09. Bobby Darin “Beyond the Sea” from “A Life Less Ordinary”
Nobody is going to mistake “A Life Less Ordinary,” Boyle’s big-budget, Americanized follow-up to his breakthrough “Trainspotting,” as anything less than a weird misstep on his resume. It’s far too silly and its energy levels are oddly hampered by the bizarre setup – it’s a Danny Boyle romantic comedy so, of course, it involves kidnappings, guns, robots and a pair of murderous angels (wait, what?). There is a moment of fun, however, about an hour into the film, when a musical number between the lowlife criminal (Ewan McGregor) and his hostage (Cameron Diaz, sporting truly atrocious late-nineties hair), erupts in a seedy roadside bar. It’s ostensibly a karaoke number set to crooner Bobby Darin‘s classic “Beyond the Sea” (McGregor is clearly a more gifted singer than Diaz), but Boyle embellishes it, turning into a fantasy-tinged musical sequence, complete with wardrobe changes, dramatic lighting, and sparkles. For a moment there, a glimpse of the gonzo euphoria that Boyle and the rest of his collaborators (including producer Andrew Macdonald and writer John Hodge) were going for can be seen and felt. It’s truly uplifting and, unlike the rest of the movie, not terribly off-putting. A rare Boyle dud, this sequence proves that even in a movie as wildly uneven as “A Life Less Ordinary,” there are still shining examples of his unparalleled genius (especially when it comes to music).
10. Underworld “Peggy Sussed” from “Sunshine” & “Sunshine (Adagio In D Minor)” by John Murphy
Late in the game of post-production on “Sunshine,” Boyle’s ambitious space epic about an attempt to “restart” the sun, led by a team of winningly multi-culti scientist, engineers, and astronauts, the director decided to have his composer, John Murphy, team up with Underworld, to create something wholly new. The result is an invigorating mixture of the classical and the technological, and we thought we’d single out a moment from each. Firstly, there’s “Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor),” a piece of music that is either ceaselessly sampled or shamelessly ripped off by pretty much every composer since. It shares a melodic throughline with some of the pieces Murphy did for “28 Days Later” but has a grander, more spacey pallor, fitting well with the melancholic characters who are adrift both literally and spiritually in “Sunshine.”
The other piece of music is a new Underworld song, which plays over the closing credits of “Sunshine.” Boyle often uses the closing credits music to create a mood that he wants the audience to walk out on, sometimes quite different than the film they had spent the previous couple of hours sitting through. Or, in the case of “Sunshine,” Boyle wanted to continue the relentlessly intense sensation that the last act provided, weaving that through the credits with a pounding, propulsive, what-I-can’t-even-catch-my-breath-for-five seconds sensation amongst those in the audience. It’s absolutely one of the most balls-to-the-walls pieces Underworld has ever done for Boyle and it’s not as hopeful or optimistic as the last moments of the movie lead you to believe, but that ambiguity adds even more weight and pizzazz to the piece. “Peggy Sussed” could easily be the soundtrack to a post-apocalyptic wasteland or the theme song to a sunshine-y new beginning.
And of course there are countless more examples of brilliant Danny Boyle musical moments. We haven’t even talked about two of his more profound musical projects in recent years — his staging of “Frankenstein” in London and the great Olympics Opening Ceremony from last year, both of which featured new music from Underworld and were pretty brilliant all around. We would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge a certain fondness for the All Saints song “Pure Shores” that cheekily closes out the otherwise grim “The Beach;” there’s a great Beck song called “Deadweight” that was written specifically for “A Life Less Ordinary” that’s sort of clumsily utilized for the movie, but remains one of his most killer tracks; the Emile Sande song that brings “Trance” to a close that, as we said before, totally rules; there are a handful of Bollywood composer A. R. Rahman tracks on both “Slumdog Millionaire” and “127 Hours” that are truly exceptional; and who could forget the use of the Iggy Pop/David Bowie wonder “Lust for Life” at the beginning of “Trainspotting?” Not us. And probably not you. Tell us your faves below. – Drew Taylor, Rodrigo Perez