FILM SCORE FRIDAY 3/15/02

According to Music From the Movies, Lalo Schifrin will be rerecording his score to The Amityville Horror with the City of Prague Philharmonic this spring, to be released on his Aleph Records label late this year or early next year.

Amityville was the last Schifrin work to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score, and one of the few horror scores ever to be nominated (others include The Omen and Interview With the Vampire). Those unfamiliar with Schifrin's memorable music for the film can put on their CDs of Elliot Goldenthal's Pet Sematary -- Goldenthal's main theme is shockingly derivative of the Schifrin score.

According to my extensive research (okay, I looked it up on CDNow and Amazon), EMI will release Eric Serra's score to the abysmal Rollerball remake on March 26th. The CD is listed as an import, so it's availability in U.S. stores is up in the air.

One week later, Sony will release Nick Glennie-Smith's score to We Were Soldiers. Also, Marco Beltrami's score album to Blade II has been pushed back from March 19th to late August, presumably just in time for the film's release on video or on airplanes. Alas, still no info on a Danny Elfman Spider-Man score CD yet. Amazon and CDNow don't even list the song album yet.

Composer, Writer, Director JOHN HARRISON will be signing the first ever release on CD for his score DAY OF THE DEAD at Dark Delicacies on Saturday, March 16 from 2 pm - 4 pm.

Mr. Harrison composed the music for CREEPSHOW and TALES FROM THE DARSIDE. He also co-wrote and directed the blockbuster mini-series DUNE, based on FRANK HERBERT'S MASTERPIECE.

Dark Delicacies is located at 4213 W. Burbank Boulevard in Burbank, California, 91505. Toll-free phone number is 1-888-DARKDEL. Their local phone number is (818)556-6660.

A purchase must be made at the store in order for Mr. Harrison to sign.

If you have any further questions please email: numenoreanmusic@yahoo.com

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that Randy Newman and John Goodman will perform Newman's nominated song "If I Didn't Have You" from the film Monsters, Inc. during the Oscar ceremony on Sunday, March 24th.

The song has a good chance of finally winning Newman the Oscar he's deserved for so long, both because everyone thinks he should win one and because the competition is so weak. After all, does anyone want the terrifying phrase "the Oscar winning movie Vanilla Sky" to ever be spoken aloud?

Harrison's Flowers - Score by Cliff Eidelman - Varese Sarabande*
Resident Evil - Music by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson (!) -- Song Album on Roadrunner Records, featuring four score cues by Manson

Harrison's Flowers - Score by Cliff Eidelman - Album on Varese Sarabande*
Ice Age - Score by David Newman
Resident Evil - Score by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson -- for album info, see above
Showtime - Score by Ala Silvestri - Song Album on Big Yard/MCA Records
Y Tu Mama Tambien - Song Album on Volcano Records

*European prints of Harrison's Flowers featured a score by Bruno Coulais (Microcosmos, The Crimson Rivers). The Coulais soundtrack for the film is available at Intrada and Footlight. However, it's wise to send an e-mail inquiry before you order from Footlight. They often list discs on their website years after they've gone out of stock. But other than that, they're cool, and for any soundtrack collector visiting Manhattan they are the one place you absolutely must visit.

38. In my defense of not adjusting movie grosses for inflation in the Top Forty Countdown, I wrote:

A more important reason for not adjusting the grosses is that the whole point of the article is to figure out who is most employable RIGHT NOW. Producers and studios don't care how much the grosses of The Ten Commandments would be if adjusted to 2002 dollars. They want to know what kind of money Elmer Bernstein movies have done LATELY, which is why he's number forty instead of in the top five where he belongs.

When a composer's most successful films were released ten, twenty, thirty years ago, it illustrates why they aren't in such demand anymore. On the other hand, for a film released in 1978 to gross 141 million (as Animal House did) is pretty damn impressive. Great movie, too.

Subject: Inflation? We don't got to show you no stinkin' inflation

I understand your point, but it is fun to know that "great movie" Animal House made $396.14 in 2001 dollars.

In the 1930s, a full 90 percent of the population went to the movies at least once a week. Those dimes sure added up fast.

And frankly, I'm too lazy and too crappy at math to even begin attempting to readjust grosses for inflation. And when you start, where does it stop? If you were to adjust the grosses for Star Wars, should you readjust them all for 1977 standards, or figure in the Special Edition grosses with a different inflation adjustment. Down this road lies madness, or at least migraines.

From: "Christian Lauliac" <clauliac@wanadoo.fr>

Hi ! Here's a bit of information regarding the "Femme Fatale" scoring process : although Eric Serra was at one time attached to this project he actually never met with Brian De Palma to discuss the score even informally. Mr. Doyle did spot the entire movie with the great director. Reportedly, according to several people in Paris close to the post-production process, Mr.Doyle didn't feel comfortable having to write so much music over a such a short time span. As you know Mr. Doyle has been ill a few years ago and although his health is really OK now he obviously does not wish to under too much pressure, which will probably understood by many of his fans. The production then sought none other than Jerry Goldsmith who was indeed available and eager to work on the movie. Unbeknownst to the production, Brian de Palma then called Mr. Sakamoto who quickly joined the project. I've been told by the music editor in Paris that the music is quite good, and the movie harkens back to the great De Palma thrillers of the 70s and 80s such as the sexually torrid "Dressed to Kill" and "Body Double". The movie opens in France on May 1st. My guess is there should be an album out by that time. Just thought you might like to know that.

Femme Fatale was filmed in France and stars Antonio Banderas and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, who emerged relatively unscathed from the Rollerball debacle, though she did suffer the indignity of having her bare breasts digitally shadowed to get the film (Rollerball, not Femme Fatale-- DePalma's no prude) a PG-13 rating. The fact that MGM thought hiding her breasts would encourage more people to see Rollerball gives you just a small idea of why that studio is in such trouble.

From: "Greg Bryant" <gbryant@isoc.net>

Black Sunday is owned by Paramount, which has not been eager to license any of their old scores for CD releases, and the rights to Alien may be tied up because of the LP release. But here's hoping. And Sand Pebbles doesn't exactly suck, either.

Is that last line supposed to be a foreshadowing of things to come???

Frankly, I was shocked that Lukas even hinted at imminent releases on the Message Board by referring to Herrmann, Williams, Goldsmith, and Tiomkin as composers for upcoming discs.

As it turns out, Lukas will be releasing new CDs of Taxi Driver, E.T., Total Recall and The Guns of Navarone, but with less music and crappier sound than the old ones, just to make us all appreciate how good we've got it these days. Some of us can actually remember buying soundtracks in the days B.V.S.--Before Varese Sarabande, a primitive and brutish era for film music collectors.

And to answer your question, no, Lukas has no plans to release The Sand Pebbles. Only in my dreams. (Which should tell you how paltry my dream life is)

After bitching to Lukas that he left out the Annual Readers Poll last year, this year they renewed the poll and I completely flaked on sending in an entry. If you've made it this far down the column, clearly you've got some free time on your hands, so here are my choices.

I am omitting several categories, either for political reasons or because I just don't care about them.

1. BEST NEW SCORE

1. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
2. The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring
3. The Shipping News
4. In the Bedroom
5. Planet of the Apes

2. OSCAR GUESSES

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

3. BEST COMPOSERS

1. John Williams
2. Howard Shore
3. Christopher Young

4. BEST UNRELEASED SCORE

Heist, by Theodore Shapiro

(However, Best Score So Hard To Find It's Virtually Unreleased would go to Chris Young's Swordfish)

7. BEST NEW COMPILATION

1. Vic Mizzy Suites and Themes
2. The Celluloid Copland
3. The Cardinal: Film Music of Jerome Moross

8. WORST (Or Most Disappointing) NEW SCORE

Pearl Harbor

And, my own category:

MOST OVERRATED SCORE

Mulholland Drive, by Angelo Badalamenti

I don't see what the big deal about this one is. Badalamenti has written some pretty cues in recent years, for Holy Smoke, The Straight Story, and The Beach, but Mulholland seemed like just the same old Lynchian drone, only this time laid over really hot lesbian sex scenes, and I'm guessing it's not the music that people are responding to.

Examine the last sentence to carefully to deduce what I think people are really responding to. Got it? Good.

Have a great weekend!

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