More on the HANNA Soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers

Container Park by The Chemical Brothers by Hannamovie

As the release date for HANNA draweth nigh, we are getting treated to increasing glimpses of the original score from THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS.  While our cautionary stance on this "new movement" in film scoring is pretty well-known by now, I have to admit that what I'm hearing (please check the soundcloud clip above) seems like it will be an good fit for the film.  I'm, at the very least, intrigued by the film's trailer and the music that is married to these images definitely enhance that feeling.  

THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS style seems to fit the mysterious-action-personality of the film...perhaps better than some other recent attempts.  Still, we'll have to see just how well it works in the film.  Hopefully, it will be a better marriage than in The Social Network OR at least provide as entertaining a listen as Tron Legacy did...in case the film, itself, is a letdown.  

There are others out there who certainly share this opinion.  Check out what Moviefone says,

"Trust us when we say they deliver something really special with this one, topping (in our opinion) the much-buzzed-about Daft Punk TRON: Legacy score... as well as Trent Reznor's [Oscar-winning] score for The Social Network. Oh yes, we just went there."

BUY THE HANNA SOUNDTRACK at iTunes  

Check out more on HANNA at the Focus Features site 

SoundCast Episode 22: 83rd Oscars - Post Mortem

Episode #22 - 83rd Oscars - Post Mortem

Recorded February 28, 2011
Published March 1, 2011

The crew jumps online talk about the 83rd Academy Awards show.  What they liked, didn't like, their reaction to the winner of Best Original Score, and some ideas on how the show could be improved.

Episode Highlights

0:00 — Opening of the 22nd Academy Awards
0:23 — Intros
01:35 — News: Mars Needs Moms, Rango, Captain America
10:04 — More from Opening of the 22nd Academy Awards
11:23 —What we liked about the Oscars
16:10 — What we didn't like about the Oscars
23:44 — Winners Reactions
30:37 — Twittering the Oscars
36:40 — Best Score winner reactions
46:40 — How the Oscars could be improved
54:48 — Conclusion

Music Clips (Select music clips contained in this podcast)

00:00 — "Hooray For Hollywood" (Hooray For Hollywood) - Ray Davies
10:04 — "Hollywood Newsreel A" (Hooray For Hollywood) - Ray Davies
22:15 — "I Love You" (The Last Sin Eater) Mark McKenzie
35:57 — "Hand Covers Bruise"  (The Social Network) Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
40:20 — "Opening Titles Part 1" (The King's Speech) Alexander Desplat
43:53 —  "In the Hall of the Mountain King" (The Social Network) - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
43:53 —  "In the Hall of the Mountain King" (The Social Network) - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
54:42 — "Hooray For Hollywood" (Hooray For Hollywood) - Ray Davies

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SoundCast Episode 21: Invasion of the Score Snatchers

Episode #21 - Invasion of the Score Snatchers

Recorded February 17, 2011
Published February 18, 2011

Chris, Marius and Tom talk about the current Hollywood trend of new composers coming from other music genres and score A-List films.

Episode Highlights

00:40 — Intros
03:15 — What we've been listening to (Killzone 3, Sanctum, Secret of Kells, Summer Wars)
18:10 — Tide of the Super Heroe Movies
24:11 — Invasion of the Score Snatchers!
15:07 — The string quartet vs. orchestra in Dead Space 2
18:43 — Dead Space 2's themes
21:20 — Portraying the Church of Unitology
24:29 — Differing instrumentation between Dead Space and Dead Space 2
26:04 — The recording sessions
28:25 — Preparing the abstract musical material
30:53 — How creatively fulfilling were the Dead Space scores?
33:17 — Upcoming projects
34:50 — Fear of typecasting?
37:57 — Conclusion

Music Clips (Select music clips contained in this podcast)

00:00 — Invasion of the Body Snatchers Trailer clip 1
03:30 — "Main Menu - And Ever We Fight On" (Killzone 3) by Joris de Man
05:00 — "Espiritu Esa Ala" (Sanctum) by David Hirschfelder
08:35 — "Kasou Toshi Oz" (Summer Wars) Akihiko Matsumoto
10:00 — "The Chi'Rho Page" (Secret of Kells) by Bruno Coulais
11:03 — "Potus 111" (Eagle Eye) by Brian Tyler
21:31 — "Spider-Man Theme" (Spider-Man TV 1967) by
23:53 — Invasion of the Body Snatchers Trailer Clip 2
30:07 — "Intriguing Possibilities" (The Social Network) by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
37:47 — "End of Line" (Tron Legacy) Daft Punk
48:56 — Invasion of the Body Snatchers Trailer Clip 3

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16th Annual - Critics Choice Award Winners

In case you missed it last night, The Broadcast Film Critics Association's annual film awards were handed out last night at the CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS aired on VH1.  The big winners, as one might have guessed, were THE FIGHTER, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and INCEPTION.

While INCEPTION bagged six total awards, glaringly missing from them was the Best Score award, which most devastatingly went to TRENT REZNOR AND ATTICUS ROSS for THE SOCIAL NETWORK.

While I offer up congrats to the duo, I am starting to tremble all the more as wins like this will only hasten the trend of more artists from other genres coming into the original score genre and delivering disappointing, albeit unique, experiences like THE SOCIAL NETWORK.  Of course, this movement is well under way with this same duo being linked to the remake of THE GIRL WITH DRAGON TATOO (the original film taking home the Critics Choice Award for Best Foreign Film), with DAFT PUNK in TRON LEGACY, and with THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS doing the upcoming HANNA.

While you rejoice in or mourn that winner, below we've listed all of this years winners:



BEST PICTURE: The Social Network

BEST ACTOR: Colin Firth – The King’s Speech

BEST ACTRESS: Natalie Portman – Black Swan

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christian Bale – The Fighter

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Melissa Leo – The Fighter

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS: Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE: The Fighter

BEST DIRECTOR: David Fincher – The Social Network

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The King’s Speech – David Seidler

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Inception – Wally Pfister

BEST ART DIRECTION: Inception – Guy Hendrix Dyas and Larry Dias & Doug Mowat

BEST EDITING: Inception – Lee Smith

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Alice in Wonderland – Colleen Atwood

BEST MAKEUP: Alice in Wonderland

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Inception

BEST SOUND: Inception

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Toy Story 3

BEST ACTION MOVIE: Inception

BEST COMEDY: Easy A

BEST PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: The Pacific

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Waiting for Superman

BEST SONG: “If I Rise” – performed by Dido and A.R. Rahman/music by A.R. Rahman/lyrics by Dido Armstrong and Rollo Armstrong – 127 Hours

BEST SCORE: The Social Network – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross


You can visit the official site here.

The Social Network (Soundtrack) by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Review

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Review by Christopher Coleman

The story of Facebook, or rather the story of the man behind Facebook, certainly wasn't a tale that one might expect to be made into a feature film as early as 2010. The social site itself is only a few years old and there likely remains a lot of story left to be told about both it and it's founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Made-for-tv not withstanding, a feature film about IT titans Steve Jobs or Bill Gates hasn't even been exploi...err made yet. Now, if a feature film of about one or both of these icons was to be done, I could see the likes of director David Fincher taking the reigns. Instead, Fincher chose to adapt the book, THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES (Ben Mezrich), which tells the tale of the young Mark Zuckerberg and the inception of the global phenomenon, Facebook. THE SOCIAL NETWORK provides us with a measure of insight into what took place in those formative years; deep within the academic bowels of the Harvard campus. Fincher's film paints Zuckerberg as a driven, yet slyly vindictive young man, who also happens to be brilliant. The drive to develop something that will truly set himself apart leads him down a digitally dark path; a path which also happens to lead to great financial gains and pains. As one might expect, THE SOCIAL NETWORK became one of the most talked about films on the internet. No small part of that conversation has been the somewhat surprising inclusion of Nine Inch Nail leader, TRENT REZNOR, and composer ATTICUS ROSS' as creators of the film's original score.

Coming off of the languishing and melancholy score from THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, aptly provided by Alexander Desplat, it was initially no small surprise when it was announced that Reznor and Ross would be composing the film's score. Reznor's band, NINE INCH NAILS, was hardly known for being melancholy and ATTICUS ROSS' most recent effort THE BOOK OF ELI was anything but languishing. If nothing else, it was a clever bit of marketing to attach the name of "Trent Reznor" to the project, but the most natural question to ask would be "What sort of original score were we in for?"

Read the full review