CD Review: JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 04/20/2014
JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT soundtrack | ©2014 Varese Sarabande Records

It’s ironic that January will see La La Land’s full re-release of DEAD AGAIN, an operatically orchestral, knowingly old-school Hollywood score (complete with thundering chorus) for a film that put composer Patrick Doyle and actor-filmmaker Kenneth Branagh on the Hollywood map. For like this movie whose MacGuffin was a reincarnation role-reversal between composer and lover, those fans familiar with Doyle back in his symphonic glory days of CARLITO’S WAY, THE LITTLE PRINCESS and INDOCHINE  would never recognize the electronically slicing, percussively smashing composer he’s become today, especially with JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT. Make no mistake that those thematic, orchestral chops […]Read On »


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CD Review: PATRICK DOYLE: IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/21/2013
PATRICK DOYLE: IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA soundtrack | ©2013 Varese Sarabande Records

After sojourning in Hollywood for a blockbuster career renaissance that’s included BRAVE, THOR and RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, the sprightly Scotsman musically visits the real America to satisfy his own inner muse in this expansively impressive concept album PATRICK DOYLE: IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. Paying tribute to his ancestors who immigrated to Alabama, Doyle captures their destination with equal parts rousing beauty and wide-eyed affection. Of course he opens with “Washington DC’s” noble horns and symphonic sweep that also effortlessly conveys an Aaron Copland’s sense of Americana. Yet the nation that Doyle surveys is mostly on a smaller […]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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Exclusive Photos from the BRAVE World Premiere and Grand Opening of the Dolby Theatre

By SUE SCHNEIDER 06/29/2012
Kelly Macdonald at the World Premiere of BRAVE and the Grand Opening of the Dolby Theatre, part of the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival | ©2012 Sue Schneider

Disney•Pixar held the World Premiere of BRAVE, part of the Los Angeles Film Festival at the Grand Opening of the Dolby Theatre (formally Kodak Theatre) in Hollywood on June 18th. VisitScotland sponsored the premiere. Everything was green like the hills of Scotland! The Director, Mark Andrews showed up wearing a kilt. Bag Pipers came down the carpet playing, which was really cool! Fans lined the street. Red curly wigs were handed out to a few photographers who posed with Kelly Macdonald (I was one, but sorry no picture). Kevin Nealon wore one of the wigs as he walked the carpet. […]Read On »


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CD Review: MAN TO MAN soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 02/27/2012
MAN TO MAN soundtrack | ©2011 Movie Score Media

Patrick Doyle’s longtime association with French filmmaker Regis Wargnier on such sometimes exotic, history-based epics as INDOCHINE and EAST-WEST has brought out many of the composer’s most impressively lush works. Traveling to Africa to bring two pygmy tribespeople back to “civilized” Scotland results in a culture clash of symphonic nobility and age-old ethnic percussion for this 2005 score. But more than some soundtrack relic, the soaring MAN TO MAN serves as a hugely impressive warm-up to Doyle’s far-more violent musical conflict between barbaric civilization and those it torments in RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Doyle’s talent for hearing […]Read On »


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CD Review: The Best Scores of 2011

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/04/2012
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS- PART TWO soundtrack | ©2011 Water Tower Music

THE BEST SCORES OF 2011 THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (Thomas Newman / Relativity) There’s always been something ethereal, if not downright unearthly about the dreamy, often rhythmic sound that’s allowed Thomas Newman to become the first alt. rocker to make it big as a film composer. It’s a sound that’s particularly well-suited to the spiritual, conveying a universe behind the walls of reality in such scores as THE RAPTURE, OSCAR AND LUCINDA and PHENOMENON. Now Newman’s on the side of the angels with hats for this moving, faith-based Phillip K. Dick adaptation. His mesmerizing mix employs strings and acoustic guitar, suspenseful […]Read On »


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CD Review: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/04/2011
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES soundtrack | ©2011 Varese Sarabande Records

For a movie that’s about evolution, it’s fitting that Patrick Doyle, a composer once renowned for the classical orchestral sound of HENRY IV and DEAD AGAIN, would essentially turn himself into a master primate of the new Hollywood action sound- a similar jump up the blockbuster studio ladder that he took earlier this summer with THOR. But as with that thoroughly entertaining film and superhero score, the transfiguration of Doyle’s trademarked sound with pulsing electronic and orchestral rhythms is very much a good, if not pretty great thing, especially for the command and conquer goals of Caesar in RISE OF […]Read On »


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Interview: THOR composer Patrick Doyle wields the mighty musical hammer

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/26/2011
Thor soundtrack © 2011 Buena Vista Records

Save those puny electronic action scores for mere mortals. For if there’s one composer who’s brought down the symphonic thunder of the composing gods, then his name would be inscribed as Patrick Doyle. Receiving his musical and acting education in his native Scotland, Doyle’s dual artistic threats would strike up a winning collaboration with Kenneth Branagh, whom Doyle beat for an actual billing when both starred in CHARIOTS OF FIRE. Branagh would scantly toil in the background for long, as his theatrical flair allowed him to take a 9 million dollar gamble behind, and in front of the camera with […]Read On »


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