FILM SCORE FRIDAY 6/14/02

Varese Sarabande has announced that on July 23rd they will release John Ottman's score to the new giant monster comedy-thriller EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS (formerly Arac Attack). Also upcoming, Citadel will be releasing Ottman's score to the offbeat comedy PUMPKIN, in which Christina Ricci falls in love with a "special needs" student.

The Prometheus CD Club is about to release their long-promised CD of John Barry's score to the Hitchcockian romantic thriller MASQUERADE. The 1988 film was written by future Law & Order mogul Dick Wolf, and was the last score Barry composed before a health crisis caused him to temporarily retire from scoring. He returned two-and-a-half years later with his Oscar winning score to Dances With Wolves.

The Bourne Identity - John Powell - Varese Sarabande
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys - Marco Beltrami, Joshua Homme - Milan
Lilo and Stitch - Alan Sivestri (20 min.), songs - Disney
Storytelling - Belle & Sebastian - Matador

The Bourne Identity - John Powell - Score Album on Varese Sarabande
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys - Marco Beltrami, Joshua Homme - Soundtrack on Milan
Scooby-Doo - David Newman - Song Album on Lava/Atlantic,1 score cue
Windtalkers - James Horner - Score Album on RCA

DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD - T. Bone Burnett, David Mansfield

"It's got an exciting and wide-ranging soundtrack, produced by T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield, and featuring blues star Jimmy Reed, Cajun legend Ann Savoy, Alison Krauss, Lauryn Hill and others."

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"Once the time-skipping settles into a rhythm, however, pic begins establishing some momentum and cinematic grace, thanks especially to John Bailey's lustrous widescreen cinematography and the distinctive musical contributions of T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield, which serve to partially offset the pic's gaudy trappings and the leading characters' petulant stubbornness."

Todd McCarthy, Variety

This week we pair two composer known for their melodic gifts, their rich, adventurous scores, and their affinity with tales of times past -- Miklos Rozsa and Basil Poledouris.

All the Brothers Were Valiant - Free Willy
The Asphalt Jungle - No Man's Land
El Cid - Flesh + Blood
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad - Conan the Barbarian
The Green Berets - Flight of the Intruder
The Jungle Book - The Jungle Book
The Lost Weekend - Wired
The Power - RoboCop
Providence - It's My Party
Tribute to a Badman - Quigley Down Under
The World, The Flesh and the Devil - Red Dawn

From: Fernan <f_elliott@wanadoo.es>

Subject: THE MARK SNOWS OF YESTERYEAR

Hi there !

hope you like this one. Some weird pairs? Maybe. Anybody else cares? ......

BERNSTEIN vs BROUGHTON

Magnificent 7 - Silverado
Ghostbusters - The Monster Squad
Lost in yonkers - Lost in Space
The Black Cauldron - Rescuers Down Under
Birdman of Alcatraz - The Presidio
M.Jackson's Thriller - Moonwalker
The Buccaneer - Master of Ballantrae
The Great Escape - Sweet Liberty
An American werewolf in London - Harry and the Hendersons
Spies Like Us - Shadow Conspiracy
Ellery Queen - Young Sherlock Holmes
Animal House - Homeward Bound
The Good Son - Baby's Day Out
McQ - One Tough Cop
7 Women - True Women

I try to avoid this trap whenever possible. I know that Red Sun & Black Rain may just sound like a gimmicky title link, but since one is about a Japanese samurai in the old West and the other is about an American cop in Japan, I think they're a suitable pair.

I'm planning an upcoming list to link Broughton with a different composer. I try to pick two composers who have attained a comparable level of success (though, sadly, Poledouris hasn't achieved Rozsaesque heights of Hollywood fame), and despite his great gifts, Broughton has come even less close to Bernstein's high position. I haven't found anyone to link with Bernstein yet, though he's worth trying. Certainly he's done enough films to make the list a little easier.

Finding films to link Rozsa and Poledouris proved tougher than I expected. Apart from the blissful symmetry of the two Jungle Books, Poledouris has scored many films that seem like they should have easy analogues in Rozsa's career but don't -- Farewell to the King, The Hunt For Red October, The Blue Lagoon, and so on.

From: "Richard Miller" <rdelmarm@excite.com>

I haven't written in quite a while because a couple of previous letters that you printed were edited too much. Most every reference to your CD releases was deleted, probably because they sounded negative. It seems unfair that you guys rate, criticize, and attack other people's releases, but almost never allow a negative comment about your releases to slip through.

I really appreciate what Film Score is doing with your attempts to bring us fans so many scores that are not available any where else. And, though I haven't enjoyed some as much as others, I have purchased a large percentage of your releases since you began issuing them. But, I think you should be more honest in allowing comments on good points and bad points regarding your releases.

I just received the two latest CDs, The Traveling Executioner and 36 Hours. I haven't listened to them enough to comment yet, but I appreciate the effort you are making with these kind of scores. It's about time you got around to Tiomkin, even though I wish you would have chosen a western instead of this rather uneventful score. Nevertheless, most any Tiomkin score has elements similar to every other, especially the action cues. So, any one can give you a taste of the others.

Goldsmith, though, has more facets to his different scores. I saw the Traveling Executioner as a sneak preview back in St. Louis. I was really taken with the originality of the subject, the score, and the flamboyant performance of Stacy Keach. It was the first time I had seen him, I think. The film, though, was not well received, I guess. I don't think it ever saw a general release in St. Louis, or at least was not around long.

The score, although outstanding on its own, does fit in with other Americana-type films scored by Goldsmith during that time, such as the Flim-Flam Man and Lilies of the Field. This reference was deleted from a previous letter, but Goldsmith did use elements of Copeland and others in these scores, just as Williams did in some of his. This is not a criticism of the scores, the composers, or your CDs. It's just a statement of a personal observation upon hearing the scores. I just think you have been over-sensitive to any comment that you feel might hurt the sale of your releases.

Also, your assertion that some of your releases are the first ever, may be false, in some cases. The Traveling Executioner and The Stripper are available on one CD through Screen Archives. I believe it is a foreign issue, but it's been available for a while. Some others have been available on LP records. Do you remember those? It seems like you've totally forgotten about the LP aspects of soundtrack collecting. I have a lot of great music on the old LPs that will never be released on CD. I like the fact that so many things are becoming available that weren't before, but we shouldn't forget about LPs altogether.

And, finally, I still don't understand how Goldsmith can stay angry at you guys for whatever you may have said years ago. You treat him like a god who can do no wrong. I mean, he's right up there with Williams, for gosh sakes!!! Both have done some great work, of course, but they're not infallible. They do sometimes repeat themselves, just as all the greats have. But, you guys do sometimes over-laud them, while you don't give enough space to the greats of the "golden age."

By the way, have you ever considered a compilation of themes from less well-known composers of westerns, like the Scott, Murphy or Stewart westerns of the late 40's, early 50's? Just a fantasy of mine.

Thanks for your time.

From: "Jeff Edmonds" <JEDMONDS@bloomberg.net>

Dear Sirs: I am a poor orphan with a terminal illness. When some nice people came to me recently and asked what wish I would like to have granted, I told them that all I wanted was an original soundtrack album to "The Traveling Executioner." They told me that no such thing existed, but the good sisters took out their rosaries and prayed and prayed, and--Oh, all right, I'm making this up. Truth is, I'm a geeky middle-aged guy who's been collecting Goldsmith music since "Patton" first appeared on vinyl. Probably my two all-time favorite cues are the main title to "The Illustrated Man" and the fields-of-ambrosia music from "Traveling Executioner." Somewhere in the past 30 years of collecting, I gave up on ever owning these twin grails of filmmusic, kind of like I gave up on ever marrying Christie Brinkley. But lo! FSM issues terrific CDs of both scores in rapid succession. Thank you Lukas, Jeff, and the rest of the gang at Film Score Monthly. You have brought my quest to a glorious end, and have restored hope to my life. Hey, has anyone heard whether Christie is between husbands again?

Congratulations on releasing a steady stream of high quality film music CDs, you've managed to beat the likes of Varese and Intrada at their own game! Without FSM and their remarkable monthlyish release schedule there would be little to look forward to. Your work on Goldsmith's early scores, in particular, is remarkable. For me TORA, TORA, TORA, was an outstanding achievement.

Keep up the great work!

From: "chris robinson" <chrisrobinson79@msn.com>

Something I've never seen mentioned in the debate about James Horner is his use of the music of Shostakovich. Let me say firstly that, as far as film music goes, I'm a Morricone man myself, and I haven't studied Horner's music to any degree. I also want to say that I like what I've heard in practically all his music that doesn't feature Celine Dion.
 
However, one niggle for me is the unacknowledged direct quotation of Shostakovich in both the scores that I have examined: Clear and Present Danger and A Beautiful Mind. I don't intend to point them out (but I will if pressed) - they are direct quotations, lifted orchestration and all from Shostakovich. It's a recurrent phrase in the latter film, but a whole section in the former.
 
It's not the use to which I object: both Shostakovich and Morricone do the same, both of their own music and others', but they do it in such a way as to bring attention to it for a particular reason, and use phrases that are sufficiently well known that no-one could accuse them of passing it off as their own work - the William Tell Overture, Fur Elise and similar ilk. As such, you wouldn't expect them to acknowledge the source ("Shostakovich's 15th Symphony, featuring Rossini" or "The Big Gundown, music by Morricone and Beethoven"), but with Horner, the excerpts are simply used as part of the body of his work, with no particular emphasis, and anyone unfamiliar with the source of the music simply wouldn't spot them. This to me leaves a slightly bitter taste, and I feel that it should be acknowledged.
 
Because I don't know a lot of Horner's music, I don't know how widespread this practice is. It does seem a coincidence that both of his scores that I do know well include a reference of this nature. Does anyone have further examples, or knowledge of Horner confirming Shostakovich as an influence? If he has acknowledged this just one time, I could forgive him!
 
Sorry to pick at this particular scab again, but it's itching like heck after hearing A Beautiful Mind....

Has anyone out there seen Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron? Now, I have not made a secret of the fact that I am not a Hans Zimmer fan, though his work in the past has not entirely been without merit. His approach to Rain Man was fresh and innovative. His work on Gladiator, though not a favorite of mine, took an original and clearly popular approach to the epic material. His score for Black Hawk Down is very effective at times.

I still feel his best score is The Thin Red Line. Though I think his approach was fairly obvious -- writing flowing, pretty cues that only vaguely match the action over long sequences seems a relatively easy way to score a film -- it was extremely effective in context (always the most important criterion of a film score, which soundtrack collectors sometimes tend to forget), and the music is very pleasant to listen to on its own.

Which brings us to Spirit. Those who only know the score from the excerpts on the CD may think it's fine, but in the movie it sounds downright crappy. The Bryan Adams songs are bad enough, though "Here I Am" has a relatively charming simplicity.

Melodically, Zimmer's score is feeble, sounding like something he improvised on a keyboard at the last minute. What's worse, almost all of it seems to be played on synths. This is a mega-budget animated Western, with gorgeous, anamorphic landscapes, artfully detailed by scores of visual craftsmen -- clearly a golden opportunity for a glorious symphonic score -- accompanied by synth music that suggests The Never Ending Story without Klaus Doldinger's infectious pop rhythms.

I feel that film music, like cinematography, should have at least one of two things -- beauty and drama. The drama in Zimmer's Spirit score is only the most obvious kind, and the beauty, thanks to the synths, is completely lacking. At least an orchestra could have provided lovely sounds, thanks to the skill of the musicians and the inherent beauty of the instruments -- think Thin Red Line.

This is not a matter of me gunning for Zimmer. If he has to be one of the top (or the very top, as some would argue) composers in Hollywood, then I want him to write great film music, and though Spirit is not by any stretch a great film, it's a scoring opportunity that any composer would envy.

I can't believe they couldn't afford an orchestra -- this is Jeffrey Katzenberg's big animated film of the summer, a film he proudly and daringly scheduled to open only a week after Attack of the Clones. So what happened? Anyone?

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