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Finding Nemo on DVD
• Recording sessions feature • Dolby Digital 5.1 EX More DVD info... |
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Finding Nemo on DVD
• Recording sessions feature • Dolby Digital 5.1 EX More DVD info... |
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you want to hear the most dynamic, diverse, and mainstream Thomas Newman score to date. Avoid it... if your love of Newman's music revolves around the strictly dark and dissonant aspects of his compositions. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The surprise of seeing Thomas Newman's name on the advertisements for Finding Nemo came not just because of the relation between Tom and Randy, but rather because Tom's scores have a history of being bittersweet, tragic, melancholy, and occasionally downright sour. Even Tom's more fruitfully pleasant scores often come with a subversive of darkly tilted edge, a byproduct of his nervous, off-rhythm style of composition. While likely capable of providing a jazzy, upbeat score, Tom's involvement with the project immediately raised questions about whether or not he could resonate through audiences with the same happy-go-lucky attitude of Randy's bouncy scores and songs. "I was very scared to do it; I'd never done animation before," responds Newman. When addressing Randy's role in the series of films, Tom continues, "My cousin Randy has done the four previous ones. That was a daunting thing to come up against, because I so enjoyed his music." In the end, however, Tom didn't have to match Randy's music, for he did not write an original song for the film, nor did the film really require exuberance of a Randy type. Tom's lengthy score is a clear extension of his exact styles, staying true to his rhythmic and percussive preferences without much attempt to step out of his own comfort zone and produce something along the lines of Randy's work. As a result, Finding Nemo is the perfect score with which to study Tom-Newmanisms, from the forceful beats of his rhythms to the completely bizarre and wildly creative electronics and percussion employed in his ensemble. The nervous, constant movement of the orchestral performances so well represents the nature of fish in general, and the pastoral elements of Newman's piano and strings capture the spirit of the search and the alliances necessary to make it work. A more serious tone, and perhaps an ominous one for young audiences, defines Tom's work here, even though his major key renditions of his usual styles substantially block out much of the bittersweet elements in his writing and steer the project towards the mainstream. Newman accomplishes this transition by inserting jazzy funk sequences into his music. His effort to transform his clunky American Beauty sound into a more dynamic, optimistic sound is successful, partially because he sustains the major key performances for longer sequences, and partially because he uses a slightly more light-footed array of electronic instruments to make it sound hip. A tad more jazz is evident as well, balancing out the significant number of character-building, string underscore that occupies the playing time. Despite several lengthy sequences of somewhat scary underscore, Newman's return to the staggered string and piano rhythms (which he performs himself on the piano, as usual) is an extension of what his most recent fans fell in love with in American Beauty and several car commercials that followed. The weakness of Tom's effort, as you might be able to guess, is the lack of dominant theme for the film, based on the song or otherwise. He does build several effective motifs that more than adequately define the film and place the score solidly in his repertoire, but not to the extent that typical Disney films provide. The album is a 40-track whopper, with 39 of the cues being short, Newman score entries. A couple of loudly mixed quotes from the film are detractions from the score, although some sound effects straight from Skywalker Sound offer some soothing oceanic ambience in other cues. The album finishes with a Robbie Williams jazzy performance of the Bobby Darin classic "Beyond the Sea" (a pseudo-take-off of "Under the Sea"?). Overall, the phenomenal diversity of Tom Newman's selection of dozens upon dozens of specialty instruments and electronics, as well as those rumbling pianos and choppy strings, is what floats his Finding Nemo effort. As unlikely as his involvement with the project may seem, he makes it work, and even if it doesn't resemble any other Disney score in many years, you can't help but applaud the risk that was taken, as well as Tom Newman's answer to the challenge. ****
The insert includes a note from writer/director Andrew Stanton about Thomas Newman. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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