Licorice Pizza: OST OCD - "Judgment Night"

4/12/2007

OST OCD - "Judgment Night"

I don’t know how other people do their blogs, if they have a plan or schedule, or what. I know that I don’t. F’rinstance, I have a couple more albums left from last time I ripped stuff from vinyl, but I don’t feel like listening to that stuff. I figure, if I don’t feel like hearing it, probably no one else does, either. Anyway, I usually approach my blog with a “let’s sit down and see how I feel” attitude.

Tonight I felt more like posting weird soundtrack stuff than posting Slade, my original choice.

“Judgment Night,” a 1993 flick directed by Stephen Hopkins and starring Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Dennis Leary wasn’t exactly Oscar material: “’Judgment Night’ is regrettably familiar fare” with “precious little tension,” wrote Washington Post critic Richard Harrington.

I’ll throw you a plot summary from IMDb, in case you, like me, have not seen this movie.

Four pals are on their way to a boxing match, but get stuck in heavy traffic. To get to the boxing match in time they take the first exit they find to find another way to the venue. As they are driving around lost in gangland they get stuck and witness a brutal murder. The killer wants no witnesses and tries to kill them too. The four pals get away the first time, but the killer is soon back on their tail again while they are trying to find help in the middle of nowhere.

Fortunately, the soundtrack is better than the movie. It even managed to achieve some chart success, with every song being a collaboration between hip-hop artists and alternative rock artists. These collaborations came about before the rash of rock-rap bands such as Limp Bizkit. At the time, it was unique and very cool, with rappers (such as Cypress Hill) and rockers (such as Pearl Jam) blending their styles to create a new sound. Which is exactly why I bought this disk then when now you could hardly pay me to listen to rap-rock.

Pretend you didn’t spend the last half of the 90s being blasted with lame-ass white rock singers rapping inanely over crappy music, and I think you’ll find most of these songs interesting and not too bad at all.