CD Review: STOKER soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 04/09/2013
STOKER soundtrack | ©2013 Milan Records

With his creepily rhythmic fusion of orchestra, rock and electronics, Clint Mansell had been a go-to guy when it comes to capturing a building sense of psychosis, whether it’s cutting-edge synth mad science in PI and MOON, Middle Eastern music possessing a serial killer artist in SUSPECT ZERO, or the cool strings for the teen thrill killers in MURDER BY NUMBERS. But it was Mansell’s ever-more insane twisting of Tchaikovsky for a BLACK SWAN ballerina that really made him a go-to guy for women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. For STOKER, Mansell applies a slightly more groovy classical […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 04/08/2013
THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE soundtrack | ©2013 Water Tower Records

The swinging funk sound of SUPERBAD proved to be the hat trick that’s propelled Lyle Workman into the self-styled comedy score for THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE dealing with a Vegas populated by such other hot acts as Christophe Beck, Christopher Lennertz and Theodore Shapiro. All share a talent for combining today’s retro-pop grooves with the kind of orchestral magic appreciated by the David Copperfield generation. Like the best shows, Workman energetically swings from one style to the next with a constant sense of musical surprise. Brazen Latin rhythms do a reveal to Swingles Singers kitsch, while the screaming rock guitar […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE FURY soundtrack (3500 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
THE FURY soundtrack | ©2013 La La Land Records

Brian De Palma was lucky enough to get the real Herrmann deal to participate in his cinematically brilliant games of Hitchcock fetishism for SISTERS and OBSESSION. And just as James Stewart mooned over Kim Novak’s doppelganger, De Palma has since spent a good part of his thriller-centric career getting just about every composer since Bernard’s passing to dress up in his musical clothing, which has provided a pretty good fit for such men as Pino Donaggio (DRESSED TO KILL) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (FEMME FATALE). Perhaps that dramatically macabre sound has never been tailored better than to John Williams, an artist […]Read On »


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CD Review: OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 04/07/2013
OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL soundtrack | ©2013 Intrada Records

Long before fairy tale movies were in vogue, Danny Elfman was applying equal parts enchantment and foreboding to such fractured Tim Burton fantasies as EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and BIG FISH. So it’s no surprise that a filmmaker prone to dark, deceptively kid-friendly adventures would start the recent trend off with ALICE IN WONDERLAND, even if it was a film that pretty much went down the rabbit hole. However, Elfman’s strikingly themed score stayed above the helter-skelter effects fray with its clever plays on English propriety. Now, Elfman’s music truly gets to fly in the genre for Sam […]Read On »


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CD Review: GLADIATOR soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 03/24/2013
GLADIATOR soundtrack | ©2013 Intrada Records

Jerry Goldsmith was arguably the greatest composer to hit Hollywood. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of producing delightful cheese as much as he was a true masterworks. Case in point is his score for 1992’s GLADIATOR, an inner city boxing melodrama long forgotten in the wake of the Russell Crowe picture whose stakes were life and death. In this case, it was a TKO for Goldsmith when ROADHOUSE director Rowdy Herrington kicked his score to the curb in favor of Brad Fiedel, a composer whose electronic abilities were likely more “with it” than the veteran musical fighter. Yet […]Read On »


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Interview: Composer Jeff Rona dives deep to score PHANTOM

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 03/17/2013
PHANTOM soundtrack | ©2013 Milan Records

Throughout the manly genre of “submarine” films from RUN SILENT RUN DEEP to GRAY LADY DOWN and DAS BOOT, the claustrophobic, gear-filled surroundings, depth-charge tension and constant life-or-death stakes have often yielded symphonic scores that sought to be as big as the ocean depths in conveying radar-pounding excitement and the psychological warfare between rival captains. Once again taking the Russian “enemy” perspective in the tradition of THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER and K19: THE WIDOWMAKER, PHANTOM posits an escalating Cold War conflict that threatens to ignite a nuclear holocaust as an old salt Soviet captain Demi (Ed Harris) faces off […]Read On »


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CD Review: SILENT HILL: REVELATION 3D soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 03/03/2013
SILENT HILL REVELATION 3D soundtrack | ©2012 Lakeshore Records

Just like every zombie-hardened heroine who inevitably gets pulled into a Japanese video game-turned-movie nether-realm, composer Jeff Danna has racked up enough points to start his own tour guide business after his contributions to RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE and SILENT HILL. Now six years after he abetted the original game themes of Akira Yamaoka, Danna returns to the town with SILENT HILL: REVELATION 3D that dare not speak its name to give even more original musical meat to the eerie fairy tale bells that’ve stood for the franchise long before it became film. Danna certainly has his crash-bang percussion work cut […]Read On »


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CD Review: ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH soundtrack | ©2013 Sony Music

Though he’s most often called up to be the go-to guy for terrestrial chick flicks, Aaron Zigman’s gorgeous, sumptuously orchestral score for the goblins running across the BRIDGE TO TEREBITHIA showed the composer’s more fantastical stylings were just waiting to take flight. It’s finally taken his first foray into animation to unleash Zigman’s inner John Williams, not to mention Carl Stalling, James Horner and a host of other wonderful stylistic diversions to create his best score yet for ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH. Full of enough good humored, full-blast military patriotism to launch an Apollo Mission to the Looney Tunes planet, […]Read On »


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CD Review: GANGSTER SQUAD soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 03/02/2013
GANGSTER SQUAD soundtrack | ©2012 Varese Sarabande Records

Take a composer whose good guys are out to bust metal heads, then throw him into the late 40s Los Angeles. Chances are you’re not going to get a score like CHINATOWN, which is exactly the point of hiring one of Hollywood’s big rhythmic guns to musically envision a rogue LA sheriff’s department as Autobots pitted against the Decepticon mob goons of Mickey Cohen in the new film GANGSTER SQUAD. While film noir purists might cry foul at a score that fits nicely into Jablonsky’s TRANSFORMERS cannon as opposed to Jerry Goldsmith’s, Michael Bay’s go-to musician has accomplished his mission […]Read On »


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CD Review: MAMA soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 02/24/2013
MAMA soundtrack | ©2013 Quartet Records

If hell hath no fury like a familial ghost scorned, then one quickly rising composer who knows how to play a potent mix of the demonic and paternal is Spain’s Fernando Velázquez. First impressing with the chilling score for a mother’s encounter with ghostly tykes in THE ORPHANAGE,  and then opening up a world of satanic suspense within the confines of an elevator for DEVIL, Velázquez has lately explored the real-life terror of THE IMPOSSIBLE, wherein a family’s bond overcame a Tsunami’s catastrophe. The elements of shock and emotion mix very well for MAMA, who’s not exactly welcoming of her […]Read On »


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