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Score Composed and Conducted by:
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David Newman
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Score Orchestrated by:
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Greg Jamrok
Andrew Kinney
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Songs Composed by:
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Marc Shaiman
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Release Date:
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November 18th, 2003
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Availability:
Regular U.S. release.
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you enjoy the fast-paced, slapstick nature of David
Newman's usual children's score writing, or if you seek the musical numbers
from the film.
Avoid it... if the highly repetitive orchestral writing for this genre
becomes redundant given that this score has no truly unique instrumentation
or thematic development.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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| | Newman |
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| | Shaiman | |
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The Cat in the Hat: (David Newman/Marc Shaiman) After
the success of Universal's film adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch
Stole Christmas, the studio added Seuss-related attractions to its theme
parks and promised a series of live action films that would bring Theodor
Seuss Geisel's children's fantasy books to life. The second such adaptation
is The Cat in the Hat, the 1957 story about a mischievous feline in a
hat visiting two bored kids home alone on a rainy day. The book remains one
of the top selling hardcover children's books of all time, and yet, anyone
familiar with the story of The Cat in the Hat could easily wonder how
the short story could occupy an entire film. Leave it up to studios to
"flesh" out these stories however, and much liberty has been taken in
expanding the scope and characters of the story. With Mike Myers acting in
the same general make-up that the Grinch wore in the previous film, The
Cat in the Hat has a sort of Tim Burton splash of coloration and wacky
set design. For the music for this rainy day adventure, children's film
veteran David Newman writes a score opposite a few song contributions by
score and song-writer Marc Shaiman. Newman can easily share the honors with
John Debney as a member of that tandem that scores the mass majority of
major studio children's films these days. More recently, Newman has been
involved in Ice Age and Scooby-Doo, but unlike Debney, whose
music often finds CD shelves in either commercial or promotional format,
Newman's breakneck speed of output makes his scores a rare find in such
releases. But in a similar fashion to Debney's styles for the genre, these
Newman scores do begin to all sound alike after a while. All of these scores
are orchestrally rooted and instrumentally creative, and yet they don't
often distinguish themselves from project to project.
Newman's rousing, slapstick orchestral score for The Cat
in the Hat is no exception. In this case, Newman works with a studio
orchestra and without the assistance of any really unique instruments
(including the lack of a choir). From the opening cue to the finale, the
score moves at the overwhelming pace of the cat's personality, immediately
moving to a juggling of orchestral motifs to match the actions on screen. A
sort of half-hearted theme is established for the two kids at the start of
the film, but the pace of the non-stop topic changes in the film doesn't
allow for that (or any) theme to be developed beyond the level of a basic
motif. The cat's insistence on having fun is portrayed orchestrally by the
yielding to barroom band instruments. Occasionally, a loungey rhythm will
slow down the pace of a cue, but ten seconds later, the brass is ripping at
the pace of a snare, and ten seconds later, the woodwinds are performing a
cute little motif to the sound of music box chimes. And five minutes later,
the same rotation of ideas is recycled. Perhaps a disappointment is the lack
of truly unique instrumentation to represent the cat's many ideas and
methods of having fun. A distant, kiddie choo choo train whistle can be
heard hooting in "Rescuing Nevens," and yet, with the machinery cleaning the
house in the story, one would expect to hear more of this. Marc Shaiman
wrote a song (and its reprise of sorts) for the cat's arrival, and due to
its big band style and unique personality compared to the some old
orchestral slapstick, this song, "Fun, Fun, Fun," is a highlight of the
album. Even here, parents might be horrified by lyrics that talk about
castration and asses; it's nowhere near as vulgar as the lyrics in Shaiman's
South Park songs, but it's evident that the cat in the film is even
naughtier than the cat in the book. The Smash Mouth interpretation of the
Beatles classic "Getting Better" is an unfortunate deviation from the
attitude of the rest of the album. Overall, Shaiman's material is cute, but
the score from Newman is simply more of the same adequate, but repetitive
slapstick material for cartoonish situations. **
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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1. Main Title - The Kids (8:07)
2. Getting Better - performed by Smash Mouth (2:24)
3. The Cat (3:50)
4. Two Things/Couch Jumping/Leaky Crate (5:16)
5. Military Academy Seduction (3:02)
6. Mrs. Kwan - Mom Leaves (2:12)
7. Surfer Cat - The Phunometer (2:23)
8. Fun, Fun, Fun - composed by Marc Shaiman/performed by Mike Myers (2:38)
9. The Contract (1:53)
10. Oven Explodes - Clean Up This Mess (1:36)
11. Things Wreck the House (2:52)
12. Larry the Slob (3:10)
13. Birthday Party (2:11)
14. S.L.O.W. Drive (2:32)
15. Rescuing Nevens (4:27)
16. Clean Up - composed by Marc Shaiman/performed by Mike Myers (0:22)
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Insert unfolds into a poster, but includes no extra information about the score or film.
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