Film Score Friday 8/28/98
by Lukas Kendall
Scoring news: Trevor Rabin is taking over for Hans Zimmer on Enemy
of the State, since Hans is still working on The Thin Red Line
for Terrence Malick.
John Ottman is writing the theme for the new, darker Fantasy Island
TV show, produced by Barry Sonnenfeld.
John Barry is scoring Dancing About Architecture for Miramax,
which should be very cool, not only in that it stars Sean Connery (plus
Gillian Anderson and Anthony Edwards), but in that the filmmakers are looking
for a John Barry Seven type of small jazz score... and Barry is up for
it. Yeah, baby.
Album News
Time for "you heard it here first from Film Score Monthly":
There will be a score album to Armageddon (Trevor Rabin) on Sony
later this year.
There will be a score album to Rush Hour from Aleph Records (Lalo
Schifrin's label) in mid-September, when the movie is out.
What Dreams May Come (Michael Kamen, replacing Ennio Morricone)
will be out on PolyGram in October.
There will definitely, absolutely not be a commercial album to Halloween
H20, due to the entanglements (both legal and creative) of having two
composers on the picture. Whether there's a promotional CD from one composer
or another (John Ottman or Marco Beltrami), I don't know.
See? I know we've done a lot of these "top ten" columns, but
we'll bring you the real news too.
"Rescored for Video"
From: "Kellers, Tony" <tkellers@GT.com>
I recently rented Blood Simple and could swear that some of the
music was changed from the original movie.
Maybe I'm losing my mind, but wasn't the music Meurice (who's from
Detroit) plays on the bar jukebox and at the closing credits The Four Tops
or something Motown (because he's from Detroit) instead of that faux Monkees
crap?
I'm not familiar with this movie - you're probably right. Welcome to
the land of "some music rescored for home video." This does NOT
refer to the underscore in almost all cases (see below for an exception)
but to the fact that certain songs in the background - to play on radios,
jukeboxes, etc. - may not have been licensed originally for all future
video, cable, broadcast uses, etc. So when it comes time to exhibit the
movie in a new format, the studio sometimes replaces a troublesome song
with one that is easier to clear.
Most of the time the culprit appears to be for video, so you can see
the original version still on TV, but the video version has the substituted
songs.
There is an episode of the original Star Trek series, "The
City on the Edge of the Forever," in which a key part of the score
(dealing with the Edith Keeler character) is based around a '30s song.
Tragically, Paramount's rights to this song expired at some point (for
this one episode, at least), and these cues were rescored with a small
ensemble with some other tune. The "rescored" version on video
is atrocious, but you can still catch the original on TV... it will be
interesting to see which version is used on the Sci-Fi Channel in their
new series of "uncut, annotated" Trek episodes coming
up this fall.
Speaking of Star Trek...
From: Guy McKone <guymck@cims.net>
I glommed this from this past Saturday's (Aug. 22/98) StarWeek magazine,
a supplement to the Toronto (Ontario) Star newspaper.
There's a CD out, available exclusively from the cable channel Space:
The Imagination Station in Toronto,thru mid-September '98. It's called
"Spaced Out!: a unique collection of songs by Leonard Nimoy and William
Shatner", from Universal Music of Canada (though, I've a feeling it'll
be issued Stateside as well)
It's a compendium of selections from Nimoy's Dot output (1967-~1970),
and Shatner's Decca debacle, 24 tracks in all. Personally, I'll give this
one a pass (though, I'll admit to owning the Dot album "Leonard Nimoy
Presents Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space" and had the Shatner Decca
- but turfed it [bad move!], bought the U.K. mono version CD of Transformed
Man, following with the better-sounding Varese CD.)
The cost is $15.95, plus $4.95 shipping and handling.
There's a toll-free number (from the States: toll-free? We'll see...)
1-888-403-2040.
For those who haven't yet experienced these tunes: you could do
worse. For new fans of Star Trek: The Original Series - something else
to buy.
I have the Varese Sarabande CD reissues of the Nimoy and Shatner albums,
they're a riot.
Trailer Stuff
From: Jeff Commings, Jeffswim@aol.com
This is a desperate request from a desperate man: in the commercials
for the TBS airings of The American President, there is music that is from
some film I have seen before, but I can't place the music. I think Marc
Shaiman wrote it, but I don't know which film.
From: Dan Goldwasser <dsg@soundtrack.net>
Subject: SNAKE EYES TV TRAILERS
Once again, here's what happened.
In the full THEATRICAL trailer, JFK and THE USUAL SUSPECTS was used,
in addition to some other music.
In the TELEVISION SPOTS (of which there were MANY DIFFERENT ONES),
some used JFK, some used THE USUAL SUSPECTS, and some used THE SAINT and
THE FIRM.
Television spots are always full of variety - and people tend to
see different ones. Which is why identifying music for the theatrical trailers
is considered to be "purer". :)
Williams Concert
From: Smartsam@aol.com
Recently I attended a John Williams Concert at the Ravinia Festival
in Chicago. Without a doubt it was one of the finest performances I have
ever seen. The first half of the concert consisted of music by Samuel Barber
(which was unexpectedly enjoyable), and some arrangements of George Gershwin
which were put together by John Williams. The second half of the concert
was five times as enjoyable. It started out with a dramatic rendition of
a selection from E.T. Then, an older score of Williams', Jane Eyre, was
played, which was certainly one of Williams' undiscovered treasures. After
that, the theme from Seven Years in Tibet, which I think was one of the
highlights of the concert, was played. Finally, the theme to Star Wars,
imppecably performed, ended the concert, leaving me in awe. I was just
about to leave, when John Williams returned to conduct a beautiful piece
by Steven Sondheim. Now, any Film Music fan would have been more than satisfied
by that point, but as a second encore the theme to Indiana Jones brought
the concert to an end on a truly wonderful note.
Doug Adams also attended this concert and wrote
about it in our column yesterday.
Son of Kong
Replying to a question from last week:
From: Ron Pulliam <RPULLIAM@gsa.mail.co.alameda.ca.us>
I'm hoping someone who knows for certain will respond to this item,
but I'm offering a best guess that "Son of Kong" was an issue
of the Max Steiner Society for its membership in the mid-70s to mid-80s.
Most of those albums were done with b/w art, usually just a photo or poster
art representation. Thus, seeing one today might give you the impression
that it was a 1940s release if you didn't know better.
That's All...
Check out the current issue of Cineaste for a four-page article
on composer-director teams. And check out the October issue of Playboy
magazine (that's right, Playboy), where FSM is mentioned in
a new column Leonard Maltin is writing about movies for the famous men's
magazine. (Take that, competing soundtrack magazines - we're in Playboy!)
See www.filmtracks.com for a
new review of our new Poseidon
Adventure CD.
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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