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. […]

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 Laura Louise Grimsley | Unsplash Memoria Memoria is a pretty motif from Gustavo Santaolalla’s Narcos: Mexico soundtrack. He’s actually playing an electric guitar that’s doubled with a violin. Given that dynamic, Memoria sounded better on a nylon string, as a lone guitar performance. […]

Wild Life When the Surf Comes Up is a motif by composer Gustavo Santaolalla. The piece is from, Wild Life, a documentary directed and produced by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo). The film follows conservationists Kris Tompkins (CEO Patagonia) and her husband […]

Photo by Casey Horner | Unsplash 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 […]

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 […]

Photo by Vaishakh pillai on Unsplash 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 […]

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 […]

The Last of Us (HBO) HBO’s The Last of Us is being heralded as “the greatest video game adaptation ever”. No surprise as Craig Mazen is the executive producer and showrunner. Mazen’s Chernobyl mini-series (on HBO) was one of the greatest shows I have ever […]

Photo: Hu Chen | Unsplash 1923 1923 is a Yellowstone origin story, where the Duttons face challenges to the ranch, in the early 20th century. I particularly like the character of Spencer — a WW1 soldier suffering from PTSD who’s biding time as ‘man-eater’ hunter […]