CD Review: A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM soundtrack (1,000 expanded edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/07/2013
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (1,000 expanded edition) soundtrack | ©2012 Quartet Records

In the annals of musical comedy theater, few productions remain as joyfully historic as 1962’s A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM wherein WEST SIDE STORY composer / lyricist Stephen Sondheim and writers Burt Shevelove (“No No Nanette”) and Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H) drew from the farces of the ancient playwright Plautus for a toga-switching, cross-dressing, door-slamming farce that showed Romans did indeed have a sense of humor when not weren’t staging far-less funny fights in the Coliseum. Hilariously adapted for the screen in 1966 by Richard Lester, the king of such antic English films as HELP! and […]Read On »


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CD Review: LOS ANGELES, 1937 (1,000 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/06/2013
LOS ANGELES, 1937 soundtrack | ©2012 Perseverance Records

As Peter Best was to The Beatles, Phillip Lambro is to film scoring history, the musician who could have been a contender if only it was felt that he had the chops to accompany an iconic act. In Lambro’s case, that historically elusive prize was 1975’s CHINATOWN, whose soundtrack he’d labored on before director Roman Polanski and producer Robert Evans summarily tossed the score after a teen-filled test screening (a similar fate that happened to Gabriel Yared years later on “Troy”), leaving Jerry Goldsmith a scant ten days to whip out what’s arguably one of the greatest scores ever written […]Read On »


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CD Review: WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH HELEN soundtrack (1,000 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/05/2013
WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN? soundtrack | ©2012 Quartet Records

By 1971, the question asked by most over-the-hill Hollywood starlets was “Whatever happened to?” or “What’s the matter?” as their onscreen romantic glamour was traded in for roles as homicidal harpies. In the latter query about WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH HELEN, it’s Debbie Reynolds’ dancing teacher who wants to know what the heck is up with her partner Shelly Winters when their dance school for Shirley Temple wannabes starts to hit the bloody skids. Devilish camp humor was a big part of the appeal of watching Grande Dames shrieking whilst holding blunt instruments, “hagsploitation” that marked the studio swan song […]Read On »


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CD Review: HAWK THE SLAYER soundtrack (1,000 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/04/2013
HAWK THE SLAYER soundtrack | ©2012 Buysoundtrax

There’s perhaps no finer smell of cult cheese then an 80s so-bad-it’s good sword and sorcery movie, a genre that Buysoundtrax seems to love above all other labels as they follow up THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER with this hilariously entertaining gem that started off that decade. But where Albert Pyun’s movie drew from the Hammer ranks by getting VAMPIRE CIRCUS‘ David Whitaker to compose a classically symphonic score, HAWK THE SLAYER director Terry Marcel had LUST FOR A VAMPIRE‘s Harry Robertson (who also produced the picture itself) melds disco with an orchestra for a score of immense guilty pleasures. […]Read On »


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CD Review: CONDORMAN soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/03/2013
CONDORMAN soundtrack | ©2012 Intrada Records

For a studio who’s goofier late 70s / early 80s live action efforts involved a cat from outer space, an astronaut in King Arthur’s court and a midnight treasure hunt that tried to rope audiences in by offering a real prize, perhaps no oddball old regime premise was as face-palming as a cartoonist jumping off the Eiffel Tower in a bird suit. But if there was one composer who could turn this kind of Clouseau-esque bumbling into a class act, then it was Henry Mancini, whose score for 1981s CONDORMAN had a feeling of swooping, bold comedic adventure that’s made […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE UNTOUCHABLES: LIMITED EDITION soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/02/2013
THE UNTOUCHABLES: LIMITED EDITION soundtrack | ©2012 La La Land Records

Ennio Morricone has never been better then when composing for Sergio Leone’s epics of American gangster-ism, whether it was committed in dust busters for ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, or in the flashy 30s hood attire of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. So it seemed only natural when the Italian maestro finally pulled a job for crime-obsessed director Brian De Palma, whose 1987 take on THE UNTOUCHABLES remains not only one of the best TV-to-film translations ever, but a picture where De Palma’s stylistic swagger was a perfect fit for Morricone’s, propelling him to made man status […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Special Edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/01/2013
THE HOBBIT soundtrack | ©2012 WaterTower Music

Probably the best reason to celebrate Peter Jackson’s plodding return to Middle Earth in THE HOBBIT is that it gives Howard Shore a chance to once again make the aural trek from Hobbiton for THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. The fact that listeners will feel they’ve already been on this familiarly epic road for a good long time makes for a welcome sense of return to the dictionary’s worth of musical vocabulary that Shore had so painstakingly set up in the previous LORD OF THE RINGS saga. Now THE HOBBIT more than proves the axiom that if it something ain’t […]Read On »


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CD Review: HITCHCOCK soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
HITCHCOCK soundtrack | ©2012 Sony Classical

If Gus Van Sant’s near frame-for-frame modern recreation of PSCYHO ranks as one of the most unneeded and unnecessary remakes of a classic ever, at least it allowed Danny Elfman the opportunity to do a slavishly spot-on re-performance of Bernard Herrmann’s infamous score in the new film HITCHCOCK. Now in supreme act of meta-composing, Elfman gets to go behind the curtains of the Bates Motel to musically unmask the “real” master of suspense and the tense production of his pet project, with a voice that echoes Herrmann’s as much as it does Elfman’s own penchant for blackly ironic comedy. Far […]Read On »


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CD Review: JACK REACHER soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/31/2012
JACK REACHER soundtrack | ©2012 La La Land Records

If you’re thinking of the musical roller coaster excitement that filled last Xmas’ MISSION IMPOSSIBLE picture, then you don’t know JACK. JACK REACHER, that is. That’s because Tom Cruise means business as an ex-homicide military detective with his own brand of law. As a result, Joe Kraemer’s darkly intriguing score resonates with near-continuous, tightly-clenched brooding that plays like the wind-up to a gut punch. Pretty much absent from the big screen after delivering a noteworthy, cult score for his pal Christopher McQuarrie’s WAY OF THE GUN back in 2000 (not that Kraemer hasn’t been busy since on stuff like FEMME […]Read On »


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CD Review: SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/30/2012
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK soundtrack | ©2012 Sony Classical

If this golden PLAYBOOK had a dangerous sense of unpredictability that gave its lunatic love story a real edge, then part of that credit goes to filmmaker David O. Russell’s surprisingly whimsical choice in music for SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK. And one particularly inspired choice was giving Danny Elfman, a composer best known for ghoulish black comedy, the chance to go for positively sunny quirk. Think John Lennon in Elfman’s peace and love guitar stylings, beatific chorus and quirky percussion that keep addled time with Bradley Cooper’s bipolar trash bag runner, almost reciting his screwed-up positive mantra to get his life […]Read On »


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