Tag Archives: Music Review

Crossposted, Reviews

The Jungle Book

TheJungleBookThere’s no way to film the Mowgli stories from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book absent the influence of the 1967 Disney classic, which casts a long shadow. Several such films have been made, and most of them didn’t work very well at all. 2016’s The Jungle Book does work, however, and it does so with surprising grace and beauty.

And joy.

I really loved this film. It took a while to win me over, but Bill Murray’s Baloo the Bear was the perfect re-imagining of the character, and King Louie’s remake as a gigantopithecus (an extinct genus of giant orangutan) was made complete when Richard Sherman, who co-wrote “I Wan’na Be Like You” with his brother Robert, returned to the 40-year-old piece to add lyrics.

Which were performed by Christopher Walken.

Murray and Walken had their work cut out for them, however, because newcomer Neel Sethi very nearly ran off with the whole show. Barefoot. And mostly naked. At age 12.

(Note: I could continue to gush about skills on display here, including those of Idris Elba and Lupita Nyong’o, who were terrifying and inspiring, respectively, but it’s a long list.)

Jon Favreau directed, and I have to say, I’m impressed. He managed to reconcile Kipling’s 19th-century morality-play view of the jungle with more modern sensibilities, including the St. Louis Jazz feel introduced to the Kipling mythos by Disney in 1967, and he did all this with a cast of characters that was almost entirely computer-animated in a way meant to fool us into thinking they were actual animals.

2016’s The Jungle Book enters my list at #3, clearing my Threshold of Awesome. I bought the soundtrack, and will probably pick up the Blu-Ray when it drops.

Reviews

Jurassic World

Let me lead by saying that Jurassic World cleared my Threshold of Awesome, and enters my rankings at #2, just behind Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sandra, Keliana, and I enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, and had no regrets about springing for the IMAX 3D showing. The film made good use of the technology.

JurassicWorldWith that out of the way, the film has some weird flaws. Most of the interpersonal stuff falls flat, and while we do get lots of on-screen dinosaur goodness, Sandra and I both came away feeling like the filmmakers didn’t want to bother with “sense of wonder.”

There was story purpose for this, I suppose, since we are told (but not actually shown) that the crowds want bigger, faster, meaner attractions.

Which the park provides, of course. Chaos and catastrophe ensue. Rawr chase chase chomp rawr shoot shoot scream rawr repeat. To good effect, of course, but if the action had been supported by a really well-crafted human story it would have been more powerful. If the film had been allowed to cast off a couple of the less-engaging human stories, the action could have been dialed up a bit, and Jurassic World would have shone as a really good monster movie.

Don’t get me wrong: I wasn’t actually disappointed—I have a threshold for that on my list, and this film escaped that handily—but I did have to tip my head to the side and raise my eyebrows at the film a couple of times to quietly say “really, movie? That’s as hard as you’re going to try to sell that to me?”

(Note: in IMAX 3D the movie can totally see you do that, and it will feel guilty for having let you down. Try it!)

I can’t say much more without spoiling things. Sandra made a great observation which I won’t share for exactly that reason. Spot on, though.

JurassicWorldOSTFans of the original John Williams soundtrack will be delighted by Michael Giacchino’s work on the soundtrack for Jurassic World.

William’s themes are present (and properly credited) but this is definitely NOT a re-hashing of leitmotifs we’ve already heard. It’s fresh, and powerful. I’ve enjoyed Giacchino’s work on other soundtracks, and knew by the end of the film that this one goes on that list. I’m listening to it as I write this, and I’m totally not thinking that something is going to chomp me from behind. Totally.

Journal, Reviews

What’s That Music in the Background?

I listen to a lot of music, and sometimes I listen to the same music a lot.

I studied music at BYU (Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition with an emphasis in Sound Recording Technology) and for a long time I thought my career path was a musical one. Turns out I was wrong.

Shattered dreams aside, I love listening to music while I work. This post is a quick run-down of my top five albums for “getting work done.” With just one exception, these are film scores, which seem particularly well-suited for evoking emotion without having a singer tell me what I’m supposed to be feeling.

Counting down to #1, then:

Pacific Rim Soundtrack from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legen5) Pacific Rim Soundtrack from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures, by Ramin Djawadi

The movie did not work its magic on me, not the way it did for many of my friends. I guess I had physics on the brain, or something. Fortunately, the album doesn’t require any suspension of disbelief. It’s lively, and does a good job generating a contemporary/futuristic feel using a pretty standard suite of orchestral and electronic instruments.

My first and last track playcounts: 89 and 79.

Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters - Music from the Motion Pic 24) Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters – Music from the Motion Picture by Atli Örvarsson

When I first heard this score I thought that Hans Zimmer was channeling Danny Elfman. As it happens, Atli Örvarsson was under Zimmer’s direction, and they were shooting for “dark and quirky,” so I don’t think I was that far off.

My first and last track playcounts: 101 and 82. This isn’t in the #1 slot because as of this writing it’s feeling just a little played-out. For now, anyway.

Godzilla_ Original Motion Picture Soundtrack3) Godzilla: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, by Alexandre Desplat

I had a physics problem with Pacific Rim, but I let Godzilla get by me? DON’T YOU JUDGE ME.
This score had a long history of Godzilla scores to live up to, and I think it works wonderfully. Like a lot of modern scores it is reminiscent of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (especially Dance of the Adolescents,) and while that heavily dissonant, crunching arrythmia isn’t for everybody, I think it’s great for the big guy. Also, great for writing to.

This is the newest addition to the list, but it’s been a real go-to album for me lately. My first and last track playcounts: 25 and 25.

Pirates of the Caribbean_ On Stranger Tides (Soundtrack fro2) Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture), by Hans Zimmer, featuring Rodrigo y Gabriela

I’m a sucker for Zimmer’s work. Say what you want about his stuff all sounding the same,  I think he’s incredibly versatile, and the way he worked Rodrigo y Gabriela’s virtuousity into the score is brilliant and delightful. The remixed tracks at the end of the album are huge fun and very punchy.

My first and last track playcounts: 38 and 25. I use this one “sparingly,” but have been coming back to it a lot in recent weeks.

Random Friday1) Random Friday, by Solar Fields

It’s not a soundtrack. It’s a through-composed electronic-atmospheric dance album, and there’s a super-cool feature to it: The 86-minute collection of 10 tracks has been concatenated into a “Continuous Mix” track that is 78 minutes long.

This album is perfect for a long work session, especially penciling or inking. It starts nice and easy, then picks up the pace, and then tapers off right at the end… and then does it again, with 8 minutes of padding shaved off. It is a two-hour-and-forty-four minute workbeat to which a lot of Schlock has been written and illustrated.

The continuous track has 82 playcounts. First and last of the other tracks are 49 and 56, because I will sometimes start in the middle of the “regular” track list in order to build a playlist that is exactly as long as I have time for.

These are just my current top five, mind you. Of course, while I was writing the list I was listening to Jablonsky’s score for Ender’s Game, which is far, far better than that film was.

Also note that while I’ve linked all of these to their Amazon pages (which is where I’m buying most of my music lately) they’re available on iTunes, and probably lots of other places.