Word: filming
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Movie soundtracks inevitably suffer from the limitations of the genre. One option is to pack your album full of tried and true, catchy tunes that have little to do with the film in question. On the other extreme, a filmmaker could commission a more tailored fit, usually VIA original instrumental compositions. The results in either case can vary from the extraordinary (the apropos songs of Trainspotting and Pulp Fiction, or the haunting instrumentals of Twin Peaks) to the banal (most others...
Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny's soundtrack to A Map of the World, the upcoming film based on Jane Hamilton's book, falls somewhere in between. Certainly no innovation, but surely no tragedy, Metheny's compositions are no doubt appropriate. The main framework of the album is a variation on a theme, punctuated by less topical instrumentations, which include very literal motifs. An apt analogy would be to say that the artist has ceded to the architect. That is to say, Metheny has selflessly concealed his artistic biases to create a non-intrusive score for a film and not a masterpiece...
European art film, especially of the contemporary Cannes Film Festival marquis, continues on its exclusionary march toward a self-selected and well-informed audience with the addition of Pedro Almodvar's 13th full length film, All About My Mother. This film weaves together a beautifully crafted, though at times maudlin and contrived, plot with expert film technique. Yet in this attempt to re-create an All about Eve for the '90s, where life imitates acting imitating life, Almodvar's masterpiece runs the risk of alienating any viewer who isn't a film buff...
...fact, many of the titles listed here offer an experience superior to going to the movies. Lucas Arts' Star Wars game far outshines the altogether dismal film prequel offered in The Phantom Menace. Gamemakers are starting to pull in big names. James Earl Jones, for example, stars in Command & Conquer's latest outing, while David Bowie is the driving force behind the forthcoming Omikron. Indeed, game designers are starting to act like directors--guys like Sid Meier (Alpha Centauri) and Adrian Smith (Tomb Raider) who closet themselves in high-end studios for two years at a time, ceaselessly fine-tuning...
This is New Year's Eve 1999, as foreseen by Y2K--a truly painful NBC film that last weekend became a late-breaking entry for the title of Worst TV Movie of the Millennium, despite some substantial competition. For what the movie lacks in budget and coherent plot, it makes up for in family-size doses of alarmism...