Film Score Friday 2/08/02

Good morning!

You may be shocked by the omission of Lukas Kendall's byline from this Friday's column. Unfortunately, the strain of running the magazine and website for all these years, as well as putting out two CDs a month, has caused Lukas to contract that premature aging disease that afflicted the Enterprise crews of both the original "Star Trek" as well as "Star Trek: The Next Generation," so he's going to be taking it easy for a while. But since Lukas's vanity matches William Shatner's, he shows very few visible signs of aging. Jonathan Kaplan, however, is already beginning to resemble DeForrest Kelley as he looks today.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Scott Bettencourt, and I will be now filling in for all the website duties that Lukas is too rich, lazy, and downright persnickety to do. My use of the word "persnickety" should clue you in that I am not one of those rave-hopping, Ecstasy-smoking Gen-Xers who normally write for FSM, and thus am not yet another psuedonym for the Kaplan brothers. In fact, I am nearly as old as Jeff Bond, if such a thing is imaginable.

However, I am yet another of those tiresome folk who find Horner too derivative and Zimmer too, wellÖZimmerish, (though I do still buy all their CDs, and all my 12-step programs haven't done a bit of good) so let fly your poisoned arrows.

John Waxman informs us that tonight (sorry for the late notice) at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the National Symphony, conducted by Leonard Slatkin ,will present the "Emigres in Hollywood" concert of music by Toch, Korngold, Waxman, Castenuovo-Tedesco and Rozsa as part of the "Journey to America" series.  Following the concert on February 9th Maestro Slatkin, Lawrence Wechler (Toch's grandson) and John Waxman will discuss "Emigires in Hollywood".

For more details go to franzwaxman.com and at the bottom of the home page there is a link to the Kennedy Center/National Symphony web site with complete details.

Columbia Records has announced that they will release the soundtrack album to the upcoming "Spider Man" movie on April 16th.  Alas, they do not specify if the album will consist of songs, score, or some ungodly combination of the two.

David Arnold is reported to have signed to score the latest James Bond film, the still untitled "Bond 20," directed by Lee Tamahori (The Edge, Along Came a Spider) and co-starring Halle Berry. Early reports on the storyline, which I won't repeat here for the sake of those who want to be surprised, make it sound silly and cartoonish, but as a lifelong Bond fan I am as always optimistic. If nothing else, Bond will probably not swing through the trees accompanied by a Tarzan yell, surf down a glacier to a Beach Boys tune, or cause a pigeon to blink with his Venetian hovercraft antics. The report of Arnold's signing can be found at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnbarry/message/21569

Next Tuesday morning at 5:30 at the Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, the nominations for the Academy Awards (or as it was once called on The Daily Show, "the gay Super Bowl") will be announced, thus ending months of speculation on whether Christopher Young and Howard Shore will get their first ever nominations; if John Williams will be picked for A.I., Harry Potter, or both; if Hans Zimmer will be cited for scoring World War II or the conflict in Somalia; and if James Horner will be picked for his original work on the tearjerker biopic Iris, or his not quite so original work on the tearjerker biopic A Beautiful Mind.

From: Ron Pulliam

I don't know what difference it makes what "Come What May" was originally written for...if it has never been heard before its use in "Moulin Rouge" it should be eligible.

As for Craig Armstrong, so far as I can tell...he composed the "considerable" original score and someone else supervised the musical numbers. Armstrong's involvement, to my way of thinking, makes him fully eligible as his underscore was quite significant (MUCH moreso than Bernstein's in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" which earned noms. for original score, adaptation and song!).

But...jealousy in the music ranks may negate any possibility of anything making sense this year.

And there's nothing unusual about John Williams getting double nominations -- he has had them before, as has James Horner.

From: Preston Jones

I enjoyed Jon Kowing's account of the Gil Shaham violin concert, and  trust he will be pleased to learn -- I'm surprised that this wasn't  mentioned in the concert program notes -- that the violinist has  recorded the Williams piece. In fact, "Devil's Dance" is the title  piece in a demonic collection by Shaham with pianist Jonathan Feldman on  the Deutsche Grammophon label, (289 463 483-2). Among the other items  included are the Bolcolm "Graceful Ghost" rag which Shaham also played  at that concert, plus "A Transylvanian Lullaby" by John Morris from  YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, and Korngold's "Caprice Fantastique," along with the  inevitable "Danse Macabre" by Saint-Saens and selections from such classical composers as Grieg, Brahms, Mendelssohn, etc. I recommend the disc; buy it now, and play it next Halloween...

Also, the aforementioned Oscar aficionado Ron Pulliam sends info on the upcoming new edition of the E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial soundtrack (released to coincide with Spielberg's new 20th Anniversary edition), including this excerpt from MCA's press release:

"Like the movie, the music from E.T. remains as magical as ever. The digitally remastered and remixed soundtrack album package contains three previously unreleased score selections ("Main Titles," "Meeting E.T." and "E.Tís New Home") for a total of twenty-one tracks, as well as new front cover art and additional photos in a full-color booklet."

Sorry the link isn't longer.  See you next week!

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