Posts tagged film music
DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: Score: A Film Music Documentary
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.

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2017, 4 STARS, Chicago Film Festival, DOCUMENTARY REVIEW, Film Festival, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMusic 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
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."  

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2014, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEW, 4 STARSDon ShanahanThe 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
EDITORIAL: My picks for the greatest movie scores
EDITORIAL: My picks for the greatest movie scores

Here's my official list of my top 10 movie scores with three unbreakable ties.  I can't call them the "greatest," but I'll put my list next to anyone's and defend my choices.  My friends and followers kind of poked the bear and encouraged me to make and rank my own list.  Well, I love a good challenge and I knew this one would be easy.  Movie scores and I get along.  

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SPECIAL, Editorial, 2014, ColumnDon ShanahanEditorial, The Shawshank Redemption, Jaws, Hans Zimmer, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Batman, Interstellar, Ennio Morricone, Gladiator, film music, Dr. Zhivago, Star Wars trilogy, Column, Nino Rota, Elmer Bernstein, Star Wars, The Good Bad and the Ugly, Out of Africa, John Barry, James Bond theme, Rudy, James Horner, Howard Shore, The Dark Knight, Up, Legends of the Fall, John Williams, Superman, Movie music, Michael Giacchino, Gone With the Wind, Vertigo, Bill Conti, Danny Elfman, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Good, Titanic, Braveheart, Bernard Herrmann, The Magnificent Seven, Dances With Wolves, Indiana Jones, Psycho, Schindler's List, Jerry Goldsmith, The Godfather, The Mission, Rocky, Lawrence of Arabia, Itzhak Perlman, Thomas Newman, film scores, The Lord of the Rings Comment