Customer Reviews

Out Of Sight: Music From The Motion Picture

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've already seen the movie, big guy.

I always end up with mixed feelings about David Holmes' stuff. He creates wonderful music, and then screws it up by making it second fiddle to whatever droll dialogue he feels like throwing in. It was annoying on Let's Get Killed, where his collection of "New York's Most Neurotic" undermines the whole thing. The Ocean's 11 soundtrack was totally obscured by the movie's dialogue.

Critics need to stand up and call Holmes on this for the silly immaturity that it is. Soundtracks to Tarantino albums used to frustrate me because of all the chattering, but at least they were distinct tracks you could skip if you weren't in the mood. With Holmes, up to two minutes of a groove will be taken up by dialogue from a movie you've already seen. It's not clever, it doesn't enhance the music, it's distracting, and luckily the thing was on sale when I bought it, because I think it is WAY overpriced for only 45 minutes of music.

Holme's, it's cool to use movie dialogue as a punctuation mark; Rhames' "Let's go to Detroit" line is a great intro to the Isley Bros', Fight the Power (especially since they were with Motown for a while). But ENOUGH already! Your brilliance is being undermined by this George Clooney fetish. We want your music to shape OUR reality, not to help us relive a movie.

Enough complaining. Apart from that, the vamps on this album are superb. His selection of a couple of Isley Bros best tunes are perfect and the Dean's "Kick in the Head" is a great complement. Holme's simply has talent and creativity to burn, which makes me want to keep buying his stuff, despite all the frustrating stuff he does with movie dialogue. The "Tub Scene" tune is perfect - absolutely perfect.

I just can't get over what a cool album this is. I know that sounds kind of corny, but that's the only way I can think of describe the sounds of this album. From the out-there Mexicali swing of "Watermelon Man" to the punchy horns of Dean Martin's "Ain't That a Kick in the Head," the album is straight cool the whole way through.

But the standouts here are the original instrumentals composed by avant-garde composer David Holmes. His marriage of hip-hop breakbeats and jazz organ are unparalleled in the realm of coolness. You can just lay back and listen, or you can get up and bob your head and dance.

This soundtrack is laid out similar to the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack: bits of dialogues intercut and join the songs. In fact, "Trunk Scene" is actually interrupted by a police siren just like in the movie, then the slinky beat creeps back in for the duration of the song. It's just nice and mellow.

Overall, this is a great album. If you liked the music from this movie, or you liked the "Get Shorty" soundtrack (composed by John Lurie, but the same type of music), pick this one up.

I wonder who's decision it was to put the dialogue in the tracks. Depending on the mood of the listener, the dialogue can be an added bonus but at times its simply an obstacle drowning out EXCELLENT music. Quite frankly, I bought the soundtrack for three tracks, "The Trunk Scene," "Tub Scene," and "No More Time Outs." These tracks along with the rest of the album scream the emotions and attitudes experienced in the film by the characters. David Holmes' skill is richly displayed throughout the soundtrack. It is non-static and is appropriate more many social situations as well as many others. This music is alive. The inserted dialogue is great, but really, who wants to hear the same lines 50 times?

If I wanted to hear the movie, I would have spent a few more dollars, purchased the VHS, and watched it with my eyes closed. I find it amazing that despite the somewhat distracting dialogue, Holmes music is powerful enough to still make this soundtrack an added jewel to anyone's music collection.

The soundtrack for OUT OF SIGHT is an excellent companion to the excellent movie. David Holmes is brilliant, and has greated one of the best soundtracks ever, in my humble opinion. The styles range from lounge to jazz, funk to old classics. Such classics include Dean Martin's "Aint That A Kick In The Head", The Isley Brothers "Its Your Thing" and "Fight The Power Pt 2", and Mumbo's "Watermelon Man". The rest are strickly intrumental tracks, but they are exciting to listen to and really suit the movie, and if you haven't seen the movie, I reccomend you do. On many tracks there is dialogue from the movie, which I think is an added bonus and sets the mood for the songs. Overall its a good buy and well worth it, you'll be listening to it over and over!

I'm a fan of David Holmes' DJ work, and to see his cinematic influences go into actually scoring a film is spectacular. I don't really agree with the people who complain that the film dialogue over the instrumentals ruins things. On the contrary. I own too many scores where big sweeping emotional pieces are just done, and you don't remember where in the film the music fit in. By adding the dialogue he shows you when and where, mixing humour and mood to show you what's going on. For a great example, listen to 'Rip Rip' and 'The Tub Scene'. The Isley Brothers, Dean Martin, and Spanish joints were a good mix too, but I'm glad he didn't bog down the soundtrack with the pop tunes. He just added to background music from a couple of scenes to work as bumpers. I do wish however, that all of the variations on Foley's Theme were on here. they play one of the four versions used in the film, but the alternatives mix in mirambas, acoustic guitars, and jazz bass really well. I know there is a promo disc floating around somewhere with it on there, just hope I can find it.

I don't know soundtrack albums too well, but this one seems to be adding something new to the mix. The use of dialogue under the music is expertly done and creates an atmosphere for the album, rather than simply injecting the film into the music (see Q. Tarantino's soundtracks). But I wanted more music! The number of actual songs was paltry (no doubt so they can release a soundtrack vol.2 later) and the actual soundtrack tracks were quite short. Too bad. A good ride cut short each time.

Look no further than the Tub Scene track. This hot, sexy scene has great music. Why would you buy this CD if you didn't like this track? At the end of this piece, the last thirty seconds are overlaid with dialogue from another scene entirely. Remember when J.Lo has to listen to that creep talk about Toughie the dog and how he would tussle with her, and give her a bone? Those sick lines are the last thirty seconds of the Tub Scene track.

The other tracks are also affected. Hopefully David Holmes will one day offer a pure version of this album for download from online-only music stores, since producing a second CD would cost too much.

I realise that a lot of people get irritated by dialogue in soundtracks, but as with Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, here, it actually adds to the soundtrack. Contemporary soundtracks are rarely filled by just one artist - mainly because they aren't supposed to be. They're supposed to be an extension of the film - you see one, you buy the other, you hear one, you see the other. David Holmes' work here is subtle and wonderfully atmospheric, and is actually much more diverse than one of its celebrated forefathers, Isaac Hayes SHAFT score. It would have been nice to have more than the six other songs - all of which are truly excellent, especially the Isley Brothers Fight The Power, but it works nonetheless. Great for parties, especially the ones where everyone just collapses onto the floor and feel the walls moving - but, like, in a beautiful way, y'know. This is terrific for cruising too, though the final "No More Time Outs" ends the soundtrack on a rather sombre note... a little out of keeping for the otherwise exuberant nature of the cd.

This would be a great CD with a nice groove to it except that they decided to follow the egotistical trend of inserting dialog from the film into the soundtrack. You know what, if I'd wanted to hear the movie I would have bought the movie... This whole trend started with the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. It worked in that case because, for one, the dialog is on its own tracks and if you want, you can just skip those tracks, and for two, the dialog in that disk was a radio DJ, so it made some sense in context. This disk does not have the dialog on different tracks. The first track has one whole minute of dialog from the film before starting "It's Your Thing." Other tracks like "Jailbreak" have dialog sprinkled throughout the song. It was annoying enough in the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, then the Jackie Brown soundtrack, then every soundtrack had to follow. But this is the most intrusive addition of dialog into a soundtrack I've heard. Hey I'm all for Clooney's voice and the brilliant writing, but I bought the soundtrack because I wanted to hear the music. The dialog taints an otherwise slick and polished collection of cool music.

If you like jazzy stuff this is a fantastic CD. Problem is, they included dialogue excerpts from the film. There are too many of them, most are too long, they're not the funniest bits from the film and they are not on their own tracks so you can't skip over them. In some cases the dialogue pops up in the MIDDLE of the song making you feel like you could have saved yourself $ by just audio recording the movie.