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: BLACK RAIN soundtrack (3,000 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/12/2012
BLACK RAIN soundtrack | ©2012 La La Land Records

While his earliest hit among the masses was with The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” Hans Zimmer’s Krautrock-inspired synth-pop rhythms would soon be putting a similarly prophetic stake through the heart of traditional Hollywood scoring. It was Zimmer’s talent for music tech that marked his journeyman progression to deservedly becoming film scoring’s King of the World, creating a singularly unique fusion of electronics, exotic beats and rock adrenalin through such works as BURNING SECRET, PAPERHOUSE and A WORLD APART. The studios’ ears would really be pricked up with Zimmer’s whimsical Afro-centric score to 1988′s Best Picture RAIN MAN, music […]Read On »


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CD Review: FOR GREATER GLORY: THE TRUE STORY OF CRISTIADA soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/02/2012
FOR GREATER GLORY soundtrack | ©2012 Varese Sarabande Records

In an age when so many hypercritical film music fans rant about how every movie score sounds exactly the same, it’s to a composer’s credit if they have a musical signature that makes them stand out from the pack. But then, said golden age soundtrack devotees who are often the people mouthing these crotchety good old days generalities could easily say the same thing about their idols in a time when one could have easily interchanged the undeniably brilliant work of Erich Wolfgang Korngold with Max Steiner, or Dmitri Tiomkin with Victor Young for that matter. But there was certainly […]Read On »


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Interview: THE POSSESSION composer Anton Sanko finds a new sound for exorcism

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/09/2012
THE POSSESSION soundtrack | ©2012 Lionsgate Records

When the word “exorcism” is bandied about, the movie-consecrated sights and sounds that seize us are usually comprised of tubular bells, bloodied crucifixes, shrieking dissonance, the shock of grotesquely wrenched bodies, feverish violins and the tormented cries of pubescent girls and their distraught parents. And while THE POSSESSION might have just a few of these stocks in horror trade, what impresses is the leap of faith it’s taken with the same old song and spew- that being of the demon’s transference to the Jewish religion, as trapped inside a “Dybbuk Box” (which once served as the film’s original title). Found […]Read On »


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Interview: SAVAGES composer Adam Peters goes from Echo and the Bunnymen to soundtracks

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 07/19/2012
SAVAGES / ©2012 Universal Pictures

Oliver Stone may have started out as one of the cinemas great agent provocateurs. However, over nearly the last two decades, the frenzied abandon of Stone’s work has felt more long in the tooth than anything- just plain tired if you will. Yet if we were expecting Stone’s auspicious career to end with a mellow Hollywood wipeout, leave it to SAVAGES‘ border-hopping tsunami of sex, drugs and violence to mark the return of celluloid excessiveness’ Big Kahuna. And playing musical wingman to the wildly entertaining ride is another seasoned rebel named Adam Peters. A major force behind the raucous rhythms […]Read On »


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CD Review: BERNIE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 07/16/2012
BERNIE soundtrack | ©2012 Lakeshore Records

Having assembled such varied soundtrack compilations as DAZED AND CONFUSED and BEFORE SUNRISE, Richard Linklater slices another winning piece of musical eccentricity. In the true-crime case of BERNIE, it’s from the big plate of his Texan soil, carving out a slice of home-fried country as opposed to the city SLACKER indie rock section. Jack Black has a new Tenacious D. album out. And if his diehard fans enjoy the singer’s hell-blazing approach to the ways of metal, they might even be more intrigued with Black’s subversively holy stylings as an effete funeral home manager with both a heart, and throat […]Read On »


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CD Review: ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 07/15/2012
ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN soundtrack | ©2012 Tribute Records

Tribute Film Classics has done an admirable job of putting new luster into the golden age of Hollywood film scores, a truly lost time when epically brazen, note-filled music gloriously had no shame in highlighting every emotion, and action you were seeing on the screen in big, orchestrally lavish colors. These were love letters to the pure romance of the studio system, a wonderfully overblown style particularly practiced by such giants as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner. They don’t make overpowering soundtracks like these anymore (sometimes to the movies’ detriment), which hasn’t stopped Tribute from sumptuously restoring, and re-performing […]Read On »


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CD Review: COSMOPOLIS soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 07/14/2012
COSMOPOLIS soundtrack | ©2012 Howe Records

With nearly ever David Cronenberg collaboration, Howard Shore stretches his imagination into unexpected dimensions of inner madness, from the cathode ray synth sadism of VIDEODROME to CRASH‘s grinding metal and the slow-boil orchestral murder that accompanied A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. In the process, Shore’s found some truly interesting collaborators, particularly as he induced Ornette Coleman’s jazz madness for NAKED LUNCH. But for all of the bizarrely visceral qualities that Shore’s Cronenberg scores have exhibited, they’ve also shown surprising beauty, most recently with the Wagnerian analysis of DANGEROUS METHOD. Now on their fourteenth ride together, Shore’s hypnotic strangeness finds perhaps his […]Read On »


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CD Review: MEN IN BLACK 3 soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 07/13/2012
MEN IN BLACK 3 soundtrack | ©2012 Sony Records

Who ya gonna call when it’s time to bust some illegal aliens? The answer of course for team Tommy and Will is Danny Elfman, who dons his dark sunglasses and suit to hit the trail with the Men in Black in MEN IN BLACK 3 soundtrack. That proves to be a real charm the third time out for this time-travelling entry that gives a huge, rejuvenating boost to the franchise after an unholy second film (not that Elfman’s music has ever been worse for the wear). Time travel’s the McGuffin that brings Agent J and K back to the 60’s […]Read On »


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Interview: BRAVE composer Patrick Doyle bears the highlands

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 07/01/2012
Patrick Doyle | ©2012 Patrick Doyle

If there’s one picture that Patrick Doyle was fated to be the composer of, then it’s no contest that movie is BRAVE, Pixar’s animated salute to all things Scottish in the form of a feisty lass named Merida. Like all modern, high-born Disney heroines, this red hair rebels against the chauvinist-conformist path set by her well-meaning royal parents, with her archery skills representing the sharply pointed spirit of her determination. Not only does Merida’s shooting skill outrage her highland clansmen and intended suitors, but her unbreakable will also ends up incurring a witch’s ursine curse- the rampaging results of which […]Read On »


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