American Sniper Ennio Morricone’s “The Funeral” was used as the closing theme in Clint Eastwood’s 2014 film American Sniper. The song was originally composed for the 1965 spaghetti western, The Return of Ringo. It’s a melancholic piece of music that perfectly captured the final scenes […]

Photo | Boston Public Library Killers of the Flower Moon Directed by Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon is set in the heart of 1920s Oklahoma, where the Osage Nation, having discovered vast oil reserves beneath their tribal lands, finds themselves thrust into immense […]

Photo by Jonas Denil on Unsplash Band of Brothers Band of Brothers is a 2001 American war drama miniseries based on the 1992 book (of the same name) by WW2 historian, Stephen E. Ambrose. The series was created by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, who […]

Photo by Andrew Sterling | Unsplash Dances With Wolves The author of Dances with Wolves is man by the name of Michael Blake (1945-2015). As a 20 year-old in 1965, Blake was a product of the counterculture revolution of 1960’s America: against the establishment, and […]

Photo by Vanessa Sezini on Unsplash The Gravel Road The Gravel Road is an incredible piece of music from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. The music is by the iconic composer, James Newton Howard. I remember seeing this film at a packed theater in 2004. […]

My son Matthew | D DAY Conneaut Lake, Ohio. Saving Private Ryan Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) was the first war film that put the viewer into the battle. You felt the measure of their sacrifice. I was in my early 20’s when I […]

Photo by Maxim Tajer on Unsplash American Prometheus I’ve been obsessing over the Ludwig Göransson’s Oppenheimer soundtrack since the film’s release. Just brilliant. Like Hans Zimmer at his peak in the 2010’s. This is a complex story about a complex individual — and Christopher Nolan […]

TIME is available on all streaming services. Links below. TIME Inception is a 2010 science fiction film written, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb; a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious. Cobb is offered a chance to […]

Oppenheimer Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan’s 12th motion picture. It’s widely considered to be his greatest achievement — with some critics calling it “the film of the century”. The film follows the life of theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer who developed the first nuclear weapon. Ludwig […]

Photo by Tom Barrett | Unsplash Light of the Seven Light of the Seven, by composer Ramin Djawadi, is the music at the very beginning of the Game of Thrones (season 6 finale) The Winds of Winter. Upon watching the episode in 2016, the music […]

Unchained Melody Unchained Melody is nearly 70 years old. It was initially written (by Alex North and Hy Zaret) as a theme for a prison film entitled, Unchained (1955).  The song was popularized by The Righteous Brothers a decade later in 1965. My favorite is […]

Original photo by Derek von Briesen. The Ecstasy of Gold The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the best of Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy starring Clint Eastwood. The film is considered the definitive Spaghetti Western — with it’s use of long shots and close-up […]