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| There are 528 Reviews Done |
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Alexandre Desplat - Julie & Julia
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| A wonderful Film with an Equally Wonderful Desplat Score |
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This is a splendidly yummy movie about two women who are separated by time but are brought together by their love of food. Alexandre Desplat’s score for the movie is by far my favorite score of his, my opinion. I fell in love with the themes, the simplicity of the music and the upbeat love that was brought out through each note.
The movie focuses on two women, Julia Child and Julie Powell, both stories are adaptation from two books. So the music follows this and is separated between the French styled music associated with Julia and the more modern urban sound associated with Julie. The first two tracks Julia’s Theme and Julie’s Theme are quite plainly the two woman’s main themes and are played in the rest of the tracks in various different versions. Great Big Good Fairy is a short track, slow solemn and the beginning of Julia's Theme. The Original French Chef Theme is the original theme for the TV show that Julia Child later did back in the USA on PBS. It is short, but happy and brings back memories of the real Julia Child and her great cooking show.
Starting Out starts out with Julie’s theme music, with variations and a nice accordion that picks up in the middle. While it is more French reminiscent, it helps to showcase the merging of the two women as Julie sets out to conquer Julia Child’s French Cookbook. The end of the track is more in the line of Julia’s music as is closes the feeling. What Should I Do? is a simplistic form of Julie’s Theme, single instruments take the theme music along in the song, letting it play out in a simple yet curious sounding way. Eggs Is more upbeat than the previous track and showcases the playful sounding flute found in many of the tracks. It holds parts of Julie’s theme as well, letting the listener know who the track is for.
A String of Pearls uses a piano to play out Julie’s Theme, is a slow loving manner with a flute picking up mid song to give a more emotional depth to the song. Time After Time is the old song played out on a solo violin at first then a background band accompanies. It is in the mood of a slow jazz tune that one can easily find themselves swaying to after a few notes. Burning the Stew is another short track is similar to What Should I Do, a simple slow rendition of Julie’s Theme, played out in a low time of Julie’s quest.
Leaving Paris is a sad track, when Julia is forced to leave the city she loves. Her theme is played out on an accordion, giving the feeling of sadness, but hope and the violins and flute help the theme along. My Husband Left Me is another sad track, the low point of Julie’s story. Julie’s theme is again played out on the piano, slow and mellow at first then picks up in a more upbeat fashion near the end, leaving the listener with hope. The New York Times is Julie’s Theme played out in its original form, upbeat and happy. Added guitar in the track to add something new to it and it is in the style of a montage in that the track builds to a crescendo near the end.
Boeuf Bourguignon is another playful flute piece, with parts of Julie’s Theme played out as she takes on this particularly hard French dish. The violins in this track are so entrancing and help build the track to the middle where it ends with Julia’s Theme making a little entrance, again showing the connection of the two women at this point. Julia Hates Me is another slow solemn track with Julie’s theme playing out in its simple form, but the accordion comes back to play a bit of Julia’s music. Last Supper is the final track, a happy ending track dominated by the flutes again and both woman’s themes are represented, showing the end of the film and the end of these two quests.
I love this movie and I love the score. It is such a happy upbeat and fun score, i believe it showcases Desplat at his best. He always does wonderful music, but this score stands out most for me.
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4 of 4 found this review helpful |
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Explosions In The Sky - Friday Night Lights
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| Friday Night Lights |
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Explosions In The Sky is an excellent instrumental band and their sound fits perfectly with the wonder of growing up in a "Football" town.
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2 of 4 found this review helpful |
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Klaus Badelt - Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
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| A great score but overly "theme bound" |
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One cannot review an album so acclaimed, which’s music is recognized internationally, too harshly. Play “He’s a Pirate”, and most people will recognize its upbeat tempo and frolicking grandeur, but those same people will be hard-pressed to recall any other theme or melody. The “He’s a Pirate” theme is the most prominent melody in nearly half the tracks, and can feel overused. While “He’s a Pirate” is the them at its most raw, it is portrayed with just a bit more shadow in “Underwater March”, “To the Pirates Cave!”, “Blood Ritual”, “Skull and Crossbones” and “Barbossa is Hungry”. Tracks like “Fog Bound” and “Moonlight Serenade” give us a slower pace that is much needed after the gallivanting of their peers. These small respires are few and far between with “Will and Elizabeth” presenting the closes thing the trilogy has for a theme for the prominent pair. A love as beautiful as theirs deserves a quieter theme akin to that of Davy Jones and Tia Dalmas’; neither Badelt nor his ghost composer Hans Zimmer provide this. Two other prominent themes are the “Majestic Jack Sparrow” theme as heard in “The Medallion calls” and the “Cursed Pirate” theme as heard in “Sword’s Crossed”. If it were not for “Walk the Plank” the listener would have no knowledge of witty Jack’s playful side and antics. While the track starts out trying to scare the listener one third in it flips itself on its head to reveal the Jack Sparrow the watcher knows. All of these different tracks mix together a concoction that is cohesive, but as I said before weighted to the dramtic and active side of “He’s a Pirate”. And yet despite these criticisms it is that very tune that redeems the score. “One Last Shot” like a phoenix rising from the ashes the track starts off slow, even melancholy, which soon goes into a playful Jack melodic jaunt. After this brief interlude the song goes quieter, not in regression but as the calm before the storm, a what a perfect storm it is. As if Badelt had dared himself into seeing how much resplendencies out of his work, he unleashes his “love theme” a theme that will be repeated many times in following films and is already familiar. The tracks all pretty short, none being over five minutes, which can be good, but means that there are no epic long tracks like in the two following scores.
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2 of 2 found this review helpful |
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Michael Salvatori Martin O'Donnell - Halo 3: ODST
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| Wow! The most unique and inspirational Halo Soundtrack |
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I have to say that when I heard that they were going for a more film nor sound I immediately thought, "Like Bladerunner, Metal Gear Sci-fi Noir style."
But not only was it that it was a little more just noir in style too. Sort of like Batman Begins with Jazz in it.
All I have to say is that Martin O' Donnel and Salvatori do the most uniquely created soundtracks since the first Halo. They basically invented another perspective on the world of Halo in which I never thought possible.
This soundtrack can stand alone and be created into a whole other beast as the first Halo soundtrack evolved into the Halo 3 Soundtrack. I hope these two composers will have a chance to go further with this theme/style the went with in this sountrack. Maybe the official Halo 4 one day. (But, since I'm not familiar with the games and only with the soundtracks I have to say that I hope maybe a Halo movie one day.)
I'm reviewing this without bias because I've never played the Halo games but only have listened to the soundtracks. And by far Halo and Uncharted soundtracks are the most highly rated video game scores in my opinion.
Unique, emotional, experimental and all in all a inspirational listen for just merely a video game soundtrack.
10/10
-Krazykaleb
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5 of 5 found this review helpful |
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Steve Jablonsky, Linkin Park - Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
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| An Adaquate and Moving Extension |
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This is a very emotional extension to the first Transformers Soundtrack. I really think the focus on this soundtrack is Optimus Prime because the use of his theme throughout the CD. This soundtrack is very reminicent of the style in Steve Jablonsky's Streamboy. But stands appart with its use of calm and electrifying electronic sounds.
The only drawback I found with it but it didn't detract from my rating was the length of the soundtrack. I do believe that Steve Jablonsky is much better at conveying his musical themes better than his teacher Hans Zimmer becuase of Steve's ablility to captivatie a person with emotion rather than pure bonbastic music.
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7 of 8 found this review helpful |
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The Doors, Carmine Coppola, Richard Wagner - Apocalypse Now
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| New musical world |
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At first the music of Carmine Coppola appears like someone played around with a synthesizer without too much knowledge of music and composition skills.
In hindsight the music is exeptional like the movie. The pictures of helicopters at sunset mix with the sound, the chopper sounds enhanced by synthesized choppers. The bizarre world of the vietnam war, the jungle rivers, the gruesome world, Colonal Kurtz created in a far off region of Nam couldn´t be enhanced better by music.
It´s a one of a kind music only fitting for this movie and never before or ever after used anywhere else.
If you lve the movie you will love the music, that is as bizarre as the situation in Nam.
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2 of 2 found this review helpful |
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Christopher Young - Shipping News, The
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| A great piece of music! |
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In my Opinion Christopher Young delivered a masterpiece with this score. You are not just listening to the music, you can feel it.
The score is rough, though beautiful, etched, yet catchy. You listen to the flutes, bagpipes and drums of the main theme and find yourself somewhere in Newfoundland, smelling the cool wind and tasting the salty water (Track 1).
You can’t get the main theme out of your memory all day.
Young composed a celtic sounding music full of optimism, vitality and also a sweet touch of melancholy. It’s a great piece of music even without the excellent movie.
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7 of 7 found this review helpful |
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Hans Zimmer - Power Of One, The
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| Another “unusual” Zimmer Score |
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Zimmer created a score that doesn’t have much orchestration, but mainly choruses and solo voices singing African music and texts.
He creates a melodic background sound with keyboard, flutes, percussion and guitar that supports the actual “star” of the score, the chorus ensemble.
Especially successful examples are Track 3 – of death and dying – with its melancholy character and track 9 - the penny whistle song - with its cheerful sound.
All the charm of the score might become accessible if you listen to it more than once.
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1 of 1 found this review helpful |
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Alexandre Desplat - Girl With A Pearl Earring
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| A musical painting |
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Desplat wasn’t much known outside Europe before he composed the score to Girl with a pearl earring. Thankfully this has changed since then.
The Soundtrack fits perfectly to the movie’s atmosphere: Two themes are the basis of the ST – the slightly restraint one for Vermeer and the charming and catchy theme for Griet.
Those themes work their way through the whole Soundtrack, but the music never sounds redundant – thanks to a real masterly orchestration. Desplat uses mainly strings and hoodwinds, but also integrates rarely heard instruments like viola d’amore (Track 11) and Glass harp (Track 5, 6).
Tracks 9, 12 and 16 are imO perfect musical expressions of the impressions a painter gathers to create a painting.
It’s a wonderfully romantic, mysterious and melancholic music that unfolds its congeniality the more, the more often you listen to it.
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2 of 2 found this review helpful |
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