moviescores

01. Crossroads (A Dawn Raid)
02. Gumboots
03. Black Township
04. Shebeen Queen
05. Asking For Trouble
06. Dangerous Country
07. Detention
08. The Mortuary
09. The Funeral (September 25, 1987)
10. At The Beach
11. The Getaway
12. The Frontier
13. Last Thoughts
14. Deadline
15. The Phone Call
16. Telle Bridge
17. Soweto (Vocal Reprise)
18. Cry Freedom
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Movie Soundtrack Review: This is a review of the motion picture score Salt by James Newton Howard.

“Salt by James Newton Howard is a solid action score, but…”

Salt is an complicated spy thriller directed by Phillip Noyce starring Angelina Jolie. Complicated because it is about double-agents, triple-agents, quadruple… well you get the point. Very exciting movie I have to say and it has a few surprises in store as well. James Newton Howard is the composer and was presented with a few challenges along the way. Will it be a substandard thriller score or something special? Let’s find out.

Track List 01. Prisoner Exchange (****) 02. Escaping The CIA (****) 03. Cornered (****) 04. Orlov’s Story (*****) 05. Chase Across DC (*****) 06. Hotel Room Preparations/Parade (***) 07. Attack On St. Bart’s Cathedral (****) 08. A Dark Goddamn Hole (****) 09. Taser Puppet (*****) 10. You Are My Greatest Creation (***) 11. Destiny (***) 12. Barge Apocalypse (***) 13. Day X (***) 14. I’m Going Home (****) 15. Eight Floors Down (****) 16. Arming The Football (****) 17. Not Safe With Me (***) 18. You’re About To Become Famous (****) 19. Mano a Mano (****) 20. Garroted (****) 21. Go Get Em (*****)

Back On Track

How do you get back on the road after The Last Airbender? Well, to tell you the truth, we don’t know when James Newton Howard scored what, but it’s quite a task to top his possibly greatest work for cinema. Salt is a completely different movie which requires a very different sound. It’s a spy thriller/action movie with emphasis on the action, but as we all know, Howard has gotten his action-mojo on in recent years and stepped it up a notch or two.

As expected, this 1 hour long score is filled with action, but is it good action or just generic sounds meshed into a boring action score? It starts off with the ‘Prisoner Exchange’ and it works out well, both in the film and on album, but as good as it might be, it still lacks something. Not until ‘Orlov’s Story’ we hear something really good. A slow buildup, some female vocals and a tense underlying rhythm pushing it forward, then at around the 2:20 mark it really begins. For people who don’t enjoy the latest Howard trend of action scoring built on heavy percussion, this might not be the best, but I truly enjoy it. It was one of my favorite finds in The Last Airbender and I’m glad Howard hasn’t abandoned the idea.

Action/Theme

‘Chase Across DC’ is perhaps the best cue on the score action-wise. It is heavy on percussion, horns and has a very strong pull that never lets you go. Some really good action scoring there and you can hear the theme of Salt quite clearly.

The theme of Salt is a two-note motif heard throughout the score and it’s very easy to hear in the movie. Whenever Angelina Jolie is doing an action sequence, you can hear it. In ‘Chase Across DC’  from 1:06 and forward, you can hear the 2-note motif with a sort of delayed echo feel before it changes pitch. Not the greatest theme on album, but I really enjoyed it in the movie.

Conclusion

Salt by James Newton Howard is a solid action score, but not as good as I was hoping. There’s a lot of filler music here in between the really good cues and although there is a lot of it, I was expecting that Howard pushed the action more and especially the percussion sound which is my new favorite. The theme comes across as quite weak on the album which is a letdown and I feel that Salt deserved more.

->Buy the CD from Amazon<-

What did you think about Salt? Let us know in the comments section.

Listen to Salt by James Newton Howard below: Find more videos like this on Soundtrack Fans

01. Main Title Theme
02. The Park
03. Stringin' Beads
04. Pineapple Juice & Discovery
05. Ol' Pa, Help Me
06. Just The Radio
07. Waiting
08. Friends
09. Grandmom's Music Box
10. I Walked Myself
11. Finale / Love, The Equalizer

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A PATCH OF BLUE (EXPANDED SCORE)
 
01. Main Title
02. The Park
03. Acid Bath
04. The Gift
05. Alone
06. Chores
07. Thataway
08. Bead Party
09. Gordon's Place (Radio Music)
10. Friends (Outtake)
11. Grandmom's Music Box
12. Discovery
13. Waiting
14. Just The Radio
15. Help Me
16. Happy Selina
17. Gordon
18. Selina's Walk
19. Finale
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01. Possibility 02. Car Trouble 03. Washer Vodka 04. Cereal Bum 05. Come Out Jerry 06. Fixture Vodka 07. Rat Bastard 08. One Kiss 09. Tardiness 10. In Recovery 11. Jaguar 12. Dumpster 13. Sleepover 14. Cosmic Aristotle 15. Euphemism 16. Homeless 17. Pay It Forward 18. Night And Day And Night 19. Asthma 20. Powers Of Three 21. Desert Drive 22. Wasted Air 23. The Bad Thing 24. Gasoline 25. Velocity Organ 26. I Forgive You 27. Calling All Angels (Jane Siberry) (more…)

For The Month of July, 2010 Title Record Label Composer 1 Predators OST La-La Land Records John Debney 2 The Flash OST La-La Land Records Shirley Walker 3 Alice in Wonderland OSR Walt Disney Records Danny Elfman 4 Independence Day OST La-La Land Records David Arnold 5 Star Trek: The Deluxe Edition OST La-La Land Records Michael Giacchino 6 The A-Team OSR Varese Sarabande Alan Silvestri 7 The Prisoner OST Varese Sarabande Rupert Gregson-Williams 8 Toy Story 3 OST Walt Disney Records Randy Newman 9 The Karate Kid OST Madison Gate Records James Horner 10 Coco Before Chanel Varese Sarabande Alexandre Desplat 11 Red Cliff OST Silva Screen Taro Iwashiro 12 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels OST La-La Land Records Miles Goodman 13 The Last Airbender OST Lakeshore Records James Newton Howard 14 Sherlock Holmes OST Watertower Music Hans Zimmer 15 Bullitt OST Silver Age Classics Lalo Schifrin 16 Mao’s Last Dancer OST Sony Australia Christopher Gordon 17 A Single Man OST Relativity Media Abel Korzeniowski & Shigeru Umebayashi 18 Drag Me To Hell OST Lakeshore Records Christopher Young 19 Eraser OST La-La Land Records Alan Silvestri 20 Dutch OST La-La Land Records Alan Silvestri CineRadio is produced by CineMedia Promotions. For more information about CineRadio or CineMedia Promotions contact Beth Krakower at cinemediapromo (at) yahoo.com The chart is composed of music played during the month of July on soundtrack music specialty shows.  This month’s reporters include WUSB “Destinies”, KSPC, CKWR, KFJC, WQXR, KMFA, WTUL, WPRK, WQLN, KCHO, Bohemia After Dark,  Cinematic Sound, WDPR, Fistful of Soundtracks, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, and WCCC/Beethoven.com.                                     * denotes new reporters

Composer: Alex North Label: Varese Sarabande Suggested Retail Price: $109.98 Grade: A+
For an epic about the common gladiator-man battling the legions of well-to-do Rome for the simple, free life, there’s something ironic about the gilded presentation of SPARTACUS. For the 1,000th CD he’s done as a producer, Varese Sarabande head Robert Townson has constructed a tribute to composer Alex North just somewhat less towering than the Colossus of Rhodes. It’s a mammoth 6 CD / DVD set (with two CD’s alone re-iterating the love theme) costing just north of a hundred sesterciis, all held within a proudly anointed box. Sure the lavishness is jaw dropping, especially in these financial times. But then, we are talking about what is arguably the greatest movie score of all time. And Townson’s labor of love pays off in glorious spades if you’re a SPARTACUS mega-fan like myself. And this is a presentation that silences any doubts about the magnitude of Alex North’s accomplishment in shaking up the hallowed, lush halls of the epic scoring that had come before it.
Not that there’s anything remotely wrong with the biblical-sounding brilliance that Miklos Rosza has given to BEN HUR the year earlier in 1959. But the difference of the Stanley Kubrick-directed (let alone photographed) SPARTACUS was that this was an epic where man had to rely on his less-than-holy spirit to make things right against the might of pagan Rome. The fact that Kirk Douglas and his legions failed so valiantly in their ultimate victory also gave this film a particularly stirring emotional resonance towards seeing a man on the cross.
SPARTACUS was revolutionary from its then-daring sexual mores and graphic violence to the way that Douglas used his star power to help break the Hollywood blacklist by listing Dalton Trumbo as its screenwriter. Yet perhaps its most daring facet is Alex North’s score. As a composer who spent time in Russia learning his craft, there’s a true Bolshevik spirit running through North’s music. His avant-garde use of symphonic jazz shattered the European elegance that had ruled film music before 1951’s A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. And by the time that North hit SPARTACUS in time for his 50th birthday, he was given a year to write a gloriously barbaric affront to the music one expected from the sword, sandal and scripture genre.
Right from the trumpeting heraldry of Saul Bass’ opening titles that metaphorically depict the fall of Rome, North combined jagged, near-dissonant rhythms with beautifully lush themes, mixing near-futuristic takes on exotic “ethnic” music with guttural brass marches and battle music. Old-style scoring had finally met the concert hall in a mad, clashing rush that somehow resulted in a score at once melodically pleasing and percussively radical. While North’s magnum opus was inspired by Sergei Prokofiev’s score for ALEXANDER NEVSKY, SPARTACUS could just as easily be described as film music’s answer to Igor Stravinksy’s “Rite of Spring,” a work singing with beautiful delicacy at one moment, then bashing into the listener’s head at the next with its savage dances. The unusually long period that North had to write the score allowed him to make its breathtaking mood swings as tightly, and elegantly constructed as the most neatly appointed Roman edifice. Nearly every cue tied into a character theme, with a poignant humanity always at the center of its character’s’ battle for noble freedom, or the pompous fate of an empire.
Needless to say, no one had heard a score like SPARTACUS before, which has made the desire to get all of the two hours-plus of North’s score released a quest that has lasted decades, spawning rumors of surviving stereo masters along the way, and a hoped-for re-performance by Jerry Goldsmith (who’d ultimately replay North’s legendarily unused score to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY for Varese). In the end, what Townson has unleashed here certainly puts to shame the relatively scant MCA album that accompanied SPARTACUS’ restoration in 1991 (we’re still waiting for a blu ray of the movie worth its salt). The first CD in the box set offers the surviving stereo mixes of North’s score, which fill up 72 glorious minutes. And while the full score on CD’s two and three are in mono, the flat sound that usually accompanies that dreaded word is pretty relative, if not very discernable at all in terms of sound quality.
The truly “rough” stuff, as it relatively is, can be heard on the fourth 43-minute CD of alternates. And it’s just as much of a treasure trove, offering North’s demos for piano and percussion, more orient-centric ethnic music, and a “Desolation Elegy” that would have accompanied the awful aftermath of Spartacus’ wrenching defeat. While interesting, the choice to go with an instrumental in the film was definitely the wiser one- in my opinion, if certainly not North’s.
With original SPARTACUS material exhausted at this point, Townson defies any cries of “No mas!” with the fourth and fifth CD’s that solely contain variations of North’s love theme. With interpreters ranging from jazz superstars like Bill Evans, Regina Carter and Dave Grusin to guitar god Carlos Santana and the more film-centric Alexandre Desplat, John Debney and Brian Tyler, the results are mostly over the map enough to keep nearly two hours of the same melody quite interesting. Certainly, the man who revolutionized the use of jazz in film would find the predominantly small-scale nature of these variations more than worthy. It’s a jazz bar vibe for piano, winds, guitar and brass that has a true improvisatory, if not smoke-filled feel that’s also played to the hilt by Lalo Schifrin, with the stand-out on that note belonging to Mark Isham’s eleven-minute electro-jazz take. But perhaps the most groundbreaking variations belong to Nathan Barr and Elizabeth Scott’s eerie violin and chorus (a sound that wouldn’t be out of place on his TRUE BLOOD gig), Diego Navarro’s tango and Brian Tyler’s suspensefully eerie film noir stylings,
Putting the capper on SPARTACUS is what might be Varese’s first foray into video documentary, which positions such notable North fans as John Williams, Christopher Young, David Newman, Mark Isham and Townson himself on screen left or right, with naught but a black background in place of any film clips or photographs. It’s pure talking heads stuff. But where less interesting people might make these 95 minutes of genuflecting a bit of a slog, the fact is that every interviewee is genuinely enthralling in their love for North’s accomplishment. Shuttling between guests in numerous, “theme” segments, the SPARTACUS documentary goes by very fast indeed, getting across its intent of placing the viewer in the catbird’s seat for the various interviews. Rounding out the DVD is another segment wherein Townson views Isham and Navarro recording their SPARTACUS variations.
If the saying goes that there’s a lot of love in the room, then its Townson’s unabashed enthusiasm that pervades all of SPARTACUS, a determination begun with his friendship with North, who connected with the young producer at the sunset of his years. Now given the keys to the Varese kingdom, Townson’s determination to lavish everything on SPARTACUS might remind you of Charles Foster’s Kane doting of his opera “singing” wife Susan. Except Alex North ain’t her. What Townson’s worked with this set is Xanadu in CD form, a wave of unabashed, exceptionally-produced enthusiasm that comes together in the excellent 168 page mini-book. Beyond rapturously describing the history of SPARTACUS, its music and North’s equally epic life, there’s a love that finally becomes touching as it reaches the finale of North’s career. Of his dozens of remarkable scores, SPARTACUS is likely the pinnacle. Years in the making, let alone the release we’ve long been awaiting, the legend of North’s masterwork sings with renewed life, and passion that truly makes us all SPARTACUS.
Get schooled with SPARTACUS here

01. Educating Rita
02. Franks Theme Prt 1
03. Franks Theme Prt 2
04. Variations On Frank And Rita
05. Educating Rita (Reprise)
06. A Thought For Rita Prt 1
07. University Challenge
08. Burning Books
09. Franks Theme Prt 3
10. A Thought For Rita Prt 2
11. An Educated Women
12. Macbeth
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01. The Client 02. Romey’s Suicide 03. Have You Told Me Everything 04. Reggie’s Theme 05. Barry The Blade 06. I’ll Take The Fifth 07. Unfit 08. Kill Them All 09. Jailbird 10. The Morgue 11. Know Where The Body’s Buried 12. The Boathouse 13. Leaving Memphis 14. Bye Reggie 15. The Flight To Phoenix 16. The End (more…)

http://www.mediafire.com/?11ttq2nvzaj8r5n
Here's a very hard to find score by Garvarentz. Stepping out of his usual genre. Quite nice, I must say :) All thanks goes to the original poster.

Just published Andres Vargas review of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Check it out in the game music section: Game Music Review: StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

Yet another reviewer for Soundtrack Geek. Here’s a a short bio:

Hello, My name is Andres Vargas and I live In Florida, United States. As of right now, I’m in College studying Electrical Engineering and working part-time. I think my love of film scores started when I was very young. Watching classics like Star Wars, Star Trek, and many others. I remember at times I would just watch certain movies just to listen to the soundtrack. I would even rewind and watch certain scenes over and over again just to hear certain cues. I’m glad to say I don’t have to do that anymore. I have many favorite composers such as the likes of Brian Tyler, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, etc. Score allow me to escape my daily life and just enjoy good music.

His first review will be up later tonight on this very site so be back to check that out.

Would you like to be a published reviewer on Soundtrack Geek? Then read this post.