D'You Know Juno? And the Sound of August Rush?

I don't remember buying a "soundtrack album" since Pretty in Pink, until recently that is, and I've bought two in the last couple months. The music opens up Juno and I caught myself thinking thinking that it's going to be a loooonnng movie if we have to listen to this low rent folk for 2 hours, but even that first tune (All I Want Is You by Barry Louis Polisar) quickly grows on you as you realize that it gloves the movie.

Back to the first soundtrack, which was August Rush, I got it for my wife for Christmas. (I wrote about the film here.) Van Morrison's "Moondance" is the classic here but it's the interplay of the music and the world and the world of the film that makes this one special. It's rich and symphonic and Irish rock and experimental; ethereal then cathartic.

Juno's got The Kinks, Mott the Hoople and The Velvet Underground providing classics (and Sonic Youth's cover of The Carpenters' "Superstar" which I hadn't heard before and it's pretty devo). But it's The Moldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson that rule the film and set the tone. The simple arrangements and acoustics sucked me in to the characters. Not that I identify with Juno herself much, at least not with her predicament (Uh, teen, pregnant). I didn't feel any parallels with Bleeker either (Hmm. What'd'ya think, Cindy?). Maybe high school was just too long ago. I did empathize with Juno's dad (J.K. Simmons); and with the Would-Be-Adoptive-Father-Wishes-He-Still-Rock-n-Rolled (Jason Bateman).

And the Juno soundtrack has Liner Notes! They're written by the Director, Jason Reitman and provide nice insights, just like Liner Notes of old!

Come to think of it, my son did buy the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? when it was fresh (2000) and these are in that same vein.

(I only see one soundtrack album on David Rawson's top album lists (1996's Trainspotting came it at #72 and he usually only takes the top 40), but there are more individual songs scattered among his top 100 songs lists so maybe there's something here to his liking....)

August Rush in November

Three of us went to see August Rush the movie this evening. It was unexpectedly good. Kind of a realist fairytale about the magic of music, Cider House Rules meets Stardust. The actors for the three main characters were pretty new to me and so they were fresh: the kid (Freddie Highmore) and the star-crossed parents (Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Myers). But there's a supporting cast of more familiar faces like Robin Williams as a character reminscent of The Fisher King and Terrence Howard as a very likable social worker.

The film moves a bit fast in parts -- I would've liked to savor some of the kid's musical awakening a bit more as well as his teachers'/discovers' amazement. Maybe a book version could have dwelled on these more, but what couldn't happen in a book is the magical musical integration, like where the film shows cutbacks between his mother's solo cello and his father's Irish rock band singing and guitar while the two songs play simultaneously and are interwoven. It's a nice effect. So is turning the everyday motions of wind on wheat, and people and traffic in New York City first into a symphony of joy and then into a cacophony of confusion. It's cool.

Pleasantly Robin Williams doesn't steal the show; the music does. We're already talking about picking up the soundtrack.