Reel Music blog

I finished a couple of hours ago. I also took a look at Joep's reviews, but only a handful are available to watch when you click "reviews" here (only recent reviews). There should be a list of some sort, by date. Anyways, between the two of you, these were the "gems" I found that I had not discovered myself and that were not on Jon's list. Thanks for highlighting these!

PARADIS PARADOX (Milo Cantor)
LA FILLE DE SON PERE (Julie Roué)
MI MAESTRA SE COMIO A MI AMIGO (Tomas Barreiro)
GROSSO GUIAI ALL'ESQUILINI - LA LEGGENDA DEL KUNG FU (Flavio Le Fosse)
WILD BOYS (Alexander Arntzen)
A CROSS IN THE DESERT (Ana Krstajić)

TV:

NORTH ATLANTIC: THE DARK OCEAN (Bradley Ayers)
A CASA TUTTI BENE - SECONDA STAGIONE (Paolo Buonvino)
OOKU: THE INNER CHAMBERS (Kenji Kawai)

Videogames:

HEARTLESS (Benoît Vanhoffelen)
HYPER METEOR (Robby Duguay)

Also - again - thank you so much for alerting me to RIVER ROAD. Amazing score that would have been high, high on my 2022 list if I had known about it in time! I also dig ENOUGH! LEBANON'S DARKEST HOUR from 2022, although 41 tracks for a 47 minute program is overkill. Should have merged more tracks into suites. That RUSSIA IN THE 90s thing was also nice, but can't really find it at Spotify. There's a YouTube version that includes a live performance, which is what I used for sampling.

Yeah, I don't do various categories, like "archive", in my own 'best of the year' podcast episode (no awards to be handed out here, LOL!). Only top 10 FEATURE FILM SCORES, with one clip each, and then a list of runner-ups mentioned only by name at the end of the episode. I sometimes regret it, because there is so much good stuff that I want to highlight. This year, for example, a TV score like Geffray's SPLIT would have been a top 3 candidate overall, but I can't do it because it's TV. Very annoying, but self-imposed limits in order to stay focussed on film scores. I was also gutted when I realised Godin's fabulous FIRE OF LOVE -- my favourite discovery of the year, and the likely winner of the whole year -- is a 2021 film. But soundtrack released in 2023, I think. Disqualified in any case.

On the other hand, I do separate videogame and TV specials that can highlight these, as well as my relatively new column "reviews-on-the-go". When you listen to thousands of new scores like us, you really want to communicate the under-the-radar highlights to people who only release to mainstream Hollywood stuff.

Much appreciated!