CD Review: BATMAN RETURNS: LIMITED EDITION soundtrack (3500 edition)

Batman Returns soundtrack | ©2010 La La Land Records

Few composers have more fun unleashing their devilishly twisted side like Danny Elfman, especially when longtime collaborator Tim Burton truly lets his creativity go bats**t. But if one film takes that cake in their always-eccentric pairings, then it would be the shining piece of comic book coal called BATMAN RETURNS. Sure their first BATMAN was dark, but no one expected the moral bestiality that would result from the pairing of The Bat, The Cat and The Penguin, a ménage a trois complete with whip-wielding S & M, intended child homicide and a very bloody nose- all prancing about to the […]Read On »


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CD Review: FLESH + BLOOD soundtrack (2,000 edition)

Flesh + Blood Soundtrack | ©2010 Intrada Records

Basil Poledouris was at the height of his macho musical glory in 1985 with the likes of CONAN and RED DAWN, so it was no wonder that violence and sex-loving Dutch director Paul Verhoeven sought him out to score his first English language outing. Where this visceral medieval epic about lusty marauders, not-so nobles, and the slutty princess they all desire might have seemed dark age on the surface, the sheer lunacy of Verhoeven’s excesses allowed Poledouris to deliver a surprisingly high-spirited epic score, one based in jaunty medieval plainsong as much as it was knightly melodies. More in the […]Read On »


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CD Review: TRON:LEGACY original soundtrack

Tron Legacy Soundtrack | ©2010 Walt Disney Records

It’s a cold, dark and mesmerizing world 28 years later on the game grid, so don’t expect any of the playfully lush themes that Wendy Carlos gave you geeks the first time out- unless you’re counting Jeff Bridges’ brief A Capella improv at the start of LEGACY. What you will get from electronica superstars-turned-masked composers Daft Punk is an icily epic sound that brilliantly matches the new, austerely Kubrickian imagery on thrilling display, while also delivering on the whiz-bang action pitched towards a young audience whose listening tastes have significantly evolved since the days of 8-bit Atari music- not that […]Read On »


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CD Review: TRUE GRIT original soundtrack

TRUE GRIT soundtrack | ©2010 La La Land Records

It’s been a while since The Coen Brothers made a film as conventionally enjoyable as TRUE GRIT, let alone one that would allow their house composer Carter Burwell to engage in a full-blooded, mainstream score for them in the western genre he last trod upon with the modern cowboys of 1998’s THE HI-LO COUNTRY. While there will always be a sly subversion to one of the more engaging directors-musician relationships in modern cinema, fans of original GRIT composer Elmer Bernstein will feel home on the range with the brassily vast scope of Burwell’s work, right from the thundering heroism of […]Read On »


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CD Review: BLACK SWAN / FASTER soundtracks

© 2010 Sony Classical | Black Swan Soundtrack

Clint Mansell has always felt the need for speed, let alone the seeming urge to accompany more mental disintegrations than a national tour of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST. Taking the next evolution from playing with Pop Will Eat Itself to make a stunning alt. scoring debut with 1998’s PI (a film that also marked the debut of his frequent auteur collaborator Darren Aronofsky), Mansell’s prolific, and usually innovative output has combined the shredding rhythms of industrial rock, the lush melodic reaches of a symphony orchestra and enough minimal chord progressions to rate a celebrity death match with Philip […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE NEXT THREE DAYS soundtrack

© 2010 Lions Gate Records | The Next Three Days Soundtrack

When Danny Elfman tackles action, it’s usually with the frenetic rock-orchestral energy of WANTED, or bringing down the dark cosmic thunder of HELLBOY 2. So it’s particularly cool when the composer gets to stretch with more realistic protagonists in the action arena, especially for the family-driven thrills of THE NEXT THREE DAYS, in which Russell Crowe (whom Elfman last scored for PROOF OF LIFE) tries to spring his character’s wife from an unjust murder rap. Elfman’s inimitably eccentric style has perhaps never sounded so effectively normal as it were, combining an emotional heartbeat with gripping suspense rhythms, as tender guitars, […]Read On »


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CD Review: HAUNTED SUMMER soundtrack (1200 edition)

© 2010 La La Land Records | Haunted Summer Soundtrack

Christopher Young would grace many a low budget horror score with his eerily graceful melodies, among them HELLRAISER, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 and TRICK OR TREAT. Just before he’d go on to the more bloodily prestigious likes of COPYCAT and THE DARK HALF, Young took a last stab for the mini-majors with this beautiful swan song to the very beginnings of horror fiction with Cannon’s HAUNTED SUMMER. This was second (and far more lucid) cinematic rumination on the dalliances of Lord Byron, Percy and Mary Shelly and John Polidori- literary lions who would create vampires and science-stitched walking […]Read On »


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CD Review: FAIR GAME original soundtrack

© 2010 Lakeshore Records | Fair Game Soundtrack

John Powell re-invented the action spy beat when he teamed with director Doug Liman for the first BOURNE IDENTITY, a mélange of ethnic percussion and pounding orchestral drive that Powell’s since varied for the director with the explosive humor of MR. AND MRS. SMITH and the boisterous action of JUMPER. What makes Powell’s new teaming with Liman different is that FAIR GAME’s battlefield is mostly centered around the duplicitous halls of the Bush White House, let alone the suburban home of its finked-out CIA heroine Valerie Plame. Instead of sleeper agents crashing through her door, it’s the press that wrecks […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE RCA CLASSIC FILM SCORE series

© 2010 Sony Records | RCA CLASSICS Soundtrack

The 1970’s were a renaissance for film suite compilation albums, as young LP listeners were introduced to the works of such Hollywood scoring legends as Bernard Herrmann, Miklos Rosza and Franz Waxman. But no great re-performance of these golden age masters functioned as the gateway drug for film music appreciation like the RCA Red Seal Classic Film Score Series, which had Charles Gerhardt conducting The National Philharmonic Orchestra. With the original movie orchestrations under his baton, and enticingly designed album covers to sell these ambitious releases, Gerhardt and series producer George Korngold (son of Erich) conjured a wash of infinitely […]Read On »


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Profile: Composer David Arnold gains passage to THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER | ©2010 Sony Classical

If there’s one composer who knows how to take Earthlings to a land of mystical enchantment, and then get most of them back in one piece, it would be David Arnold. With only the Brit crime drama YOUNG AMERICANS behind him, Arnold’s Hollywood debut on 1994’s STARGATE hit the scoring world with the resonance of a nuclear bomb, if said explosion could be heard as a blinding flash of lush orchestral themes, epic choruses and swashbuckling adventure. Arnold’s professional quest since then has heard him take on diverse styles from the epic action of INDEPENDENCE DAY and LAST OF THE […]Read On »


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