Posts from Movie Tunes
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Not only has the movie Juno been gaining praise from critics and moviegoers alike, but the Juno Soundtrack has hit the number one spot on the Billboard charts ahead of stars like Alicia Keys and Radiohead. It’s a very folky-sounding soundtrack - not exactly my speed since I’m more of a death metal kinda girl (Ok, not really, but I much prefer Tool over Buddy Holly). It makes pretty decent background music though, since it’s mostly melodic guitars and soft vocals. It’s easy to listen to and remember the scenes from the movie, since the music plays so prominently in the movie.
The Kimya Dawson song lyrics sound like something Phoebe Buffay would have played at Central Perk, although they definitely do sound like something Juno MacGuff would listen to. I’m really annoyed by the out-of-synch chorus singing - it honestly hurts my brain. They were cute in small doses during the movie, but I definitely don’t need to listen to this stream of consciousness kind of lyric-writing for an entire CD worth of tunes. The Belle & Sebastian songs don’t annoy me, but I can honestly say I’ll probably never listen to this CD again - it’s not that it’s bad music, it’s just not my kinda thing.
Sonic Youth’s cover of The Carpenters’ “Superstar” is just creepy and dark enough for me to like it, even though I’ve never heard a Sonic Youth song before.
Continue Reading Movie Tunes: Juno »
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As the new year begins, we tend to look back over the past year. This past year at MovieSnobs, we started a new weekly post called Movie Tunes, which features reviews of movie soundtracks. We covered some great ones last year, so we thought we’d recap them before moving on with 2008.
The first Movie Tunes was one of my favorite soundtracks ever, one of my favorite CDs ever, in fact - Underworld, the Kate Beckinsale vampire movie with the hard rock soundtrack.
We followed that up with two more of my favorite soundtracks - The Punisher and 10 Things I Hate About You.
We covered the movie soundtrack cover album From the Screen to Your Stereo II by New Found Glory. Katy joined in the movie soundtrack fun with reviews of the Mortal Kombat movie soundtracks and the Trainspotting movie soundtracks.
For Halloween, we had a review of the deluxe edition of the soundtrack for The Nightmare Before Christmas, which includes both the original soundtrack and new cover versions of the classic songs by Marilyn Manson, Fall Out Boy, and others.
Starting with my review of the Resident Evil: Apocalypse soundtrack, Mike implemented a nifty “Listen” button like the one below.
Listen to Killswitch Engage - The End of Heartache
In the coming year we’ll be covering movie soundtracks new and old. Join us every Wednesday on MovieSnobs for movie soundtrack reviews.
Tagged as: 10 things i hate about you, fall out boy, from the screen to your stereo ii, Kate Beckinsale, marilyn manson, mortal kombat, Movie Tunes, new found flory, resident evil, resident evil: apocalypse, soundtrack, the nightmare before christmas, the punisher, trainspotting, underworld |
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How the Grinch Stole Christmas is one of the classic Christmas movies that my family and I watch every year. In fact, when I first moved in with my fiance, I insisted that we buy The Grinch on DVD so I could keep up the tradition.
Listening to the soundtrack is just like watching the movie. If you’ve seen the movie enough times, you can picture the story unfolding. It includes all the storytelling parts, the sound effects, and the songs (”You’re a mean one…..Mr. Grinch”).
The story is a charming one, and tells that the true meaning of Christmas isn’t in the presents or the food (although Mike would disagree and say it’s all about his Mom’s turkey and the new HD TiVo he bought). It’s about spending time with those you love.
If you love the movie, the soundtrack is worth it, especially at just about $10 on Amazon, and only $7.99 on iTunes.
Tracks You Can’t Miss:
- Track 1 - Opening
- Track 3 - Tomorrow Is Christmas, It’s Practically Here
- Track 6 - You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
- Track 7 - You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch (Reprise)
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This week’s Movie Tunes looks at a movie that was destined to have a perfect soundtrack - High Fidelity. The movie is on two of the MovieSnobs’ Top Five Movies lists. To best communicate what this movie is about, I have included John Cusack’s opening monologue in the movie:
What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
Obviously, this movie has to have a dynamite soundtrack, right? Not exactly. Dynamite it is not, but it does have some fantastic songs about, “heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss.” I don’t think we could ask for anything more.
Naturally, the CD kicks off with the song that the movie starts with. You might recognize it from some recent Dell commercials. The track is from The Thirteenth Floor Elevators and is called “You’re Gonna Miss Me.” Unfortunately the disc doesn’t include Cusack’s voiceover, but the track stands well on its own. It’s a groovy, sing-along kind of track. Of course, it’s a song where the singer is telling their ex that they’re going to wake up one day and realize they miss them, so it kicks off the rejection & pain theme right away.
The first three tracks are all pretty groovy, actually. Track three is a great “please forgive me” track called “I’m Wrong About Everything.” John Wesley Harding sings about the fact that he’s absolutely wrong about everything. That’s a good way to win a girl back.
Continue Reading Movie Tunes: High Fidelity »
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This week’s Movie Tunes is the second of a two part series on the Trainspotting soundtracks. Be sure to check out Trainspotting Part I.
Trainspotting’s second soundtrack, aptly titled Trainspotting #2, features songs that were not included in the first lot, as well as some others that flow quite nicely with the style of the film. Check out this batch of goodies!
As if I couldn’t get enough of Ewan McGregor in this film, his definitive speech has been set to techno music. Officially credited to PF Project, “Choose Life” uses both the entire monologue as well as snippets. The second track is another Iggy Pop gem entitled “The Passenger.” While it’s not as “in-your-face” as “Lust for Life,” it has a great melody and some clever lyrics.
You will definitely recognize the third track, which happens to be my favorite. Underworld’s “Dark and Long (Dark Train Mix)” is the background to the very disturbing withdrawal scene, complete with those crazy hallucinations of Spud in shackles, a now-addicted Tommy, and that poor little deceased baby. Yes, in fact, this scene is both dark and long. After that comes a little bit of familiarity for all you classical buffs, “Habanera” from the Georges Bizet opera, Carmen.
Continue Reading »
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Release Date 12/5/2008 
