Wednesday, November 22

Stranger Than Fiction


A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail asking me to post about the soundtrack to the current Will Ferrell/Maggie Gyllenhaal/Dustin Hoffman/Emma Thompson release Stranger Than Fiction. It included a link to some streaming songs and an impressive list of artists participating in the project. I checked out the new Spoon song on the soundtrack ("The Book I Write") but wasn't sufficiently impressed to feel it really justified a post. That, and I don't really link to streams if I can avoid it. Thus, it slipped my mind rather quickly.

So what? Well, this week I saw the film itself. I enjoyed it a great deal (not unlike Heather, it seems), and one thing that really caught my attention was the terrific soundtrack. It occurs to me that I don't really know where to look online for units sold of particular albums, but this release deserves the sort of attention given to soundtracks to Garden State, Thumbsucker, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The Stranger Than Fiction OST is anchored by contributions from Spoon and Britt Daniel, who collaborated with Brian Reitzell (ex-Redd Kross) on the soundtrack's production. Other artists on the release include Califone, Wreckless Eric, Maximo Park, M83, The Jam, Delta 5, Vangelis, and The Upsetters. Wreckless Eric's "Whole Wide World" plays a particularly pivotal role in the film, but I'll try to keep this spoiler-free. Here are a few tracks from the soundtrack, which I really do recommend picking up.

Spoon - The Way We Get By
Wreckless Eric - Whole Wide World
The Jam - That's Entertainment
(demo version)

On a related note, I learned yesterday that Wreckless Eric was in Atlanta just about two weeks ago. Argh.

Any other good soundtracks come out lately?

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just ripped this album to my notebook, and I'm liking the first listen through. The movie looks good, too. I heart Will Ferrell.

12:48 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I cannot wait to see The Fountain. The soundtrack is amazing.

8:12 PM

 
Blogger Rich said...

You guys will have to let me know how The Fountain is. It's not getting the best reviews right now at Rotten Tomatoes.

8:33 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the screenwriter is the type to write songs into the liner notes of the script, so that the actors get a vibe of the moods in each scene to help them understand the characters. . . or so i've heard.

4:42 AM

 
Blogger AmyM said...

Wreckless Eric was amazing! I found out about it just a few days before. You gotta check my page for this stuff, Rich!

3:07 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Stranger Than Fiction was poop. My date : "We have better things we could be doing." indeed

3:39 PM

 
Blogger Rich said...

Seems to me that you could just about always have better things to do. Unless you're, like, Jesus.

4:02 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

wow, your date sounds like a heartless bitch. sorry.

just watched this flick and found it pretty damn good. also the kind of film snobby, depressive people dismiss. but dammit, touching and sweet.

and on topic, the scene that is pivotal to "whole wide world" is warm and touching and amazingly sexy for featuring will ferrel.

oh, and sorry about your date. hopefully their lack of soul won't affect your future relationship.

5:56 AM

 

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