Film Score Friday 7/10/98
by Lukas Kendall
We're changing the name of this Friday news column, because the old
name was stupid.
To answer some questions:
Hans Zimmer will score Enemy of the State (Bruckheimer film starring
Will Smith).
John Ottman is scoring H20: Halloween.
The Scream/Scream 2 Varese Sarabande CD is (I think) all Marco
Beltrami music, without the "Cassandra's Aria" piece from Scream
2 by Danny Elfman.
The latest I heard about the Lethal Weapon 4 soundtrack was that
it will actually be a compilation of tracks from all four LW soundtracks,
which means cuts from the original film will finally find their way to
CD.
Simpsons Delayed
Rhino has put its upcoming Simpsons sequel album, Go Simpsonic With
The Simpsons, on "indefinite hold." The CD had been due on
September 1. No explanation has been given. D'oh!
Scary Stuff
Referring to yesterday's
column about Shadowbuilder - temp score compared to final score...
From: Wdp321@aol.com
You mentioned different "scary" film scores and such.
One film score that I find odd, and most critics have is the one for INVASION
of the BODY SNACTERS the 1978 version. I bought it on DVD. I forget the
composer's name but I was looking in Leonard Maltin's movie guide and it
was his last phrase on the films critism and it went something like.......
a weird score by ? ?.... I thought it was interesting. The director on
his commentary said that he never really did anything after that, as far
as I can remember. He spoke highly of him.
This was by Danny Zeitlin.
X-Files Comments
Regarding our column
this week...
From: Preston Jones <pjones@fulpat.com>
Just to piggyback on Andrew Schmidt's remarks, I wish to weigh in
on the mood-shattering effect of inappropriate end credits music. I still
remember my friends and I walking out of a sneak of THE ADDAMS FAMILY after
the end title music suddenly jumped from Vic Mizzy to Hammer. (Anybody
remember him?)
Obviously, then, I side with Mr. Schmidt. Interestingly, the late
Joseph Mankiewicz (sp?) was against the current trend of long end credits
WHATEVER the music. A few years before he died, the great writer-director
participated in a Directors Guild event in which he moderated film clips
and questions from the audience. I can't remember what particular question
prompted his eloquent tirade on the subject, but he said that in the good
old days a film would make its statement at "THE END," and then
it was over, leaving the audience in exactly the spell of the moment toward
which the entire film had been striving. You would feel its echo and were
free to ponder it as you left the theater. As an excellent case in point,
he cited one of the clips which had just been screened: the climax of THE
GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, with (of course) its superb Herrmann score. Nothing
could follow that moment, said Mankiewicz, and nothing should. He felt
that movies have lost a great deal of their power by dissipating every
climax with endless credits.
From: Robin Anderson, EnterAct@aol.com
If the "X-Files" movie is a success (and judging from
both box-office and critical response, it is), it is very likely that the
franchise will movie from the little screen to the big one, a la "Star
Trek". If that's true, every ticket sold to the "X-Files"
movie, in effect, sends the studio one vote to cancel the show, and make
the move to feature films.
I think this is a good thing, personally. I don't watch a lot of
series television (heck, I don't even have cable) so it frees up some time
for me on Sunday nights. I'm just curious as to whether big fans of the
television show know what they're doing each time they plunk down their
cash to see it.
By the way, I loved the "X-Files" movie. Of all the big-ass
summer movies, it's hands down my favorite so far. I also quite liked Mark
Snow's score for it; I'll probably pick up the CD pretty soon; however,
I have only seen the "Songs From and Inspired by..." nonsense
CD in my local store. I may have to special order it.
Oh, woe is me.
From: JNordheden@aol.com
No discussion on one important point. They issued the score album
at the same time as the song cd [of The X-Files]. Did this hurt sales,
cause confusion, result in the highest scoring all-star game of all time?
That is a good question... and there is no answer, really. I don't know
how either one has sold, but I'm sure the song CD is way out in front.
Varese Sarabande Stuff
From: mschramm@ftw.nrcs.usda.gov (Michael K Schramm)
Regarding the upcoming soundtrack releases, is there any information
as to why Joel McNeely will no longer be conducting the Herrmann re-recordings?
I know nothing of John Debney as composer or conductor but it would seem
that performing a faithful recording of "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad"
would prove a herculean task to a newcomer as this score is so complex
in its percussion and orchestral colorations. (Yes, like some other collectors,
I was disappointed with the Herrmann/McNeely release for "Torn Curtain"
but through no fault on McNeely's part, it's just that the sound seemed
so compressed with many of the tracks recorded at a very low volume. Actually,
how can this occur, when the "Vertigo" and "Fahrenheit 451"
recordings turned out so well? Hopefully, the future release of "Citizen
Kane" will not suffer from poor sonics ).
Also, why does Varese waste their time on scores that are in plentiful
supply? I'm referring to the recent release of "Out of Africa"
and now the upcoming "Somewhere in Time". Is it that they can
expect higher sales from successful scores that have been continuously
available for 10-20 years as opposed to releasing a never released score,
e.g. Barry's "Raise the Titanic" or Herrmann's "The Snows
of Kilamanjaro"?
Joel McNeely recently backed out (on short notice) of conducting several
Varese albums as well as a concert in Scotland to score The Avengers,
which is why Debney has taken his place in the series.
As for #2, you answered your own question. Varese no doubt feel they
can do better with another recording of a commercially successfully score,
than a new one of a title that will appeal only to fans.
In other Varese news, the Small Soldiers CD has been pushed back
by two weeks (to July 28) so that it will not conflict with the song CD.
Reportedly it will have a big yellow sticker "warning" people
that it is a score album!
News Themes
From: BachLT42T@aol.com
I am shamed because I used to know this. Anybody? Now all I can remember
is that John Williams wrote the NBC Nightly News theme, but that's not
the question.
Schifrin Concert on TV
From: yvain@ix.netcom.com (Robert Delaney)
The Bravo cable network is showing a concert of film music this
month conducted by Lalo Schifrin. The instrumental portion includes music
from: High Noon, The Magnificent Seven, The Good the Gad and the Ugly,
James Bond, The Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, The Third Man, Dr. Zhivago,
Zorba the Greek, Star Wars, and of course, Mission Impossible where Schifrin
also plays the piano. The vocal portion includes the songs: Raindrops Keep
Falling on My Head, Somewhere over the Rainbow, New York New York, The
Shadow of Your Smile, Cabaret, Summer of '42, Evergreen (where they showed
the poster from the wrong version of A Star Is Born), The Way We Were,
and songs that I didn't recognize from Black Orpheus, Bagdad Cafe, The
Umbrellas of Cherbourg, India Song, High Heels, and Gates of Night. There
was also a section where they performed music while they showed early silent
films by Lumier. Schifrin was speaking French, so I couldn't make out the
titles, but I thought I caught the name Debussy. According to the Cable
Guide, the concert should be rerun July 25 at 7:00pm and July 26 at 11:00am
(eastern time).
I caught some of this, looked cool.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
From: "Michael Schuermann" <mschuermann@bigfoot.com>
Just wanted to share a great experience I had. I was in my local
used record store (Vintage Vinyl in the loop in St. Louis!!) and lo and
behold, they had a used copy of Temple of Doom on vinyl, not to mention
other great finds such as Alex North's Cleopatra (I think), Original Star
Wars trilogy LP's (all 3 films) and many more. I urge all of my fellow
readers to invest in a record player and hit a local used record store
(if convenient) or check out some web sites, and look for those scores
they long for on CD on vinyl, as many people get rid of their records,
but not their CD's. It's helped me get a true treasure of a score into
my hands for ONLY 4 DOLLARS!
I agree that there's great stuff out there on vinyl, and I wish I had
my turntable and LPs here in Los Angeles.
But for those of you wanting the CD of Temple of Doom, you can order
it for $24 (a good price, believe me) from http://www.importmusic.com
- they have a lot of other imports too.
Sensurround
I already forget how we started talking about Universal's short-lived
Sensurround process but...
From: alpha.centauri@t-online.de (Torsten Ehrig)
There's actually a fifth movie in Sensurround even though I am not
sure whether it was released theatrically in the States. It's the sequel
to Battlestar Galactica called Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (to
be honest: it's just three episodes of the TV series cut together to make
a feature, but combined with the Sensurround sound it felt like a big budget
movie when seen on the big screen).
Other Stuff
Please check out our newly added track lists and sound clips for our
new CDs! Stagecoach/The
Loner and The
Wild Bunch are now for sale exclusively from Film Score Monthly.
There's a review of our Basil Poledouris video now at Film Music on
the Web (http://Surf.to/FilmMusic)
- they also have tons of new reviews: Horner's Deep Impact, George &
Ira Gershwin in Hollywood; Max Steiner - The Flame and the Arrow; Ernest
Gold - It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; the new Naxos CD of Walton's Henry
V adapted by Christopher Palmer; a Bernard Herrmann collection and Bolling's
Borsalino as well as a review of the new ASV recording of Korngold's String
Quartets Nos 1 and 2.
Jim Auman tells me of a cool site called www.thedj.com:
You download this free interface that works through RealPlayer and
you have dozens of different music styles and categories you can listen
to. One of them is Movie Scores. While the song plays, the player tells
you the title of the score, the composer and the album it's from. Right
now I'm listening to The Omen by Jerry Goldsmith as performed by the Crouch
End Festival Chorus from the album Cinema Choral Classics.
Sounds cool. By the way, I find it incredibly annoying to listen to
anything via RealPlayer. Hey, I bought a board game at a local store selling
Jewish books and trinkets which looks like Chutes and Ladders but is called
"Magical Mitzvah Park"! As the box says, "Hop aboard a dreidel
and spin your way through the adventure park with magic." The board
is illustrated with kids in a park, going on such rides as "Red Sea
Treasure Hunt" and "Mt. Sinai Express." Seriously! It's
the coolest.
Send your letters: MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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