CD Review: THE IDOLMAKER soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/27/2013
THE IDOLMAKER soundtrack | ©2013 Varese Sarabande Records

Taylor Hackford’s 1980 feature debut THE IDOLMAKER was an auspicious start for this musically inclined filmmaker and producer, whose love for old fashioned r & b rock shone through WHITE NIGHTS, LA BAMBA, RAY and CHUCK BERRY HAIL! HAIL! ROCK ‘N ROLL. Based on the starmaking life of Bob Marcucci that saw the discovery of Frankie Avalon and Fabian, THE IDOLMAKER attempted the difficult task of creating “new” versions of classic jukebox tunes that would be just as rocking to then-contemporary youth tastes. It says something about how well Hackford succeeded in that we’re now seeing Varese do a rare […]Read On »


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CD review: DRESSED TO KILL soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/23/2013
DRESSED TO KILL soundtrack | ©2013 Intrada Records

Filmmaker Brian De Palma couldn’t have asked for a better composer to assist in his stylish Alfred Hitchcock dress-ups for SISTERS  and OBSESSION than the composer the Master of Suspense did wrong with TORN CURTAIN. After Bernard Herrmann’s passing, a talented Italian named Pino Donaggio, who’d thrilled with the right musical stuff whilst pursuing DON’T LOOK NOW‘s killer dwarf about Venice, stepped into the maestro’s music shoes to perfectly replicate Herrmann’s identity in a way that would make Kim Novak jealous. Of the De Palma-Donaggio collaborations that included CARRIE, BODY DOUBLE, BLOW OUT and RAISING CAIN, none reached the stimulating […]Read On »


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Interview: BEFORE MIDNIGHT composer Graham Reynolds creates the musical conversation

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/15/2013
BEFORE MIDNIGHT soundtrack | ©2013 Milan Records

For such a visual medium as film, it’s amazing that watching two agingly attractive people gabbing away overseas at cafes, on sidewalks and in hotel rooms can prove just as cinematically engaging as a superhero blockbuster. That says much about just how great the said talk is through three BEFORE movies, a conversation first sparked 18 years ago by filmmaker Richard Linklater and co-writer Kim Krizan in BEFORE SUNSET, then continued on in 2004’s BEFORE SUNRISE with co-stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy adding their own verbal food for thought for their character’s developing relationship. Now BEFORE MIDNIGHT finds American […]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: 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: SAMSARA soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/03/2012
SAMSARA soundtrack | ©2012 Varese Sarabande Records

Where filmmaker Godfrey Reggio’s magical mystery tours through global cultures employ an all-encompassing, “scored” approach by Phillip Glass for any number of pictures ending in QATSI, his image-reliant counterpart (and former cinematographer) Ron Fricke instead had a lighter, and equally transfixing musical vision for his first film BARAKA, a similarly-themed metaphysical travelogue that used indigenous tunes and a meditative score by Michael Stearns to convey a world out of balance. Stearns is back for Fricke’s second feature after twelve years, with Marcello De Francisci and Lisa Gerrard added to the transfixing world music mix tape called SAMSARA, one way smarter […]Read On »


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CD Review: DARKSIDERS II soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/30/2012
DARKSIDERS II soundtrack | ©2012 Thq Records

Having made a musical killing for such button-mashing slay-a-thons as ASSASSIN’S CREED, BORDERLANDS and HITMAN, Jesper Kyd gets one of his most intriguingly violent soundscapes for his first entry into DARKSIDERS, a game which now marks its second venture into post-apocalyptic territory. It’s a world wiped of humanity, where a horseman named Death battles a horde of angels and demons to bring back mortals to reap. It’s a clever conceit that straddles sci-fi, fantasy and horror, and Kyd pretty much hits every note, all while remaining remarkably light on his feet. Not nearly as cruel in its approach as the […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES soundtrack | ©2012 Watertower Music

The swelling, patriotic heroism that John Williams gave to SUPERMAN could just as well be a burst of crucifix-shaped sunlight in contrast to the thrumming, uber-dark approach that Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard gave to what’s arguably the most downbeat, if not utterly grim comic book saga in movie history. And now that Howard has left the bat cave with his more emotionally conventional orchestral touch, Zimmer’s wall of beat-sound is now truly ruling the belfry, taking the musical saga to new depths of intoxicating grimness for  THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Fans of old school superhero scoring might be […]Read On »


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CD Review: DAYS OF GRACE

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 07/02/2012
DAYS OF GRACE soundtrack | ©2012 Lakeshore Records

While Mexico City might be a hive of scum and villainy, it’s also a criminally fertile location for multi-character movies like AMORES PERROS, where jumping between time and stories are par for the criminal course. While this kind of fluid structure now almost the norm for morality fables on any side of the border, DAYS OF GRACE (or DIAS de GRACIAS) has the novel idea of having different composers segue between the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cup games, each bringing their own unique tones to the kidnapping, torture and murder within. Up for the first goal kick are Aussie […]Read On »


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CD Review: THERE BE DRAGONS soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 03/26/2012
THERE BE DRAGONS soundtrack | ©2012 Varese Sarabande Records

It’s no easy task scoring a movie as singularly over the top, in that romantic 1930’s kind of way as Roland Joffe’s THERE BE DRAGONS, a film whose overly passionate intentions managed to turn the Spanish Civil War into a soap opera. Even an accomplished musician can slip from the dramatic into the maudlin when given this kind of florid scope to accompany, as could be heard in the over-emphatic score by the film’s original composer Stephen Warbeck during DRAGON‘s brief theatrical run last year. Thankfully, the producers’ commitment to salvage one aspect of the film afterward turns out to […]Read On »


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