Customer Reviews

Next Stop Wonderland: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
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I wrote a review of this a few years ago, and like another reviewer, still love this CD. I recommend it to people in music stores all the time since usually, if someone is in the Brazil section they ask me about the movie and I then have to point them to the soundtrack.

Also, the Sarah Vaugh version of Wave is not on this cd, but the original Antonio Carlos Jobim version is. What is special about this CD is that it includes many of the older tracks of Bossa Nova and has an original score which defines that moment in time in Boston and the movie. Rarely do you find a soundtrack that so matches the feel of a movie like this. Bebel Gilberto gets her first "real" notice from this album, in fact, redoing versions of songs from her father, Joao, and a wonderful acoustic remake of "Uma Nota So" and "The Girl From Ipanema". A year later, Bebel Gilberto was featured in "Brasil 2Mil" compilation and then in 2000, released her own feature release "Tanto Tempo".

This is an exceptional soundtrack which will not disappoint. If you enjoy Airto Lindsey's or Claudio Ragazzi's music, or simply love the sounds of the old Bossa Nova era you will enjoy this CD.

ALSO - If you have this soundtrack and are looking for something similar, look into the soundtrack of the movie "Bossa Nova". The movie itself is based in Brazil and this soundtrack is in the same mold really - featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim and Elis Regina. You won't be disappointed.

I've never seen the movie, so I don't know how well the music is integrated in the film, but the music itself is quite superb. It presents a pretty even mixture of new and old Brazillian music. The best song, in my opinion, is "Batucada" sung by Babel Gilberto and Vinicius Cantuaria - his voice is like silk. This song is worth the CD alone. The percussion is excellent. You also get a lot of music on this CD. If you're looking for a primer on Bossa Nova this is a good selection.

I bought this CD to add to my collection of Bossa Nova/Jazz/Portuguese and being a fan of Jobim thought "well at least" but to my surprise this CD delivers! It was more than expected. One can totally enjoy this alone, with a close friend or group gathering. Yes we have heard some of these arrangements before performed and well known like 'Girl From Ipanema' 'Desafinado' 'Triste' and 'One Note Samba' but they are so well done here and with such smooth sensuous flavor you won't miss what your ear isn't hearing... This week I finally saw the Movie, now I appreciate the CD so much more. The movie maybe low keyed, yes but alot is being said here! Seeing the Movie can only increase your listening pleasure and...ahhh the sights and sounds of...Brasil? Well not only,(just BEFORE 'Medfud' kidding aside) New England is full of the wonderful Portuguese and there also this Movie is filmed. Getting this CD you won't be sorry...

This movie introduced me to Bossa Nova. Ever since, I have been in love with the genre. I could never get sick of it. I love listening to it on Sunday mornings while I read the paper. It makes me miss Boston.

As a huge fan of the movie, I bought the soundtrack because it seemed so surreal and gentle. It has turned out to be one of the few cds I keep in my disc changer all the time. I am not an expert in bossa nova or samba except that I know I really like it. I enjoy the fact that I can listen to this cd during dinner, at the office, in my car, while I paint my apartment, or just when I feel like reading a magazine by myself on the beach. It is relaxing and uplifting at the same time. If you enjoyed the movie, I think you will really enjoy the soundtrack. It is a definite winner.

To be in love so much with Brazilian samba music all your life and listen to this CD is a bliss! As an artist, I have found that my work takes a new turn whenever I listen to it while creating. My colors and forms are more whimsical and haunting at the same time. My creative reach is at its best... I attribute this to the longing sound of Claudio Regazzi. What a wonderful melange of old and new sounds. Consider these tracks: Crossed Paths, The Therapist, The Suitors, Baia, O Beijo, Aquarela do Brasil, and the Finale. My heart aches literally as if anticipating a visit from an old lover....

Just the perfect mix of jazz and love songs for both small functions or cocktail hour with friends. Astrud Gilberto's music alone makes this a worthwhile compilation of excellent Brazillian Samba Music. It's as if someone chose the best vintage Brazillian jazz and put it on one CD. By the way, the movie that accompany's this soundtrack is pretty good too!

This CD is fantastic. Contains all the key music that was integral to this great movie. My only complaint is where is that fantastic version of Jobim's "Wave" that plays during the credits at the end? They have to come out with a part II to this CD -- we want more of this phenomenal collection!

The brooding, poetic protagonist in Brad Anderson's 1998 film Next Stop Wonderland yearns to return to Brazil but is indecisive when the opportunity presents itself. The Verve soundtrack (Next Stop Wonderland: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture) ensures aficionados of bossa nova and samba that this one-way ticket will deliver them unto a sublime tropical paradise.

Composer-guitarist extraordinaire Claudio Ragazzi beautifully realizes the film's theme in a four-part original score: "Crossed Paths" and "The Therapist," which feature dreamy scatting in Portuguese by the guitar virtuoso Arto Lindsay; and "O Beijo (The Kiss)," which, like the famous sculpture by Auguste Rodin, is sheer enchantment. With the gentle plucking of strings and the luscious vocalisms of Bebel Gilberto heard in "The Kiss," Ragazzi achieves through music what Rodin conveyed in cast bronze: the impenetrable embrace of lovers who are oblivious to the world around them. Of course, "The Finale" brings resolution to "O Beijo (The Kiss)," complete with cowbells.

However, in this reviewer's opinion, the ethereal voice of Elis Regina, a pioneer in the Música Popular Brasileira (MPB) movement, pervades the entire soundtrack to Next Stop Wonderland. Regina's articulation, intonation and pitch are impeccable, whether she's lightly swinging in Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Triste" or trilling like a rare tropical bird in Ary Barroso's "Aquarela do Brasil." In the latter song, which translates as "Watercolor of Brazil" but is known the world over simply as "Brazil," Regina draws from warm and cool colors in her vocal palette. As if applying fine brush strokes of paint, she reveals the harmonious relationship among the earth, sea and air. In doing so, she upholds Barroso's original proclamation of samba-exaltação -- which he introduced in 1939. It was a brand-new musical style embracing his country's magnificent beauty.

No outstanding contemporary Brazilian jazz CD would be complete without the kind of percussion-heavy music that is performed in processions, not just during Carnivale season. The opening track, "Batucada," explicitly celebrates African (especially Angolan) people's significant contribution to Brazil. "Batucada" is performed in English by Bebel Gilberto and Vinícius Cantuária. The former is the daughter of João Gilberto -- who alongside Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes founded bossa nova. Bebel Gilberto is a solid star in her own right, possessing a honeyed voice that resonates with mesmerizing elasticity. If her percussive phrasing on "Batucada" does not send one's hips shaking to the beat, one just might need spiritual assistance. No worries there because African-derived spirituality shines through in "Batucada" when Bebel sings joyfully about lighting "a candle for the goddess of the sea." In other words, Iemanjá, a principal orisha in the Candomblé religion, is in the house!

The CD benefits from additional music by Vinícius Cantuária and Bebel Gilberto in a medley of the Jobim classics "One Note Samba"/"The Girl from Ipanema." In Next Stop Wonderland, the medley is performed at a Boston aquarium's gala fund-raiser, where the paths of the main character, Erin Castleton (Hope Davis), and elusive suitor Alan Monteiro (Alan Gelfant) not only intersect but collide.

Listeners who have appreciated Jobim's performance on "One Note Samba" ("Samba De Uma Nota So") or the renditions by Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra in the past will find an extra dose of spice in Cantuária and Gilberto's neo-Brazilian version. Bebel's saucy alto peppered over multi-percussion rhythms, including the indigenous berimbau, is an infectious delight.

Their sizzling samba segues into a version of "The Girl from Ipanema" that puts more bounce in the hips than Astrud Gilberto's sashaying version from the '60s. Bebel Gilberto lends her own seductive tonal qualities to a song that the legendary Astrud Gilberto immortalized at the height of bossa nova. In Jobim's narrative about a windswept beauty who is unaware that she has an aphrodisiac effect on the men in her neighborhood, Astrud's devil-may-care vocals seemed to float among the clouds. On the other hand, one could say that her hazy, breathless, early-morning-nasal performance evoked the kind of post-coital cigarette scene in French New Wave films. In stark contrast, Vinícius Cantuária and Bebel Gilberto's nicotine-free, thong-popping Gen X rendition breathes new life into the song while keeping it earthbound. No longer just the object of men's fantasies, this Ipanema woman is secure in her beauty and confident about her erotic power, strutting on the pristine beach. She not only elicits a sigh from every man she passes; she demands it!

Astrud Gilberto is represented on a few songs on Next Stop Wonderland, however. She performs Jobim and Gene Lees' "Corcovado (Quiet Night of Quiet Stars)," sounding languorous rather than inspired by Brazil's enchanted mountain. Then she switches gears in "Stay," turning up the tropical heat by inviting her man to "make sex with music." Her serpentine vocals slither around bossa nova rhythms like the lithe movements of a belly dancer. Vibes and drums playing in counterpoint overtly convey escalating passion, and her febrile, elongated soprano lines simulate a pleasurable response. Astrud's sensuous delivery on this song alone could have caused a second Baby Boom. Though, "Stay" does have a reliable rhythm method.

Scenes from Next Stop Wonderland that feature "Stay" are apropos because they show the melancholy night nurse Erin abandoning her intuition and survival instincts for a smooth-talking former patient who is an ethnomusicologist. The dangerously handsome, bouquet-bearing suitor is Andre de Silva (portrayed with beguiling charm by José Zúñiga), who hooks Erin with bossa nova serenades. As "Stay" plays on, his obsession comes into full view in the car scene, where he wins her heart by producing airplane tickets. This scene also delivers one of the film's best pickup lines (and most romantic kisses): Andre, in a slick attempt to coax Erin into allowing him inside her home, tells her that she is the answer to his prayers to sea goddess Iemanjá -- and then he abruptly apologizes for forgetting to bring fried fish as a sacrificial offering to the orisha.

While the CD is lovely from beginning to end, there is a glaring omission: Sarah Vaughan's superb interpretation of the Jobim composition "Wave," which illuminates the black screen while the credits roll. The fact that water figures prominently in Next Stop Wonderland is what makes the omission egregious, let alone that "Sassy" (a sobriquet for the incomparable Vaughan) and Jobim made other beautiful music together -- Brazilian jazz, that is. Here are five reasons that the song "Wave" serves as a metaphor in the film:

1) Scenes on and near the river in Boston and at the aquarium are crucial to the plot.
2) Erin's main suitor, Alan, is a plumber and an aspiring marine biologist.
3) There are direct and oblique references to Iemanjá, the Candomblé religion's goddess of the sea.
4) Figuratively speaking, the main character, Erin, is like a fish out of water when it comes to the dating scene because her longtime co-habitant, an environmental activist, has just dumped her.
5) The place where Erin longs to be -- Brazil -- because it is a reminder of a pleasant, meditative vacation with her late father, is located oceans away.

Without the lush orchestration and sensuality of bossa nova and samba, the movie Next Stop Wonderland would have retained its comedic elements but lost its bittersweet charm, cosmopolitan sophistication and understated sexuality. Standing on its own, the CD is a wonderful portrait of Brazil's musical past and present. It is light and bouncy at one end of the spectrum, bodacious and bottom-heavy at the other end -- but, overall, an authentic Brazilian jazz experience.

I play this constantly and it never grows old. Had i never seen the film, bossa nova may have past me by. Thankfully I did, and I've been hooked on Jobim and Astrud Gilberto ever since.