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CD Review: LES VISITEURS soundtrack (750 édition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/27/2014
LES VISITEURS soundtrack | ©2013 Music Box Records

Where Georges Delerue had earthbound romance aplenty on his resume in both France and Hollywood, the one genre that was practically absent from his resume was science fiction (though the talking cetaceans of DAY OF THE DOLPHIN could count). This makes Music Box’s ultra-limited release of LES VISITEURS a revelation on the musical order of hearing Delerue’s tunes at Devil’s Tower, though one can certainly expect his lush, beautifully flowing melodies instead of tone rows when it comes to welcoming the white suit-clad alien emissaries of this 1980 French TV miniseries. Their world-hopping chase accounts for the harmonica, classical quartet, […]Read On »


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CD Review: VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/26/2014
VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET soundtrack | ©2013 Kritzerland

Kritzerland is proving to be the France of retro record labels by being just about the first company to get into the Jerry Lewis soundtrack musical catalogue, first with Walter Scharf’s delightful THE GEISHA BOY and now with the double-header of VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET and THE DELICATE DELINQUENT, two scores that reflect Lewis’ wacky ingenuity. The star often had fun playing off of movie genres, and his chance to indulge in sci-fi tropes is also heard in the absolute delight that composer Leigh Harline has in making hay with aliens-among-us clichés, as particularly heard in The Theremin. Its […]Read On »


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Interview: SAVING MR. BANKS composer Thomas Newman scores a spoonful of bittersweet sugar

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/02/2014
SAVING MR. BANKS soundtrack | ©2013 Walt Disney Soundtrack

Tuxedoed penguins, dancing chimney sweeps, a housekeeper floating in on an umbrella to tame a household of errant children – all accompanied by some of the most memorable songs to grace a Disney movie, let alone any family film in Hollywood via England history. These confections make for the enduring magic that is MARY POPPINS, a movie that’s melodiously synonymous with family warmth. However, the real story behind this heartwarming classic was anything but harmonious, especially when POPPINS decidedly Scrooge-like creator arrived in LA’s magic kingdom like a serving of castor oil – haunted by a childhood that was anything […]Read On »


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Interview: NEBRASKA composer Mark Orton takes a road trip

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/31/2013
NEBRASKA soundtrack | ©2013 Milan Records

From ABOUT SCHMIDT‘s gruff retiree venturing about the Midwest in his Winnebago to the two malcontents who take their beat up car for soul-searching and wine-tasting in SIDEWAYS‘ Santa Ynez Valley, filmmaker Alexander Payne has proven that he’s got an eccentric taste for movies involving road trips with bastards – especially when it comes to the eccentric scores playing on his car radio called a soundtrack. But of all the hopefully redemptive voyages for these lovable losers that Payne has staged to critical acclaim, perhaps none has the desolate whimsy we hear on our way to NEBRASKA. The state might […]Read On »


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Interview: 47 RONIN composer Ilan Eshkeri scores the samurai way

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/28/2013
RONIN soundtrack | ©2013 Varese Sarabande Records

Ilan Eshkeri is a composer who knows his way around costumes, be it past or present. Starting his scoring career in England swinging a gladiator’s sword for two TV movies about the Coliseum, Eshkeri has fitted on the blood-stained mob business suits of LAYER CAKE, provided a rousing fantasy score for the eccentric wizards and air pirates of STARDUST, elegantly showed that YOUNG VICTORIA had sex appeal, helped apply the battered spandex of KICK-ASS and returned to the valiant last legion of the Roman Empire’s CENTURION. But whether the era demands a score that’s humorously enervating or bold and bloody, […]Read On »


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CD Review: The Best Scores of 2013 – The Runners-Up

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/27/2013
Brian Tyler / NOW YOU SEE ME soundtrack | ©2013 Glassnote

BEYOND TWO SOULS (Lorne Balfe / Sony Entertainment) Though it’s far more of an interactive movie than it is a video game, the negligible level of first-person shooter ability here doesn’t prevent BEYOND TWO SOULS from being a complete immersive experience, especially with the eerie, and rapturous quality of Lorne Balfe’s score, leveled up with the ace technical and musical production oversight of Hans Zimmer. For a heroine seemingly cursed by her lifelong bond to an invisible entity, Balfe conjures a truly beautiful theme, topped with a female voice that resonates with a wounded emotion that binds this powerfully symphonic […]Read On »


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CD Review: The Ten Best Scores of 2013

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
Anthony Gonzalez, Joseph Trapanese / OBLIVION soundtrack | ©2013 +180 Records

THE BOOK THIEF (John Williams / Sony Classical) The kind of unabashedly thematic, and mostly melodic music that’s made John Williams into the most popular film composer of all time is often the sound of innocence itself, an unabated musical youthfulness that he’s also played to ironic effect when dealing with children confronting the unimaginable. Here it’s a genocide that’s heard, but rarely witnessed within a young German girl’s sheltered life during World War 2. Such is the devastating, gentle power that speaks volumes for THE BOOK THIEF‘s score as it encapsulates the innocence, first loves and ultimate shock of […]Read On »


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Exclusive Interview: WRONG COPS director Quentin Dupieux gets surreal again

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/21/2013
WRONG COPS | ©2013 IFC

If Salvador Dali had gone indie film, you might expect the end result to resemble the satirically brilliant work of Quentin Dupieux. As set in an alternate universe called Los Angeles, Dupieux’s movies are an anything-goes collection of bad behavior, obnoxious truth-seeking and the serene acceptance of the insane, whether he used a psychic killer tire to deconstruct the movie going experience itself in RUBBER, had a dweeb’s hunt for a dog take down self-help cultism in WRONG, or now uses police corruption as an acerbic commentary on the music biz in WRONG COPS – just one of the many […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE FIFTH ESTATE

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/19/2013
THE FIFTH ESTATE soundtrack | ©2013 Lakeshore Records

Where you could have synth keyboards or an orchestra playing computer espionage in the dial-up modem days of WAR GAMES or THE NET, hacking has now grown to become an international enterprise of the hip and politically savvy. And along with these very good looking nerds, the techno thriller genre’s music has evolved into lightning-fast connection combos of trance-industrial rhythms, as often practiced by DJ’s getting their feet wet as film composers. So it’s nice to hear a composer who helped rep a new wave of film music back in the 80s with the oddball likes of BLOOD SIMPLE and […]Read On »


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CD Review: WE ARE WHAT WE ARE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/18/2013
WE ARE WHAT WE ARE soundtrack | ©2013 Milan Records

Those expecting the kind of orchestrally ferocious, percussion-gnashing cannibal family score that usually comes with the rural, inbred territory aren’t going to get the expected soundtrack serving, in spite of one clan’s gruesome steadfastness that WE ARE WHAT WE ARE. The credit for this unusually intelligent, and delicate approach to a genre that splatters both flesh and instruments with equal helter-skelter abandon goes to the collaboration between composer Jeff Grace and director Jim Mickle, who previously collaborated on the apocalyptic vampire fable “Stake Land,” and now has relocated a Mexican meat-eater film for upstate New York with the same brand […]Read On »


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