CD Review: A CERTAIN SMILE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/15/2011
A CERTAIN SMILE soundtrack | ©2011 La La Land Records

Few classic composers were better at playing the glory of love against exotically glamorous settings than Alfred Newman. And the 1950’s were a heyday for his lushly picaresque affairs, whether it was William Holden falling for Jennifer Jones against the backdrop of Hong Kong in LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING, or Yul Brynner letting his lips find out if Ingrid Berman was really the Russian empress ANASTASIA as they gallivanted amongst France’s hoi polloi. That country’s Riviera proves a glamorous backdrop for the amour fou of 1958’s A CERTAIN SMILE. And though Christine Carere and Rossano Brazzi might not have […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE HELP soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
THE HELP soundtrack | ©2011 Varese Sarabande Records

Perhaps no member of the Newman clan broke from the lush, namesake sound of Lionel and Alfred more than the latter’s son David- at least to begin with. Bringing his first interest of alt. rock to such joyously groovy late-80’s comedy scores of DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, THE MAN WITH ONE RED SHOE and REAL GENIUS, Thomas Newman’s immediately impressed with its youthful hipness. But just as soon, Newman revealed his namesake’s mature, symphonic talents through LESS THAN ZERO, MEN DON’T LEAVE and DECEIVED. Rather than one style or the other, Thomas Newman’s scores have been distinguished through their frequent fusions […]Read On »


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CD review: THE DEBT soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/09/2011
THE DEBT soundtrack | ©2011 Relativity

The global stage of espionage is one Thomas Newman works to far more visceral effect in the equally excellent score and film to THE DEBT. It’s an action genre I’d love to see him get more of a workout in, and hopefully more chases and guns will be awaiting Newman given this film’s deserved Number One performance at the box office. Once again, Newman uses his state of the rhythmic art to electrify a history lesson – if a far more violent one here that reaches into the present. It’s a DEBT that’s paid forward with hyper-exciting percussion and entrancing […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE GREAT SANTINI soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/08/2011
THE GREAT SANTINI soundtrack | ©2011 Film Score Monthly

The tenderness of Elmer Bernstein’s score for TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD meets the officious jackboot he’d apply to STRIPES to accompany one of Robert Duvall’s best roles as a marine pilot who wears his full-fury stripes at home. Bernstein was equally adept at dealing with youthful life-lessons and the charge-ahead determination of military hard-asses. And no picture played better to both melodic strengths than the critically decorated GREAT SANTINI, whose score swings from the twinkling of adolescent magic to the roaring military drum force of a blowhard, who nonetheless packs his own hidden heart. The film’s South Carolina location in […]Read On »


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CD review: WARRIOR soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
WARRIOR soundtrack | ©2011 Lakeshore Records

Having scored the inspirational hockey drama MIRACLE and the downbeat cop conspiracy PRIDE AND GLORY for writer-director Gavin O’Connor, Mark Isham’s third step into the ring with the filmmaker combines both the grim and victorious. And the result is a musical WARRIOR that grabs you with surprising subtlety before delivering a knockout foot to the face (this is mixed martial arts after all). For a good while, Isham keeps his drama in a brooding key, full of the fighting brothers’ family resentments and recriminations. But emotion steadily rises to break through the orchestral ice, his heavy strings and brass steadily […]Read On »


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CD Review: YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/01/2011
YOR soundtrack | ©2011 Buysoundtrax

Where they ripped off American westerns with an refreshing dose of spaghetti in the 1960’s, the Italians had a far less successful (if hilariously entertaining) go of doing their own “salutes” to CONAN and STAR WARS in the ’70’s and ’80’s. However, in an exploitation coliseum that included the likes of ATOR: THE FIGHTING EAGLE and STARCRASH, few rip-offs stewed savage beefcake with helmeted “space” invaders like 1983’s YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE. Reb Brown (TV’s Captain America) was cast as the dino killer who makes his fellow cave people safe from dinosaurs and badly dubbed future aristocrats in […]Read On »


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CD Review: EXPLORERS soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
EXPLORERS soundtrack | © 2011 Intrada

In a legendary career filled with long-standing relationships with such directors as Franklin J. Schaffner (PLANET OF THE APES) David Anspaugh (RUDY) and Curtis Hanson (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL), perhaps no filmmaker brought out the child-like glee of Jerry Goldsmith’s music like Joe Dante- even if some of the nine pictures they’d do together exhibited a deliciously twisted streak of black humor when it came to putting youths in peril from GREMLINS or SMALL SOLDIERS. Yet there’d be nothing but innocence in 1985’s EXPLORERS, Dante’s guileless movie in which a bunch of youths (including River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke) build a spaceship […]Read On »


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CD Review: BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1,000 Edition) Soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/25/2011
BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS soundtrack | ©2011 Buysoundtrax Records

Roger Corman has given breaks to such future Hollywood superstars as Martin Scorcese, Jack Nicholson and Jonathan Demme under the most pitiable budgetary circumstances.  What distinguished James Horner’s big musical break on 1980’s BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS is that it was Corman’s biggest budgeted-film yet, making it quite the step up for a 27 year old who’d impressed New World with his scores for UP FROM THE DEPTHS, THE LADY IN RED and HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP. Finally given a STAR WARS rip-off instead of some JAWS-inspired aquatic monster, Horner mightily rose to the challenge with this terrifically thrilling soundtrack, […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/22/2011
THE DEVIL'S DOUBLE soundtrack | ©2011 Lakeshore Records

Uday Hussein has a rocking good time ravaging Iraq under dad’s carte blanche, not to mention the protection of a hapless look-a-like. It’s a musically mesmerizing balance between the fruits of evil, and an onlooker’s moral anguish, two tones merged into one beast for this killer alt. bio score by Christian Henson. Just when you think you’ve heard it all in the sinister soundtrack land of Middle East-meets-west rhythms, THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE arrives to kick the genre in the ass as its antagonist does far worse things to his people. Not only does it help that Henson was a programmer […]Read On »


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CD Review: VIENTO EN CONTRA soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
VIENTO EN CONTRA soundtrack | ©2011 Movie Score Media

Alfons Conde, a Spanish composer better known among horror fans for the Movie Score Media releases of his utterly sinister soundtracks to THE ABANDONED, THE DARK HOUR and NO-DO finally gets the opportunity to score a film where a woman gets to fight back against evil odds. In the case of MSM’s VIENTO EN CONTRA (AGAINST THE WIND), it’s a female executive who’s set up for a murder, and has to become a fugitive with her kid in tow. As with a heroine’s dead aim that seems to come out of nowhere in a film like this, Conde plugs us […]Read On »


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