DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: Score: A Film Music Documentary

This writer is an unabashed film music lover. I owned more film score CDs than ones of popular music back in the day and that ratio hasn’t changed with digital media. Hell, I wrote a long-form editorial three years ago proclaiming film music as an improvement of the Mozart Effect for babies and children which led to a playlist afterwards that I still use to this day. I am a mark for what Score: A Film Music Documentary was selling and many of the names and talents featured in the film are found on that personal playlist.

2017, 4 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, DOCUMENTARY REVIEW, Film Festival, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanJune 15, 2017Music Box Theatre2017, documentary review, Documentary filmmaking, documentary, documentary commentary, Score: A Film Music Documentary, Score, Matt Schrader, Hans Zimmer, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Nine Inch Nails, Danny Elfman, James Horner, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, Max Steiner, King Kong, Charlie Chaplin, James Cameron, David Arnold, James Bond theme, James Bond films, Heitor Pereira, Despicable Me 2, Despicable Me, Smurfs, The Smurfs, Marco Beltrami, 3:10 to Yuma, Brian Tyler, Marvel Films, Marvel Cinematic Universe, John Debney, The Passion of the Christ, Leonard Maltin, John Burlingame, Mozart Effect, Ultimate Playlist of Movie Music Lullabies, film music, Film music, film scores, movie scores, Movie music, Chicago Critics Film Festival, 5th Chicago Critics Film Festival, life lessons, life lessons from film, life lessons from documentaries, film review, movie review, film commentary, movie commentary, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Don Shanahan, Donald Shanahan, 2017 Summer MoviesComment

ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

With the arrival of "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies," we have made it to the payoff. This big story gets its ending, its tidy bow, and its cherry-on-top. Even if you think the movie studio was milking you for three movie tickets over three years out of a book that probably could have fit into a single film, you now get to see your patience rewarded and your virtue justified. You will realize it was worth it. You will feel like you stuck around to see "Superman" save the world, you survived the walk down those basement stairs in "Psycho," and you partied with the Ewoks and spirit Jedis in "Star Wars."

2014, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEW, 4 STARSDon ShanahanDecember 8, 2014The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Hobbit, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Peter Jackson, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom, Movie trilogies, Guillermo del Toro, Smaug, Benedict Cumberbatch, J.R.R. Tolkien, Luke Evans, Gandalf the Grey, Ian McKellan, Lee Pace, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Manu Bennett, WETA Digital, WETA Workshop, Performance capture, Oscar hopefuls, Oscar nominations, Oscar winners, Howard Shore, io9, Fantasy films, Fantasy genre, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Don Shanahan, Donald Shanahan, movie commentary, Movie review, film commentary, film review, film music, life lessons from films, life lessons from movies, life lessons from film, Film music, Cinematography, movie reviewComment

COLUMN: The Ultimate Playlist of Movie Music Lullabies

I hope this big post and 200-song playlist finds you and serves you well. It's been quite the passion project for me to build, on and off, over the last year and a half. Thanks for letting me merge sounding like a parenting blogger and a movie in one post. Please share this column with your friends with kids. It's all not just for babies either. If you like this kind of music, it works great in the car or at the office as well. As a school teacher, I used to play this in my elementary school classes all the time. It's excellent music for creativity and focus for all ages. Enjoy!

2014, Column, Editorial, SPECIALDon ShanahanJuly 8, 2014Donald Shanahan, Don Shanahan, Every Movie Has a Lesson, Movie music, film scores, Film music, Best Original Score, John Williams, James Horner, Hans Zimmer, Clint Eastwood, Michael Giacchino, Thomas Newman, Gabriel Yared, Lennie Niehaus, Tan Dun, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Shigeru Umebayashi, Alexandre Desplat, Joe Hisashi, Luis Bacalov, Ludovic Bource, Philippe Rombi, Cesar Benito, Ennio Morricone, Wojciech Kilar, Mychael Danna, Max Steiner, Bernard Herrmann, Stanley Myers, Nina Rota, Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini, John Barry, Jerry Goldsmith, Bill Conti, Carter Burwell, Harold Faltermeyer, Danny Elfman, Craig Armstrong, George Fenton, Graeme Revell, Maurice Jarre, Michael Kamen, Michael Nyman, Christopher Doyle, Rachel Portman, Stephen Warbeck, Trevor Jones, Explosions in the Sky, Daft Punk, M83, Tyler Bates, Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimeck, Reynold Heil, Aaron Zigman, Arcade Fire, Dario Marianelli, Harry Escott, Howard Shore, Jon Brion, John Debney, Patrick Doyle, Marc Streitenfeld, Mark IshamComment

EDITORIAL: Improving on the "Mozart Effect" with movie music

For those website followers that don't know me on social media, I've become a first-time father in the past year-and-a-half and have a second child on the way due this fall. For this column, I might turn into a parenting blogger more than a movie critic, but bear with me. I think you will like it.

EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

by Don Shanahan

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