CD Review: THE FURY soundtrack (3500 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 04/08/2013
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: JACK THE GIANT SLAYER soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 04/07/2013
JACK THE GIANT SLAYER soundtrack | ©2013Water Tower Records

Make no mistake that composer-editor John Ottman can adventurously lighten up when in the sole musical seat to provide dynamically fun work on ASTRO BOY and two FANTASTIC FOUR flicks. Yet when he teams up with director Bryan Singer, the results usually skew towards the dark side, from the outrightly oppressive VALKYRIE and APT PUPIL to the brooding super-heroics of X-MEN UNITED and SUPERMAN RETURNS. So it’s a pleasant surprise that the duo have chosen an entertainingly inconsequential project like JACK THE GIANT SLAYER to finally sit back and have some fluffy, creative popcorn with. Yet ironically, JACK impressively proves […]Read On »


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CD Review: OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
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: JOURNEY soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 02/25/2013
JOURNEY soundtrack | ©2012 Sony

As innovatively great as videogame scores have proven to be, they’re often anything but relaxing. But then, the musical Zen equivalent of a Japanese water garden isn’t exactly apropos to accompany the slaughter of first person combat or raging fantasy battles that are the stuff of the major game studios. So it’s no wonder that the relaxingly adventurous score of JOURNEY and its flowing robe figure was originated by the indie Thatgamecompany, who’ve given composer Austin Wintory the opportunity to compose a soundtrack that’s taken the genre to a new level of melodic poetry, not to mention acclaim by a […]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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CD Review: IDENTITY THIEF soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
IDENTITY THIEF soundtrack | ©2013 La La Land Records

Ask Danny Ocean and David Holmes, and they’ll tell you that r & b funk goes with comic crime like a blowtorch and a safe, or in the case of IDENTITY THIEF‘s Internet skills and some poor shmuck’s I.D. There’s also no better way to play a sad sack in way over his head in the white trash boonies than a rocking country-western sound, as Danny Elfman more than proved with MIDNIGHT RUN. Both musical caper sounds combine to rambunctiously enjoyable effect for Chris Lennertz, who’s paying far more homage to these styles than scoring a big rip off. Where […]Read On »


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CD Review: LES MISERABLES soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 02/23/2013
LES MISERABLES soundtrack | ©2012 Universal Music

Even when musicals deal with less savory subjects like dueling New York gangs or starving English orphans, there’s always a romantic layer of production polish to give our delicate sensibilities a comfort zone from the muck and grime of real life, but by immersing viewers in a sewer of excrement along with its lovestruck duets, LES MISERABLES shouts aloud that it’s a stage-to-screen game changer. There’s an unheard level of primal scream singing here that throws us into the gutter along with Victor Hugo’s period Parisians, who sing about the lack of justice (or the psychotic belief in it) for […]Read On »


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CD Review: HOOSIERS soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
HOOSIERS soundtrack | ©2012 Intrada Records

Jerry Goldsmith was always pushing the musical boundaries of every genre he scored, sometimes applying seemingly anachronistic approaches where only a symphony would seem right. Perhaps no movie is a bigger case in points, or passes for that matter, then 1986’s HOOSIERS, in which Goldsmith applied the kind of synthesizers he’d most often used for sci-fi to the holy Midwestern sport of basketball. Along with Vangelis’ Oscar winning “Chariots of Fire,” Goldsmith’s Oscar-nominated work here would help change the game of scoring sports movies, creating a soundtrack as venerated as his similarly, boldly stylistic work on PLANET OF THE APES […]Read On »


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CD Review: CONAN THE BARBARIAN soundtrack – 3 discs

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/10/2013
CONAN soundtrack | ©2012 Intrada Records

What is best in life? How about getting just about every note of one of the greatest film scores ever written, as spread over three CD’s for 1982’s score to CONAN THE BARBARIAN. Ever since the 1982 CONAN THE BARBARIAN LP on MCA (also included here), just about every label from Varese to Milan has been trying to solve The Riddle of Steel with fits and starts of additional music, most recently with an admirably inclusive re-performance by Tadlow Records. But it’s Intrada that has gloriously mustered the full scope and lusty power of the Might that is Poledouris, his […]Read On »


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CD Review: CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS II soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/08/2013
CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS II soundtrack | ©2012 Activision

When so many kill-crazy videogame scores are basically comprised of rock guitars blasting over shock waves of electric percussion, it’s nice to have one mega-popular franchise offering far more than you’d expect from the usual musical campaign. Not that there’s any less of the shredding action stylings that have become as popular on consoles as theater screens. But it’s just how interesting Jack Wall makes the nearly 2 ½ hours of score offered on CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 2 that merits attention, especially when divorced from the game’s bazooka-level sound design. A hardened warrior of such weapon-packed games as […]Read On »


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