The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke (2010)

The Glass Rainbow

James Lee Burke

Simon and Schuster

2010

James Lee Burke took heed to the criticism of this last Dave Robicheaux novel, Swan Peak (Gayle Cengage, 2008) aging appropriately both Robicheaux and his partner Clete Purcell.  Both are down right morose in The Glass Rainbow, each sensing that he is running out of time and luck.  With that as a subtext, New Iberia is treated to a teasure trove of Burke miscreants:  decadent old money in Timothy and Kermit Abelard, inheritors of the Thomas Sutpen clan's mantle; convicts in Vidor Perkins and Robert Weingart.  Add to this the supernatural, a mysterious riverboat representing death and the reader of Dave Robicheaux has one more season to run.

Leaving Las Vegas (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] (2000)

Leaving Las Vegas (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
Arc 21
2000

Rewatching this Danse Macabre a decade later, I was struck by what I fine interpreter of the American Songbook Sting is.  While Rod Stewart continues to salt the earth with his take on Tin Pan Alley and America continues to laud him the new Sinatra by his record sales (and with Tony Bennet still living!), Sting quietly gives a beautiful dignity to "Angel Eyes" and "My One and Only Love."  Don Henley's "Come Rain or Come Shine" is pretty nifty too.  Sting did release a non-standard standards album in My Funny Valentine: Sting at the Movies (Universal Japan, 1999), but it pales to his work on this soundtrack.

Repo Men [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] 2010

Repo Men [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
Relativity
2010

As a movie, Repo Men is the bastard child of Vanilla Sky and Pulp Fiction.  Futuristic in intent, the move nevertheless cleverly employs the Great American Songbook in its soundtrack; I cite the creepiest "Cry Me A River" ever.  The music is decidedly retro, but retro in a way that presents it as an appropriate update for the period.  Perez Prado's recording of "Sway," with Rosemary Clooney serves the same purpose in this film as "Stuck in the Middle with You" did in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.  All is not old.  Included are edgy songs like Method Man's "Release Your Delf" and Beck's "Nausea."  All in all, a soundtrack that complements this quirky movie well.