Intellimusica

Theme From a Movie That Never Happened Eric Clapton’s Theme From a Movie That Never Happened is a B-Side rarity that was first released in 1998. There’s not much info about this piece — so I believe that it’s actually ‘a theme from a movie […]

The Whirling Ways of Stars that Pass The Whirling Ways of Stars that Pass is from Johann Johannsson’s 2014 Golden Globe winning score for, The Theory of Everything. It’s a beautiful piece of music that turned out to be an (easy to play) guitar arrangement. […]

Epilogue It’s funny that an Epilogue is a conclusion because it was my very first blog post in 2011. Intellimusica was a weird idea then, and I’ve winged it ever since. This is a full redo of that initial post. Gustavo Santaolalla’s music is where […]

All Life Has Meaning Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was an excellent send off for the Guardians crew. The movie was actually pretty violent, both graphically and thematically. My son is 8 at the time of this writing, and Guardians 3 pressed his (and […]

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 […]

Amor y Paz On March 24th (2020), at the beginning of the pandemic, Gustavo Santaolalla posted this short piece to his Instagram and YouTube channel. So far as I can tell, he’s calling it Amor y Paz (Love & Peace). It was a musical offering […]

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 cinematography. Even though it’s the last […]

Marion’s Theme The score for Raiders of the Lost Ark—and the entire Indiana Jones series—is a cornerstone of my childhood. The collaboration between John Williams and Steven Spielberg produced music that is truly timeless. In particular, ‘Marion’s Theme’ stands out as one of Williams’ most […]

Resurrection The Passion of the Christ is one of the greatest films of all time. If you’re a believer, it serves as a cinematic Stations of the Cross; an experiential work of pure art. In it’s wake, all faith-based film making seems tepid by comparison. […]

Laurie and Jo on the Hill I’m always on the hunt for good content. More than a few of my guitar students recommended the film, Little Women. I was really exited to see that Alexandre Desplat was the film’s composer. The piece, Laurie and Jo […]

Wake Me Up When September Ends (Jonathan’s Version) I couldn’t stand Green Day. I respected the band as musicians and songwriters, but as a guitar teacher, they’ve been the bane of my existence for 30 years. A constant deluge of ever changing power chord riffs […]

The Mandalorian Set in the Star Wars universe, The Mandalorian takes place five years after the events of Return of the Jedi and follows a bounty hunter beyond the reaches of the New Republic. It’s filmed as “a Western” and it’s the best Star Wars […]