Soundtrack Review: Charlie Bartlett

The movie was charming and funny in parts, but ultimately too fluffy and flawed to carry any real weight. And the soundtrack kind of feels the same way. The produced tracks are a grab bag: spunky, hollow electro pop from Spiral Beach, slightly grittier pop from Hard-Fi and The Subways, plus a front row seat to Tom Freund's best Dylan impression. And most of Christophe Beck's jazzy, minimalist score cues sound like they were ripped straight from episodes of "Mad About You":



Our 2¢: Netflix a season of "Mad About You". Or swallow some bleach. Whichever hurts less.

Our helpful 2¢: Check out CB's far superior score for YEAR OF THE DOG instead.
--------

Score Review: UNTRACEABLE by Chistopher Young

UNTRACEABLE had an interesting premise. A crazy guy with a webcam hooks people up to this torture machine that kills them fast or slow, depending on how many hits the website gets. In the tired torture porn genre, it sounded original-ish. But ultimately, it didn't really do it for us. And while it was nice to see Diane Lane in something other than a romantic comedy (and to see Colin Hanks in anything at all), it wasn't enough. And neither was Young's music, really. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't bad. Young is a composer of crazy talent. And if anybody can write a good score for a bad movie, it's Young. (Think GHOST RIDER, THE CORE, etc). And for thriller music, UNTRACEABLE is actually pretty listenable. There's more than a little of James Newton Howard's FUGITIVE influence present here. (That's a compliment.) As a result, tho, there's nothing terribly new or captivating going on.



Our 2¢: You can probably live without it. Unless you're a Christopher Young groupie. Or have, for your own reasons, taken a blood oath to buy the soundtrack for every Diane Lane movie. (You know who you are.)

--------

Welcome back, Blogger!

Yes, we've been MIA for a while. And we're sorry. We've been focusing our efforts on the soon-to-launch STC HD. That's right - everything you love about STC in 1080p and 5.1 surround sound. Drool away. But as you've still got a bit to wait for that one, we'll soften the blow by getting back into the swing of posting more soundtrack reviews (complete with sweet imeem streaming tracks, if you promise to be on your best behavior). Bear with us tho, as we've got a bit of catching up to do. (And by a bit I mean we're going back to February. Ha! You thought we forgot about the UNTRACEABLE score, didn't you? Oh no. We've just been saving it for the right moment...)

That's right, John. We're back home.
--------