Soundtracks

CD Review: STILL ALICE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/08/2015
STILL ALICE soundtrack | ©2015 Nettwerk Records

A professor losing her smarts to early onset Alzheimer’s has not only inspired a Golden Globe-winning performance from actress Julianne Moore, but also a similarly delicate, and painfully beautiful score from Ilan Eshkeri – whose score here captures the musical memory of his female-centered chamber work for last year’s THE INVISIBLE WOMAN. Where that character was dealing with lovelorn anguish, the subtly dissonant violins and delicate piano that inflect Alice’s struggle are about holding onto cherished life itself. Where a less-indie approach would’ve likely meant bringing on far bigger heartstrings, the intimacy of Eshkeri’s work is perhaps even more emotional […]Read On »


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CD Review: NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/07/2015
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB soundtrack | ©2015 Varese Sarabande Records

When looking for Hollywood scores filled with unabashedly glittering themes and melody, you might as well feel like visiting a museum. However, Alan Silvestri thankfully remains anything but a fossil in this practice. As a composer who’s been applying this relatively ancient orchestral approach since the long-lost days of BACK TO THE FUTURE, Silvestri has remained vibrant in conveying a child-like sense of magic and adventure when its come to fantastical wish fulfillment, no more so than in his continuing trips to this Fox family franchise, of which SECRET OF THE TOMB threatens to be the last admission. If so, […]Read On »


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CD Review: A FAR OFF PLACE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/06/2015
A FAR OFF PLACE soundtrack | ©2015 Intrada Records

Way before she trekked the Pacific trail, Reese Witherspoon braved 2,000 miles of the Kalahari desert in this surprisingly perilous 1993 adventure film from the family-friendly likes of Disney, who were certainly showing surprising bite at the time with the such movies as WHITE FANG. Having released that double score (along with a bunch of worthy soundtracks from other unlikely Disney pictures), Intrada dips again into the well they first dug for PLACE at the time of its release, now coming up with 75 minutes to fully show off James Horner’s relatively unsung, strikingly epic score. Even though he ventured […]Read On »


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CD Review: FALLING IN LOVE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/05/2015
FALLING IN LOVE soundtrack | ©2015 Kritzerland Records

Movie jazz has always seemed to find a home in Manhattan, and few composers awash in the spirit of an unsleeping city of a thousand stories have embodied those rhythms with the distinctive, thematic flair of Dave Grusin. Given a trademark NYC sound most often comprised of mellow electric percussion, reflective piano and wistful strings, Grusin has heard the city as both a place of danger (THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR), gilded society (BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES) and eccentric criminal intent (THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE). But more often than not, it’s the vibes of beautiful, soft romance in scores […]Read On »


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CD Review: ETHEL soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/04/2015
ETHEL soundtrack | ©2015 Perseverance Records

Having started off with some fairly wacky narrative films like STREETS OF RAGE and way more artistic indie efforts like AMY’S ORGASM, Miriam Cutler has essentially become one of the queens of documentary scoring to the rhythmic tunes of LOST IN LA MANCHA, ONE LUCKY ELEPHANT and the Emmy-nominated THE DESERT OF FORBIDDEN ART. Yet with so many works, Cutler remains truthfully under-represented on CD, a fact that Perseverance’s release of her score for the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary ETHEL does a charming, and ultimately moving bit to remedy. Reteaming with GHOSTS OF ABU GHARIB director Rory Kennedy for a very […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE BETSY soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/03/2015
THE BETSY soundtrack | ©2014 Prometheus Records

John Barry could give even the trashiest movies a sense of rose-smelling class, especially when the pot was boiling over with a stew of upper class behavior involving the usual assortment of sex, murder and business chicanery – as centering around a clean-burning car engine called THE BETSY of all names. Such was the title that author Harold Robbins bestowed to this fun, Mr. Skin-worthy cinematic adaptation of his critically ta-ta’d brand of wealthily randy literature. Sure Barry might have been given a bit of cheese to work with in1978 between this, STARCRASH and GAME OF DEATH. But the big […]Read On »


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CD Review: KANGAROO: THE AUSTRALIAN STORY soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/02/2015
KANGAROO: THE AUSTRALIAN STORY soundtrack | ©2015 Counterpoint Records

Definitely the silliest title to grace a beyond-manly score, 1952’s KANGAROO was the first Hollywood film to be shot down under, even if its plot of two swindlers after an old coot’s money was a western that could have just as well taken place in Texas (of course minus a few shots of said creatures). Creating a massive orchestral soundtrack that was certainly as big as that state, not to mention a continent, was Sol Kaplan. Best known for his memorably shrill, epically dangerous music for the great STAR TREK episode “The Doomsday Machine,” Kaplan was an especially adventures composer […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE GREAT INVISIBLE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
THE GREAT INVISIBLE soundtrack | ©2014 Lakeshore Records

Ry Cooder’s ethereal scores merged country-folk guitar with blues rhythms, harmonica joining with rural percussion and eerie atmospheres of synths and metal to create such enticingly regional scores as SOUTHERN COMFORT, THE LONG RIDERS and PARIS, TEXAS – a landmark, often Tex-Med groove that has since been exceptionally taken up by David Wingo in such transfixing Southern Gothic scores asMUD and JOE. While Wingo has put his own melodic stamp on characters inhabiting the deep woods, the composer now chronicles the real deal as he plays one of the most catastrophic events to hit the Gulf of Mexico in the […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE LITTLE MERMAID: THE LEGACY COLLECTION soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/01/2015
THE LITTLE MERMAID: THE LEGACY COLLECTION soundtrack | ©2015 Walt Disney Records

Disney continues their exceptional series of hard-bound “Legacy Collection” releases with THE LITTLE MERMAID, the 1989 soundtrack, and film that really put the studio back above animated water, netting the fist of many best Song and Score Oscars for the LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS stage duo of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, whose hip energy was sought to awaken the studio from its animated doldrums with this now-classic adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson fable – the first fairy tale for Disney since 1955s SLEEPING BEAUTY. What’s interesting about hearing the MERMAID in her complete, symphonic glory is just how […]Read On »


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CD Review: POLLYANA soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/31/2015
POLLYANA soundtrack | ©2014 Caldera Records

Eleanor H. Porter’s adorable, eternally optimistic sprite has been showing up on big and small screens since 1920, most popularly in Haley Mills’ effervescent form via Disney in 1960, and most recently in 2003 on the U.K.’s ITV. With the character’s roots transported from New England to England proper, it’s only right that a classically-minded composer like Christopher Gunning be giving the musical job of making the sun shine as bright as the little girl’s smile (never mind that he impressively got his start on such bloodthirsty scores as GOODBYE GEMINI and HANDS OF THE RIPPER). Thankfully, Gunning knows how […]Read On »


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