Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Rad Soundtraxxx

I love soundtracks, so I decided to make a list of my favorites. A lot of these I can just play while I'm writing, helps get the juices flowing. Most of them are orchestral, but a few are song-based (you'll know them when you see them).

What are some of your favorites?

Mine:
*The Empire Of The Sun - In my opinion, John Williams' finest
*Glory, Field Of Dreams, Aliens - James Horner kicks ass on these.
*Gattaca - Michael Nyman - Gorgeous.
*The Third Man
*White Squall - Perfect music for this underrated Jeff Bridges movie.
*The Shawshank Redemption - Thomas Newman (Actually his score for Little Women is also quite good)
*And now for Carter Burwell - Fargo, Barton Fink, Miller's Crossing. The Hudsucker Proxy - He nails all of these. And his music for the HBO film And The Band Played On is amazing.
*The Thin Red Line - Beautiful score, now if only Malick would lay off the 'shrooms and cut a half hour as well as the often ridiculous voice-over, he's have a perfect war film.
*And now for some Ennio Morricone - The Mission (perfection), The Untouchables, and State Of Grace (1990 Sean Penn/Gary Oldman crime drama; very underrated).
*Batman, Batman Returns - Danny Elfman is great here.
*The Piano
*Dances With Wolves
*Slingblade - Hmmm Mmmm.
*The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
*Close Encounters - John Williams, classic. Also kicks ass on Saving Private Ryan & E.T.
*Unforgiven, A Perfect World, Mystic River
*Heat - Bascially Moby songs, but perfectly placed.
*The Last Of The Mohicans - I can listen to this one all day.
*Backdraft - So-so movie, but the music ROCKS!
*Shadowlands
*Great Expectations
*Grand Canyon
*Hoffa
*Portait Of A Lady
*Gallipoli, Fearless - Peter Weir likes to use "known" pieces of music a lot as he does in these amazing movies. But he always uses them carefully, and his selection at the end of Fearless made an already Damn Fine Movie into an incredible experience with possibly THE GREATEST ENDING OF A MOVIE EVER.
*Witness - Peter Weir's genius is showing again - Maurice Jarre creats a classic scene with his music over the barn-building sequence.
*The Royal Tenebaums
*Pulp Fiction
*Magnolia - 2 Words - Aimee Mann
*Clueless
*The Graduate
*Go
*Trainspotting
*John Carpenter's The Thing - Simple, perfectly understated, and creepy as hell.

*This year, stand-outs so far are King Kong, Jarhead and Munich.

8 comments:

ScriptWeaver said...

Great Expectations (1997)
True Romance
Office Space
Bully
Hustle & Flow
3000 Miles to Graceland
Trainspotting
Not Another Teen Movie
Romeo + Juliet (1996)
American Psycho
Kill Bill Vol. 1
The Beach

Them would be mine.

taZ said...

Everything Danny Elfman does.
Everything Henry Mancini does.
Everything Ennio Morricone does.

Gone In 60 Seconds.
Kill Bill 1 and 2
Moulin Rouge
And more I can't think of.

Patrick J. Rodio said...

SW - Great Expectations & Trainspotting. good call. I'll have to add those.

Alicia said...

I envy your collection! If you like James Horner, I recommend Legends of the Fall. I think Brokeback Mountain has some potential, too. As for my "guilty pleasure" soundtrack: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Patrick J. Rodio said...

Ah yes, Legends. good one. never owned it but it is a great score.

Adam Renfro said...

Check out the soundtracks for Vanilla Sky and Zero Effect.

ScriptWeaver said...

How could I forget "Garden State?" Probably my favorite in the last two years.

Anonymous said...

passion (peter gabriel's soundtrack to 'the last temptation of christ') - simply one of my favorite cds of all time, soundtrack or no.

pirates of the caribbean
american beauty
road to perdition
life as a house
crash
monster's ball
gladiator
king arthur
batman begins
contact
castaway (one singular 7min piece)