Super 8 - Michael Giacchino

I think Super 8 was my most anticipated score of the summer. Giacchino has turned into one of my "must have" composers where I'll buy everything he puts out, confident of it being worth the investment, with Super 8 at the top of the 2011 list. Therefore, it pains me to say that it doesn't quite excite me like I hoped it would. Several listens later and the first half still feels rather patchy, not helped by an inordinate number of brief, unrelated, but occasionally not hugely exciting cues. True, 30 second tracks can be a miniature epic of condensed genius, but more often they are incidental and that is largely the case here. The first half is largely suspenseful and feels a little laboured with so many short bursts of murmuring.

Giacchino presents several major themes which are typically memorable and delightful, although for some reason put me in mind of Howard Shore's score to The Last Mimzy, particularly in the finale track, Letting Go, which seems to be heading for an ET style finale, but never quite gets there. The fact that Giacchino doesn't do a great deal with his themes doesn't help matters. Indeed, lack of variation and invention in the use of his themes is surprisingly problematic in Super 8. Compared to the dazzling invention in Up or Ratatouille where the main themes are contorted and played with all over the place, Super 8 feels surprisingly pedestrian. The aforementioned Letting Go should be the point at which the main theme (or themes) get a full and glorious workout, but they are merely presented a few times getting a bit louder each time.

Perhaps it's unfair to have ET so strongly in mind, but the film clearly echoes Spielberg's classic and has been marketed as a throwback to those movies. Further, the trailer made excellent use of James Horner's Cocoon and Horner, for his faults, does a lot more interesting things with what is a fairly simplistic melody than Giacchino manages here. Elsewhere there's some fine action writing, World's Worst Field Trip, The Siege of Lillian and Creature Comforts are the major contenders, although it's not as structurally satisfying as some of his Pixar work. A three note motif that puts in mind Cliff Eidelman's Star Trek VI score doesn't help.

Sometimes, despite my slackness of updates, I try to put out reviews quickly to be ahead of the curve but halfway through my review of Super 8 I was disappointed at what I was saying so hoped that giving it more of a chance might help. It didn't. True, the various motifs that run through the score become more apparent with familiarity, but don't really form a greater, satisfying and more unifying whole. However good we want a composer to be - especially on a particular project - you simply can't will the music to be better than it is. Super 8 is not a bad score; there's plenty of energetic writing and a collection of memorable melodic ideas, but it doesn't push the material to the same extent as I know Giacchino is capable of doing and that marks it as something of a disappointment.

Go online in the mothership to acquire Super 8 from Amazon.

Cars 2 - Michael Giacchino

Pixar eventually had to make a film that didn't quite live up to expectations and general consensus is that Cars was that film. It's not that it's bad, but there's something that rings hollow about it; my money is on it not being set in a subset of our own world. Despite their fantastical settings, all other Pixar films somehow intersect our world so we can relate to them. With Cars, it's just cars living in a world that is otherwise like ours, but is filled with... well... cars. Fun, but difficult to relate to in any meaningful sense. Still, the kids loved it and even a classic films factory such as Pixar is allowed to make something a bit more fun.

Given that Cars was pretty much a self contained film, Cars 2 takes the characters and somehow turns it into a spy spoof thing. With cars. I hate to say it, but when a company can make something as inspired as Up, Wall-E, Toy Story or Finding Nemo, a spy film about anthropomorphic cars seems pretty weak. Guess I shouldn't prejudge, but hey, I'm a judgemental type. After Randy Newman's fine effort for the original, Michael Giacchino - who seems to be becoming in-house Pixar composer - picks up on the sequel. Given the lack of story continuity, the lack of musical continuity isn't especially problematic and Giacchino has form in the genre.

Perhaps expectedly, Cars 2 is a pretty fun action score with lots of 60's spy motifs running through it. Although other reviews have mentioned the British spy element, it sounds a lot less like Barry doing Bond than The Incredibles; maybe more the Persuaders or the Avengers. There's some comedy country for Mater (possibly Pixar's least endearing creation) and a little playful creeping about music which is something of a lighthearted take on his Mission: Impossible 3 music (a hint of M:I 4 coming out later in 2011 perhaps? OK, unlikely) to break up the action, but that does rather take centre stage.

The main three note theme gets a good work out (maybe a little too often, but we'll let it pass as it's good fun and is used in sufficiently varied ways to just about remain fresh) and the results are entertainingly action packed. After the Oscar success of the stunning Up and the gorgeous Ratatouille (his best for Pixar to date, for my money), Cars 2 wasn't likely to be another classic, but Giacchino rarely disappoints and Cars 2 is terrific fun; catchy, tuneful, carefully treading the line between pastiche, spoof and parody (if they aren't all sides of the same thing) with his usual consummate skill.

Drive on down to Amazon and buy it. Um... ok, maybe not drive, as such.

Please Release Me (let me go) - Part 6

Apologies for the lack of updates over the last week; lack of internet, but here's part 6 (possibly the final part as I'm running out of things I feel are desperately lacking...) of my summary of scores that could do with being re-released or released for the first time.


I feel kinda bad that I'm not desperately trying to get some obscure Alex North or Bernard Herrmann score released, but rather music written for films about submarines, bugs in space and psychotic toys. Having said that:

North by Northwest - Bernard Herrmann

Here's a puzzle for your little mind to dwell on, dear reader (the patronisometer is set to max, baby), how come the otherwise superb release of North by Northwest by Rhino is only let down by having variably crappy sound. Ok, it's a score from the 50's and there plenty enough scores from the 70's and 80's which haven't aged well (there's even debate, I recently learned, over the quality of the tapes on Elfman's Batman score, which is 1989. Worrying. It sounds fine to me, but maybe my ears are tin) but then there are plenty from the 60's which sound just great. However, in the specific case of North by Northwest, there is a DVD with the score isolated which sounds absolutely remarkable. Maybe there is some kind of mixing skulduggery at work here and they have somehow reduced the hiss by muddying the sound. I must confess my copy of the DVD is stuck across the seas in Guernsey but from recollection, it was neither muddy or hiss and certainly vastly improved on the Rhino release; in particular there are sections of the Rhino release where there was tape damage, but no such damage is obvious on the DVD. Presumably both were taken from different sources, but it would be rather jolly for a label to revisit those sources and perhaps give the tapes from the isolated score a spruce up for CD release. If anyone has any info on why there is such an obvious disparity in quality, I'd love to know. There is, of course, the fine re-recording conducted by Joel McNeely, but it's always good to have Herrmann conduct Herrmann.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - John Williams

OK, back to the magical, non-serious stuff again. While Williams' first two Potter scores provided the series with a core of famous thematic material, it was only with a change of director and tone on Azkaban that Williams could actually write something that didn't drench the film like treacle. There's an incisiveness to the music that simply isn't present in the first two scores which have a denseness that makes them quite tiring to listen to. I'm sure plenty of collectors would like expanded releases of all three of Williams' Potter efforts, but I'm not sure I could face 2 plus hours of the first two, but Azkaban has the scope to be of interest in a longer format. It's a rather unlikely prospect unless Warner Brothers decide they want to do an epic Potter music boxed set, not to mention the existing album is quite generously proportioned.


Sky High - Michael Giacchino
A rare, unreleased, but pretty mainstream effort from Giacchino for a good and somewhat underrated movie about a superhero school. It should be awful, but is surprisingly entertaining. Giacchino's score is a distant cousin to his wonderful effort for The Incredibles. Not quite as retro - indeed some of it is very modern - but his ability to tap into a bit of a John Barry vibe is still in evidence. Perhaps a bit of a lightweight effort compared to some of the other scores that have yet to see the light of day, but fun none the less.


Beauty and the Beast 2: The Enchanted Christmas (Rachel Portman)
Following up on Alan Menken's Oscar winning music for the now classic Beauty and the Beast was never going to be easy, but Rachel Portman's music for the straight to video (as was) midquel (i.e. the events are meant to take place during the original film) is a delight. The handful of songs don't quite hit Be Our Guest or Belle in their brilliance, but Stories and the title track, As Long As There's Christmas are both most charming. The latter is particularly interesting since the film version is a bouncing ensemble number (the film's Be Our Guest, I suppose) whereas it becomes a ballad for the end credits. I do (of course) prefer the film version. Only a better lyricist might have improved things. Unfortunately, the underscore gets possibly the shortest shrift in the history of soundtracks with a paltry 2 minutes and 19 seconds. Over 2 tracks, at that. Again, as another effort for Disney, the chances of more of Portman's charming score seeing the light of day are small, but we can but hope.