Léon 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”. I believe they released a special edition (or […]

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 Mark Knopfler wrote the score for The Princess Bride (1987) — not a typical Hollywood hire, which tells you exactly what kind of off-beat film Rob Reiner was making. The main theme, Once Upon a Time…Storybook Love, is built around Knopfler’s signature […]

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

The Bones The Bones is a song by pop/country star, Maren Morris. Six months after its release in 2019, the song was reimagined with Hozier singing the second verse. I love this song, and I’ve been teaching the basic version to my guitar students recently. […]

Blome Swete Lilie Flour Daniel Hart is one of my favorite composers . He often pairs with director, David Lowery (The Green Knight) — and has a very distinct tonality to his music. No matter how many instruments he uses — it always feels like […]

Traitor I’ve taught Olivia Rodrigo’s Traitor at least a dozen times to my guitar students. It’s an excellent song both lyrically and melodically. The lyrical theme is brilliant. The “boyfriend dates girl that ex-girlfriend doesn’t like” is an ageless conflict that no one has articulated […]

An Ending, a Beginning Dustin O’Halloran might be my favorite composer next to Gustavo Santaolalla. Chances are you’ve heard his music and just didn’t realize it. He was nominated for an Oscar, and a Golden Globe for Lion (2016). That music was written in collaboration with […]

Cowboys & Aliens Cowboys & Aliens is a 2011 American space Western film directed by Jon Favreau. It stars Daniel Craig, Oliva Wilde, and Harrison Ford. The film is based on the 2006 graphic novel of the same name. The plot revolves around an amnesiac […]

Brokeback Mountain Suite About 10 years ago, Gustavo Santaolalla performed the Brokeback Mountain Suite for the Latin program, Encuentro en el Estudio. To date, it’s his best performance of the Brokeback Mountain score (and I’ve watched them all). The guitar tone is gorgeous. You’ll notice […]

Hurt Hurt was originally written and performed by Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor). It was actually a pivotal NIN song long before the seminal Johnny Cash cover. [The dissonant note in my intro is an ode to the NIN original.] In a similar but reverse […]

Wicked Game For my money, the two greatest unrequited love songs are: U2’s With or Without You, and Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game. The former can prompt one to hold a lighter in the air and bellow “…and you give yourself a-way-a”. The latter makes (me) […]