Scores I Can't Wait to Hear

With the summer about to officially start, here are some of my thoughts on upcoming scores that I'm looking forward to. Some of these films will be out in a matter of weeks, while some are a little down the line. Nevertheless, in no particular order, here are the ten (actually eleven) that I'm most excited about. Enjoy!

*******NEWS FLASH!!!*******

No sooner did Jason write this column that I learned some stunning news: Randy Newman is off of Air Force One. He had been recording with a large orchestra at Sony last weekend, and his climactic Harrison-Ford- kicks-Gary-Oldman-off-the-plane cue was described to me as symphonic but very mickey mousing. Apparently Wolfgang Petersen seemed to like the score well enough; he asked for a few changes which Newman made. Petersen had persuaded Columbia to hire Newman, so one wonders where the decision to fire the composer comes from.

No one has been hired to write the replacement score as of this moment—but whoever gets the call will most likely be a big name and will definitely have around one week to rescore the movie. Talk about insane. Apparently the filmmakers wanted Jerry Goldsmith, but he's on three movies right now. We will see what happens. Newman's score (what was recorded of it) has been pulled from the test-screening cut of the film, and the temporary score reinstated, which is full of the usual dumb shit like Aliens.

This is very disappointing to film score fans to say the least, and a chilling reminder that on these summer event films, difference or creativity of any kind is strictly forbidden. We now return to Jason's optimistic anticipation of what will now never be...

Lukas Kendall

*****************************

AIR FORCE ONE: Randy Newman has never written a full-blown action score. However, this doesn't bother me. Newman has proven over the years that he can come up with music perfect for each movie he scores and I doubt he'll have a problem here. The only fear I have is that he will go the drum machine loop route, as this is new ground for him and it would be an easy way to play through the action. But I think the chances of this happening are unlikely. I, for one, am confident in Newman's abilities and am pretty sure that he will come up with something both interesting and effective. I do have one other fear. It is that the temp-track will be loaded with Executive Decision and Newman will be forced to play off it. It should be great fun.

MEN IN BLACK: Danny Elfman has become one of, if not the, most interesting and exciting composer working today. His style is so recognizable, but yet so effective in the films he scores. Men in Black is right up his alley and I can't think of any other composer I'd rather score it. I would imagine we'll get a lot of his wacky rhythms and quirky orchestrations which have made his recent scores from Dead Presidents, Mission: Impossible, and Mars Attacks so popular with fans. I hear that this score is supposed to have some pretty cool jazz moments, too. Whatever it sounds like, I'm 99% sure it will be fun, and really good for that matter.

TITANIC: Now let me first say that I'm not a huge James Horner fan. In case you're wondering, I fall into the category of people who think he reached his peak of creativity in 1985 and has written very few impressive scores since. But, having said this, I find myself looking forward to hearing what he'll come up with for this film. People say that Horner feels like this is the film he was born to score. Take that however you want, but I'm hoping it means he will give this his absolute all and the result will be music from the James Horner who scored Star Trek II and Brainstorm and not the one who scored Jumanji and Ransom. I know he and James Cameron had their problems on Aliens, so let's hope we don't have a repeat incident here. We can almost surely expect big brass for the grandeur of the ship and a big theme for the romance aspect. There will also probably be a good deal of action music, so I suppose anything is possible. I'll be going in expecting something great, which may be a bad thing, but if it's not great, I hope it's at least tolerable. You still have good in you, James. I can feel it. Do not give in to the dark side!

STARSHIP TROOPERS: Basil Poledouris has already started strong in 1997 with his impressive quasi-minimalist score to Breakdown. Now that he's back with Paul Verhoeven, we can expect great things. The collaborative effort that resulted in the scores to Flesh + Blood and Robocop certainly looks promising here. The film is about giant bugs that bite people in half and run them through with their flesh- puncturing legs...now that's what Showgirls should have been about! Even with the extremely weird subject matter, I expect film will at least be entertaining. After all, I don't think we're supposed to take this too seriously. The score should sound like what you would expect from a big special effects action film. Expect a big orchestra frenzy of fun. Yowsers! There will probably be themes, too.

CONTACT: Alan Silvestri's last great score was Forrest Gump. Before that, his last great score was Back to the Future. Both films were directed by Robert Zemeckis. Can you see where I'm going here? Zemeckis seems to bring the best out of Silvestri. I like Silvestri, but aside from his scores to Zemeckis' films, he has given us only a handful of, what I would call, good scores. From what I've seen on Contact, it seems to be mostly character-driven drama. This should give Silvestri an opportunity to write music that gets into the characters and the story, much like he did with Forrest Gump. If he does, we shouldn't have anything to worry about. I'm expecting good things here for two reasons: 1) the Zemeckis/Silvestri collaboration and 2) this is a Silvestri scored film that should be void of electric guitars and explosions.

SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET and AMISTAD: John Williams. Duh. I should probably say more. Both of these films look to be, for the most part, straight-forward dramas. Williams is good at these and since we've gotten our Williams action fix for the year (The Lost World), we can look forward to sitting back and enjoying some "serious" music.

BOOKWORM: The buzz on this score is that it's another Jerry Goldsmith masterpiece—another standing ovation from the orchestra. I don't really know what else to say because I don't know too much about the film. However, if the music is as good as people are saying and if the film is any good at all, maybe Goldsmith's number of Oscar statuettes will double.

ALIEN: RESURRECTION: So far, I have only been semi-impressed by John Frizzell's music, but I'm hoping this will be the score that makes me a fan. The odd Alien films have good scores, but maybe that will change. I'm interested to see what he can do free of James Newton Howard's "help."

THINGS I'M ONLY MARGINALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO:

A SIMPLE WISH (aka-Box Office Poison): I think there is a rule that no Martin Short movie can ever make money, especially a kid's movie like this. I think Martin Short is funny, but his movies aren't. The ever-reliable Bruce Broughton has the daunting task of scoring around what will likely be a Danny Elfman temp-track. Broughton handled himself quite well with Baby's Day Out in 1994, so a good score here isn't all that unlikely.

MIMIC: This film looks to be a knock-off of The Relic, or Species, or Leviathan, or Alien, but with Mira Sorvino starring. Marco Beltrami, who scored Wes Craven's career-boosting Scream, will probably be asked to give the same sort of effort here. I enjoyed Scream, even though there was no theme and it relied quite a bit on Chris Young's quirks. We can forgive him because it was his first major effort. We can expect something more here.