Movie Soundtracks

[Shapley]

I'm looking for some new soundtracks to add to my collection. I often listen to them in my vehicle, and I've kind of overplayed some I have on hand, whereas I haven't been particularly fond of some of the recent offerings, and some of my older purchases (The Harry Potter Soundtracks have been a let-down since 'Prisoner of Azkaban').

The ones that seem to get the most play from me include:

Red Cliff
Memoirs of a Geisha
House of Flying Daggers
Hero
Princess Mononoke
(I have a liking for Oriental Film Music)
Das Boot
13th Warrior
King Arthur
Gladiator
Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers seems to be my favourite, based on the number of times I've selected it)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets & Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Road to Perdition
Cider House Rules

That's all that come to mind right off the bat. It seems I am missing a couple, but my mind is drawing a blank on titles.

Any suggestions on recent entries or old favourites worth a listen?

[DavidS]

Gone with the Wind
Laurence of Arabia
The Gadfly
The King's Speech
The Godfather
Dangerous Encounter
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

[Shapley]

Thanks! I'm familiar with some of them. I think I may even have Lawrence of Arabia and The Godfather on vinyl.

I'm not at all familiar with The Gadfly, Dangerous Encounters, or The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I'll see if Barnes & Noble or Amazon offer sample tracks.

Gone With the Wind has a nice soundtrack, but I'm not overly fond of it. I seem to recall The Sand Pebbles as having a pretty decent one, but I'd have to check it out again to be sure.

[DavidS]

The music for the Gadfly was composed by Shostakovich. The lovely, haunting, Romance was also used as the theme tune for the British TV miniseries Reilly, Ace of Spies .

Sorry - not Dangerous Encounter, but Dangerous Moonlight (aka Suicide Squadron) - theme: the Rachmaninov-like Warsaw Concerto written by Richard Addinsell.

"I Will Wait for You" is a song from the French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - music composed by Michel Legrand.

The above three pieces are very popular, and I am pretty sure have been played on Beethoven Radio.

[barfle]

An overlooked soundtrack by Maurice Jarre is Grand Prix.

[Shapley]

An overlooked soundtrack by Maurice Jarre is Grand Prix.

Seems to me Beethoven.com used to play exerpts from that from time to time. I'll have to look it up.

I ordered some more Oriental Movie Soundtracks. Forbidden Kingdom arrived yesterday, but I haven't listened to it, yet. I've also ordered Fearless and Curse of the Golden Flower, both by Shigeru Umebayshi, who composed the soundtrack for House of Flying Daggers.

[dai bread]

Nobody's mentiond Dr. Zhivago. There are at least 2 good tunes in that soundtrack. It's Maurice Jarre too.

[DavidS]

Oh yes, and what about The Bridge on the River Kwai?

[Shapley]

I'm pretty sure I have Dr. Zhivago on vinyl. The Bridge on the River Kwai I do not recall, other than the recurrent whistling.

[dai bread]

"The Bridge on the River Kwai" is famous for "Colonel Bogey" and I don't think that really counts, since it was a well-established march long before the movie was made. I can't recall anything written specially for it, though there must have been something.

[Schmeelkie]

You got a lot of my favorites the first time around, Shap...

The vast majority of the Wall-E soundtrack is good, fun driving music. Have great memories of the Chariots of Fire soundtrack on drives with my parents...Gettysburg also, Star Trek (the original motion picture) is particularly good fun for driving in a rain storm! Wow, that's pretty random...

[Shapley]

I can't remember much about the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtrack. I was thinking it largely borrowed from the television series and built on that, but I could be mistaken.

I still can't say that I've heard the entire Wall-E sountrack. I remember B.com playing some jazzy soundtrack which it identified as Wall-E, but I believe you are the one that pointed out that it was mis-identified.

I have the Road to Perdition soundtrack, which is nice in parts but too jazzy overall for my tastes (not that I don't like jazz, but I wasn't overly fond of that particular style). Chariots of Fire, like most of Vangelis' works, doesn't strike me as driving music. I do like Tangerine Dream's Sorcerer soundtrack, and some of the copycats is spawned at the time (though I can't recall them by name right now), though it's not the kind of music one would expect to hear on B.com.

[Trumpetmaster]

Not a Movie Soundtrack but a GREAT song!!!

Louis Armstrong's 1968 recording of "What a Wonderful World" was featured in the film Good Morning, Vietnam

[Shapley]

I rather like the exerpts from Death Defying Acts which B.com plays regularly, but I don't know if the rest of the music lives up to the little bit I hear.

[Shapley]

I"ve listened to two of my new purcahses recently. The Curse of the Golden Flower is okay, but nothing spectacular. Jet Li's Fearless has a kind of Ennio Morricone-ish feel to it, which is nice, but nothing on it really makes it stand out.

I haven't seen many films in the past few months, so I've not had the chance to listen to many soundtracks. I purchased a few DVD's with the intent to view them, but it may be a while before I have the opportunity to do so. My collection of un-viewed films continues to grow, I'm afraid. I picked up The Last Legion (which sort of parallels the recent King Arthur film, judging by the description on the jacket) and The Eagle from the sale aisle.

[Shapley]

I finally listened to the recently-aquired soundtrack to 'Forbidden Kingdom'. It's descent, but not a great soundtrack. Like some of the others, some parts invoke images of Ennio Morricone in my mind. Odd for a Chinese film, but I understand that Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns have a following over there. A recent film, "The Good, The Bad, The Wierd' pays homage to the Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah tradition. It's an interesting film, which I really enjoyed.

I've noticed that Ennio Morricone's style has crept into a lot of films, particularly when those films invoke images that parallel the spaghetti western. The last 'Pirates of the Caribbean film has a scene in which the opposing sides meet face-to-face on a stretch of sand, and a Morricone-ish soundtrack is used to evoke the 'standoff' imagery. The Sherlock Holmes sequal: 'A Game of Shadows' has a scene in which Sherlock Holmes, being afraid of horses, rides across the French countryside on the back of pony. Music from 'Two Mules For Sister Sara' is used to evoke images of the parallel to that film.

Morricone is a musical genius, in my humble opinion. His musical style will outlive him. Perhaps, someday, someone will compose a symphony in his honour, which will employ a variety of themes from his movies. Such a symphony, I think, would be simultaneously good, bad, and ugly...

[Shapley]

I've been listening to "The Hobbit' soundtrack lately. It is largely the 'Lord of the Rings' redux, or perhaps 'Variations on the Lord of the Rings', which is to be expected. Howard Shore, who devised various themes to represent musically the characters of the tales, retains those themes throughout "the Hobbit', but the variations in instruments and styles are noteworthy.

On some tracks, it makes me think we're hearing 'Danny Elfman meets the Lord of the Rings', in that the style is sometimes evocative of Elfman's style, particularly in the vocals.

I have given it only the once-through. I'll have to give it a couple more listenings to draw my final conclusions on it. At this point, I am inclined to say I like it, but I don't love it.