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War Horse
  • Composed by John Williams
  • Sony Classical / 2011 / 65:31

Steven Spielberg’s War Horse adapts Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 children’s novel about the story of a horse’s experience during the Great War.  The film follows the horse from his birth in Devon to his work on both sides of the conflict.  The film has genuinely mixed reviews – most films labelled as having mixed reviews actually have a whole bunch which think it’s average, but this one seems to either be loved or hated.  There’s clearly an inherent problem of a film whose central character is a horse – and whose director wants to build a genuine emotional connection between said horse and the audience – but for large numbers of cinemagoers this was a problem avoided and almost every review is agreed that on a technical level, the film is beyond reproach.

Wolfen
  • Composed by James Horner
  • Intrada / 2011 / 46:29

Michael Wadleigh’s 1981 film Wolfen adapts Whitley Strieber’s novel, in which Albert Finney plays a detective investigating brutal murders – with the culprits turning out to be super-intelligent wolves.    

The Wrong Box
  • Composed by John Barry
  • Intrada / 2011 / 59:03

A black comedy directed by Bryan Forbes, The Wrong Box is about a tontine whose members were all in the same school class; and their madcap efforts to ensure they’re the last one standing and able to claim the cash.  It’s got an incredible cast – Michael Caine, Ralph Richardson, John Mills, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, cameos from Peter Sellers, Leonard Rossiter and plenty of others – and a score by the great John Barry, the fourth of six he wrote for the director during the 1960s.  

The Ides of March
  • Composed by Alexandre Desplat
  • Varèse Sarabande / 2011 / 38:39

George Clooney returned to the director’s chair for The Ides of March, a film about a presidential campaign.  It’s got an incredible cast and garnered good (if not great) reviews – and was yet another high-profile drama for composer Alexandre Desplat, who has become a little like Thomas Newman was in the 1990s, scoring one Oscar contender after another.  

Fireflies in the Garden
  • Composed by Jane Antonia Cornish
  • BSX Records / 2011 / 24:29

Fireflies in the Garden first appeared at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2008, going on to receive cinema releases (though not much attention) in Europe over the rest of the year and the first few months of 2009.  A soundtrack album featuring Javier Navarrete’s music was released at the time.  

Gremlins

Composed by Jerry Goldsmith Retrograde Records / 2011 / Complete score + bonus 76:01 / Original album 31:25 Joe Dante’s brilliant Gremlins was a real cornerstone of 1980s movie fun for the younger me, a favourite from the first moment I saw it.  Dante’s wonderfully black humour, the subversiveness, even the nods to classic films which [...]

MOVIE WAVE RECORDS SIGNATURE COLLECTION VOLUME 4,525 THE REASONABLE HORTICULTURALIST Music composed by BRIAN KILKLINE Disc one total time: 78:23 Disc two total time: 78:23 $64.99

Overboard

Composed by Alan Silvestri Music Box Records / 2011 / 44:19 Garry Marshall’s romcom Overboard ticked all the right boxes when it opened in 1987.  How could it not, when it starred everyone’s favourite Hollywood couple, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell?  

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Composed by Hans Zimmer WaterTower Music / 2011 / 57:28 Guy Ritchie shocked virtually everyone in 2009 when he made Sherlock Holmes, since it was actually quite good.  It was successful, too, so a sequel was assured and it arrived in the form of A Game of Shadows, in which Holmes and Watson go on [...]

Man to Man

Composed by Patrick Doyle MovieScore Media / 2011 / 38:51 A little-seen 2005 movie directed by Régis Wargnier, Man to Man stars Joseph Fiennes, Kristen Scott Thomas and Hugh Bonneville as 19th century anthropologists who kidnap a couple of pygmies from Africa and take them back to Scotland for research, initially believing them to be the [...]

Rapture

Composed by Georges Delerue Intrada / 2011 / 36:30 A little-known film made by John Guillermin in 1965, Rapture tells the story of a 15-year-old French farm girl whose transition to womanhood is stifled by her father, her way of dealing with it and the consequences that ensue.  

Exorcist II: The Heretic

Composed by Ennio Morricone Perseverance Reissue / 2011 / 34:24 John Boorman had a hard act to follow when he made Exorcist II: The Heretic.  It’s fair to say that he didn’t do very well, with the resulting movie being savaged by critics and widely hated by audiences.  

Nightwatch / Killer by Night

Nightwatch composed by John Williams Killer by Night composed by Quincy Jones Film Score Monthly / 2011 / 59:20 Nightwatch was a pilot episode for a police drama set in Chicago.  It didn’t get picked up as a series, few will ever have seen the pilot (aired on television in the US only twice, and [...]

Trading Places

Composed by Elmer Bernstein La-La Land Records / 2011 / 48:00 A smart and very successful comedy from John Landis, Trading Places offers a meaningful social commentary amongst its laughs.  It did big business at the box office, confirming Eddie Murphy’s star power and suggesting Dan Aykroyd had his own after the death of John [...]

Tora! Tora! Tora!

Composed by Jerry Goldsmith La-La Land Records / 2011 / 55:58 Jerry Goldsmith scored two films about World War 2 during 1970 – the rightly-lauded, exceptional Patton and the not-so-lauded but also brilliant Tora! Tora! Tora!  Slightly similar to The Longest Day in one respect, like that film it told the story of an infamous [...]