Bridge to Terabithia & Other Song & Score Soundtracks

By: Randall Larson
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2007

THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDATIONS

From the sublime to the rotund, we look at a quartet of song and score soundtracks for recent films – from Disney’s wondrously magical Bridge to Terabithia to the comic antics of Eddie Murphy in Norbit, the cool tones of Smokin’ Aces and the insanity of Epic Movie.

Hollywood Records has provided an excellent compilation soundtrack to Disney’s new fantasy adventure, Bridge to Terabithia. The CD combines four tracks of Aaron Zigman’s expressive orchestral score with nine songs, three of which are “inspired by” the film and don’t actually appear in the movie. The songs are sequenced first, and are actually a nice bunch of alternate rock and pop tunes by new, up-and-coming pop stars like Miley Cyrus (a terrific, anthemic country-pop styled opener), Hayden Panettiere, Annasophia Robb, as well as more recognizable names like Jeremy Camp, Everlife, Bethany Dillon, Sixpence None The Richer’s Leigh Nash (duet with Tyler James) - mostly in contemporary Disney-pop style of positive, tuneful rock (most of the artists are from contemporary Christian music, although the songs are not overtly religious or spiritual ones). Not all are original songs to this soundtrack (i.e., The Skies of America’s “Shine” is taken from their recent CD; Jeremy Camp’s “Right Here” is from his 2002 album, Stay; Everlife’s “Look Through My Eyes” is from their forthcoming new CD, etc.). But it’s a very nice collection of contemporary positive pop. Aaron Zigman’s score, like his eloquent music from The Notebook and last year’s Flicka, is magical. It’s perhaps the kind of music you’d expect from a film like this – richly tugging on your heartstrings with tender, intricately arranged melodies and surging, lyrical crescendos, and crafting the appropriate sense of mysterioso and amazement through choir and orchestra to support its more fantastic elements – but Zigman accomplishes it all with honesty and effectiveness. The cues included on the album range from the main theme, “Seeing Terabithia” to his old-school, thunderously swashbuckling music for “The Battle,” given an enhanced effervescence through the use of choir. The track ends with a reprise of the main theme over rhythmic guitar and atmospheric chorale backing. Zigman’s main theme is a captivating and sweeping, epic adventure theme which serves the film and its story well, suiting both the character drama and the moments of fantasy as the young protagonists discover a magical world, Narnia style. There is no word yet on a full score soundtrack release, but at least we have four solid tracks (about 15 mins.) of score music here. BTW - for an excellent interview with Zigman about this score, see Dan Goldwasser’s web site at www.soundtrack.net/features/article/?id=219

Another mix of songs and score appears this week from Lakeshore Records, with the soundtrack to the new Eddie Murphy dual-role comedy, Norbit, in which the comedian plays several roles, including a gigantic female version of himself. David Newman supplies the film score, as he did for Murphy’s Bowfinger, Nutty Professor and Dr. Doolittle films. Newman is represented on disc only by 6 tracks (about 10 mins), but they are sequenced together. The ten songs that precede the score tracks are a mixture of gospel (“Standing in the Safety Zone” by the clear-toned a capella combo, The Fairfield Four), hip-hop (YungJoc, Kelis, Unk, Slightly Stoopid), classic pop (Dusty Springfield, The Coasters), sultry soul (“You Did” by Kate Joy Earl & the Designated Hitters, Kirk Franklin’s “Looking For You,” Perfect Circle’s “The Hands of Time.”) Newman’s score ranges from the down-South slide-guitar twang that introduces “Young Norbit” to a cool and very playful theme originally played on keyboard doubled by toy piano, which segues into a tender and heartfelt solo piano melody, which in later tracks like “Kate Returns” and “Norbit and Kate” becomes a resident theme for Eddie Murphy’s main character, as well as a love theme for he and Kate, as he deals with an unappreciated wife and his attraction to another woman. Newman takes an about-face in “Queen of Whores,” however, a hard-driving rocking instrumental – but it retains the slide-guitar sensibility from the opening track just to remind us who we’re dealing with. “Rasputia’s Fury” is an electric-guitar driven rhythm track with a soul base – blasts of rhythm section amid electric bass and rustling rattlesnake percussion; the tonality recalls “Young Norbit” but is given a more modern and chaotic interpretation.

Smokin' Aces Soundtrack

Clint Mansell’s score for Smokin’ Aces, Joe Carnahan’s action thriller about as Las Vegas snitch trying to avoid the mobsters who are after him, but only with two tracks and six minutes at the end of the CD. A wildly diverse collection of various rock tunes from punk to metal to R&B/hip-hop to alternative to Latin vibe are the main focus of Lakeshore’s soundtrack CD. From The Stooges (“Down on the Street” – classic punk) and The Make Up (“Save Yourself” – less classic but still provocative punk), to Motorhead (“Ace of Spades”), from Skull Snaps (the tepid hip-hop “Trespassing”), the Bees (the gentle R&B of “I Love You”) to master singer/songwriter John Cale (the eloquent “Big White Cloud”), Nilton Castro (the cool vibe of “Segura O Sambura”) – even the Soldier’s Song from Ennio Morricone’s score to The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly - and far less interesting artists, the album is a rather dysfunctional array of songs with little in common with each other musically save for the happenstance appearance in the same film. I’d rather have heard more of Mansell, whose recent efforts for The Fountain, Doom, and Sahara have been quite provocative. Mansell’s score, as represented on CD, builds an expressive atmosphere with electronic rock instruments, which bridges the ubiquitous songs far better than an orchestra would. Both cues are likeable rhythm tracks, one an action theme for an FBI encounter, the other, the gentle melancholic guitar and piano phrasing of “Shell Shock,” given a powerful embellishment through growing strains of synth.

Blood & Chocolate Soundtrack

Also from Lakeshore is the soundtrack to Blood & Chocolate, Katja von Garnier’s interesting werewolf love story, which dispenses with all but two tracks of Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil’s score, although reportedly a score soundtrack is supposed to be in the offing, something Lakeshore used to do with regularity. The CD released last month contained primarily alternative and gothic rock songs, although in this case the songs were much more compatible than the eclectic disarray of Smokin’ Aces. Sultry rock, goth, trip-hop and the like by Shiny Toy Guns, New Skin, Bow Wow Wow, The Distants, Collide, Tre Lux, and several other bands mostly unsigned. The music is consistently melancholy and rhythmically tonal, adding for a appropriate soundscape for the movie, accentuated by the score by Klimek and Heil (Run Lola Run, Land of the Dead, The Cave, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) which takes on a similarly rhythmic instrumental cadence for synths and guitars in its 7 minutes worth of substance.

From an acceptable mix of song and score to complete neglect, we have Lakeshore’s soundtrack to Epic Movie, the latest movie-satire from the purveyors of the Scary Movie franchise, not to mention Date Movie and Spy Hard and such movies-making-fun-of-other-movies. Not a bit of Edward Shearmur’s score made it onto the CD, in favor of fourteen garage, rap, and pop tunes by the likes of Eagles of Death Metal, EKUK, SWJ, even Survivor reprising their 1982 Rocky III hit, “Eye of the Tiger” and one-hit-wonder Carl Douglas with “Kung Fu Fighting.” Like the movie, it’s a mish-mosh of material, but much of it can be a lot of fun. But it’s not film music, it’s a collection of diverse songs from an uneven mixture of sources. No word on a soundtrack CD featuring Shearmur’s score.

www.lakeshorerecords.com

FILM MUSIC NEWS

Gustavo Santaolalla won this year’s British Academy of Film & Television Award for Best Film Music for his Babel score. This is Santaolalla’s second Anthony Asquith Award, he won for The Motorcycle Diaries in 2004. The award for Babel was presented to Santaolalla by Kylie Minogue at the ceremony in London’s Royal Opera House on Sunday night. – via filmmusicradio.com

The BAFTA Awards were not the only prize-giving happening last Sunday; eight hours after the British Academy revealed their winners, the Recording Academy did the same at their annual Grammy Awards in LA. The glitzy ceremony took place at Los Angeles’ Staples Centre and was attended by some of the biggest names in the music industry. There are 108 categories for these awards, so a lengthy show was endured as usual, with the ‘Film/TV/Visual Media’ section coming closer to the end than the beginning. In what was perhaps a perfect birthday gift, John Williams picked up two awards. The composer, who celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday on Thursday, won “Best Score Album” for Memoirs of a Geisha and “Best Instrumental Composition” for “A Prayer For Peace,” from Munich. The wins mark Williams’ seventeenth and eighteenth gramophones, with the score album award being his first since E.T. The Extra Terrestrial back in 1983. Of course Williams wasn’t the only winner; the award for “Best Compilation Soundtrack Album” went to Kevin Spacey’s Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line, while “Best Original Song” went to Randy Newman and James Taylor’s delightful “Our Town” from Cars. – via musicfromthemovies.com

As if the BAFTAs and the Grammy’s weren’t enough to contend with, the Animation industry celebrated their achievements at the 34th Annual Annie Awards. This year’s awards, which took place at Glendale’s Alex Theatre, saw big wins for the DreamWorks/Aardman feature Flushed Away, which scooped the majority of the main prizes. Disappointingly Happy Feet wasn’t the voter’s choice, despite winning Best Animated Feature at the BAFTAs. It was a good night, however, for Randy Newman, who’s score for Cars earned him the award for “Music in an Animated Feature Production,” probably just minutes after/before being honored at the Grammy’s down the road for that film's song. The Annie marks the ever-popular composer/songwriter’s third such award, the previous ones being won for Cats Don’t Dance and Toy Story 2. Newman faces some stiff competition at the Oscars in two weeks though, with his Grammy-winning song “Our Town” up against no less than three songs from the smash-hit musical Dreamgirls. – via musicfromthemovies.com

Grammy nominated for his score to the hit comedy Little Miss Sunshine, composer Mychael Danna turns serious with the score to the dramatic thriller, Breach, for director Billy Ray with whom Danna previously worked on Shattered Glass. The award-winning composer sets the tone for the drama with a mysterious and beautiful score for piano and strings. Starring Ryan Philippe, Chris Cooper and Laura Linney, the film inspired by true events will be released by Universal Pictures February 16. Varese Sarabande releases the score CD February 27. The dramatic and emotional score was recorded with the 45-piece Hollywood Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Dodd. Well known for his expertise of combining non-Western sound sources with orchestral and electronic minimalism in film music, the music is used here, according to director Billy Ray, "to underline the tragedy of Robert Hanssen, score the journey of Eric O'Neill, and score the tension of the chase between them. Mychael hooked into all three elements immediately and knocked it out of the park." www.varesesarabande.com

Intrada’s latest Special Collection brings together two scores for films from the creative mind of Neil Simon. Max Dugan Returns and I Ought To Be In Pictures were both directed by Herbert Ross, both stem from the early 80s, and both focus on the theme of estranged father/daughter re-uniting. The 1983 film Max Dugan Returns stars Jason Robards, Marsha Mason, and Matthew Broderick, with a score by David Shire, notes that his music for the film “has a very balletic/symphonic principle theme, and a musical comedy-style secondary one for the character of Max.” I Ought To Be In Pictures stars Walter Matthau and Dinah Manoff and features a score by Marvin Hamlisch, who provides the film with the optimistic sound for this tale of father/daughter coming to terms with each other's differences.

Both scores were remixed from the original multitrack elements, and the release is limited to 1200 units.

For cover art, track listing, and sound samples, please visit http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.ACCT67745/it.A/id.5237/.f

New West Records has issued a song soundtrack to the new Samuel L. Jackson movie, Black Snake Moan, where he encounters, not a plane full of snakes, but a gorgeously trampy Christina Ricci. Jackson plays a bluesman who brings the worn and torn Ricci in; the score consists of bluesy instrumentals by Scott Bomar, with plenty of classic and new blues tunes to satisfy any aficionado of the form, from such purveyors of the art as Bobby Rush, Precious Bryant, Jessis Mae Hamphill, John Doe, and The Black Keys. Jackson himself sings the title tune and a couple of other rocking blues numbers, with his own expected take on the verbiage. Black Snakes Moaning On A Plane it ain’t. www.newwestrecords.com

Silva Screen America has released a full length soundtrack from the hit 1980s TV series, The A-Team. One of the definitive adventure series of the decade, The A-Team also featured some of the most stirring and catchy music of the era. Veteran TV-theme crafters Mike Post and Peter Carpenter provided a wealth of tunes for the show beyond its familiar main title music. Silva’s collection, faithfully re-recorded by the Daniel Caine Orchestra, is the only release to include the show’s incidental music along with its popular theme. www.silvascreenusa.com

Recommended Soundtrack sources:

www.buysoundtrax.com

www.intrada.com

www.screenarchives.com

www.footlight.com

www.arksquare.com/index_main.html (Japan)

www.intermezzomedia.com/ (Italy)

www.moviegrooves.com

www.moviemusic.com