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All hail JOSEPH LoDUCA as Starz’s SPARTACUS composer enters the arena again for HOUSE OF ASHUR
By James Anthony Phillips Joseph LoDuca has a long history of scoring epic, historical, fantasy, and science fiction series, such as “Zena,” “Hercules” and “The Librarian” For the past several years, he has been the premier composer for Starz’s “Spartacus” mini-series, a violent retelling of Roman history. Rewriting history for cinematic spectacle has long been…
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NICHOLAS PIKE rejoices with his “VIVA VERDI! score and its Oscar-nominated song “Sweet Dreams of Joy”
One of the pleasures of any Oscar category is the come-from-nowhere surprise, the kind of underdog that in its true win turns one onto the work of an artist and a film in particular. For even while “Sweet Dreams of Joy” will outrageously not be performed on the show itself (with only two tunes being…
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MARC SHAIMAN dishes and plays his life on a new Film Music Live videocast!
Watch a new Film Music Live videocast as MARC SHAIMAN (The Addams Family, The First Wives Club, Hairspray) hilariously dishes the stories and piano playing to talk and sing about his new autobiography “Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner.” Watch his humorous deep dive recounting of breaking into scoring with Rob…
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Taking an appreciative drink of JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES on 4K
A big thanks to Daniel Griffith’s Ballyhoo Motion Pictures and down under label Imprint for letting me sink my appreciative teeth again into a filmmaking maestro’s work with the featurette “Stake & Burn: Scoring ‘John Carpenter’s Vampires.’” It’s part of a goon busting arsenal packed 4K edition, now on sale via Imprint HERE or your…
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CARTER BURWELL opens a beautifully ironic soundtrack to THE CELLULOID CLOSET
CARTER BURWELL (Fargo, Twilight) opens a sumptuous, classically styled Hollywood score for an ironic examination of the LGBQ stereotypes that lie within THE CELLULOID CLOSET. Read my liner notes featuring new interviews with Burwell and co-directors ROB EPSTEIN and JEFFREY FRIEDMAN (Common Threads) as they talk about Tinsel Town’s treatment of this gay characters from…
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ROBERT FOLK’s Americana score for MILES FROM HOME finds its place on CD!
Miles From Home features a powerful, emotionally evocative Americana score by ROBERT FOLK (Toy Soldiers, Rock-a-Doodle) about two brothers driven to crime by the farming crisis, with my booklet featuring new interviews with Folk, director Gary Sinise (Of Mice and Men), and writer Chris Gerolmo and producer Frederick Zollo (Mississippi Burning). Previously released on a…
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Looking at how CARTER BURWELL casts a haunted spell in WATERLAND’s long awaited score release
WATERLAND features a beautifully haunting, dream-like score from CARTER BURWELL (Fargo, The Celluloid Closet) as a teacher reminisces on his turbulent past. My liner notes for this long-requested release on Quartet Records features new interviews with the composer and director Stephen Gyllenhaal (Twin Peaks, Paris Trout) on a collaboration that casts an ethereal, yet turbulent…
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JOHAN LENOX makes a nightmarish vocal splash with THE PLAGUE
Both the definition of a brilliantly WTF score and a beyond triggering movie if you had the ruthlessly bullied educational upbringing that I did, “The Plague” is a full-on submersion into peer pressure body and mental horror that honors the angst tradition of “Welcome to the Dollhouse” while making the peer pressure of “Eighth Grade”…
