silent picture—CITY LIGHTS. Against all odds, the tale
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CD Review: The Greatest Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin
Outside of John Williams and film music festivals, it’s not often that film music concerts are devoted to one composer, especially one from the Golden Age. But few composers lend themselves to such extensive
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CD Review: Snow White and the Huntsman
Snow White sure has come a long way since Disney. From perky but bland cartoon to beautiful but bland live action cartoon earlier this year (MIRROR MIRROR) and now somnambulistic but bland live action corpse
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CD Review: Last Breath
For someone who worships THE OMEN, it might come as a surprise that I’m not a fan of horror films. And I like torture films even less. I don’t understand what entertainment value can
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CD Review: Ben-Hur (1925)
Long before Charlton Heston chariot-raced his way to Oscar glory, MGM filmed BEN-HUR as a silent film in 1925, starring Ramón Navarro as Judah and Francis X. Bushman as Messala. At nearly $4 million, the
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