Love Scene Romantic Movie Music

Love Scene is culled mostly from baby-boomer box-office hits (Phenomenon, The Commitments, The Big Chill). Not surprisingly, the disc consists of boomer-friendly music, with the predictable mishmash of styles and eras that gratifies a boomer's need for old-timey nostalgia as well as VH1-style "adult contemporary" music. It's certainly not a bad collection, just a weird one: Jimmy Durante ("Make Someone Happy" from Sleepless in Seattle) is the old-timey choice, while Lori Carson (the delicate "You Won't Fall" from Stealing Beauty) provides a wonderfully sappy '90s middle-of-the-road number. For classic pop fare, you've got Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge, the Commitments' cover of Otis Redding, and, most sublimely, that perfect, faux-Brian Wilson song from Grace of My Heart, "God Give Me Strength," cowritten by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach. A good gift for movie fans with a musical streak and weak knees. --Mike McGonigal