Looks like Paul Oakenfold has been spending less time in Ibiza on the decks and more time in film studios of late. The superstar trance DJ has been a part of lots of soundtracks in the past (perhaps most notably in 2001 with “Swordfish,” the soundtrack of which featured a transformation of Afrika Bambatta’s seminal “Planet Rock” into a seven minute anthem), but in the last few years, he’s been getting into full-on original music composition for movies.
Earlier this year he teamed up with Cee-Lo from Gnarls Barkley for a track on “The Bourne Conspiracy” video game (Oakenfold scored the entire game), then he wrote the original score to “Nobel Son” starring Eliza Dushku and Alan Rickman which comes out next weekend (November 11). A few months ago he was tapped to write the score to the Latino’s coming-home-for-the-holidays flick, “Nothing Like The Holidays,” which includes Debra Messing, John Leguizamo, Melonie Diaz, Freddy Rodríguez, Vanessa Ferlito, Alfred Molina and Jay Hernandez and hits theaters on December 12.
It doesn’t look great, but there’s already been decent word out there. A friend of ours working on the project says it’s surprisingly good and the New York Times just gave a shout out to Freddy Rodriguez for his work in the film just recently (he was good in “Grindhouse” too) so maybe there’s hope that this isn’t just a typical Christmas story only with Hispanics and a fish-taco-out-of-water Gringo wife (Messing). But something tells us Latino Review is up in arms about this one already. Oakenfold’s soundtrack comes out on December 9.