Review: Surrogates (Marvin)

Bruce Willis stars in this odd sci-fi thriller directed by Jonathan Mostow (U-571, Terminator 3).  The utopian world is upset when the first murder in years occurs and Willis’ character begins to uncover a disturbing conspiracy surrounding the Surrogates.  This marks the fourth collaboration with director Mostow and Richard Marvin who gained some attention in 2000 with his score to U-571.  Over the past nine years he has been relatively busy in television scoring.  This is probably the highest profile film (in terms of talent on-screen) that he’s had a chance to score.

The album opens with “Pix Title Sequence” a trance-like electronic-laced sound with female vocalizations weaving in and out of the texture with somewhat reckless abandon offset by orchestral synth hits.  In “Drive to the Club,” an ostinato harp idea ripples under and through the texture.  Soon a Zimmer-esque nervous lower string idea begins with a melodic line in violins that tries to take off.  The ostinato harp pattern is one of several consistent elements that bubbles along in subsequent tracks.  Intriguing melodic ideas seem to rise out of the orchestral textures often with subtle harmonic shifts.  A delicate piano idea appears in “Greer’s Apt”—part of what appear to be two cues fused together here.  Drum sequencing and deep brass appear in a fairly exciting action cue where upper strings share the thematic ideas while lower strings churn in 4-note ostinati underneath (“Warrant Received/Foot Chase”).  Marvin contemporizes the sound of the orchestra with electric guitar sounds as well as with his various synth components especially in action sequences.  As things get a bit more dicey, the blend of more thriller/horror musical elements increases tension slightly as the disc progresses coming to the foreground aggressively in “Stone’s Headache” (a sort of musical soup of all that we have heard before heading down a darker path).  A more reflective musical moment comes in the beautifully romantic “I Want You”—a sort of respite from the storm and a moment of rest before we must return to what has gone before.  The track is one of the highlights of the disc though it would have been nice to have it last a little longer musically.

The balance of the disc itself tends to recess the orchestra in the sound picture with all the layered electronics dryly layered more forward in the sound picture giving the music an odd sound at times.  The two elements of acoustic and electronic musics almost feel as if they are fighting out the narrative battle on their own.  There are hints here at Marvin’s ability to construct strong themes, but they tend to be presented as if they have been already torn apart.  The blend of electronics and orchestra stays pretty close to standard Hollywood action thriller writing.  Overall an interesting effort though even at 40 minutes a little long.

Perhaps I am being a bit too hard on the composer because my expectations were a lot higher for this score after sticking around to find out who had written the music for U-571.  The musical changes compared to that score may have more to say about the expectations of film music today and what generic changes have been made to most films because one would have hoped for stronger thematic content to appear here at any rate.

Review: Red Cliff (Iwashiro)

Red Cliff is a Hong Kong import directed by John Woo.  It reunites him with actor Tony Leung for the first time since their 1992 effort Hard Boiled.  The film is a huge historical war epic that is based on a legendary battle in 208 A.D. that essentially marked the end of the Han Dynasty.  The film has been a huge hit in Asia and boasts the most expensive film production of all time.  The 2008 release garnered a host of nominations and critical acclaim in Asia with 6 nominations and 5 awards from the Hong Kong Film Awards, one of those for the score by Taro Iwashiro.  The Japanese born composer has been building a steady catalogue of film music since the early 1990s.  Over the past five years, his scores have begin to garner even more critical acclaim with Red Cliff perhaps giving him a chance for a real breakout following among film music fans in the West.

Iwashiro’s score is an exciting orchestral adventure that kicks off with “The Battle of Red Cliff” and a galloping main thematic idea.  The score is laced with strong thematic writing that at times has an almost Celtic quality to the dancelike rhythms and orchestral sound.  Taiko drums appear in “On the Battlefield” where we get more martial music cast against strong brass writing alternating with strong syncopated rhythms a la Stravinsky.  This is a massive exhilarative action cue running some 8+ minutes and featuring strong thematic writing.  A beautiful lyric theme slows things down a tad in “Light of the Evanescence” and while the melodic contour has an Asian quality to it, the scoring is fascinating hybrid of Western and Eastern musical approaches.  “SHOOOOOT!” is the first real overtly Asian sounding scoring with the little seven-note wind motif cast against drumming and brief brass swells.  It is with an assured sense of rhythm and orchestration that Iwashiro sends his melodic ideas through the textures that are crisp and balanced.  His conception matches the bigger orchestral Hollywood sound with a more delicate scoring sensibility that understands how to draw distinct colors from his ensemble.  This results in an always evolving variation in the instrumental groups used to present melodic content.  Tracks like “Closing in Upon the Enemy” are reminiscent of the battle sequence music approach used in epics like The Lord of the Rings cast in Iwashiro’s own musical language.  “Precious One” allows a brief respite with a gorgeous love theme and full orchestral scoring that is restrained and delicate with flute lines in counterpoint to a string statement of the thematic material in what is one of many fine tracks on this release.  “In Loneliness” is another restrained cue featuring more introspective and reflective music in delicate and beautiful solo instrumental colors. 

The album features both an Asian and English version of the theme song sung by Chinese J-Pop star alan which is itself a gorgeous ballade.  They appear at the end of the album separated by what appears to be end title music.  Red Cliff is a superb score reminiscent of Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Fans of that score will find much to enjoy here.  The film will be released at the end of November here in the states, one of the last markets for it to appear in.  The score comes highly recommended and perhaps we will here more from the already released sequel soon.

Review: A Serious Man (Burwell)

The words “odd” and “quirky” are often used to describe a Coen Brothers film.  The latest release returns them to their Midwestern roots again with a story about a physics professor, Larry, whose life suddenly starts to fall apart with attacks from all sides: his marriage appears over, his children are out of control, a colleague is out to get him, and to top it off a woman next door likes to sunbathe nude.  It is perhaps the last temptation that sends Larry off to seek meaning by visiting three rabbis.  Carter Burwell, who has had a long partnership with the directors, returns to provide the score.

There is something about the Midwest that apparently leads Burwell down more austere thematic pathways.  The opening melodic idea in “A Marvel” takes a page from his score for Fargo.  Overall the score is rather restrained and subtle with delicate harp lines and a piano outlining the theme.  At times a sense of menace enters the music through clashes of sound, more like musical zingers, which tend to play up the uncertain aspects of the drama.  The tracks tend to simply add miniature commentaries to drama but when the music gets to breathe more with the primary thematic idea being laid out the results are quite engaging.  “The Roof” is one of those moments that is classic Burwell scoring.  It features the arpeggiated harp idea with the gradual introduction of the piano theme and a growing small orchestral backdrop with timpani roll. 

The music of Jefferson Airplane plays an important part in the story and three classic songs appear on the album.  There are a couple of scoring moments that appear to be composed to transition score material into the songs as well.  A Yiddish song (“Dem Milber’s Trern” by world-renowned Yiddish performer Sidor Belarsky closes off the disc.  These tracks makeup half the release.

Best of October: New to the "Collection"

With basically still two mail drops to go, I still figured it better to do a best of today than get behind in November.  There were fewer release to choose from this month but what did come in were truly highlights.  Three of the "best" releases come from limited edition recordings which may mean they are not available.

The first of these is Goldsmith's score for Escape from the Planet of the Apes.  Though unbelievably brief it is great to now have all the POA scores on CD as complete as we can get them.  This score is a bit lighter at first but, like the film itself, gradually darkens along the way.  This was my second favorite of the Apes films as a kid (the other being the more surreal Beneath the POA with its weird liturgical music scenes).  It is unfortunate that Varese simply did not put all of this on their Planet of the Apes score release years ago.  As it is the "new" material appears to have some sound distortion at times (though it is hard to tell if this might not have been intentional).

Franz Waxman is another of those great Golden Age composers whose music is far more familiar than one would think.  His score for Bride of Frankenstein is one of the early classic Hollywood horror scores.  These more large orchestral scores, often feeling like B-pictures to the likes of say Rozsa's epics, still gave the composer a lot of chances to write engaging music.  His brief jazz score to Rear Window feels like an exception to his output.  Even Sunset Boulevard with its jazzier sweltery sax lines feels conceived as a bigger orchestral score.  So Varese's release of Crime in the Streets gives everyone a chance to hear the composer exploring his jazz roots.  Waxman actually worked as a pianist in German jazz bands, playing on singles sung by Marlene Dietrich.  So this release, which features the composer exploring jazz in more concert music settings is revelatory in many ways.  It is not quite West Coast Jazz, but it defintely has elements of that growing influential style and features some great musicians from that period.  Highly recommended to fans of more unusual jazz releases (this is the re-issue and expansion of the collector's popular LP).

Silva records 4-disc set, Definitive Horror Movie Compilation, was reviewed here earlier this month.  See that review for more information, but this is really one of the best film music compilation sets of the year with plenty of great music to go around for fans of older and newer music.  Highly recommended.

La-La Land Records may still have a few copies of there Goldsmith 2-fer disc featuring two rather oddly-paired

scores, I.Q. and Seconds.  The first is from an uneven romantic comedy featuring Walter Mathau as Einstein from

the 1990s.  This release allows Goldsmith collector's to have on CD all of the composer's scores composed in the

1990s.  Though it is interesting to hear Goldsmith's style in this genre, this is a fairly weak and uninteresting score

when all is said and done, with a less catchy melodic idea than in other films by the composer at this time.  The real

reason for this CD then becomes the appearance of Seconds which is a Frankenheimer thriller featuring a great

example of Goldsmith's 1960s blend of traditional film music and more experimental music which he would use in

other psychological thrillers and is a descendent of his intriguing score to 1962's Freud.  Great sound also helps

make this a welcome addition to the catalogue but you'll need to hurry to grab a copy.

Finally, Tadlow's re-recording of Gold's amazing Exodus  score has to be one of the highlights of the year.  This two disc set features the complete score performed in superb sound and quite beautifully by the oft-maligned City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.  The second disc features wonderful "extras" of music with a familiar setting from Goldsmith's QBVII to fabulous performances of two selections from Schindler's List. 

8.      I.Q./Seconds (Goldsmith)                                                                                    LLL

9.      Exodus (Gold)                                                                                                 Tadlow

Reviews: Silva releases 2 Rolfe Kent romantic comedy scores

Rolfe Kent’s winter was evidently spent working on romantic comedies.  Silva has released two of his scores for late spring releases now giving film music fans a chance to enjoy two somewhat different takes on the genre.