Music Composed by Thomas Newman
Rating: *** 1/2

The bigger the movie it seems, the bigger the anticipation of it’s score. Yet Thomas Newman’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, one of the Christmas season’s biggest blockbuster scores, written for a film lacking in explosions, tight scuba suits on bossomy babes and hair-plugged action stars, failed to generate much fanboy heat. What kept the drool safely inside the collective unkempt faces of so many filmmusic dweebs? Maybe it was the fear that Newman would deliver “Lemony Snicket’s In The Bedroom”, a series of whisking percussion patterns and wild flute calls. Newman being one composer who has established himself as an inventive film composer has seemingly moved away from the dreamy melody of scores like Little Women and Oscar and Lucinda towards a funky, and often imitated style. There are moments of the old Newman in A Series of Unfortunate Events, Paramount’s Tim Burton alumni reunion minus Tim Burton and his composer, Danny Elfman. But this is a decidedly modern score by the modern Tom Newman, full of unique, if not always completely nailed-to-the-chair-with-interest listening.

Newman effectively utilizes a handful of quality themes and motifs, most notable a music-box theme for the three orphans (”The Beaudelaire Orphans”, “VFD”), as well as a warm secondary piano/string theme for the Beaudelaire’s (”Resilience”) for more dramatic weight when needed. Violet gets her own percussive theme heard in “The Bad Beginning”, “Lacrymose Ferry” and “Hurricane Herman”. A knieving sax and pizz bit for an overblown Count Olaf appears in “Chez Olaf”.

Thomas Newman

Beyond some moments of memorable color, the opening of “The Bad Beginning”, “The Marvelous Marriage”, the Rankin/Bass satire “Loverly Spring” and the score’s major action cue (okay, there aren’t that many anyways), “Hurricane Herman”, the most… Er, unfortunate aspect of Sony’s album is it’s length. Like one of Uncle Monty’s coiling pythons, all sixty-eight minutes of Snicket proves to be too much to handle. There is enough engaging material here to make a forty-minute album, but the extra half-hour of percussion grooves churn away in the background, only occasionally yielding something memorable (”Concerning Aunt Josephine”). Strangely enough, “In Loco Parents” features synth strings despite a full orchestra with string section present elsewhere in the score.

After lagging a bit around the middle, the album hits it’s stride around track twenty-four, “A Woeful Wedding”, as the sequencing shifts into film order and we are taken through the climax of the film. The upbeat “Taken By Supreeze” and the ethereal second half of “One Last Look” (echoes of Newman’s The Horse Whisperer) seque into the tearjerker “The Letter That Never Came”, which gives Thomas the opportunity to dial in his uncanny knack for emotional string writing, bolstered by a sweet piano melody. Wow! The album ends with it’s biggest highlight, the groovy “Drive Away (End Title)”, a battery of percussion and organ fed over a bass line, you may wear off the this end of the CD from excessive play.

Of all the scores on CD I’ve reviewed this past year none have been as difficult to love as A Series of Unfortunate Events, because none have been as stunning in the film but so bizarre on CD. It makes it hard to recommend this score to anyone who doesn’t consider themselves an adventurous filmmusic lover. The three-note rating really is about the album experience as a whole, which is hurt by the sheer gargantuan length spread over twenty-nine tracks. That said, if you have a bit of a black streak running through your veins, try giving something as dark as Series some serious consideration. It’s not going to pay off huge for everyone, but time may prove to be kind to it’s reputation. We still love Thomas Newman anyways.

Music Composed and Conducted by Thomas Newman; Orchestrated by Thomas Pasatieri; Recorded and Mixed by Tommy Vicari; Orchestra Recorded by Armin Steiner; Produced by Thomas Newman and Bill Bernstein; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Sony Classical, (SK 93576); Release Date: December 7, 2004

01. The Bad Beginning (3′20)
02. Chez Olaf (3′12)
03. The Baudelaire Orphans (2′32)
04. In Loco Parents (1′27)
05. Resilience (2′30)
06. The Reptile Room (1′35)
07. An Unpleasant Incident
Involving A Train (4′51)
08. Curdled Cave (2′04)
09. Puttanesca (2′41)
10. Curious Feeling Of Falling (1′45)
11. Regarding The Incredibly
Deadly Viper (2′33)
12. The Marvelous Marriage (0′52)
13. Lachrymose Ferry (0′38)
14. Concerning Aunt Josephine (2′08)
15. VFD (1′11)
16. The Wide Window (1′11)
17. Cold As Ike (2′45)
18. Hurricane Herman (2′18) audio clip
19. Snaky Message (2′31)
20. The Regrettable Episode Of
The Leeches (2′45)
21. Interlude With Sailboat (1′04)
22. Verisimilitude (2′16)
23. Loverly Spring (1′50)
Words and Music by Thomas Newman and Bill Bernstein
24. A Woeful Wedding (3′21)
25. Attack Of The Hook-Handed Man (2′22)
26. Taken By Supreeze (2′02)
27. One Last Look (1′41)
28. The Letter That Never Came (4′13)
29. Drive Away (End Title) (5′04)

Total Playing Time: 68′42