Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you need to improve your mood by filling your environment with a safely conservative, mainstream blend of soft rock, subtle blues, and heartfelt woodwind performances. Avoid it... if you require your scores to move with a distinct narrative progression during the listening experience, because I'll Do Anything tends to harmlessly sink into the background during its pleasant exploration of those genres. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
I'll Do Anything: (Hans Zimmer) It had always been the dream of writer, director, and producer James L. Brooks to bring a musical to the big screen, and buoyed by his success with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News in the 1980's, he attempted his song and dance drama titled I'll Do Anything in 1994. The topic of familial reconciliation between a struggling actor and his young, estranged daughter carried the heart of Brooks' narrative, but his knack for a touch of satire in his work (evident in his decades of affiliation with "The Simpsons" on TV and film) caused the better half of I'll Do Anything to take aim at the movie industry itself. Jabs at the behind-the-scenes melodrama in Hollywood were greeted with enthusiasm due to Brooks' intelligent packaging of the industry's less glamorous machinations, though the father/daughter story with Nick Nolte in the lead was largely panned. Several musical numbers littered the first cuts of the picture, with the actors performing their own singing parts to varying levels of embarrassment. The songs were provided by the unlikely combination of Prince, Sinead O'Connor, and Carole King, with Hans Zimmer's underscore serving as a somewhat anonymous bridge between the numbers. The style of the songs was safely generic in the light rock genre, bordering at times on the children's genre as well. Zimmer was in the process of getting much practice in the art of adapting the melodies and tone of musical numbers into his underscores, though the extent of his efforts to incorporate the specific melodies and style of the songs originally slated to be heard in I'll Do Anything remains unknown. That's because test audiences were less than thrilled with early edits of the film, and in order to save the $40 million production, Brooks was forced to remove all but one of the songs. Problems with the flow of the story and an incapability of some of the actors to sing were cited as possible reasons. The director had to reassemble the crew and re-shoot a handful of scenes to cover the removed songs, turning almost all of I'll Do Anything into a standard drama. While the original recordings of the discarded songs were never released to the public, most of them were eventually repackaged by the individual artists for subsequent albums of their own. The fate of Brooks' film wasn't much brighter after the edits, though, failing to win any of the widespread acclaim that his other major projects tended to receive. Despite all of its production difficulties, I'll Do Anything did represent the initial entry in a fruitful relationship between Brooks and Zimmer. Their first three collaborations feature either the composer's light-footed, aloof tone of contemporary sounds or a safely acoustic environment, this opening entry best incorporating both. Unlike Zimmer's synthetically-dominated ventures in this genre during the early 1990's, I'll Do Anything is defined by its organic textures. Many of his standard loops and keyboarded elements carry over, but the score's charm is rooted in the many live soloists. Most of the personality from these performers comes from a wide variety of woodwinds, a refreshing circumstance with which to cleanse yourself of Zimmer's later mainstream scores of minimal instrumental nuance of an acoustic nature. In its contemporary parts, there are shades of Alan Silvestri's equivalent sound back then, though the slight soul influences that emerge in "Burke" are closer to Point of No Return and The Preacher's Wife territory. The straight orchestral statements of melody (with either real or sampled string section... it's difficult to tell in this one) extend a tone of innocence and sincerity to match Jerry Goldsmith's concurrent output. The lonely saxophone solos over distinctly 1980's keyboarding is pure vintage Zimmer, however, as easy as anything the composer wrote in those years. Bluesy jazz elements blend frequently into Zimmer's accelerated looped percussion for a safely urban feel of optimism. Occasional acoustic guitar contributions foreshadow Spanglish. By "Cathy," all of these ingredients finally present harmonious statements in satisfying unison. Two clearly evident themes run throughout I'll Do Anything, the first introduced in "Matt" and reprised sparingly thereafter. Both this idea and one that eventually congeals in "Jeannie" seem to represent the two leads, the latter reminiscent of a famous melody from The Sound of Music. The themes really aren't the major attraction of I'll Do Anything, though; instead, a very likable ambience and engaging personality in the score's fluid movement is aided by Zimmer's usual arrangement of lengthy suites for the album release. The lone song remaining in the film, King's "You Are the Best," is evidence of why the film didn't screen well. It tries so hard to be cute that it's obnoxious at best. On the whole, Zimmer's work for I'll Do Anything is more substantial and varied than either As Good As It Gets or Spanglish, though lacking the consistency of volume in the later scores. It's conservatively mainstream but absent any significant flaws. **** Track Listings:
Total Time: 42:03
All artwork and sound clips from I'll Do Anything are Copyright © 1994, Varèse Sarabande. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/18/10, updated 3/18/10. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2010-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
