So I saw Buffalo Soldiers the other day. Really liked it, very funny with some really good characters and an excellent script. Maybe it goes a little too far at the end, but still a great film none-the-less.
My only real criticism was the score. The actual existing tracks they used were good choices, Public Enemy & that Bear Witness track plus it's remix, and Blue Monday for the club scene. But the score seriously sucked and sometimes worked to undermine the tension of the scenes it was scored against.
And who was the composer? Well surprise surprise, our very own Mr David Holmes himself...
Almost identical to the other shoddy scores he made for Ocean's Eleven and Out Of Sight: Over-crisp, over-compressed drums, same Rhodes style keyboard with waaaay too much reverb (someone needs to tell Holmes that echoey keyboards for tension is kind of childish and amateur) Bit of groovy bass. I mean, it's all so fuckin boring. Anyone can do this: get your regular dudes to jam a little into a hard drive, edit down, throw in a few effect noises from some box off bought off Turnkey - always the same ones. Does Holmes get paid as much as a real composer?
Like in the other films, his arrangements are so predictable, it reduces the tension to Scooby Doo level, and does nothing to enhance, or seems to pay little regard as to what is actually happening in the film's plot.
Is Holmes like, super trendy in Independent Hollywood or something? Soderbergh's films have been a little smug lately, trying to get this kind of modern twist on the cool films of the early 70s - those existentialist character types like The Driver or The Gambler etc. But Buffalo Soldiers is actually a really good film. I'm surprised they used Holmes, as he does the same thing everytime.
The score doesn't interfere as much as the the Soderbergh films, maybe because you're more engaged with the story, thus the mind is less open to distraction, but Christ, I'm so bored with these shitty efforts that absolutely anyone could come up with. He should be strictly TV - like these so called 'hip' new shows imported from the US, like The Handler or Nip & Tuck, shows that try to tap into the feel of the quality material like Sopranos etc but fails miserably - that's where Holmes belongs, at home...
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My only real criticism was the score. The actual existing tracks they used were good choices, Public Enemy & that Bear Witness track plus it's remix, and Blue Monday for the club scene. But the score seriously sucked and sometimes worked to undermine the tension of the scenes it was scored against.
And who was the composer? Well surprise surprise, our very own Mr David Holmes himself...
Almost identical to the other shoddy scores he made for Ocean's Eleven and Out Of Sight: Over-crisp, over-compressed drums, same Rhodes style keyboard with waaaay too much reverb (someone needs to tell Holmes that echoey keyboards for tension is kind of childish and amateur) Bit of groovy bass. I mean, it's all so fuckin boring. Anyone can do this: get your regular dudes to jam a little into a hard drive, edit down, throw in a few effect noises from some box off bought off Turnkey - always the same ones. Does Holmes get paid as much as a real composer?
Like in the other films, his arrangements are so predictable, it reduces the tension to Scooby Doo level, and does nothing to enhance, or seems to pay little regard as to what is actually happening in the film's plot.
Is Holmes like, super trendy in Independent Hollywood or something? Soderbergh's films have been a little smug lately, trying to get this kind of modern twist on the cool films of the early 70s - those existentialist character types like The Driver or The Gambler etc. But Buffalo Soldiers is actually a really good film. I'm surprised they used Holmes, as he does the same thing everytime.
The score doesn't interfere as much as the the Soderbergh films, maybe because you're more engaged with the story, thus the mind is less open to distraction, but Christ, I'm so bored with these shitty efforts that absolutely anyone could come up with. He should be strictly TV - like these so called 'hip' new shows imported from the US, like The Handler or Nip & Tuck, shows that try to tap into the feel of the quality material like Sopranos etc but fails miserably - that's where Holmes belongs, at home...

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