CARTER BURWELL

Anyone else a fan of Burwell's ROB ROY score? I love it!

just trying to set the thread back on it's own rails

Well i admit i haven't watched the movie yet - which i plan to soon, but on cd it's a very tough listening experience. If i wanted to hear really good, modern rock-y Elfman there's always WANTED which is ages beyond.

Well, yeah, that's very good too (and in fact, I just saw the film, which was quite good also!), but it's a different kind of rock sound.

Isn't Burwell scoring Twilight? Nov. 21 is going to be a girl-fest at every theater in the U.S. (not sure how well these books have been received internationally).

Yeah... He's scoring it, and yes, it would seem every single girl on the face of the planet is going to go see Twilight. Yuck. I mean, it's not that I'm a guy and 'guys can't be into romance' (as we are so stereotyped) that makes me sick at the thought of this book and film, but the amount of people who are reading it. It's insane. Seriously, almost every girl at my school has started reading it within the past week just because the movie's coming out! Everyone who reads it gets hooked; I may read it out of curiosity in the future, but I will be sure to wait awhile until the film has ben released and the hype has died down. It's just annoying. I have a feeling (and I know it's mean , but I kind of hope) that the film will be merely another Eragon and fail to live up to expectations. But I am interested to see how the score turns out.

Hmmm... Well, samples are up at Amazon, if you want to check them out.

Happy Thanksgiving folks!

Here's my review of TWILIGHT, if you're interested

http://www.moviemusicuk.us/twilightcbcd.htm

Jon

My review of Burwell's Twilight:

" The one good track is a lullaby which doesn't even sound like a lullaby. "


Carter Burwell's score to the eagerly anticipated 2008 teen vampire-romance, Twilight, is a rocky, dark work of film scoring. Instead of giving the audience a lush, romantic motif and score, Burwell doles out tracks of screeching electric guitars (Nomads), vehement strings (which sound so small in number that they could be - and likely are - a small chamber ensemble) (Bella’s Lullaby), dangerous-sounding bass percussion (How I Would Die, I Know What You Are, Humans Are Predators Too, The Skin of a Killer, Bella Is Part of the Family, Tracking, Showdown In the Ballet Studio), rural-sounding guitar and percussion (Who Are They?, I Would Be the Meal), tracks of basically boring nothingness (which is unfortunately almost the entire score) (Treaty, I Dreamt of Edward, The Most Dangerous Predator, The Skin of a Killer, Complications, I Would Be the Meal, Stuck Here Like Mom, In Place of Someone You Love, Edward At Her Bed) and the occasional soft, somewhat pretty-yet-haunting tracks of piano and/or guitar (of which some fall into the ‘boring’ category as well) (Phascination Phase, The Lion Fell In Love With the Lamb, Dinner With His Family, Bella’s Lullaby, Stuck Here Like Mom, Edward At Her Bed).

Now, if you were bored by reading the above list (if you actually took the time to read it), take that level of boredom, multiply it by about five times, and you have Twilight. I kid you not; Twilight is probably one of the most boring scores I have ever bothered to listen to, though I am not sure if this is merely due to my distaste for the majority of the music presented here. Let’s face it: screeching electric guitars and music that sounds like it would better fit a TV documentary about life on a farm is just not my kind of music. And add to that a bleak, two-note chromatic motif (think Jaws, but with the notes descending rather than ascending) which recurs throughout many of the album’s twenty-one tracks.

Amidst all the boredom and darkness is a slightly dissonant piano motif representing the love of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), the vampire for whom all teen girls around the world would die to have for a boyfriend. This piano motif can be heard numerous times throughout the score, though the most obvious (and beautiful) usage is in the track entitled Bella's Lullaby, which would appear to be the gem of this entire album. In the film and novel, the lullaby is supposedly written and played for Bella by her vampire lover. While I wouldn't necessarily call it a "lullaby," due to its dark, tormented sound, it is certainly quite gorgeous and moving, and is the highlight of the score as presented here. (Hey, I bought the whole album after being drawn in by the sound of this one track, so I guess that says something in favor of the score.)

I have very little else to say about this haunting (and often times, boring) score, other than that if you are a Twilight fan you will no doubt love it, as all who love the book and/or film do. But as far as I'm concerned, a deep love or liking for a score like this either implies blindness to the difference between good and bad film scoring, or an intense/insane fandom for the subject on which the music is written.

Boring is the word, for Twilight.

Yeap, lots of times.

No, it has some good elements in it. But overall it's too inferior than the average Burwell score.

Regarding the music to Twilight, I was somewhat disappointed that they had a song instead of score in the baseball sequence.

sad, considering this looked like an intruiging project for him

I do have both the Burges and Burn After Reading Demetris. Another one to avoid

Which is why I lean more these days to some of the fine classical music available.