Arnold knows exactly what the series needs and asks for and he's delivered it time and again. While Quantum Of Solace is an interesting and new approach to the Bond series, you're going to have to prepare yourself for a big departure, even further than Casino Royale.
Mr. Magorium’s
Wonder Emporium
by William Bard
The score to Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium threw me for a loop. A big loop. What I thought was going to be a mediocre listen turned out to be a charming, emotionally moving, vast, mysterious, and comical score. Composed as a collaboration between Aaron Zigman and Alexandre Desplat, this score isn't one you'll want to miss.
National Treasure:
Book of Secrets
by William Bard
The second in a series of National Treasure scores, the National Treasure: Book of Secrets score is unusually short, with only eight tracks, and clocks in at only about twenty-two and a half minutes. Granted, these tracks do not disappoint, and will keep the listener enthralled - for the time being.
The Duchess
Much like Duchess star Kiera Knightly has become Hollywood’s belle of the ball for “important” fall films (read fussy, period-piece Oscar bait), Rachel Portman has built a career around writing scores for literary adaptations like Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickelby and Emma. Unlike Knightly however, Portman has never seemed to break out of the rather narrow niche she’s carved for herself – she’s never had her Pirates of the Caribbean if you will.
The Matrix: The
Deluxe Edition
Film score is a fickle mistress. She goes through phases much like the films she's attached to, but with so many cooks in the kitchen and hands in the deal its a rare moment when something really new or inventive happens. Don Davis's The Matrix is such a special thing, and is in hind sight the last great - or even important, if you will - film score from the twentieth century.
August Rush
To the average listener, this soundtrack has everything there is to offer; all the pop songs are still there with all their vocals, etc. But the score? Well, where'd it go?
Star Trek: Nemesis
Jerry Goldsmith's final installment into the Star Trek series is an extension of some of his more bland 1990s action output. Where many people chide the end of his career as being simplistic, many forget the strength of The Thirteenth Warrior or The Ghost And The Darkness - but that strength is sadly lacking in this case.
Careful, He Might
Hear You
Composer Ray Cook embodies one of the great cliches – the man who created something breathtaking, and afterwards disappeared back into obscurity and died an early death. In doing so, he cemented a small but important legacy of “what might have been”, the most bittersweet words possible in this day and age....
The X-Files: I Want
To Believe
The big genre boom can be credited to Chris Carter's X-Files, a modern revamp of Kolchak The Night Stalker with a little Twin Peaks thrown into the mix. Every week, Mulder and Scully would go into realms of "extreme possibilities" armed with little more than their wits and some high powered flashlights in search of monsters and little grey men. The only back-up they had was Mark Snow's edgy, atmospheric music which basically became one of the show's trendsetting characteristics.
Wanted
The album starts off strong but loses its momentum quickly. Interesting ideas and some new compositional ideas from Elfman end up becoming a dead end too soon as he ends up relying more and more on a more "stand-by approach" to his music. A song by the composer starts the disc off on a big step - its a thick, fun almost whiskey bar type rock.
The Dark Knight
The first thing to mention is the typical Hans Zimmer brow-beating theme use. While its still evident in the score - namely, the two note question-answer horn call for the hero - the composer takes a turn by writing something much different. Right from the opening notes of "Why So Serious?", we're taken down a road loud with dissonance and chaos.
Indiana Jones &
the Kingdom of the...
Fortune and glory are once again in the grasp of Indiana Jones. Just like how Raiders Of The Lost Ark ends with Indy escaping Peru and Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull has him returning full circle - so does the music. Is it good? Absolutely. Is it new? Well...
