Film Music 2009 is the third instalment in the annual “Year Book” concept from Silva Screen. This 11 track collection features A.R. Rahman’s 'Latika’s Theme' from Oscar / BAFTA winner Slumdog Millionaire, Alexandre Desplat’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, James Newton Howard’s painfully sad, violin led 'The Exodus' from Defiance and James Horner’s epic 'War' from Avatar. Other highlights include Johan Soderqvist’s 'Eli’s Theme' from Let the Right One In, Christopher Young’s 'End Credits' from Drag Me To Hell and Carter Burwell’s yearning piece 'The Meadow' from Twilight: The New Moon. This album is performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus and conducted by James Fitzpatrick and Nic Raine...

I'm not usually a fan of soundtrack compilation albums, mainly because they normally revolve around some sort of genre theme and the tracks chosen are usually the same that are included on numerous other compilation albums. However, I really loved the idea of collecting together movies from the previous year's worth of cinema. This is mainly down to the fact that I'd not heard hardly any of these music tracks before and and as a consequence I've since bought the full soundtracks to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Valkrie and Revolutionary Road.

I'm not overly sure what the criteria was for collecting these tracks, other than they were from 2009 movies, but there were obvious omissions and I'm not sure whether this was down to the fact that Silva Screen couldn't obtain the rights for these tracks or the person compiling the list didn't think they warranted inclusion. However, I was surprised to discover that Mychael and Jeff Danna's incredible score for The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus was missed - especially as Silva Screen recently released the full soundtrack. I was equally surprised to see that Drag Me to Hell was included. The full soundtrack is a bit disappointing and while the theme here is about the best track on the album, I still felt that there were more deserving scores out there which should have been included.

Another bit of pointless nitpicking is the fact that very few of these movies were actually originally released in 2009. However, all of them went on their full release in the UK in 2009 - yes, sorry to be so pedantic. For those that really care here's a boring rundown: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was released in December 2008; Let the Right One In was released in in its native Sweden in January 2008 - but in 2009 it was released around the world; Valkyrie was released in December 2008; Revolutionary Road had a limited released in December 2008 but a wider release in January 2009; Defiance had a limited release in December 2008 but it's wider release was January 2009; Slumdog Millionaire had its first screening in October 2008, but a wider release in January 2009. History lesson over.

If you ignore the fact that not all of these films were released in 2009 and that some other seriously worthwhile contenders (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Inkheart, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Knowing, 17 Again, Angels & Demons, Flame & Citron, The Time Traveler's Wife, 9, Surrogates and Sherlock Holmes) were excluded, then what you have here is a pretty impressive collection of themes that will probably introduce you to some soundtracks that would have otherwise passed you by.

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Darren Rea