I Get to Love You As I write this post, I’m sitting in a hotel room in Harrisburg PA on New Years Eve. I’ll be performing ‘I Get to Love You’ as a bride processional this evening for my wife’s cousin’s wedding. I guess that […]

Fantastic Beasts The Fantastic Beasts movies — as with the Harry Potter predecessors — seem to be set in winter more often then not. For that reason, I think of the films, and the music by James Newton Howard, as seasonal. To me, it only […]

Spectre This song was commissioned for the 2015 Craig-era James Bond film, Spectre. The song was rejected by the film producers, and Radiohead released it as a B-side to the 2016 single ‘Burn the Witch’. Initially, Radiohead had offered Man of War, a song written […]

Comptine d’un autre été, l’après midi Comptine d’un autre été, l’après midi (Nursery rhyme from another summer, the afternoon) is a piece of music by composer, Yann Tiersen. As the principle song from Amelie, it’s by far his most popular song at 326 million plays […]

Harry in Winter Harry in Winter is a glorious melody that (I’m convinced) will be recognized as a modern classic at some point. While I haven’t seen many of the Harry Potter films — the music is fantastic, deeply thematic, and it resonates with me. […]

The Kiss The Kiss is the up-tempo, and secondary cue from The Last of the Mohicans. Another (nearly identical) version of this cue is entitled Promentory. Both songs are actually a Celtic violin motif entitled “The Gael” by Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean. The Kiss can […]

D U N E Hans Zimmer’s DUNE soundtrack is absolutely gnarly. It played out brilliantly in the film too. Personally, I don’t know much about Dune (the book). The synopsis seems incredibly complicated — and it’s clearly been tough to bring this story to life […]

Futile Devices Futile Devices is a song by American singer songwriter, Sufjan Stevens. This song is from the soundtrack of, Call Me By Your Name; a 2017 coming-of-age romantic drama film, directed by Luca Guadagnino. Sufjan Stevens has such a peculiar musicality. He has the linear […]

Léon Léon is one of my all time favorite movies. Starring Natalie Portman, Jean Reno, and Gary Oldman — Léon: The Professional is an amazingly casted and highly entertaining crime/thriller. When it was first released (on VHS) in 1994 is was simply called The Professional. […]

The Dark Knight Rises My hometown of Pittsburgh was the shooting location for The Dark Knight Rises. Many movies, TV, and Netflix shows are shot in Pittsburgh — but the 2011 Dark Knight Rises production was BY FAR the coolest one. Our downtown area is mostly […]

The Princess Bride The Princess Bride (1987) is a fantasy adventure comedy directed by Rob Reiner.  It was adapted from the 1973 novel of the same name, and tells the story of Westly — who must rescue his true love, Princess Buttercup, from the odious Prince Humperdinck. […]

Outer Banks: Midsummers (guitar theme) This piece is very obscure, but I had a bunch of folks request this all at once on YouTube, Instagram, etc. Although it’s a great riff — it might only appeal to fans of the Netflix series, Outer Banks. The […]