Star Trek Into Darkness - Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino carries forward some of his themes from the first Star Trek movie into Star Trek Into Darkness.  His score to me seems to keep the new franchise fresh.  It has both good action and dramatic feel.  I enjoyed the movie and look forward to the next one.  You kind of wonder how long they can keep the current cast together before they all start asking for more money.

Favorite:  Track #10 - Warp Core Values
                 Track #11 - Buying the Space Farm

Iron Man 3 - Brian Tyler

Ahh the 2013 season of summer blockbuster or so called blockbuster movies begins. The highly anticipated Iron Man 3 is no exception. The score is composed by Brian Tyler who scored movies such as Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Battle LA and the Expendables.  There isn't much hints of the previous Iron Man scores.  The first one was composed by Ramin Djawadi and the second one was composed by John Debney.  The first track Iron Man 3 gets you into the superhero feel.  It sounds like the movie will be action filled and fun.

Favorite: Track #06 - New Beginnings

Oblivion - M83, Anthony Gonzalez & Joseph Trapanese

Not really a big Tom Cruise fan once he started going wacko with the cult of Scientology. I'm planning on seeing Oblivion anyways more for the special effects but then again now that I've heard the score I might enjoy it more. If you've been following my blog, most of the scores that I lean more towards dramatic scores rather than action scores. Tracks like StarWaves, Raven Rock and I'm Sending You Away are more to my liking.

The album is made up of 17 tracks, with the 17th tracking being a vocal song track.  There is also deluxe version of the score with 30 tracks on eyetunes.

Favorite: Track #04 - StarWaves

Les Miserables

At The Hanover Theater to see Les Miserables with my honey.

The Bible - Hans Zimmer & Lorne Balfe

Just in time for Easter, the History channel has been showing the TV mini series The Bible.  After hearing a track on the Cinemix station, I ordered it.  You can definitely tell that this is a Hans Zimmer score.  This is not because there are some tracks with vocals featuring Lisa Gerrard who also did some vocals in Gladiator.  I think this is the 2nd religious score that Zimmer had done, the other one being The Prince of Egypt from what I can remember.

Favorite: Track #2 - In The Beginning

Safe Haven - Deborah Lurie

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks. Every Nicholas Sparks book that they make into a movie, I seem to enjoy the movie scores that accompany them.  This is the 2nd Nicholas Sparks movie that Deborah Lurie scored, the first being Dear John.  You can hear pieces of the Dear John but it's subtle unlike the majority of James Horner scores.  The tracks that I like so far are just too short.  It makes me want to hear more.  A couple of the tracks aren't as mellow as they were meant for suspenseful scenes within the movie.  A little jarring if you want to just hit play and listen to the whole score.  I guess that's why playlists are so nice.

There is also a music soundtrack that was released at the same time as the score.  Unfortunately the score appears to be released as a digital download only.

Favorite:  Track #11 - No Safer Place

The Guardian - Trevor Rabin

I'm not a huge Kevin Costner fan nor an Aston Kutcher fan, but I did enjoy the movie The Guardian.  Sometimes we take it for granted that there are people out there that take of us or look out for us.  The Guardian is a movie about coast guard swimmers.  Putting their lives on the line in order to rescue those in the water.  I was disappointed that there was no score released for the movie, but rather a soundtrack.  Luckily there is one track on the CD that is compiled into a suite.  It worked well with the movie in the scenes where emotion was needed.  I don't really remember the songs in the movie, but you can get the single track on its own.

A shout out to Matty B since he reminds me that this blog isn't updated as often as he would like.

Favorite:  Track #12 - The Guardian Suite

Cloud Atlas - Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil, and Tom Tykwer

Cloud Atlas composed by Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil, and Tom Tykwer. I've never heard of any of them. The movie was interesting and I had mixed feelings after seeing it. It confused me in spots and made me want to rewind and see what I missed. The movie ran almost 3 hours and there were some couples that left a good hour and a half into the movie. The pacing of the movie was so so as it felt like a 3 hour movie. I might have to read this book and see what I really missed.  Even before I saw the movie, the piano piece heard in the trailer is what caught my ear.  It worked well in certain scenes of the movie.  All Boundaries Are Conventions is a good track even though repetitive, it builds up and up and then drops off.

Favorite: Track #16 - All Boundaries Are Conventions

Dax Johnson - The Random & The Purpose

Music affects everyone in different ways.  I heard the music of Dax Johnson a few years ago and loved his music.  I associated the music to a certain time in my life.  Life happens and things change and for a while listening to his music hurt.  Over time that hurt faded away and I can still listen to his music.

Recently I got some fantastic birthday presents.  Actual CD's of Dax Johnson's Merciful Dwelling and The Random and the Purpose.  Now I've downloaded the digital copies or the handful of albums that he had released before he passed away, but having the actual CD's sounds better.

Now I was listening to The Random and the Purpose in the car and I've probably listened to that album a gazillion times.  One song started to play and I've never heard it before... "Child's Garden."  Listening to it felt like being a kid at Christmas finding something new and it gave me goose bumps.  Apparently the song wasn't included in the Amazon digital download.  Somewhat surprising and unfortunate that the only way to get the song appears to be from the CD. 

I now associate the song with the person that gave it to me.  Without that special someone, I might have never ever heard the new track.  Life does sometimes seem to come full circle and in this case, Dax Johnson's music to me has.

I love you Heather!

Seven Swords - Kenji Kawai

Seven Swords was a movie that I probably would have never found out about until I was walking around Blockbuster years ago. Every now and then a good martial arts / fantasy movie is a fun get away from the typical Hollywood type movies. I was actually surprised by the score. I had never heard of Kenji Kawai until after seeing the movie.  Unfortunately it looks like it was never released in the US but you can buy the imported CD.

Favorite: Track #08 - In Search of Beauty in Life