At the time, Season 2 was not a particularly well received season of LOST. However, this had little to do with the quality of the show itself, but was more about viewers beginning to realise that the answers to the show weren't going to be given up easily. At this period in the show, the mythology just kept on building up on itself, until eventually it would collapse under it's own weight at the beginning of Season 3. Although many episodes were viewed to be 'filler' at the time, they have actually revealed themselves to be important character episodes that have a significant effect on how we view each character for the rest of the series, as well as setting up important characters, locations and events that, for the most part, wouldn't be fully explored until as late as seasons five and six.
Due to the intense character-driven stories given in this season, Giacchino has ample opportunity to really develop the character themes, which is very good news for the Season Two soundtrack release. For the most part, this soundtrack surpasses that standard set by Giacchino in Season One. However, after some strong character themes that make up the majority of the disc, the CD doesn't get into any real meaty action cues until the last few tracks of the CD, and these cues are nowhere near as terrifying as those written for Season One. However, my favourite action cue of this season takes it's place right in the middle of some of the quieter character moments close to the beginning of the season as we are treated to a flashback showing the crash from the point-of-view of the tail section survivors. This particular track is pure genius, as it takes the melancholic 'Survivors' theme of Season One and really rips into it in the last 40 seconds to show the difference in experience between the two groups of survivors:
As I said before though, the character themes are where this CD truly shines, including another variation on Locke's theme, as well as a rendition of the 'Temptation' theme for Charlie, the former-junkie former-rockstar trying to find his redemption through his relationship with a young mother, Claire, and her newborn child, Aaron.
Jin and Sun, starting to finally work their way through their marital issues, develop their own love theme, one of the best of the show. After all of the great variations on his theme in Season One, Sayid finally gets an official track on the CD to himself with 'A New Trade', and Hurley gains an extra two themes on top of a variation of his 'Fat-Man-Running' theme from the last CD. Although he was seen primarily as the comic relief this early in the series, his great new themes really begin to show the direction that his character will take into becoming one of the most important characters of the show, with one of these themes featuring prominently in the very last episode of the series.
Rose and Bernard also get a love theme after their reunion. However, it is a shame that due to their minimal role in the show, this theme is only rarely heard:
The greatest love theme of Lost, that of Desmond and Penny, is only briefly introduced on this release, and due to it's role in the finale, is surrounded by ACTION ACTION ACTION cues. It won't be until Season Four that we finally get to hear all of this theme in it's glory.
The undoubted highlight of this CD though, is a track called 'The Gathering'. This cue isn't truly original to this album, and is instead a variation on 'Parting Words' from Season One (For a clip, see the end of my previous review).
But what a variation! The counter-melodies later in the cue add so many layers of emotion that you wouldn't have thought it possible for your heart to break multiple times within four minutes. It's a crime that for the episode in which it was featured it was mixed to the very back of the sound, meaning that it can only be fully appreciated on this album.
Overall, whilst the action cues disappoint in comparison to the Season One album, Season Two has it's own identity and is all the better for it. Whilst still maintaining the LOST flavour through it's never-changing instrumentation, the stories allow for some staggeringly beautiful character themes to make their way onto the album.
At 10pm on Tuesday 2nd May 2006, I sat down to watch an episode of TV that would entirely change the way that I think about TV, film, music and storytelling in general.
This episode was the season two premiere of LOST. I had only ever heard snippets about LOST before, and it was only through my sister's insistence that I gave it a chance. After having watched this episode, I then proceeded to watch the second episode of the season immediately after. I then watched the third episode immediately after that on E4. The following week, I managed to watch the entire first season on DVD (that's 25 episodes, or 1025 minutes) in time for the fourth episode the next Tuesday.
So began my love affair with LOST.
It was one hell of a rollercoaster ride, with many, many ups, but also some disappointments. However, the one thing that stayed constant, never for a second dipping in quality, was Michael Giacchino's groundbreaking, and heartbreaking, soundtrack. Before I properly start this review, I feel I need to give an idea of the scale of what Giacchino achieved.
Howard Shore wrote almost 594 minutes of music for the famously long Lord Of The Rings Trilogy over a time period of just under 4 years. John Williams, considered by many to be the greatest Hollywood composer of all time, composed music for 790 minutes of Star Wars footage for the six films over a number of years, spanning decades.
Over six years, whilst juggling a number of other scores such as the Academy Award winning UP, Michael Giacchino wrote more than 5,000 minutes of original score for LOST. However, unlike most TV scores, Giacchino's effort was not some half-hearted attempt at spooky background music with no structure or relevance. Again with the scale:
All three composers frequently use the Wagnerian Leitmotif idea in their scores, giving characters, locations and ideas their own 'themes', providing an emotional undercurrent that links parts of what is seen on screen through the music. For example, in Fellowship of The Ring during the council scene, the Gondorian Theme is heard as Boromir speaks of his homeland. This same theme is then heard in a grander form as Gandalf and Pippin ride across the borders of Gondor in Return of the King.
In Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings, roughly 90 themes and motifs are introduced and developed over the course of the three films. In the Star Wars Bi-Trilogy(?!), John Williams uses approximately 50 themes and motifs.
For LOST, Michael Giacchino wrote at least 156 themes and motifs throughout the show's run. For a Hollywood movie, that number of themes is just plain ridiculous, let alone for a 40-minute a week TV show.
Over the past six years, an album has been released for each season, plus another for the very last episodes of the show. Including double albums, that's 10 CDs of music that have been released. Today, I'm just going to review the first CD, Season One.
This soundtrack album is very definitely a basic introduction to the music of LOST. Despite the many character themes that were originally introduced in the season, many of these won't be heard on CD until much later. The main themes introduced on this particular CD are, quite simply, the main themes. This includes the 'Survivors' theme, a simple lament that acts as the main theme for the series and has at least 30 variations on the CD releases alone, even including an asian-flavoured variation for the characters of Jin & Sun later on in this CD. The second of the major themes is the 'Life and Death' theme, a gorgeous, and very interesting piano piece, that will combine with different character themes on later releases when the character in question dies. Both of these themes relate to the quieter, character-based side of LOST.
However, the true stand-outs on the Season One release are the terrifying chase cues. For his work on LOST, Giacchino decided to strictly limit his musical pallette to a select ensemble of instruments. Whilst the entire range of stringed instruments are here, Giacchino decided to get rid of all brass instruments other than the trombone. If Giacchino ever wants a trumpet-like sound, he simply mutes uses a muted trombone instead. Giacchino also makes some interesting choices regarding percussion, including the frequent use of plane wreckage from the show played in a surprisingly varied number of ways. This combination makes for some truly spine-trembling action cues, especially so for the 'Monster' scenes:
In fact, this is the only CD in the LOST collection that is truly scary to listen to for the majority of the time, with the soundtrack leaning more towards Indiana Jones-like mystery and adventure themes later on in the series. A perfect example of the juxtaposition of the emotional and the unsettling exists on the last track of the CD, 'Oceanic 815'. This track starts with the 'Survivors theme' and gradually segues into a simple variation of the 'Life and Death' theme. As the two themes start to play together, it is one of the most beautiful parts of the entire soundtrack. However, things take a turn for the worse as the Survivors draw close to the now-legendary 'Hatch':
The video above also shows just how important Giacchino is to LOST. It is often the case that all dialogue is taken out of a scene and Giacchino's music is left to play out the episode, as will be made even more obvious in the final 8 minutes of the series EVER, which feature only one single line of dialogue and a whole lotta Giacchino.
The character themes that are lucky enough to be introduced in this release are almost entirely John Locke-centric, and deservedly so, as Locke had his best music in the very first season of the show whilst we were still trying to figure out his motivations and his origins. His themes range from his downright awesome 'Hunter' theme on 'Crocodile Locke'...
...to his almost unbearably tragic main theme heard in 'Locke'd Out Again'...
Speaking of ridiculous track names, Giacchino excels with his titles on this and all of his LOST releases including such classics as 'Run Like, Um... Hell?', 'Booneral', 'Shannonigans', 'Thinking Clairely', 'Getting Ethan'.... I think you get the gist now. Other character themes include Claire and Charlie's sweet 'Friendship' theme, as well as Kate's mysterious, Bernard Herrmann-influenced theme, and Hurley's absolutely brilliant 'Fat-Man-Running' theme:
Overall, this soundtrack really encapsulates everything that is important about the show and, if I were reviewing this as it first came out, I wouldn't doubt giving it a perfect 10. However, having heard the later soundtracks and where Giacchino takes the music from here, I think I shall have to lower it a bit to give them some room:
An Excellent Soundtrack... If you want an epic score that contains a technical genius not often found in the videogame industry.
Not So Much... If you yearn for strong thematic ties between tracks, with a large portion of the score taken over by repetitive action cues that do little to advance the main themes of the score.
This score hails from the Japanese Videogame Industry, and so is a fairly unique album, full of interesting instrumentation and melodic lines.
The concept of the Shadow Of The Colossus videogame is to search an absoutely huge wasteland for even huger beasts, or Colossi. Other than killing the Colossi, of which there are only sixteen, the rest of the game is spent riding on horseback exploring the wasteland as you see fit.
Because of the structure of the game itself, the score is fragmented into two halves. One half of the score consists of bombastic, epic and generally astounding battle music, to suit the size of the creatures that the protagonist is facing. Whilst these cues are thrilling on first listen, the scoring for the quieter moments in between each battle is what will keep you coming back. However, being a videogame soundtrack, each track lasts little more than a couple of minutes, and so the album jumps back and forth betweenquiet and LOUD and subdued and EAR-SHATTERINGLY LOUD!! a tad too abruptly.
Other than this, the score is near flawless. Whilst lacking in obvious John Williams-style themes, the atmosphere provided in the quieter cues is one that captures Wander's isolation superbly, with each track maintaining a deep melancholy that is rarely found in films, let alone videogames. This is most effectively conveyed in the tracks "Prologue: To The Ancient Land", "Prayer" and "Epilogue: Those Who Remain".
In conclusion though, it's pretty silly for me to be taunting you with this score, as it is quite difficult to get hold of. Having just checked on Amazon, the lowest price is in fact now £28.99, so it's really only for score enthusiasts. In fact, it may actually just be better to buy an old Playstation 2 and the game and get the whole experience, as Shadow Of Colossus was undoubtedly one of the (little-known) highlights of the console.
A masterpiece of a score...If you want a more classically oriented score compared to the original Twilight, one filled to the brim with some of the best gothic/romance themes in recent years.
Not so much... If you are hoping for some kind of thematic consistency between the scores in the saga. This score doesn't use any themes from Carter Burwell's original score, and Howard Shore's score for Eclipse rarely uses any themes from this score in return.
I shall start by explaining the background of my review for this score. I can not stand Twilight. I have many reasons as to why this is, but these are far too large in number to list here. The CliffsNotes version is that everything within my very being wants me to hate this score.
But I can't.
Alexandre Desplat has created a work so astoundingly brilliant that I can't hate it.
I can't even dislike it.
I can't even be indifferent to it.
I can't even just plain like it.
I love this score. Ever since I first heard the Primary Love Theme, I haven't been able to harbour any kind of significant bad feeling towards the Twilight Saga simply because it gave this score to the world. It just gets better and better from the beginning to the very end, with each new rendition of the Love Theme building upon it's depth. The theme is stated in full on the very first track, but is shattered during "Edward Leaves". The theme is then gradually rebuilt each time that Bella has a vision of Edward until the very end of the film, where the theme returns with a vengeance in the last minute or so of "Marry Me, Bella", and on into it's full arrangement again in "Full Moon".
This theme is the main backbone of this score, but there are other themes of note. Another, smaller, Love Theme is introduced for the relationship between Jacob and Bella. Whilst only fully explored on two tracks ("Almost a Kiss" & "Dreamcatcher"), it's subleties when compared with the Primary Love Theme are extremely commendable and a welcome break from Edward and Bella's overt romanticism.
These romance themes are undoubtedly the highlight, not just for New Moon, but possibly even for Alexandre Desplat's career in general. However, Desplat's suitably chilling theme for the Volturi would be a stand-out for any other score and perfectly captures the true nature of traditional Hollywood vampires, even if most of the vampires within the film itself can be likened more to a My Little Pony.
Desplat also provides the necessary 'thrilling action music' required for a film of this kind, although none of it is really worthy of any note against any of the already-mentioned themes.
Overall, compared to the 'modern', guitar-heavy score for the original Twilight, this score is just dripping with pure classical beauty like the sweat from a sparkly vampire's chest. It is definitely worth a purchase, not just for TwiHards or even for film score buffs, but for people that just happen to own a pair of ears.
"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling"
Amazon Synopsis
Visionary filmmaker Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO, THE DARK KNIGHT) writes and directs this psychological sci-fi action film about a thief who possesses the power to enter into the dreams of others. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) doesn't steal things, he steals ideas. By projecting himself deep into the subconscious of his targets, he can glean information that even the best computer hackers can't get to. In the world of corporate espionage, Cobb is the ultimate weapon. But even weapons have their weakness, and when Cobb loses everything, he's forced to embark on one final mission in a desperate quest for redemption. This time, Cobb won't be harvesting an idea, but sowing one. Should he and his team of specialists succeed, they will have discovered a new frontier in the art of psychic espionage. They've planned everything to perfection, and they have all the tools to get the job done. Their mission is complicated, however, by the sudden appearance of a malevolent foe that seems to know exactly what they're up to, and precisely how to stop them. Emma Thomas serves as producer, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard, Cillian Murphy, and Ellen Page rounding out the supporting roles.
Review
I'm not going to bother going into any siginificant amount of depth regarding the background or plot of Inception, as I'm sure most of you have seen it, and if you haven't then all I can say is... watch it.
I also won't focus on many of the good points about Inception in general, as you can go ahead and safely assume that most of it is brilliant. It's exciting, looks great and has top actors, specifically Joseph Gordon-Levitt moving past his previous, geeky roles:
To literally leaking more cool than DiCaprio as this guy:
However, the score is not great. It works alright for the film, I guess, but it doesn't really sound any different to anything else Hans Zimmer has produced over the past decade, and so doesn't really give Inception a musical indentity separate to, say, the Batman films. In this case however, Hans Zimmer doesn't have James Newton-Howard to save him with some awesome themes, so instead we get this:
Tone.
Tone.
Tension building group of tones.
More tension.
Some extra bass.
Tension.
Tension.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!
Which to be honest, is disappointing, but not really surprising.
The other, very small, negative about this film is the incredibly clumsy (to the point where it just stumbles into a scene midway through like an annoying drunk uncle at a wedding) expositional dialogue. It seriously should have been tightened up a bit, as even the brilliant actors can't convincingly repeat the rules of the film's reality over and over and over again, just to make sure that the audience doesn't have a brain-hurt. Anyhow, like I said, this is a small negative, and such simple and frequent exposition probably does help small children to understand the film...
Speaking of understanding the film, I feel that I'm going to have to offer my theories on what 'it all meant'. Because of obvious SPOILERS, the following will need to be highlighted for you to read it:
I honestly believe that it doesn't matter a single hairy elephant whether the film is all a dream or otherwise, as that is entirely against the point that the film is trying to convey.
On a character level, whether the spinning top keeps on spinning is irrelevant, as what really matters is the fact that Cobb simply doesn't care, and has found his own reality where he finally feels happy and complete. After obsessing over reality during the entire film, whether the reality where he is with his kids is 'real' or not finally doesn't matter to him, so it shouldn't matter to the audience.
However, I have a feeling that some of you won't find that satisfactory to shall list a few things that you may or may not have noticed that could lean the film in either direction:
Every single scene in the film is a dream
The foot-chase sequence early in the film is strong evidence for the dream theory, as it involves several instances of dream logic, such as narrowing corridors and Saito and his car just happeneing to be in the exact right place at the exact right time.
Saito himself is incredibly covenient, being able to buy out entire airlines on a whim as well as clearing complex murder charges with a single phonecall. Could Saito have just been a projection of Cobb's wish to go home?
Why is Mal sitting on the opposite ledge from their hotel room during her suicide scene? The window is open and the lights on in the opposite room, and yet no one appears to be home. It seems odd that they would book two rooms for their anniversary, so is this another case of dream logic in what Cobb thinks of as 'reality'.
It also seems odd that Ariadne shares her name with the character from Greek Mythology that helps Theseus escape the minotaur's maze. This may just be an artistic decision on Nolan's part, or may be something more.
Only the Inception and Extraction sequences are dreams
Although it seems that Cobb's children don't appear to age or change their clothes between Cobb's flashbacks and when he meets them again, the credits do show that two actors of differing ages play each role. Their clothes, whilst similar, are also slightly different, as are their shoes.
Cobb appears to wear a wedding ring during all of the obvious dream sequences, but not for any of the 'reality' scenes, including the final scene. This is obviously a subconscious projection within the dreamworld of his desire to be with Mal, so is it safe to assume that the absense of a wedding ring is a reliable indicator of scenes that take place in reality?
Another way to view Inception doesn't involve which realities in the film are real, but instead looks at the entire film as a metaphor for itself and other films.
DiCaprio has stated in interviews that he has based the entire character of Cobb on Christopher Nolan, and Cobb often appears to take on the role of a 'Director' within the story of the film. Arthur on the other hand, appears to be the producer, organising all of the practical aspects of each job. Ariadne could quite easily be the screenwriter or set-designer, creating the world that the dream/film will take place in, taking care not to alter the reality of the dream/film to the point where the subject/audience can't believe it. Meanwhile, Eames so obviously fits the role of Actor that he changes his appearance whilst sat in front of a traditional Hollywood vanity cabient. Finally, Saito is the guy providing all of the money for the dream/film. He obviously tries to get involved in the inner-workings of the dream/film but only serves to screw things up for everyone else.
Overall, this team aims to create a false reality in order to plant ideas in their subject's head. This is exactly what the film itself does to it's audience, with the idea planted being: "What is real?"
Here are the scores:
Acting: 9
Cinematography: 9
Script: 7
Soundtrack (in the context of the film): 7
Soundtrack (in the context of Hans Zimmer recycling the same stuff over and over and over and over and over and over): 2
Overall: 9 (not an average)
Here is a video that I've found on Youtube that quite adequately shows the ridiculous boring rubbishness of the scoring technique that Hans Zimmer himself calls "Transcendent":
Before I carry on with my list of DVDs, I'm just going to write a quick review of the score for The Lost World: Jurassic Park Videogame by Michael Giacchino.
Hunt it down, tranquilise it, and bring it back to San Diego... If you can work around the limitations of a videogame soundtrack and will enjoy one short, bombastic cue after another.
Leave it to live in peace... If you prefer a subtler type of score. If so, see A Single Man.
Although it may not seem like much at first glance, this score is one of the most important of the nineties. The primary reason for this is that it was the first videogame score ever to make use of a full orchestral soundtrack, thus paving the way for videogame soundtracks such as Medal of Honor to rival the scores of their equivalent films in quality (And yes, that's me saying that Medal Of Honor kicks all kinds of bunk out of John William's score for Saving Private Ryan). Thye other reason is that this is also one of Michael Giacchino's first ever jobs writing a full score. After this, Giacchino will slowly work his way up through the industry, through the Medal of Honor franchise up to the TV stage, scoring such shows as Alias and Lost in the early noughties, whilst writing the occasional Pixar film on the side. Further and further he'll climb, moving on to score major blockbuster films including Mission Impossible 3 and Star Trek (2009) until he eventually wins an Academy Award for best soundtrack for his work on the Pixar film Up.
And it all starts with this score.
Now, despite all of that hyperbole, I am definitely not saying that The Lost World is anywhere near the quality of Giacchino's later work, nor does it compare to John Williams' work on the films. However, it is very interesting to see Giacchino's roots, and many of his techniques used in this soundtrack will serve him well during his time with the Medal of Honor franchise.
The limitations of being the first orchestral videogame soundtrack are also evident. There is but a single track on the entire CD that breaks past the 2:20 barrier, excentuating the fact that Giacchino was hired to write short, concentrated bursts of music that could be easily mixed and shaped around the dynamic world of the videogame. Whereas Williams is able to explore all of his themes fully through his knowledge of how exactly his music will synchronise with the film, videogame soundtracks require that the music be able to change dramatically at certain checkpoints as the player moves through the game so as to give the illusion that the soundtrack is synchronised with the game, despite the fact that one player might take 10 minutes to complete a level whilst another player could do the same in 2 minutes.
With all of these limitations in mind, Giacchino does an absolutely fantastic job with what he is given. Each track contains at least one moment of genius that the listener can latch on to. Giacchino also manages to create a thematically consistent work around his restrictions, writing themes and motifs for a number of characters and creatures that recur at significant points in the game rather than just providing generic action/scary music.
Because reviewing every one of my DVDs just isn't enough to satisfy the fact that I'm a crazy person.
Buy it if... You want your heart to be broken every few minutes by some of the most gorgeous music written for a film in recent times.
Avoid it if...You dont.
Despite the fact that the majority of 'great' soundtracks come from fantasy or science-fiction films, due to their abundance of thematic material, A Single Man, is that rare soundtrack for a drama that doesn't just 'get the job done' but sticks in your mind for days after having seen the film. That's not to say that this score is especially bombastic or catchy. It's beauty lies in it's minimalism, and the recollection of the score doesn't involve epic brass fanfares but rather a piano playing soft arpeggios going around and around and around your head. A good way to explain this would be to tell you that about a year or two ago, I made the mistake of watching Superman Returns before bed whilst indulging in piles and piles of what was effectively pure sugar. Instead of sleeping, I ended up lying in bed all night, shaking, and humming this tune at about 5x it's normal speed: However, with the Single Man soundtrack, I could quite easily fall asleep fairly quickly (in a good way) and have dreams about trees soaked in the sunset of a summers day blah blah blah blah blah. The score itself is perfect for the film it accompanies, striking the perfect balance between grief and hope, and giving the listener a rich emotional tie to the main character of the film. Written by two composers, the surprisingly young Abel Korzeniowski with Shigeru Umebayashi of House of Flying Daggers fame, the soundtrack is remarkably consistent both with itself and the overall tone of the film. Korzeniowski's leading theme for the film, first stated in Stillness of the Mind, is truely something to behold, sinking deeper and deeper into melancholy as variations are revealed throughout the score. However, like in the film itself, the score offers hope in some of it's unlikeliest passages. Unlike almost every other film score out there, A Single Man, is purely reactionary. Rather than acting as an emotional failsafe, explaining to the audience what they are supposed to be feeling before they feel it, A Single Man works in absolute harmony with the film, building on rather than introducing, the emotional anchors of the film. The soundtrack CD also includes a number of songs, even including a beautfiul selection from the opera La Wally. Each of the songs included fit within the 60's setting of the film, although I can't help but feel that (though I know it was featured in the film) the track Green Onions feel massively out of place when put against the rest of the tracks on this release. Overall, this score is one of the most perfect I have ever heard, even though I usually tend to find drama scores overly repetitive and dull. This album is truely a breath of fresh air, and I would recommend it to anyone, film score enthusiast or otherwise.
