Reviews

Exclusive Interview: Penny Johnson Jerald on CASTLE Season 6

Penny Johnson Jerald in CASTLE - Season 6 | ©2014 ABC/Bob D'Amico

Actress Penny Johnson Jerald has spent the last three years playing NYPD Captain Victoria Gates on ABC’s CASTLE, Mondays at 10 PM. Gates is the mostly no-nonsense boss of homicide detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) and, although the captain isn’t technically the boss of Beckett’s fiancé Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), the top cop has no trouble telling him what to do, either. As CASTLE fans will recall, Gates came in after the murder of her well-loved predecessor, Captain Roy Montgomery, played by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, which was a major plot point. Jerald is used to series with big story twists – […]Read On »


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CD Review: COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY soundtrack

COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY soundtrack | ©2014 Cosmos Studios Music

Few composers have conjectured about weird science with Alan Silvestri’s sense of cosmic wonder, whether it’s been seeking alien life inhabiting our inner space in THE ABYSS, time travelling BACK TO THE FUTURE or talking with an intergalactic craft voiced by Pee-Wee Herman for FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR. So it’s only natural that Silvestri now gets to board a spaceship of the imagination first piloted on TV 24 years ago by Carl Sagan, whose film adaptation of CONTACT ranks as one of the composer’s most awe-inspiring scores. It’s that music’s touching quality of intergalactic hope that now infuses COSMOS’ pretty […]Read On »


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CD Review: DISTANT THUNDER soundtrack

DISTANT THUNDER soundtrack | ©2014 Intrada Records

Old-school Maurice Jarre admirers might have blanched when the composer mostly left behind the orchestra that he’d made his Hollywood name on with the likes of DR. ZHIVAGO to engage in electronic pursuits during the 80s and 90s. Yet his synth explorations yielded some of the composer’s most interesting, and innovative work with the likes of DREAMSCAPE, JULIA AND JULIA and THE MOSQUITO COAST, not to mention Oscar nominations for  WITNESS and GHOST. Now Intrada goes deep into the Vietnam-haunted Canadian woods to discover a near-unknown, computer-fashioned Jarre score with 1988s DISTANT THUNDER, an equally unsung film that brought together […]Read On »


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CD Review: JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT soundtrack

JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT soundtrack | ©2014 Varese Sarabande Records

It’s ironic that January will see La La Land’s full re-release of DEAD AGAIN, an operatically orchestral, knowingly old-school Hollywood score (complete with thundering chorus) for a film that put composer Patrick Doyle and actor-filmmaker Kenneth Branagh on the Hollywood map. For like this movie whose MacGuffin was a reincarnation role-reversal between composer and lover, those fans familiar with Doyle back in his symphonic glory days of CARLITO’S WAY, THE LITTLE PRINCESS and INDOCHINE  would never recognize the electronically slicing, percussively smashing composer he’s become today, especially with JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT. Make no mistake that those thematic, orchestral chops […]Read On »


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CD Review: MUPPETS MOST WANTED soundtrack

MUPPETS MOST WANTED soundtrack | ©2014 Walt Disney Records

The best kid’s stuff has always has a wisenheimer appeal to adults, bringing on cuteness that the tykes can enjoy, while working on a completely different satirical level that their parents get a chuckle out of. Such is the lovable balance of sweetness and sarcasm that’s made the Muppets endure through innumerable sequels, a hip factor that goes off the scale when you’ve got Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie re-invigorating a bunch of puppets. MUPPETS MOST WANTED is a singular, happy celebration of self-effacing sarcasm, with songs that are perhaps even more toe-tappingly hilarious and catchy than McKenzie’s first […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE LETHAL WEAPON SOUNDTRACK COLLECTION

THE LETHAL WEAPON SOUNDTRACK COLLECTION soundtrack | ©2013 La La Land Records

Among the composers who excelled in the legions of distinctly 80s and 90s action films that had tough guy heroes mowing down hordes of American drug dealers and / or Eurotrash villains, Michael Kamen nailed the sound of two cop franchises that were perhaps so popular because their body count heroes weren’t iron jawed hulks. One featured an NYC detective who always happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, while the other teamed a seemingly crazy lone wolf LA officer with a partner who was more concerned with his home life. So while Kamen’s brassily orchestral, […]Read On »


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Movie Review: POSEIDON REX

POSEIDON REX | © 2014 ITN Distribution

Rating: Not Rated Stars: Brian Krause, Anne McDaniels, Steven Helmkamp, Candice Nunes, Berne Velasquez, Gildon Roland Writer: Rafael Jordan Director: Mark L. Lester Distributor: ITN Distribution Release Date: Theatrical, April 18, 2014; DVD/VOD, May 13, 2014 Low-budget creature features have a formula. The best ones either find ways to play with it or else embrace it to the hilt. POSEIDON REX simply abides by the formula without sprucing it up, goofing on it or doing anything to stand out from the pack. This would be okay if it were at least livelier, but whenever the title beast is off-screen, things […]Read On »


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Movie Review: TRANSCENDENCE

TRANSENDENCE | © 2014 Warner Bros.

Stars: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman Writer: Jack Paglen Director: Wally Pfister Distributor: Warner Bros. Release Date: April 18, 2014 TRANSCENDENCE tackles some huge ideas. What is consciousness? Can consciousness be proved? How can we prove our identity? What, for others, constitutes acceptable, valuable proof? And that’s before Jack Paglen’s script takes on the huge issues of whether some loss of autonomy is an acceptable trade-off for life and health. These issues don’t just get lip service but form much of the narrative spine of TRANSCENDENCE, and for the better part of the film, it […]Read On »


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CD Review: QB VII soundtrack

QB VII soundtrack | ©2013 Prometheus Records

Back in the day, television movies-cum-miniseries weren’t just films for free. They were often multi-night events that tried to rival the big screen for its epic, star-filled scope and serious subject matter, hiring top-flight Hollywood composers and affording them the cinematic resources and creativity to rival their widescreen work. One particular musician who benefitted from the networks’ most prestigious offerings was Jerry Goldsmith, who’d started out with series like DR. KILDARE and THE TWILIGHT ZONE before taking home Emmy wins for THE RED PONY, BABE and MASADA. But it was arguably 1974s QB VII that gave Goldsmith his most stirring […]Read On »


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TV Review: MARVEL’S AGENTS OF SHIELD – Season 1 – “Providence”

Bill Paxton as John Garrett on AGENTS OF SHIELD | © 2014 ABC/Justin Lubin

Cast: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Elizabeth Henstridge, Iain De Caestecker Director: Milan Cheylov Network: Airs on ABC Tuesdays @ 8 p.m. Original Telecast: April 15, 2014 Warning there are probably spoilers to CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLIDER inside. Obviously a lot has happened over the course of the last few episodes of MARVEL’S AGENTS OF SHIELD. There was the whole Hydra taking over thing and the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a result, Nick Fury is dead (presumably), Agent Ward (Brett Dalton) has revealed his true self as a Hydra agent and the rest of Agent Coulson’s […]Read On »


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