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| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
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1. Nim's Island 2. The Life Before Her Eyes 3. Horton Hears a Who! 4. Leatherheads 5. The Spiderwick Chronicles | . | . |
1. Moulin Rouge 2. Gladiator 3. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl 4. Star Wars: A New Hope 5. Edward Scissorhands |
6. Pearl Harbor 7. Schindler's List 8. Titanic 9. Braveheart 10. Home Alone | . | . |
1. Varèse Sarabande 25th 2. The Last of the Mohicans 3. Legends of the Fall 4. Schindler's List 5. LOTR: Return of the King (Set) |
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you've heard only snippets of Mark Snow's diverse, non-X-Files related talents through the years and seek a very competent and enjoyable presentation of his better efforts of the 1990's. Avoid it... if you strictly prefer the original performances of Snow's more ambient, atmospheric styles. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The love theme from Conundrum consists of only a small ensemble, but the piano, electric bass, percussion, and female voice combine for a haunting and yet uplifting result (and a highlight of the album). Seduced and Betrayed turns to the orchestra, and fans of sultry film music will recognize and appreciate the sinking string and woodwind effect reminiscent of Basic Instinct. Returning to his electronics, Snow builds to a dramatic climax two minutes into his choral track for A Woman Scorned with a theme that vaguely reminds of James Horner's Name of the Rose. Caroline at Midnight finishes this album section with a lonely film noir theme performed by a muted trumpet. The "Love and Hope" section shifts towards Snow's more traditional orchestral work, though many of the cues continue to utilize some accompaniment by his array of synthesizers. The Substitute Wife features a folk harmonica and Oldest Living Confederate Widow includes varied string performances; both selections have a more personal and intimate touch, which is something that people might not expect from Snow given the fame of his ambient atmospherics. The score for the 1996 television film Smoke Jumpers, although desperately in need of a larger orchestral ensemble for the performance, provides a glimpse of heroic, mightily thematic music from Snow, with the ambition of a typical 1990's David Arnold action effort. Finishing the album's section on "Love and Hope" is a short preview of music from the 1997 Michael Caine version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea shown on ABC. If you don't already own the full Prometheus release of this score, you'll be in search of it after hearing the "Arctic Night Walk" selection here. The score is heavily influenced by John Barry's sweeping, melodic style, and with this melodramatic, expansive scope combined with Snow's rich electronics, orchestra, and choral effects, the score is a truly rewarding listening experience. In the subsequent ten years since its release, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea remains one of the best television scores in existence. Upon arriving at the section of the album titled "The Music is Out There," the compilation provides the music that most people will already be familiar with in Snow's career. Unfortunately, when compared to the diversity of the previous music on the album, it's difficult to enjoy the music that Snow creates for simply atmospheric ambience. The massive contrast between this style of music and Snow's more melodic efforts isn't any clearer than in Disturbing Behavior, a feature film score with few appealing moments to choose from (though the best the score has to offer is included here). The thirty-plus minutes of music from The X-Files is arranged and performed by John Beal, and the selections that can be heard here are generally those that were also on the "Truth and the Light" album released previously (without the dialogue, of course). Beal's commendable performance, aided by some direction by Snow himself, shows the time he took to accurately arrange and re-create the cult show's music. While The X-Files music tends to be very effective in the show itself, it never tended to be listenable outside of its context until later seasons. Only the hardcore fans of the show will use this thirty-minute suite as the main attraction of this product, and even these listeners may have preferred to have the suite broken into smaller tracks as to enjoy only the more favorable parts. Finishing the album are a few bonus tracks that feature Snow's more playful electronic side. They aren't particularly enjoyable to dwell upon, but they once again exhibit another distinct style from Snow. The Pee-Wee Playhouse track is so bizarre that it borders on perversion (much like Danny Elfman's equivalent). For most listeners, the highlights of "The Snow Files" are presented in the thirty minutes of music in the "Darkness and Desire" and "Love and Hope" sections of the product. For those sections alone, the album is worth the price, and it's a shame that a follow-up compilation of Snow's efforts of the 2000's hasn't been forthcoming in the years since. ****
The insert notes contain information written by Randall Larson about each track, including the following excerpt: "Mark Snow has had a long but rewarding journey over the last two dozen years. Both he and his music have weathered the years well, each benefited from their experiences. "As I look back on my career, there's one thing that stands out as one of the great experiences, although at the time it was a real negative. I was working for Aaron Spelling doing a lot of episodic TV music, but I was basically doing the same thing each week. Then a new producer came in and said 'This is terrible! That guy - I want him out!' So, bang, I'm out. But that made me think - there's got to be more than one way to approach scoring a show. That really started opening my mind to all the different ways one could score a movie or a TV show. It made me experiment with a lot of different approaches, and it made me comfortable with whatever sense of style that I have now." As evidenced by the versatile examples collected on this CD, Snow's varied approaches have served him - and the many films he's scored - very well." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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