Under The Skin Score Review

UNDER THE SKIN

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Check it out... if utterly infuriating, vomit-inducing, repetitive and mindless thematic material sounds right to your taste.

Skip it... if you, like most people, hate scores with utterly brutal, repetitive, and nausea inducing music.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 4 "Oathkeeper" Review

Game  of  Thrones

Season 4,  Episode 4  “ Oathkeeper ”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Positives this week included... Everything and anything Jaime related, Daenerys' taking of Meereen, The Wall's confrontations and tribulations, Bran's warging, White Walkers! 

Negatives this week included... The over dramatic scenes beyond the wall with Burn Gorman's character (Only their introduction)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Enemy (2014) Film Review

ENEMY

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Check it out...  if discovering a film which actually demands that you think about it's motivations, characters and meaning is much too rare an event for you, and you don't wish to pass up this intellectual piece.

Skip it... if a non-linear and non-cohesive plot, filled to the brim with metaphors, silent scenes and sometimes confronting imagery leaves you reeling in a negative way. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Draft Day Score Review

Draft Day

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Check it out... if you'd rather a well composed, simplistic suite-styled album, over something with more stand out moments

Skip it... if a lack of individual piece highlights makes for a boring listening experience, in any case.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 3 "Breaker of Chains" Review

Game  of  Thrones

 Season 4,  Episode 3  “ Breaker of Chains ”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Positives this week included... Lord Baelish's reveal, Tywin's lessons to Tommen, Tyrion and Podrick's emotional farewell, Oberyn and Tywin's verbal sparing, Dragonstone scenes, Arya and The Hound's scenes, Daenerys arriving at Meereen

Negatives this week included... Jaime seemingly raping Cersei, Sam's idiotic plan for Gilly, Castle Black scenes in general, choppy editing at the beginning of the episode

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Grand Budapest Hotel Score Review

The Grand Budapest Hotel

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Check it out... if you enjoy Desplat's collaborations with Wes Anderson, and would like to hear something with a Hungarian taint to it all.

Skip it... if a repetitive score, which seems to have little to no pay offs doesn't appeal to you, as it wouldn't with most of the scoring community.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Score Review

The Amazing Spider-Man

2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Check it out... if you enjoy Zimmer's style in general, yet want to see him exploring different techniques and sounds to that of which he has never touched before, all executed sublimely.

Skip it... if your love for James Horner's 2012 score is too great to be bested by a more synthetic and energetic effort for the Spider-Man character.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 2 "The Lion and the Rose" Review

Game  of  Thrones

Season 4,  Episode 2  “ The Lion and the Rose ”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Positives this week included... Joffrey's death, the Dreadfort's reveal, Tyrion and Jaime's scene, Bronn and Jaime's sparring, Dragonstone's first scenes of the year, Bran's vision, the Purple Wedding as a whole

Negatives this week included... Absolutely nothing!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Joe (2014) Film Review

JOE

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Check it out... if you enjoyed the tone and setting for the film Mud, and would like to see a more serious role from both Tye Sheridan and the great Nicolas Cage.

Skip it... if a slow paced, near 2 hour film that takes place out in the middle of nowhere doesn't suit your appetite.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Divergent Score Review

DIVERGENT

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Check it out...  if you enjoyed Paranoia and 300: Rise of an Empire, and want an equally rewarding experience, filled to the brim with brilliant choral motifs, outstanding synth, and impressive orchestral work

Skip it... if you resent 5 minute synthesizer-fests, and would rather an entire album filled with beautiful contemporary arrangements, despite the amount of quality time already given to outstanding orchestral cues.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Lego Movie (2014) Film Review

The Lego Movie poster

Title: The Lego Movie
Director: Chris Miller, Phil Lord
Screenwriter/s: Chris Miller, Phil Lord
Length: 100 minutes
Year of Release: 2014
The Lego Movie is a film directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, and stars Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman and Will Ferrell, and revolves around the character of Emmett (Pratt), who is an ordinary LEGO construction worker, up until he is made out to be the hero who is to defeat Lord Business (Ferrell), a man who wants the entire LEGO universe to keep to his strict vision; utter perfection in everything, without variation.

The Lego Movie is a film which I, among quite a few of my friends, were hotly anticipating. It wasn't until after it's US release that my friends and I quickly realised that we Australians were getting our release another 2 months down the road, which really pissed us off! 2 months after everyone else has taken up their opinions on the film, I arrive late to the party! Nonetheless, I'm still going to write my opinion on the film, as I believe it's still worthy of note, even 2 months after it's general release. So, allow me to voice my long overdue opinion!

To begin with, our plot. Emmett, voiced by Chris Pratt, is an average, boring LEGO construction worker, who seems to have no individual qualities to him; he simply follows whatever is hip and trend at the time, and attempts to fit in. After staying late at his building site, he uncovers an item, which is rumored to be the exact device capable of saving the entire LEGO world from the evil, corporate ways of Lord Business, voiced by Will Ferrell. Lord Business despises originality and variation, and instead wants to create a LEGO world where everything is in perfect order and shape. It is up to Emmett and the rest of the Master Builders (who can seemingly build anything out of various LEGO pieces) to save the day!

Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 1 "Two Swords" Review

Bitch please, I'm Oberyn Martell; Dornish certified badass

It's back! Game of Thrones, my favourite television show of all time, not just at the present, has returned with it's fourth season! And after reading the third book, A Storm of Swords, I know things are going to be juicer, bigger and more treacherous than any season come before! If you want to get my take on Thrones in full, you need only examine my full review of it here. Now that I've plugged a separate review, on with this one! 

It seems to me, that after the Red Wedding, there is some kind of a space. I don't necessarily know how to explain it; maybe it's just the fact that we don't have someone marching towards or contesting Joffrey. We had Stannis primarily in Season 2, and then Robb in Season 3, but now both of them have either been reduced to tiny numbers, too insignificant to pull off an attack on the capital, or they've been involved in The Red Wedding; you're generally not going to be able to mount a rebellion after that kind of event has been dealt upon you, are you? So now, we have a few less points of view to cover, and this means we have more Lannister time. And that is especially evident here in this episode, seeing as over half the episode is spent with the Lannisters, and for good reason! Jamie and Tyrion are now two of our most important characters; Tyrion because he's our average Lannister, our eyes and ears into King's Landing from the start, and Jaime, because he's no longer a spoiled brat, and more a chivalrous knight, or trying to be, thanks to the good intention of Brienne of Tarth last season. We get to see two crippled Lannisters waddling around King's Landing now! The big story of this episode was, in fact, Jaime's story line, I believe, and how he has to adapt back in to King's Landing; all throughout the trip over the Riverlands and down south with Brienne, he was expecting his father to jump for joy at his return, and his sister to be gleaming when he arrived home. He expected their incestuous relationship to just start up where they had left off, but what he got was far from that.

The Elder Scrolls Online Video Game Score Review

The Elder Scrolls Online

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Check it out... if you appreciated the more subtle, tranquil moments from both Oblivion and Skyrim, and enjoy thematically deep, evolving material.

Skip it... if 2 and a half hours of new Elder Scrolls music is simply too much awesome for your ears to handle

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Without doubt, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the most acclaimed games of this present generation; it combined harrowing, emotional and intelligent story telling with sensational game-play, and sowed it all together with some of the best graphics seen in a game, period. You could sink 50 hours into the game, and barely scratch the surface of the abundance of quests and individual story lines available to the player. It's still a defining gaming experience for myself as an average gamer, and I still consider my 100 hours or so spent playing, well spent. Skyrim's soundtrack, composed by Jeremy Soule, is undoubtedly one of the more recognizable soundtracks of the past decade, thanks to it's glorious and technically adventurous presence, and the wonderful aura it provided for the game. It seems to transport you back to Tamriel every listen, as it the intention. The sequel to the game, an online experience this time around, The Elder Scrolls Online, has it's score composed by relatively unknown composers Brad Derrick and Rik Schaffer. They have been given the immense task of providing 2 and a half hours of music to a video game which has had an immense following, leading up until it's release, for the good portion of a year and a half. Will Derrick and Schaffer's combined efforts to produce something that can call itself a worthy sequel to Soule's Skyrim be worth it, or shall the score fall short as a boring, senseless effort at recreating the magic from the 2011 release? Let us find out! 

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Score Review

                             Captain America: The Winter Soldier

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Check it out... if the music to films and games like Black Hawk Down and Battlefield 3 had you on cloud 9, in all their synth glory

Skip it... if you didn't like Jackman's Captain Phillips from last year, or don't enjoy unoriginal, boring, irritating synthetic crap in general

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

It is my belief that this generation of film shall be defined by the age of the superhero films, which I'm certainly not unhappy about. Thanks to films like The Dark Knight, and Spider-Man, the superhero film genre has expanded from corny fun at the theatres, to serious, smart and inventive storytelling, which is a pleasant change. Whilst many herald 1978's Superman as a masterpiece, I much prefer the serious tone that was presented in The Dark Knight or even Man of Steel to that of Donner's tale. Perhaps it's the generation I've been raised in, perhaps it's that I crave a depressing, difficult story, but either way, my opinion stands as just that. And in this generation of superhero films, we have two front runners, vying for the greatest of profits and success; DC and Marvel. Whilst I prefer DC over Marvel any day, I can't criticize Marvel for the direction it's taken it's cinematic universe, and the great amount of profits it's yielded them; it's a commercially profitable direction, that often leads into good critical reception as well. The dark tone that DC has inhabited was shifted away from with Marvel, and they reinvented the fun superhero film, primarily with films like Thor, Iron Man, and most notably The Avengers, a film which has been praised somewhat excessively in my mind. Now comes Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the sequel to the 2011 film which I haven't seen, and it's been receiving quite a bit of praise. The score to the previous film in the franchise, Alan Silvestri's reinvention, was received generally positively, yet he has left the Captain America title, and so therefore, there is a space needing filling. Henry Jackman, co-composer of last year's Captain Phillips, has stepped in to take over the composition to the sequel, and looks to creating a more serious, modern score, with heavier emphasis on a sabotage-ish tone, something that, based on the trailers, will work well within the film. But does Jackman's Winter Soldier fall short of expectations after the previous score in the franchise, or does he move past the shadow of Silvestri and Brian Tyler, both capable Marvel composers?