The Game Soundtrack (1997)

<p>Not sure if anyone knows this soundtrack, but I'm a total fan boy of the movie and score. Howard Shore's music is always brilliant, and his scores fit so well to the scenes of movies. This one is so mysterious and brooding, yet lush and calm at the same time. It's a dreamy adventure, a menacing puzzle, and a dark alleyway into strange but familiar places with hints of light radiating tranqulity and serenity through times of solitude, and tragedy.</p>

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<p><a href="http://youtu.be/xgepM8p3FPw">http://youtu.be/xgepM8p3FPw</a></p>

love the score, tripped on acid once to the opening song with the video of the father and had a really gnarly time freaking out about my parents dying for an entire 8 hours as i had a LSD enhanced mind movie of that scene playing out from the Game in my mind except it was my own dad not the character from the movie.

I'm surprised this movie isn't talked about more in general, easily one of my favorites from the 90s

Aye its an ace film. Felt the taxi scene right at the end was a weird ending though. Seemed like a misstep in a darn near flawless movie.

  On 11/21/2013 at 9:31 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

love the score, tripped on acid once to the opening song with the video of the father and had a really gnarly time freaking out about my parents dying for an entire 8 hours as i had a LSD enhanced mind movie of that scene playing out from the Game in my mind except it was my own dad not the character from the movie.

 

I'm surprised this movie isn't talked about more in general, easily one of my favorites from the 90s

Whoa, dude sorry to hear- that sounds freaky! Hope it didn't ruin the movie or soundtrack for you... There is definitely a lamenting, and reflecting type of emotion going on in that soundtrack, and I could see how if you were tripping with it playing, it could get in your psyche and become personalized. Strangely, for me, there's a meditative quality, a peaceful and mysterious expansiveness somewhere between the atonal flutters. The downfall of the brooding chaos that builds up into a nothingness before collapsing into atmospheric romantic jazz passages and minimalism. It's an infinite piece in my mind, and an absolutely timeless work that deserves much more praise. There are so many parallels between the piano work here, and in Drukqs, that it's not even funny- styling-wise of course.. No prepared piano or anything here, but some of the chord structures, spacing and atmosphere are undeniably Drukqs-like.

As far as the film itself, yes, this move ranks in my top 5 favorite films. I could watch it every day. In fact, there was a time a few years back where I must have watched it few times a week for an entire year. It never got old, but instead, more and more compelling.

  On 11/21/2013 at 2:56 PM, mcbpete said:

Aye its an ace film. Felt the taxi scene right at the end was a weird ending though. Seemed like a misstep in a darn near flawless movie.

No doubt. Haha, at first, I agreed with you about the "let down" of the taxi scene at the end, in that it was such an anti-climatic light hearted ending to such an intense, mysterious, mind fucking puzzle of a movie. But then, the more I saw it, I appreciated the juxtaposition of that lightheartedness/hopefulness - yet still never fully joyous- aspect of the end scene, and the entire movie and it's continuously menacing build. It got more and more confusing, more dark, more hopeless, more absurd, more thrilling, and more cerebral as time went on. So to have a cutesy flirtatious prospective love interest scene at the end between one of The Game's "actors" and Michael Douglas, imo, makes for the absolutely perfect release of tension and continued mystery into where that airport cup of coffee will end up going, cuz we never do know with the way it ends. I almost want to argue that the ending scene is not only a unique way to end such a thriller in a lighthearted anti-climatic matter, but that it actually enhances the mind-puzzling and cerebral nature of the film as a whole in the sense that you look back and say "wow, what a crazy movie". That sigh of relief and slight brightness at the end makes me realize in a relative sense, just how dark and hopeless it got at certain points. It also added to the fun, over-dramatic neo-noir styling of the film.

I wish there were more movies made like this, and that John Brancato would write more scripts and maybe collaborate with David Fincher again. Brancato also wrote the script for The Net, which was also brilliant imo, and had a similar paranoid style and atmosphere.