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CD Review: POMPEII soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER | 04/22/2014
POMPEII soundtrack | ©2014 Milan Records

Paul W.S. Anderson is popcorn personified when it comes to such muscular entertainments as EVENT HORIZON, SOLDIER, RESIDENT EVIL and DEATH RACE getting powerful scores by the likes of Michael Kamen, Joel McNeely and Paul Haslinger that have ranged from heroic strings to terrifying electronica and twisted metal. But while his latest work might have turned to ash at the box office, POMPEII stands for me as Anderson’s most ambitious, and purely enjoyable old-school film, a blazing mash up of GLADIATOR and WHEN TIME RAN OUT that sought to achieve an epic dramatic quality amidst its historical disaster film arena. […]Read On »


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CD Review: ELMER BERNSTEIN: THE AVA COLLECTION soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER |
ELMER BERNSTEIN: THE AVA COLLECTION soundtrack | ©2014 Intrada Records

Though taken for granted by today’s collectors, being able to get the actual, original tracks for a film score has only been a relatively recent development. What most fans received for decades were performances done after the fact by the likes of Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams, who took the most melodically accessible tracks from a given film, then lushly arranged them for albums that barely topped the half hour mark. Before Elmer Bernstein specifically marketed these types of re-performances specifically for the soundtrack appreciator market with his “Film Music Collection” label (whose Film Score Monthly box set […]Read On »


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TV Review: FARGO – Season 1 – “The Crocodile’s Dilemma” – Series Premiere

By RACHEL REITSLEFF | 04/21/2014
FARGO key art | ©2014 FX

Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Colin Hanks, Allison Tolman Writer: Noah Hawley, series created by Noah Hawley, based on the feature film FARGO written by Joel & Ethan Coen Director: Adam Bernstein Network: FX, Tuesdays @ 10 PM Original Airdate: April 15, 2014 The 1996 feature film FARGO, a deadpan dark comedy about a bumbling Minnesota businessman and a crime gone terribly wrong, won Oscars for Frances McDormand’s lead performance as a hard to flap small-town sheriff investigating the crime and for the original screenplay by writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen. FX’s new limited series FARGO, adapted for TV […]Read On »


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Exclusive Interview: Penny Johnson Jerald on CASTLE Season 6

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN |
Penny Johnson Jerald in CASTLE - Season 6 | ©2014 ABC/Bob D'Amico

Actress Penny Johnson Jerald has spent the last three years playing NYPD Captain Victoria Gates on ABC’s CASTLE, Mondays at 10 PM. Gates is the mostly no-nonsense boss of homicide detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) and, although the captain isn’t technically the boss of Beckett’s fiancé Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), the top cop has no trouble telling him what to do, either. As CASTLE fans will recall, Gates came in after the murder of her well-loved predecessor, Captain Roy Montgomery, played by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, which was a major plot point. Jerald is used to series with big story twists – […]Read On »


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CD Review: COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER |
COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY soundtrack | ©2014 Cosmos Studios Music

Few composers have conjectured about weird science with Alan Silvestri’s sense of cosmic wonder, whether it’s been seeking alien life inhabiting our inner space in THE ABYSS, time travelling BACK TO THE FUTURE or talking with an intergalactic craft voiced by Pee-Wee Herman for FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR. So it’s only natural that Silvestri now gets to board a spaceship of the imagination first piloted on TV 24 years ago by Carl Sagan, whose film adaptation of CONTACT ranks as one of the composer’s most awe-inspiring scores. It’s that music’s touching quality of intergalactic hope that now infuses COSMOS’ pretty […]Read On »


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CD Review: DISTANT THUNDER soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER | 04/20/2014
DISTANT THUNDER soundtrack | ©2014 Intrada Records

Old-school Maurice Jarre admirers might have blanched when the composer mostly left behind the orchestra that he’d made his Hollywood name on with the likes of DR. ZHIVAGO to engage in electronic pursuits during the 80s and 90s. Yet his synth explorations yielded some of the composer’s most interesting, and innovative work with the likes of DREAMSCAPE, JULIA AND JULIA and THE MOSQUITO COAST, not to mention Oscar nominations for  WITNESS and GHOST. Now Intrada goes deep into the Vietnam-haunted Canadian woods to discover a near-unknown, computer-fashioned Jarre score with 1988s DISTANT THUNDER, an equally unsung film that brought together […]Read On »


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CD Review: JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER |
JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT soundtrack | ©2014 Varese Sarabande Records

It’s ironic that January will see La La Land’s full re-release of DEAD AGAIN, an operatically orchestral, knowingly old-school Hollywood score (complete with thundering chorus) for a film that put composer Patrick Doyle and actor-filmmaker Kenneth Branagh on the Hollywood map. For like this movie whose MacGuffin was a reincarnation role-reversal between composer and lover, those fans familiar with Doyle back in his symphonic glory days of CARLITO’S WAY, THE LITTLE PRINCESS and INDOCHINE  would never recognize the electronically slicing, percussively smashing composer he’s become today, especially with JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT. Make no mistake that those thematic, orchestral chops […]Read On »


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CD Review: MUPPETS MOST WANTED soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER | 04/19/2014
MUPPETS MOST WANTED soundtrack | ©2014 Walt Disney Records

The best kid’s stuff has always has a wisenheimer appeal to adults, bringing on cuteness that the tykes can enjoy, while working on a completely different satirical level that their parents get a chuckle out of. Such is the lovable balance of sweetness and sarcasm that’s made the Muppets endure through innumerable sequels, a hip factor that goes off the scale when you’ve got Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie re-invigorating a bunch of puppets. MUPPETS MOST WANTED is a singular, happy celebration of self-effacing sarcasm, with songs that are perhaps even more toe-tappingly hilarious and catchy than McKenzie’s first […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE LETHAL WEAPON SOUNDTRACK COLLECTION

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER |
THE LETHAL WEAPON SOUNDTRACK COLLECTION soundtrack | ©2013 La La Land Records

Among the composers who excelled in the legions of distinctly 80s and 90s action films that had tough guy heroes mowing down hordes of American drug dealers and / or Eurotrash villains, Michael Kamen nailed the sound of two cop franchises that were perhaps so popular because their body count heroes weren’t iron jawed hulks. One featured an NYC detective who always happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, while the other teamed a seemingly crazy lone wolf LA officer with a partner who was more concerned with his home life. So while Kamen’s brassily orchestral, […]Read On »


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Exclusive Interview: SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE star Kari Wuhrer chats about the sequel

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN | 04/18/2014
Kari Wuhrer talks about SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE during the NBC Summer Press Day | © 2014 Ben Cohen/SYFY

SHARKNADO was the surprise phenomenon of the summer of 2013. On screen, a hurricane full of killer sharks flooded Los Angeles. Off-screen, it got mentioned everywhere, from Time Magazine to THE TODAY SHOW, had sold-out midnight screenings and caused Twitter to explode. In SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE, which will premiere July 30 on the Syfy Channel, New York City is beset by the combination of excess water and huge toothy fish. Fin and April Shepard (Ian Ziering and Tara Reid), who bested the SHARKNADO of the first film, happen to be visiting when Great Whites begin taking bites of […]Read On »


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