Best Film Scores of June 2019
A Chorus of Jazz Scores Lead the Month For The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Emile Mosseri has composed one of the best scores of the year. It is a heartfelt and longing grandiose composition driven by the softer […]
Clownface – Hans Hess (2019)
Sometimes looks can be deceiving. The film title Clownface, for instance, did not inspire much optimism. Yet, I was pleasantly surprised as Hans Hess’ score proved to be more interesting and dynamic than the film’s name let on. Hess hits […]
For All Mankind – Brian Eno (1989)
The final frontier. Today we have a tendency to take the miracle of space flight for granted: a 60-year history, hundreds of launches a year, and thousands of manmade objects in orbit have made it almost routine. But, decades ago, […]
Death Wish – Herbie Hancock (1974)
Film music can be incomprehensible when detached from the underlying film. Snippets of ascending strings building tensions, rhythmic unaccompanied drums, or ominous rumbling synths build atmosphere for the images on screen. But they have trouble standing on their own. They […]
Cyber City Oedo 808 – Rory McFarlane (1995)
Cyberpunk gives composers great musical flexibility. Not only is “futuristic” sounding music appropriate, but so is contemporary and classical music. After all, cyberpunk is often a dark imagining of our current trajectory. Rory McFarlane, in his score for the UK […]
Best Film Scores of May 2019
Western European Music Invades On The Hustle, Anne Dudley opts for a vibrant and energetic French and Mediterranean style. While the score is built largely off of variations on a handful of themes and motifs, the short runtime keeps this […]
If Beale Street Could Talk – Nicholas Britell (2018)
Nicholas Britell’s score for If Beale Street Could Talk conjures up a parallel world, where memories, hopes, and fears meld together, floating like some great overwhelming cloud. Much of the film lives in the memories of its main character, Tish. […]
Dry Blood – System Syn (2019)
Independent film is one of the great breeding grounds for new film composers. Consider Hans Zimmer, for example, who started his career scoring direct-to-video films before eventually securing eleven Academy Award nominations. While these films don’t offer the same monetary […]
Rosemary’s Baby – Krzysztof Komeda (1968)
Krzysztof Komeda is considered the forefather of European jazz. And yet, his most famous and enduring work is the haunting and discomforting score for Roman Polanski’s horror classic Rosemary’s Baby. The opening credits introduce Komeda’s single most well-known song – […]
Best Film Scores of April 2019
Although ‘Avengers: Endgame’ may have captured the April box office, it’s the smaller independent movie scene that provides the month’s best scores. Two Composers with Two Scores Each Brian McOmber shows impressive variety with his scores for Hail Satan? and […]
Anatomy of a Murder – Duke Ellington (1959)
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is a lonely, desolate landscape, one of the few places left in America that feels undisturbed by humanity’s touch. And yet, in Anatomy of a Murder it feels lively. Duke Ellington’s stylish score is the cause, making […]
Ranking the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Film Music
Over the past decade Marvel has released 22 movies to create the “Infinity Saga” – the most ambitious overarching film story experiment. While it is impossible to analyze every score in a single article, ranking and briefly discussing the scores […]