This News Friday 7/25/97

The only scoring news I've uncovered this week is that Hans Zimmer will provide the music for Terry Malick's next film, and first film in a long time, The Thin Red Line. Malick directed only two features, but they were both among the best films of the 1970s: Badlands (1972) and Days of Heaven (1978). The former featured an intriguing blend of Orff (not Carmina Burana!), Satie and Nat King Cole; the latter was scored by Ennio Morricone with excerpts from Saint-Saens. So, lucky Hans. I learned this in an interview with John Powell, composer of Face/Off, for an upcoming Film Score Monthly; Powell is writing the music for a film Malick is producing called Endurance, a documentary on the hardships faced by an Ethiopian Olympic runner. Malick is actually in the special thanks list in the Face/Off CD, because he let Powell out of his pre-scoring commitments long enough to tackle Woo's fine film.

One person wrote in to add, re: Andy Dursin's review of Hercules earlier this week, that Alan Menken is scoring the Roger Rabbit sequel, as well as writing songs. My only confusion in this matter was that Disney has so far denied the reports to me; and of course a large conglomerate like that always tells the truth. Andy added, "The Roger Rabbit stuff was in at least two different places—I'm almost certain it was on the Variety/Reuters wire on Yahoo a few weeks ago, and I think it showed up in either Entertainment Weekly or some other USA Today column. They also said Menken was a producer on the movie, too."

Questions

Mark McCauley asked, "Have you heard of any plans to re-record or re-release Goldsmith's first-rate score to Papillon? With the current spate of Goldsmith classic scores upcoming (!), I wonder if this one is on the agenda. There are several cues that never saw the light of day—the 'Butterfly Catching' sequence is a particularly good one—that I would love to hear on an expanded release."

The answer is—no! Everybody tells me the butterfly cue is this wonderful thing, by the way—I haven't seen the movie for a long time.

In the does it exist category: I've been asked about Candyman and Dust Devil. For Candyman, the well known story is that Philip Glass does not like this movie so he does not want to release the score (which begs the question why he scored the sequel). However, I heard rumblings within the last year that he might finally relent. As for Dust Devil, scored by Simon Boswell, I don't know of any release.

Super Site

Regarding the Superman comments a few weeks ago, about the longer cut of the film aired on TV, hiphats@aol.com wrote to tell me of a web site cataloging the various differences:

http://members.aol.com/dsupermanc/main.htm

I checked it out, it's pretty good. Hiphats reports that the longest syndication cut of the film was broadcast by KCOP in Los Angeles several years ago.

Los Angeles Area Concerts

Here are the phone numbers to call for tickets for upcoming film music concerts, conducted by Big Names, in the Los Angeles area:

Jerry Goldsmith at the Pasadena Pops, August 2: 818-792-7677

John Williams conducting the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in a Star Wars concert, August 29 and 30: 213- 850-2000 (this may send you to another number for actual purchases, I haven't tried it).

And don't forget John Mauceri conducting an all-20th Century Fox film music concert on September 20: call the Bowl at 213-850-2000 for this too.

Anti-Wanker Comments

In the best tradition of George Carlin, I want to chastise foolish and annoying people on the net who make comments of the nature of any of the following:

(1) "I was at a recording session for something, therefore it is a great score and I should get a lot of attention for being there to tell you about it."

[Note: Does not apply to me and Starship Troopers, which actually was good. I'm at some sessions which are pretty lame, but I don't tell you about those!]

(2) "[Composer] is my favorite; he responds to my E-mail all the time!"

(3) "Well, sure it sucks, but don't criticize it if you can't do better yourself."

(4) "[Anybody] is the most underrated composer out there!"

(5) This is not as much a comment but an attitude. It is an attitude which we are all taking more and more lately, which is, "Well, at least it didn't completely stink." This should not affect our critical judgment. I did not watch a laserdisc of Paths of Glory tonight and say, "Well, at least it wasn't completely terrible." I don't think anybody here would watch Star Wars or Ben-Hur or Planet of the Apes and say, "The score, well, at least it wasn't totally awful." Let yourself put up some natural resistance to those things which are merely surface gloss; identify the meaning behind your ambivalence. Damn it, let that glass be half-empty once in a while!

Of course, comments to the contrary are always appreciated. Write in!

Remember

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Shabbat shalom,

Lukas Kendall

lukas@filmscoremonthly.com