Tag Archives: Toy Story

June 24, 2013

Monsters University (2013) – Randy Newman

By TheCinescopePodcast

monsters university

Randy Newman is back with Pixar for the first time since composing the score for Toy Story 3 back in 2010, which is great since he composed the score for the original film, Monsters, Inc. His score for that film had a jazz-oriented main theme that worked really well for it, and I was hoping for more of the same for Monsters University. While we definitely get “more of the same” here, it’s unfortunately not the “same” that I was hoping for.

The first half of this album or so fails to impress me at all. It sounds like nothing more than another Randy Newman score, which, unfortunately, isn’t much of a compliment. Don’t get me wrong – the sound of Randy Newman’s music very much IS Pixar, but a little variation would have been nice, or at least some more extensive reference to the original film’s score. We certainly do get some reference to the original score in the track “Field Trip,” where we hear the theme from “Enter the Heroes” as well as the chase theme from the first film, which can be heard in the Monsters, Inc. track “Mike’s In Trouble.” Anyways, I digress. I actually do have some good things to say about this score.

Newman did a good job of composing the Monsters University alma mater, which, in its slower instrumental form (as heard in “Goodbyes”), is slightly reminiscent of this theme from John Williams’ score to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – in a good way! Both themes have the same warmth to them. Also, despite my complaints regarding the lack of inclusion of themes from the original score, the quotes that were used were used well, bringing a smile to my face as soon as I heard them. Newman also utilizes what sounds like a marching band (specifically a drum line) to really bring the fact that this takes place at a college into focus, and it works wonderfully. As mentioned before, Newman’s music IS Pixar, or, at least, classic Pixar, so watching the film with his score playing in the background was like stepping back into my childhood. Also of note is the track titled “Roar,” credited to Axwell & Sebastian Ingrosso, which is a fun dance tune.

Randy Newman isn’t exactly the most “original” composer out there, as evidenced by the fact that much of this music sounds like his previous work; I can hear bits of Toy Story in “First Day at MU” and bits of A Bug’s Life (my review) in “Rise and Shine,” with several other similar instances popping up here and there. However, all of that is completely, perfectly okay compared to the opening of “Did You Do This?,” when he completely and blatantly rips off his own theme to A Bug’s Life. Make sure you click on both of those links because I want you to be as angry about it as I was when I first heard it…I probably shouldn’t have been driving at the time. Not even Hans Zimmer has been that blatant about borrowing from his previous work! …it frustrates me.

Maybe I’m being overly critical for something like this. Like I said, Newman’s score does a great job of bringing familiarity to the world presented in Monsters University, and despite that one HUGE problem and the score’s general tendency to be pretty forgettable, it’s a decent score overall. I have my qualms with it, but it serves its purpose just fine for the average listener and in the context of the film.

Rating: 3 (out of 5)

1. “Main Title” 0:52
2. “Young Michael” 3:58
3. “First Day at MU” 4:32
4. “Dean Hardscrabble” 3:19
5. “Sulley” 0:48
6. “Scare Pig” 2:00
7. “Wasted Potential” 1:16
8. “Oozma Kappa” 3:16
9. “Stinging Glow Urchin” 2:34
10. “Field Trip” 3:57
11. “Rise and Shine” 3:00
12. “The Library” 3:44
13. “Roar” (performed by Axwell & Sebastian Ingrosso) 2:55
14. “The Scare Games” 6:00
15. “Did You Do This?” 2:00
16. “Human World” 2:07
17. “The Big Scare” 3:02
18. “Goodbyes” 3:11
19. “Mike and Sulley” 1:12
20. “Monsters University” 1:34

Total Length: app. 56 min.

iTunes Album Link

-Chad

P.S. – Read my review of this film here!

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February 13, 2013

Finding Nemo (2003)

By TheCinescopePodcast

As a child, Finding Nemo wasn’t a film that I caught in theaters. In fact, I didn’t see it at all until a few years after it had been released. Though not my favorite Pixar film, it’s certainly an enjoyable one, enough to convince me to go catch it in theaters when it was re-released in 3D back in September of 2012. I’m a firm believer in the idea that films were made to be seen on the big screen, so I always try to go to theater re-releases of films I enjoy, even though 3D is sometimes less than okay. However, Finding Nemo 3D was a great theater experience that also translated well to the recent 3D Blu-Ray release.

In case you’ve been living in a hole in the ground for the past ten years, Finding Nemo is about a single father, Marlin (Albert Brooks), whose son is kidnapped by a diver and taken to Sydney, Australia. In order to find his son, Nemo, he traverses the entire ocean, meeting along the way a forgetful fish named Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a friendly shark named Bruce (Barry Humphries), a gnarly sea turtle named Crush (Andrew Stanton), and a pelican named Nigel (Geoffrey Rush). All the while, Nemo (Alexander Gould) and his new tank friends, lead by Gill (Willem Dafoe), must devise a plan to help them escape from the dentist office where they are being kept before the dentist’s careless niece can get her hands on the young clownfish.

The people at Pixar have always astounded me with their ability to pack so much humanity into their often inhuman characters, i.e. the toys of Toy Story, the bugs of A Bug’s Life, and, later, the robots of Wall-E. In Finding Nemo, we have FISH…just about as inhuman as you can get, as far as living organisms go. But that doesn’t stop us from sympathizing with Marlin as he struggles to find his lost son or rooting for Nemo as he succeeds in overcoming his fears faced in the fish tank at the dentist office or shedding a tear when Marlin has given up hope and says goodbye to Dory. These characters are just as endearing as any human character out there, if not more. They teach us to trust each other, especially those we love, that it’s okay to let go sometimes, and that we can and should learn from our mistakes.

In addition to the fantastic characters, this film is also visually stunning. The physics of the ocean and its inhabitants feel very authentic – even the physical movement of the fish – despite the fact that everything is animated. The 3D is also well-done (one of the best films I’ve ever seen in 3D), with it fully absorbing you into the atmosphere of the film. The 3D home release is even better than it was in the theater; on a high-definition 3D TV, everything is crystal clear and fully immersive.

Pixar has a track record unmatched by any other film company. Though perfection is impossible, I would say that Pixar has several “perfect” films, and Finding Nemo is one of them. The characters are three-dimensional (in a character growth sort of way, I mean), the story is touching, and the score by Thomas Newman is one of the best of all of the Pixar films. With humor appropriate for both children and adults and several important life lessons to be learned, there is much to be missed if you’ve managed to never see this film – and I’d even recommend the 3D version, if you don’t mind the glasses.

-Chad

Rating: 5 (out of 5)

MPAA: G

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July 31, 2012

Disneynature: Chimpanzee (2012)

By TheCinescopePodcast

Chimpanzee is the only Disneynature film that I’ve seen. It’s definitely a different sort of movie experience; there’s not any acting or plot for me to praise or criticize because everything we see is nature in action.

That being said, I did enjoy this documentary. The story of little Oscar’s struggle for survival and subsequent adoption by the leader of the tribe is a touching one, and it’s all the more impressive once you learn that this is the first time an instance like this has ever been documented on film.

However, I do have one complaint: Tim Allen as narrator. Now, he wasn’t awful all of the time; he did a fairly good job narrating, and he even managed to make me chuckle a few times. But there were moments throughout when I felt like he was trying too hard. I doubt Allen wrote his own material, which largely consisted of him assigning pointless dialogue to the fit the actions of the apes, so I can’t exactly blame him. Instead, I blame whoever decided to make Allen the narrator in the first place. In my opinion, Tim Allen (voice of Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story films) is too big of a Disney name for something like this. The narrating job should have gone to someone less affiliated with Disney so that the audience could watch the movie more objectively.

Despite my issues with Tim Allen as narrator, like I said, I did enjoy the film and would definitely be interested in watching other Disneynature films…hopefully with a different narrator.

Yay nature!

-Chad

Rating: 2.5 (out of 5)

MPAA: G

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June 29, 2012

Cars (2006) – Randy Newman

By TheCinescopePodcast

The score to the Disney/Pixar film Cars was composed by Randy Newman, who was also responsible for the scores to all three Toy Story films, A Bug’s Life, andMonsters, Inc. However, like most of Pixar’s film soundtracks, there are a few songs in the track list that are lyrical.

In the case of Cars, nearly half (9 out of 20) of the tracks are vocal songs, and 4 of those were written specifically for the film. I’ll briefly walk through each of these 9 tracks before getting to the actual “score”.

The first track on the album is “Real Gone” by Sheryl Crow. This is one of the songs that was written for the film. This song, aside from just being lots of fun and making references to cars, has lyrics that fit Lightning McQueen’s character at the start of the film: “you got your blinders on”, referencing the things placed to side of a horse’s eyes so that it can only see straight ahead, refers to McQueen’s love for nothing but himself and his career.

Next is Chuck Berry’s “Route 66”, which is on the album for obvious reasons that I hope I don’t have to explain. John Mayer has another decent version of this song available on the album.

Rascall Flatts’ version of Tom Cochrane’s 1991 hit “Life is a Highway” is also included on the album for obvious reasons, but it also has a set of lyrics that fit in well with the themes of the film, found in the bridge:

“There was a distance between you and I

A misunderstanding once

But now, we look it in the eye.”

This chunk of lyric could fit either Lightning’s relationship with Sally, which grows from a mutual annoyance to a blossoming romance, or with Doc, which starts with a lack of communication/understanding but becomes a strong teacher/student or father/son relationship.

Brad Paisley wrote two songs for Cars the first of which is titled “Behind the Clouds”. The lyrics in this song talk about the silver lining that can be found in situations that appear bleak at first, i.e. Lightning getting lost and trapped in a near-ghost town in the middle of nowhere. Which turns out to be a blessing! Yay for songs that fit the story!

The third song on the soundtrack that was written for the film is titled “Our Town”, composed by Randy Newman and performed by James Taylor. This song, a Grammy winner and Academy Award nominee, reveals one of the morals of the film: what you have is only what you make of it, and no one can take it away from you. An awesome message, and one of the reasons why I love Pixar (even if Cars is far from my favorite).

“Sh-Boom”, a 1954 song by The Chords, is played during the scene where McQueen and the citizens of Radiator Springs restore the city to look the way it did in its heyday as a surprise for Sally. I wasn’t alive back then, but this song just seems to define the 50s for me. It’s relaxed and fun and perfect for this scene in the film.

The final lyrical song written for the film is another by Brad Paisley, this one titled “Find Yourself”. (On a quick side note, I now have Cars to thank for the presence of country music on my iPhone! Who’da thought it’d ever happen?!) This song, like “Our Town” is particularly poignant because it talks about how, though we may lose our ways in life sometimes, it’s at those times that we’re lost that we often discover who we really are and what we really want, as Lightning does in the film.

The final lyrical song included on the soundtrack album is Hank Williams’ “My Heart Would Know”, which, as far as I can tell, has no lyrical connection to the story, merely serving the purpose of establishing the setting/context/feel of the film.

And now we (finally) move on the the actual film score by Randy Newman. Unfortunately, Randy’s film scores are often like Hans Zimmer’s and Danny Elfman’s in the sense they sound the same a lot of the time (certainly not Randy’s themes, just his background music usually), and the first two instrumental tracks, “Opening Race” and “McQueen’s Lost”, do nothing to prove that theory wrong. “Opening Race” reminds me of some bits from Toy Story, while “McQueen’s Lost” has an entire 7-second section of music that almost sounds exactly like a theme from A Bug’s Life. (go to YouTube and compare :37-:44 of “McQueen’s Lost” to :34-:40 of “The Bird Flies”)

Luckily, Randy completely switches gears in the next track, “Bessie”, which suddenly turns into what could easily be mistaken for the intro to a country/western song. Thank you, Randy! Although there were hints of Toy Story again in the next track, “Dirt is Different”, and in a couple of other tracks later on, Randy sticks to a Western-feel, occasionally bluegrass-y, that is for the most part refreshing and different coming from him.

I don’t want to go into too much (more) detail, so I’ll sum it up.

Overall, while a bit familiar, the country feel to Cars’ instrumental score, in addition to the excellent vocal tracks that accompany it, makes this a better soundtrack than I initially expected. My favorite track is “McQueen and Sally”.

Rating: 3.5 (out of 5)

1. “Real Gone” Sheryl Crow 3:22

2. “Route 66” Chuck Berry 2:52

3. “Life Is a Highway” Rascal Flatts 4:37

4. “Behind the Clouds” Brad Paisley 4:09

5. “Our Town” James Taylor 4:07

6. “Sh-Boom” The Chords 2:26

7. “Route 66” John Mayer 3:25

8. “Find Yourself” Brad Paisley 4:11

9. “Opening Race” 2:05

10. “McQueen’s Lost” 2:29

11. “My Heart Would Know” Hank Williams 2:27

12. “Bessie” 0:59

13. “Dirt Is Different” 1:28

14. “New Road” 1:17

15. “Tractor Tipping” 1:22

16. “McQueen & Sally” 2:00

17. “Goodbye” 2:42

18. “Pre-Race Pageantry” 1:31

19. “The Piston Cup” 1:52

20. “The Big Race” 3:07

Total Length: app. 53 min.

iTunes Album Link

-Chad

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