Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you have no trouble balancing the ass-kicking contemporary rock passages and broad orchestral material that exists in perpetual battle with one another in this wild listening experience. Avoid it... if you seek any memorable aspect other than its hip personality to take from this score, for its themes and stylistic constructs match the incongruous and predictably dumb nature of the film. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Year One: (Theodore Shapiro) What happened to Harold Ramis? How has such a great career so thoroughly gone down the toilet? What exactly was he thinking when he took command of Year One? The hopelessly stupid buddy film had potential as a biblical satire, exploring the book of Genesis through the perspective of two dorky, primitive men in search of women and a higher existence. What could have been a film that touched upon Monty Python territory instead became ensnared by all the pitfalls of mindless comedies that rely upon fart and penis jokes to sustain interest. The fact that co-producer Judd Apatow once stated that he would insert a penis in each of his future projects does impact the amount of grotesque male and female flesh in Year One, some of which so disgusting that some audiences reportedly wept (and not due to laughter). The involvement of various biblical figures and locations in the plot is diminished by the low intelligence of the humor and poor screen chemistry between leads Jack Black and Michael Cera. Critics universally exposed these problems, though that didn't stop brainless audiences from rewarding Columbia Pictures with sizable grosses. Approaching the music to these crossover films always presents trouble for composers. Two extremely important questions have to be asked when faced with this kind of project: will the period and location be treated absolutely seriously to produce a parody effect by juxtaposing totally serious orchestral and ethnic music with the actions and punch lines on screen? Or will the film's intent as a silly, mindless comedy be exposed directly in the tone of the music, serving as a bridge between contemporary culture references and ancient times? When it comes to the interest of soundtrack collectors, the only truly listenable material when divorced from the visuals results when a composer and the production team choose the first option. The best recent example of a completely serious score for a dumb comedy that works well on album is Christopher Lennertz's Meet the Spartans. Unfortunately, while experienced comedy composer Theodore Shapiro originally followed a similar path, he eventually took the score in the direction of option two, exposing the true nature of the project but thus creating an album that is haphazardly challenging in its incongruent culture clashes. Shapiro has produced enough comedy works over the course of the 2000's to recognize this balance between serious and flamboyantly dumb parody, and it's interesting to know that he changed his mind about his approach halfway through his scoring process for Year One. He originally sought to utilize his orchestral ensemble, padded by several soloists on Middle Eastern and African instruments, to produce a straight forward score for the era. He later diminished the role of those performers in many places and inserted contemporary rock elements in between and on top of those otherwise sufficiently appropriate sounds. As such, you hear Hammond organ effects, rip snorting guitar blasts, and drum loops of immense power mingling often with the historically accurate performances. The score thus maintains no stylistic consistency outside of its tongue in cheek attitude, alternating wildly and suddenly between concepts that are alone fine (and occasionally quite attractive) but together are too outrageously bizarre to tolerate for the sake of a standalone listening experience. The score almost plays as though Shapiro decided halfway through the process that this film was so awful that only the tactic of addressing any sense of comedy whatsoever in an effective manner necessitated the modern sounds for an ancient location. The rock parts are, in and of themselves, not intolerable; in fact, some of the loops are downright awesome. The orchestral material is a bit limp, however, attempting in a cue like "Virgin Sacrifice" to draw upon the Roman epics of Hollywood's Golden Age (The Ten Commandments comes to mind) while also taking some obvious inspiration from The Prince of Egypt and Raiders of the Lost Ark. As the score shifts to a more heavily orchestral approach in its final cues, these references are a bit more evident, though they help salvage the album from the distracting disparities in its previous parts. The recording of the ensemble sounds weak, a problem compounded by the lack of mixing emphasis on the oud and other solo elements that could have given this score more character. It's difficult to summarily dismiss Shapiro's work for Year One because it was confined to the style of such a ridiculously terrible film. But at the end of the day, scores like this (and, for many, Shapiro's superior Tropic Thunder) rarely make good albums. Avoid this commercial, score-only release unless you specifically seek a souvenir from the production. ** Track Listings:
Total Time: 43:20
All artwork and sound clips from Year One are Copyright © 2009, Lakeshore Records. 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 7/5/09, updated 7/5/09. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2009-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
