OK, I am calling it right now. Henry Jackman is a composer to watch. So far this year he has scored three films, all with a unique, interesting and fun sound. First it was the stellar X-Men: First Class, my review of which can be found here, followed by Winnie the Pooh which was really good in very different ways. Now Jackman brings his up and coming stylings to another animated feature, although this time one that has it’s roots in a decidedly different musical lineage.

Puss in Boots is the first spin off film in the Shrek franchise, and it follows the titular Puss (tee hee), played by Antonio Bandaras, in his own adventures. Puss was a highlight of the second film and one of the few good parts of the third and fourth movies so a stand alone feature might work.

The film is about sword-wielding avenger with a thick Spanish accent played by Antonio Bandaras, and if you immediately thought Zorro then you and Mr. Jackman might have something in common.

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The Transformers trilogy is an interesting beast. The first film was a surprisingly great sci-fi action film, the second was one of the worst pieces of junk I have ever sat through and the third comes somewhere in the middle. Despite the inconsistency in quality from film to film the one thing that remained steady in it’s excellence was Steve Jablonsky’s scores.

Jablonsky comes from the Hans Zimmer cadre of film composers who have dominated the movie score scene over the last decade. Like Klaus Badelt and Harry Gregson-Williams before him, Jablonsky made a significant impact in his career collaborating with a prolific filmmaker, Michael Bay. He had several good scores prior to Transformers, particularly The Island, but it wasn’t until he scored the giant talking robot opus that you knew you were listening to a real talent who has limitless potential.

Now at the end of the Transformers saga Silva Screen Records has put together a collection of the music from the entire trilogy, celebrating some of the best action sci-fi music ever written. The music is performed by London Music Works and does a really incredible job of capturing the essence of what the music is. This is especially great considering that at times the music actually sounds quite different.

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Drive is an interesting film. I have not seen it yet, but I can tell that by its trailers, promotional one-sheets and now its score. The music strikes a very interesting tone that fits in with the minimalistic, and down right retro style we have seen from the movie thus far.

The film features a score by Cliff Martinez, an early Steven Soderbergh collaborator who has since developed an interesting filmography. The Martinez portion of this score is pretty solid across the board. I enjoy the retro, almost electronic sound the score boasts.

It is almost like a minimalist version of the Tron: Legacy score, My only reservation of his music is that it is pretty one note. I don’t know that I could pick one track from another if I wasn’t looking at a track list.

The other major portion of this soundtrack is a selection of tracks by several different artists. This portion of the sound track was very enjoyable during the first couple tracks, but became mildly repetitive as it moved along. Really shining a light on the real problem on this who soundtrack, repetitiveness. I love the general sonic landscape this score is selling, but as an album I don’t know if it stands well on it’s own.

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Recently film music legend John Barry past away. It was a great loss for the film score community, Barry wrote some of the most well known themes and scores of all time during his career. Most people know Barry most for his work on a large number of James Bond movies, but me personally, my favorite score is from the undereducated Disney film The Black Hole.

The guys over at Intrada Records have recently struck a deal with Disney to release some of their more classic scores and thankfully the need for a fully restored The Black Hole was high on their priority list. Beyond the quality of the score itself, the music for this movie has historical significance:

John Barry’s score was the first digitally recorded soundtrack in motion picture history and was recorded using the 3M Digital Recorder. The format was used sparingly for several years until technology moved on, and due to its limited use, finding working machines had become quite a challenge some 30 years later.

Randy Thornton’s producer’s notes chronicle the entire odyssey through the investigations and trials until successful transfer of the 32-track digital elements, with simply stunning results.  Now The Black Hole is presented in complete form with a striking clarity not heard previously.

This new release is available now from Intrada’s website.

The music from the Lord of the Rings films might very well be the best ever written for a film. Howard Shore often considered the entire project as his opera, structured in a sweeping and broad style that worked hand in hand with the epic story. So it is a natural that 10 years later the music is still exciting fans around the globe.

The music has been revisited again, this time being constructed as a symphony in six movements. The full twelve hours of music from the original films has been pared down into the six movements, each reflecting one of the six books of the original Lord of the Rings novel.

“Maestro Ludwig Wicki personally selected the musicians who comprise The 21st Century Symphony Orchestra and who perform on this recording,” said Shore. “Over the past four years he has perfected this music in Lucerne, Switzerland. His precision and supreme musicianship is evident throughout the recording. I congratulate him on his success and thank him for his masterful approach in bringing this score to life.”

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Film composers for the Pixar films have been a pretty exclusive club up to this point. It began with Randy Newman, then stayed in the family when Thomas Newman came over to work with Andrew Stanton,. Finally Michael Giacchino came aboard with Incredibles and that was basically it. Randy Newman and Giacchino both won Oscars for their Pixar works and Thomas Newman has been nominated for three of his own. So when a new composer is signed to join those storied ranks it is exciting news.

The Scotsman is reporting that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire composer Patrick Doyle has been hired to write the music for the next Pixar film Brave. The new film centers on a Scottish princess and boasts many other departures from the normal Pixar mold.

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PIXAR began taking the cinematic world by storm in 1995 with the original Toy Story. Part of what made that film so good was the songs and score by Randy Newman, who would go on to write music for the next three PIXAR films. For the fifth film by the studio, Randy’s cousin Thomas Newman stepped up to the plate for the Finding Nemo score. It began to look like the Newman scoring dynasty had the monopoly on Disney’s golden goose.

That was until PIXAR brought in an outsider to direct their sixth film, The Incredibles. Brad Bird brought on young TV composer Michael Giacchino to write the Bond-tastic music and the rest is history. Giacchino has since won an Oscar, and was nominated for another, for his work with PIXAR and now has come full circle with another international spy influenced score for Cars 2.

There are few things that are a certainty in life, and it is starting to become obvious that one of them is Giacchino’s PIXAR scores are some of the greatest pieces of music written in the last decade. Cars 2 is absolutely not an exception to that rule. The music is fun, exciting and catchy as all hell, I instantly find myself whistling and humming along with the tracks. I have only been with the CD for a week and I already count it as being as good as the best scores from last year.

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UGH!

Allow me to start my review with a bit of onomatopoeia that demonstrates my frustration with this score. Green Lantern is supposed to be an epic space sci-fi adventure. This score does a poor job of relaying that message. It is just one misstep after another, but perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.

James Newton Howard is a fantastic composer, so when I heard he was going to be writing the music for Green Lantern I was thrilled. He has a great ability to turn even horrible movies into amazing scores, which I guess comes from being M. Night Shyamalan’s go to composer.

Giving the score duties to Howard makes a lot of sense as he collaborated with Hans Zimmer on the two previous Batman films. Unfortunately instead of letting him write music in his own style, we get a Dark Knight apping score that sees Howard doing his best Zimmer impersonation.

I might be a bit hard on the music here, it does have some really decent tracks that by themselves are quite nice. It also tries to develop it’s own iconic hero theme more than the Bat films did, so I applaud the effort. The biggest problem is that the music just feels lazy, like some one along the process just gutted the enthusiasm from the people making the music.

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Big summer super-hero movie scores carry with them a certain set of expectations. The broadness of the source material opens the doors for large and exciting music that should play with the imagination and enhance the very feel of the movie. Of course with great expectation comes great pressure and not all blockbuster scores can resonate beyond the background of the scene. The X-Men franchise has always been one to deliver the goods on the soundtrack, and the newest installment continues that trend nicely.

The franchise has yet to have a single recurring composer, and the new film doesn’t break tradition with Henry Jackman stepping up to the podium for this round. Jackman has not done much as yet in his career, but has written music with Hans Zimmer on some high profile projects and has two other scores later this year. As a relative unknown he is a wild card, it is hard to know what to expect.

Well, we now know that we should be expecting great things from Mr. Jackman. The score for X-Men: First Class is a solid and often rousing musical experience. One that stands shoulder to shoulder with most super-hero scores of the past decade. It might lack the bombast of Spider-Man or the sheer scope of X-Men 3, but it packs a serious punch and excels in all the right places.

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There is a fantastic new trend in the world of film music, more and more main stream artists are bringing their talents to feature films.  These artists are crafting music that serves to make the films better and stand on their own. Last year two of the best scores were written by Trent Reznor for The Social Network and Daft Punk for Tron Legacy, the line between film composing and main stream music is blending, and we all win for that.

The latest established act to venture into the cinematic music world is the Chemical Brothers. The long standing electronica duo lend their considerable expertise to the film Hanna, an action adventure movie that is high on adrenaline, and they deliver a score to match.

The music sounds very much like The Chemical Brothers would make. That is to say that we don’t get an orchestral hybrid, or their best impressions of John Williams. What we do get is music that pumps and flows with all the frenzy and furry expected from a standard Chemical Brothers album.

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