Rolling Stone had a headline that the Birds of Prey soundtrack is better than it has any right to be, and they interview the guy who produced it and he talks about the care and thought that went into it, and choices made in conversation with director Cathy Yan...
...and it's interesting to me that that they're praising this album (which I believe hit number one on iTunes?) and dumping on the movie, and not considering that the same thought processes that went into the soundtrack went into the whole production.
Yep. And that guy, Kevin Weaver, mentions in his very first answer about the album itself how much insight he got from the female director Cathy Yan and producer Sue Kroll.
But the story is he elevated a garbage movie with good choices.
But the story is he elevated a garbage movie with good choices.
And I want to be clear the soundtrack is PHENOMENAL. If you've watched the movie, you know that... but you also know it's a part of the movie. I felt like it was reactive, like the soundtrack was in actual conversation with what was happening on screen.
The last action movie I saw where it really felt like the (non-orchestral, not scored for the film) soundtrack was a living, breathing part of the movie -- not just "oh, these songs fit these scenes) was Transporter, which was much less ambitious (and in fairness, lower budget).
But the subsequent Transporter movies, with bigger budgets, didn't have nearly the same level of soundtrack-and-choreography integration as the first one.
I want to be very clear that the point of this is not that Weaver didn't do an amazing job or that he's getting undeserved credit. I think his soundtrack is absolutely a vital part of the movie.
But it's a symptom of a larger problem where Rolling Stone can't publish this without a headline sniping at the movie and without spotting the thread that what he's describing was part of a larger movie-making process.
