Soundtracks & Musicals > L Soundtracks & Musicals

Heart-Pounding Classic Movie Soundtrack

Advantages: Brilliant heart-pounding music
Disadvantages: Sounds a bit dated now

When James Horner's album was first released groundbreaking, but time hasn't been kind. It sounds dated and cliched, but that's purely because so many other movies have used it's themes (James Horner himself is guilty of reusing riffs from this album in his other work). Even so, this album stands heads and shoulders above many other movie soundtracks. The opening track is quiet and haunting, while the second starts off with a giant fanfare of sounds, ...

Tyrian 24.07.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Aliens - Original Soundtrack

Revenge of the Star Wars soundtrack

Advantages: Great music from the movie, includes a bonus DVD
Disadvantages: Tracks in bizzare order.

...review includes minor spoilers for Star Wars Revenge of the Sith motion picture.*** Star Wars has been a very successful movie. Good story, great characters but also a memorable soundtrack. All six of the symphonic scores are composed by John Williams and include many reoccurring themes that link them all together. Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith is the final episode of the saga and the end of the musical journey for the soundtrack. This ...
...trilogies. Disk One Star Wars Revenge of the Sith is the episode in the saga dealing with Anakin's fall to the dark side. The soundtrack reflects this with overall darker themes. As with other soundtracks not all of the music in the movie is released and the order of the tracks is not the same as where the cues are in the movie. I prefer to re-order the tracks as then the music is chronologically correct with the movie's plot, for example, if ...

kyrane 17.08.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith (+DVD) - London Symphony Orchestra

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

Advantages: A solid Star Wars score with an absolutely fantastic new theme
Disadvantages: Muddy recording quality and a little less exciting action for a Star Wars score

Now that the Star Wars prequel saga has reached its Third and final episode I think its time I handled the remaining Episodes in my soundtrack evaluations, handling Episode II first. With The Phantom Menace proving to be a big disappointment for audiences due to its weak story, incredibly irritating and silly characters, and the over-reliance on CGI, there was much less expectation and trepidation for Attack of the Clones. With Anakin Skywalker now ...
...the style of his earlier Star Wars scores in terms of thematic development and stylistic similarities. With the creation of two new major themes (Duel of the Fates and Anakin's Theme) as well as a number of smaller themes and motifs along with the inclusion of older themes like the Force Theme and Imperial March (in a more subdued and foreboding form) The Phantom Menace proffered a rich tapestry of thematic material that maintained the connections ...

berlioz 14.05.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones - Original Soundtrack

CutThroat Island: The Score

Advantages: One of the best scores of the 1990s, need I say more?
Disadvantages: Oh, none whatsoever.

INTRODUCTION Renny Harlin's CutThroat Island was one of those films that obviously should have been a big box office success with its lavish scenery, details (with authentic pirate ships built in scale) and high-flying action, but failed to get to the audience. In fact, CutThroat Island is one of the biggest flops of the 1990s, resulting in the bankruptcy of its studio and in the general neglect of the main actors Geena Davis and Matthew Modine ...
...he really hit it big. CutThroat Island was originally going to be scored by David Arnold who was just fresh off from scoring the hugely popular Stargate, but scheduling conflicts resulted in his replacement with Debney. Debney took the project with much enthusiasm, opting to create an old-fashioned, purely orchestral swashbuckler in the style of the Golden Age masters (the score is dedicated to "Rózsa, Korngold, Steiner, and Newman"). Employing the ...

berlioz 24.07.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Cutthroat Island - Original Soundtrack

Uplifting music for troubled times

Advantages: Rousing melodies, interesting percussion and infusion of Celtic instruments
Disadvantages: This version of the film soundtrack is slightly condensed, and there's no vocal tracks

...part of, the Soundtrack to Braveheart by James Horner, and I didnt regret doing so. Listening to the album as a complete work you are really taken into a magical, mystical world. The piece is performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and they are dazzling in their playing, using choral elements, strings, horns, pipes, flutes, and bellowing drums. The album really flows and feels connected and well thought out as a piece of work, it appears to eddy ...
...a waterfall in others, when the action gets going in the film obviously.The opening track "Main Title" sums up the rest of the work to follow, an atmospheric celtic pipe opening riff with choral accompaniment that rolls into a tense string section and finishes with a comforting melody. The third track "Wallace Courts Murron" has a sorrowful pipe refrain that builds into an inspiring string melody that raises the spirits. "Attack on Murron" gets the ...

Philip_James 18.07.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Braveheart - London Symphony Orchestra