Soundtrack Saturdays | trippin' the rift

20Aug/100

Repo Men (2010), dir. Miguel Sapochnik

Posted by blond

To be honest, my subjective cinephile eye, which had already not once been pleased by the blood, murders and utopias, didn't receive that desired special effect from the viewing of Repo Men (even despite the presence of sympathetic to me Forest Whitaker), but... on the soundtrack to the film I heard a song by UNKLE - "Burn My Shadow" (Jude Law wielding knives, a metal cutting saw and a hammer), found the video with the same name, which, as it turned out was also made by Miguel Sapochnik in 2007. And right there and then I melted. The theme of the film and of the video are very similar. I think that the symbiosis of the director and UNKLE affected the production of Repo Men, in which case I'm very glad. And never mind my not very successful review, the film is worth seeing, and as an apology I give you...

UNKLE – "Burn My Shadow"

Tagged as: 2010s, Soundtrack Saturdays, UNKLE, watch this Continue reading

2Jul/100

The Gift (2010) dir. Carl Erik Rinsch

Posted by tipkin

Amon Tobin is going to be a regular in "Film Friday" tag. I mean, the guy does a lot of soundtracks. For all kinds of video products. How does he find these gigs, I don't know (and don't actually care all that much), but he does, and now even if we hate the visual part of the film, at least we can enjoy the audio. Fortunately, the visual part of The Gift is equally great. It's a part of Philips' promo film project called Parallel Lines, where five different directors were given the same six lines of dialog (and, I would assume, a decent chunk of dough) and asked to make a short film based on them. I haven't seen all of them (yet), but The Gift is a sci-fi geek's wet dream - android-dominated dystopia, mysterious box, high-speed chase, machine-gun fire... And, in addition, it takes place in my homeland's capitol - the snowy Russia (the 6 lines of dialog are in Russian, too, but there are subtitles, don't you worry)! It's very short, under 5 minutes, so the whole soundtrack is shorter than most of Tobin's songs, but he does a very thorough job helping create a dark tense environment for film's universe (especially in the chase scene). Enjoy the show.

Watch other Parallel Lines films here.

Tagged as: 2010s, Amon Tobin, Soundtrack Saturdays, watch this No Comments

25Jun/100

Fabled (2002), dir. Ari Kirschenbaum

Posted by tipkin

Fabled (2002) Wha? Movies? Hell, yes, movies. You could probably name a couple of flicks right off top of your head that feature a kick-ass trip-hop soundtrack, even though you probably wouldn't know the contributing artists. It's time to correct this injustice and shed some light on those behind-the-scenes knights of turntable and amplifier! Not sure if I picked the right movie to begin such an honorable mission, but Fabled sure did inspire the very idea. Plus, I just watched it the other day. No big names in this one. In fact, two mysterious dudes who provided the music may not even be professional musicians. Their names are Jack Lingo and Simple Simon. This is pretty much all the information available about them. But if trip-hop is, in fact, just thier hobby, they are sure enjoying the hell out of it. Fabled has a handful of scenes with nothing but music in them, and once the main character even picks up an upright bass and starts improvising to a jazzy loop. Very dark and claustrophobic, and I bet the CD (good luck finding one) features the creepy voice-over telling a sad and disturbing fairytale with adorable British accent. Film itself is also a dark trip: Desmond Askew plays a guy rapidly losing his marbles as an aftermath of an alleged murder. Numerous puzzle pieces never really form a complete picture, which, I assume, was intended, and could be frustrating to folks who like their questions answered. But I just enjoyed the ride, Mr. Askew provides a delightful cocktail of emotions, and, again, the soundtrack is very trippy. Check it out, you may just be pleasantly surprised by this little flick.