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| Mothersbaugh |
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs: (Mark
Mothersbaugh) The original story of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs"
debuted in 1978 and has always seemed like the ultimate fantasy book for
children in third world nations struck by famine. For the 2009 animated
film adaptation from Sony, several major liberties are taken with the
tale to expand it out to feature length for
Cloudy With a Chance of
Meatballs, aiming to parody the rich genre (monetarily, not
necessarily in terms of artistic quality) of modern disaster epics. On
an island in the Atlantic known for its production of sardines, the
economy collapses when global demand for the food suddenly diminishes. A
nerdy, ingenious inventor of several failed projects concocts a machine
that rearranges water particles to turn them into food, and in an
accident during its momentous initial power-up, it launches like a
rocket up into the sky and gets lodged somewhere in the stratosphere. It
initially rains down food via instructions, turning the island into not
only a new tourist attraction but also a haven for gluttons. The device
eventually starts acting maliciously, sending out violent storms of food
that wipe out the island and knock down famous landmarks all over the
world. Other inventions of the lead protagonist are used to fly up to
the machine and get the better of it, leaving room for a sequel movie
that was rumored very quickly to be in the planning stages. A
substantially positive critical response and awards recognition, coupled
with immense box office returns (over $240 million worldwide), fueled
this sequel talk, overcoming widely negative feedback about the movie's
use of 3D in its second half. Providing the music for
Cloudy With a
Chance of Meatballs is parody and comedy veteran Mark Mothersbaugh,
who testifies about how much he enjoyed working on this film and whose
prior work is best represented by
Rugrats and
The Adventures
of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Like Theodore Shapiro and Christopher
Lennertz, Mothersbaugh is among the composers of the 2000's who toil
with such challenging assignments in the same way that John Debney and
David Newman made their careers in the 1990's. As in many of these
cases, it's difficult to get a true sense of a composer's personal
writing style when he produces so much music intentionally meant to
sound like that of others. To define Mothersbaugh's musical voice is a
challenge because of that parody effect, and
Cloudy With a Chance of
Meatballs does little to clarify the picture. At the most, this
score is a capable and engaging genre entry, and at the worst, it is a
capable and engaging genre entry. In general, you know what you're going
to get.
If you recognize the limitations of parody scores like
this one ahead of time, you can marginalize its sometimes frustrating
effect when heard outside of context. Cue times are short, the music
shifts between genres wildly, instrumental colors change from minute to
minute, and the level of frantic movement is often mindboggling. The key
to enjoying such scores resides in the composer's ability to draw it all
together with very tightly cohesive themes and instrumentation that is
unique to situations without being distracting. Unfortunately,
Mothersbaugh doesn't quite succeed in this regard as well as Lennertz
has done during the same period. While Mothersbaugh does write several
interesting themes for
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,
including a heroic anthem for the picture as a whole and a sensitive
piano-led theme for the relationship between the inventor and his
father, none of them is developed frequently and clearly enunciated
enough to really hold the score together over the course of an hour. The
instrumentation includes everything you could imagine for the occasion,
featuring a standard orchestra and a variety of synthetic samples in
various rhythmic and stinger applications. The highlight of the
percussive usage is Mothersbaugh's employment of a variety of
medium-range metallic clanging elements in "Failure Again" and "The Food
Storm," among others, to perhaps represent the sound of silverware in
use at a large dinner table. The orchestra is handled pretty well,
though a very dry mix diminishes the score's reach into the fantasy
realm at times. A handful of cues for awe-inspiring situations is
afforded choral accompaniment, not surprisingly yielding some of the
score's best moments. The electronics are clearly the greatest detriment
of
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, absolutely ruining several
cues with their harsh tone and forceful placement in the mix. From
electronic zapping effects to retro-technology sounds applied ten years
prior by Debney, the sampled noises in this score are extremely
distracting. A cue like "Powering Up" makes Debney's
The Tuxedo
seem like an exercise in good taste. As with any parody score, there are
individual highlights, and some of the militaristic cues late in the
film (as the mission to the machine in the sky is undertaken) are quite
palatable. These scenes are highlighted by "Sentient Chickens" and
"Flint Returns," both outstanding capitulations of orchestral and choral
majesty. The best of the entire score is clearly "Meatier Shower,"
however, with that ensemble glory matched by elegant piano performances.
On the whole, ten minutes of compilation-worthy material may not be
worth the entire "CD on demand" and download product, one bracketed by
unfortunate song performances. Save "Meatier Shower" for desert and
politely pick away at the rest.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
The insert includes a note from the composer about the score and film.
As in many of Amazon.com's "CDr on demand" products, the packaging smells
incredibly foul when new.
