CD Review: THE ARK AND THE DELUGE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/21/2016
THE ARK AND THE DELUGE soundtrack | ©2016 Music Box Records

Few film genres allow composers to write tone poems in the guise of scores like nature documentaries, their music getting to chronicle the grace, joy and life or death struggles of the planet in all of its infinite musical equivocations of the life force. Gabriel Yared set out to sea to in 1993 to sumptuously chronicle the glorious ballet between ocean and air. Hearing this glorious wash of melodic impressionism, you’re reminded that this Oscar-winning Lebanese composer just might be film scoring’s answer to France’s Claude Debussy, his DELUGE a cross between the flowing, romantic strings of “La Mer” as crossed […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/20/2016
THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD soundtrack | ©2016 La La Land Records

Before he became the go-to TV superhero scorer for DC with the likes of ARROW, THE FLASH and SUPERGIRL, Blake Neely was spending much of his scoring time during the first decade of the new millennium in the company of sweet romantic dramas like FIRST DAUGHTER, THE WEDDING DATE and STARTER FOR 10. One of his most delightful scores before he put on his cape was playing the amazing, jazzy mentalist tricks of 2008’s THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD. Director Sean McGinly based John Malkovich’s rage-prone mental illusionist on his own stint with The Amazing Kreskin, putting himself in the personage of Colin Hanks’ personal […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: THE INVITATION soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/18/2016
THE INVITATION soundtrack | ©2016 Lakeshore Records

A truly versatile composer when not superbly cranking out comedy scores like SPY, ZOOLANDER 2 and the forthcoming GHOSTBUSTERS reboot, Theodore Shapiro has shown an inventive affinity for typewriter-clicking drama with TRUMBO and creepily ethereal horror when ogling JENNIFER’S BODY. But it’s with THE INVITATION that Shapiro proves like never before just how unfunny he can be upon entering a suicide cult’s dinner party, as staged by JENNIFER director Karyn Kusma. Given a bloody desert as served by hosts straight out Heaven’s Gate, Shapiro’s weapon of choice is a single, overdubbed violin to further ratchet the tension. Where string playing of this sort is usually […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: THE SAINT soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/16/2016
THE SAINT soundtrack | ©2016 Music Box Records

The do-gooding bon vivant Simon Templar has been reincarnated in radio, television and film, as played by George Sanders, Roger Moore and Val Kilmer. However, his grooviest halo is heard by Music Box’s positively heavenly 3-CD release of the jazz-disco heroics that accompanied Simon Dutton over a series of TV movies in 1989. But listening to the swaggering saxes, punchy brass and romantically lush strings of Serge Franklin, you’d think you were back in 1981 spy dancing with Moore to the glitterball action of Bill Conti’s FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (if not doing the Euro-nightclub twist on the moon to Derek […]Read On »


COMMENTS (1)

CD Review: THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/15/2016
THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO soundtrack | ©2016 Silva Screen Records

Though the decades of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s classic “Supermarionation” shows, the stirring, grandly thematic voice of Barry Gray made audiences believe that a puppet could fly – no more so then when piloting five spaceships called The Thunderbirds. Now spiffed up with a state-of-the-art mix of modelwork and CGI animation, THE THUNDERBIRDS has taken new flight on English TV, and soon America’s Netflix instant. Old school fans will likely miss the charm of wire-controlled marionettes and Gray’s straight-ahead scoring that nicely combined British patriotic pomp with hep 60’s pop. This reboot is pitched straight ahead for an adrenalized tween video […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: THE WANNABE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/14/2016
THE WANNABE soundtrack | ©2016 Movie Score Media Records

A seriously deluded low life couple make the big mistake of thinking they can rip off NYC’s connected Italian citizens, learning big time that crime of any sort doesn’t in this strange-but-true tale – one that previously made for 2014’s far superior ROB THE MOB. But that’s not to say the following year’s THE WANNABE doesn’t have some mook charms to it, namely Patricia Arquette’s beyond-committed performance and an eccentric score by Nathan Larson. A seriously unsung composer when it comes to scoring hard to love losers in such indies as in PALINDROMES, CHOKE and THE SKELETON TWINS, Larson takes an emotionally similar approach […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: THE CAIRO DECLARATION soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/01/2016
THE CAIRO DECLARATION soundtrack | ©2016 Movie Score Media

Nothing seems to inspire glorious feelings for The Motherland like a flag-waving symphonic score, its citizens’ devotion embodied in majestically swirling melody. But then, you don’t have to open your Little Red Book to appreciate the stirring patriotism that westerner Chad Cannon, along with Chinese composer into THE CAIRO DECLARATION, creating the most sumptuous music to accompany a historical event most listeners on this side of the Atlantic have never heard of. The 1943 meeting between FDR, Churchill and soon-to-be overthrown Chinese ruler Chiang Kai-shek decided the who’d get Japan’s occupied territories once Tojo went down in flames – with the […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

THE JUNGLE BOOK soundtrack – CD Review

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 04/27/2016
THE JUNGLE BOOK soundtrack | ©2016 Walt Disney Records

With his father Louis Debney playing his part in the birth of Disney animation, it was only natural that his musically talented son John would get his start at the studio on his way to turning its beloved 1967 toon into an astonishing example of live action flesh and CGI fur. You can certainly hear the love tonight in Debney’s epic valentine to his alma mater, as well as the inimitable tunes of its greatest songsmiths The Sherman Brothers by reading THE JUNGLE BOOK as it scales new heights for the composer. Debney has done an impressive job segueing from Mickey […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: TEST soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 08/24/2014
TEST soundtrack | ©2014 Movie Score Media

A gay dancer in early 1985 San Francisco deals with relationships and the beginning of the AIDS pandemic in this well-reviewed drama that not only throws back to an era that marked the end of sexual innocence, but also a musical time that marked the highpoint of a specific movie scoring synth sound best embodied by the likes of Tangerine Dream. And for many fans of that progressive German group, the decade also marked a high point with the propulsive sheen of scores that embodied the stylish LA gloss of HEARTBREAKERS and MIRACLE MILE. Welsh composer Ceiri Torjussen (BIG-ASS SPIDER) […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: LE PROFESSIONNEL and LE MARGINAL soundtracks

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 08/23/2014
LE PROFESSIONEL soundtrack | ©2014 Music Box Records

Somehow, unlike the latter Jean Reno who’d play the Eric Serra scored PROFESSIONAL the original, ultimate French tough guy named Jean-Paul Belmondo never quite caught on as an English language star, despite his savoir faire with guns, girls and cigarettes – qualities he’d practice in abundance with 1981s LE PROFESSIONNEL and 1983s LE MARGINAL. But beyond their Gallic leading man, what would truly connect the first movie’s revenge-seeking agent and the second’s drug-busting commissioner were two uniformly superb scores by Italian composer Ennio Morricone, now remastered and given complete releases by France’s Music Box Records. Adept at every conceivable genre […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Dr.5z5 Open Feed Directory

bottom round