FILM SCORE FRIDAY 9/27/02

On October 22nd, Universal will release an enhanced CD of Elliot Goldenthal's score to FRIDA.

On October 15th, Silverline will release Clint Mansell's score to ABANDON. The film is the directorial debut of Oscar-winning Traffic writer Steven Gaghan, and is a thriller starring Benjamin Bratt as a police detective who becomes involved with a college student (Katie Holmes) while investigating the disappearance of her boyfriend (Charlie Hunnam). The same day, Sony will release the soundtrack to Jonathan Demme's Charade remake THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE, but it is unknown at this time how much if any of Rachel Portman's score will be featured.

Warner Brothers will release the soundtrack to the 20th James Bond film, DIE ANOTHER DAY, on November 12th. No word yet as to how much if any of David Arnold's score will be included.

September 30 - The Quiet Man (at 6 p.m.)
October 7 - Shane (at 6 p.m.)
October 19 - Around the World in 80 Days (a Saturday screening, at 1 p.m.)
October 28 - Johnny Guitar (at 6 p.m.)

All programs are free and open to the public, though seating is limited. The hall is wheelchair accessible.

Buffy, the Vampire Slayer: Once More With Feeling - Joss Whedon, Christophe Beck - Rounder
Just a Kiss - Sean Dinsmore - Milan
Red Dragon - Danny Elfman - Universal
The Wicker Man - Paul Giovanni - Silva

October 1
Naqoyqatsi - Philip Glass - Nonesuch
The Tuxedo - John Debney, Christophe Beck - Varese Sarabande
October 8
Tuck Everlasting - William Ross - Disney
Welcome to Collinwood - Mark Mothersbaugh - Sanctuary
October 15
Abandon - Clint Mansell - Silverline
Below - Graeme Revell - Varese Sarabande
Swept Away - Michel Colombier - Varese Sarabande
October 22
The Amityville Horror - Lalo Schifrin - Aleph
Frida - Elliot Goldenthal - UMG
October 29
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever - Don Davis - Varese Sarabande
Ghost Ship - John Frizzell - Varese Sarabande
The Man From Elysian Fields - Anthony Marinelli - Varese Sarabande
White Oleander - Thomas Newman - Varese Sarabande
November 5
Far From Heaven - Elmer Bernstein - Varese Sarabande
November 12
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - John Williams, William Ross - Atlantic
Date Unknown
The Busy Body/The Spirit is Willing - Vic Mizzy - Percepto
Down to the Sea in Ships/12 O'Clock High - Alfred Newman - Screen Archives
The Emperors' Club - James Newton Howard - Varese Sarabande
The Hours - Philip Glass - Nonesuch
Star Trek: Nemesis - Jerry Goldsmith - Varese Sarabande
The Swarm - Jerry Goldsmith - Prometheus CD Club

Just a Kiss - Sean Dinsmore - Score Album on Milan
The Man From Elysian Fields - Anthony Marinelli - Score Album due Oct. 29 on Varese
Moonlight Mile - Mark Isham - Song Album with one score cue on Sony
Sweet Home Alabama - George Fenton - Song Album on Hollywood, featuring 4:59 of Fenton
The Tuxedo - John Debney, Christophe Beck - Score Album due Oct. 1 on Varese Sarabande
Wasabi -Eric Serra, Julien Schultheis - Score Album on Universal in France

BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER - Don Davis

"What actually bothers me -- what may reveal me to be a pretentious aging aesthete unable to adjust to the new era of non-narrative post-whatever -- is the music. You know what I'm talking about: That stomped-by-robots electronica video-game soundtrack that refuses to stop, no matter what the context. You're sitting there watching any old scene in "Ballistic" -- a 6-year-old getting off a plane, a car driving down a deserted street, whatever -- and the soundtrack is all relentless wicky-wacky-humpa-thumpa, complete with moaning female vocals. You get to the point where you can't tell if you're in a movie theater or some nightclub full of leather pants, hair gel and Argentine women who won't talk to you. "

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

"This coldness is emphasized by the soundtrack by Don Davis, who did the music for "The Matrix" (a good movie not to be spoken of in the same breath as this one). Here the music doesn't get underneath and enhance the screen action but lies on top and flattens it. For the kinetic moments, we get a computerized heavy-metal type sound -- as if the music were saying, "Here we go again, with more of the same." The music in the nonviolent scenes is equally distancing, consisting mainly of choruses of women yodeling, "Ahhh, ahhh, ahh" over a New Age synthesizer. In the latter case, the music makes the scenes feel as though they already happened long ago, and now we're finally seeing them."

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

"Don Davis' thrash-guitar score is all about noise."

Robert Koehler, Variety

8 WOMEN - Krishna Levy

"Krishna Levy's score is lushly retro in all the right ways."

Lisa Nesselson, Variety

INVINCIBLE - Hans Zimmer, Klaus Badelt

"Embellished with touches of magic realism and washed in a voluptuous quasi-Wagnernian score (by Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt), "Invincible," when at its best, is almost as seductive as Hanussen's games of smoke and mirrors."

Stephen Holden, New York Times

"When the guileless Zishe stands in the spotlight, bending a thick sword around his forearm as the throng of storm troopers cheer and the Hans Zimmer score begins to earnestly weep, Invincible attains a kind of melancholy grandeur."

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

"Composers Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt have contributed a lovely score."

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

SECRETARY - Angelo Badalamenti

"Angelo Badalamenti's marvelous score transports you to a North African fantasy harem and parodies that fantasy, too."

David Edelstein, Slate.com

SPIRITED AWAY - Joe Hisaishi

"The middle of the film briefly lags in a jam of idling subplots and the musical score is occasionally treacly, but those are quibbles."

Jane Horwitz, Washington Post

TRAPPED - John Ottman

"John Ottman's score brings out the story's discordant emotions in atypical ways."

Todd McCarthy, Variety

A handful of Pauline Kael's harsher views on individual scores:

AWAKENINGS

You may never be able to scrape off Randy Newman's syrupy "awakening" music.

(from Movie Love, published by Plume)

And you've been drowning in a Philippe Sarde score that's like Broadway show tunes turned into baby-bear lullabies. (Suggestions of songs like "Lover, Come Back to Me" keep starting up).

(From Movie Love, published by Plume)

But before you can suck in your breath, music is poured on, signifying lyrical exaltation. (The credit reads "Original Music by Maurice Jarre." Hah!)

(from Movie Love, published by Plume)

And Hall's tricky little camera etudes deserve Lalo Schifrin's I-can-do-anything-anybody-can-do music. When John Boorman and Conrad Hall and Lalo Schifrin all found each other, the shocks of recognition must have been deafening.

(from Going Steady, published by Marion Boyars)

I haven't heard a good movie score in such a long time that it seems rather odd for me to complain of this score, by John Barry, but it has that infatuation with one theme that separates movie-business composers from composers, and it's the kind of mod music that tells you itís a big mood up there on the screen. The thick, rich musical sludge makes the movie seem more self-importantly middlebrow and old fashioned than necessary. Audiences have begun to laugh now when movies open with the promotional ballad during the titles, because the unconcealed cynicism of the song-plugging provides a wry contrast to the counter-culture lyrics. But, at least, crassness doesn't inflate a movie. This score is in the old Hollywood tradition of grandiose scoring for big movies; it says "Listen to me"; it practically says "Reserved-seat hard ticket." There is a core of feeling in The Last Valley, so that even when the picture is platitudinous, it's still often powerful; it deserves a simpler score.

(from Deeper Into Movies, published by Warner Books)

Ernest Gold has provided a score that one assumes -- one prays -- is intended to be mock Italian, but bad music does not a good parody make.

(from Deeper Into Movies, published by Warner Books)

The Pawnbroker
Lyrics by Jack Lawrence, Music by Quincy Jones

One heart
To trade or sell
One heart
An empty shell

Perhaps I'll stop
In some pawnbroker's shop
And see what he might pay
For second hand hearts today

Or old dreams
I'll never use
Love songs
I'd love to lose

Such worthless things!
What scale could measure them
What other fool
Could be a fool like me
And treasure them?

Since you're gone
I wear you on this heart
How could I pawn this heart
That still loves you?

Originally published by The Pawnbroker Music Corp.

From: Thor Joachim Haga <t.j.haga@media-stud.uio.no>

There's a serious omission in your current poll about film composers from a pop/rock background. Where's STEWART COPELAND??!?!?

Scott, you must hate it when people point out things you overlooked in your polls, but how about Stewart Copeland for the most recent one?

However, to my great shame, I completely forgot Stewart Copeland while writing the poll. And, as you'll see, I forgot quite a few more:

From: " Jeremy Moniz" <DeviantMan@aol.com>

Noticing your recent poll, the dinky size, you've neglected many other pop artists turned film composer --  even though it may have been only for one film.

Jay Ferguson (Bad Dreams, Nightmare On Elm Street 5) was a rocker first.

Mark Knopfler was known for his band Dire Straits before his scores to Cal, Local Hero and Princess Bride.

David Byrne of Talking Heads won an Oscar for his collaborated score for The Last Emperor.

David Paich (of Toto) was the man largely responsible for composing the Dune score.

Eric Serra is a French pop star who scored Luc Besson's films as favors.

Rick Wakeman, experimental rocker, has scored the occasional weird film.

Andrew Powell composed the well remembered (maybe not anymore) score to Ladyhawke.

Vangelis was pop new age before gaining notoriety and an Oscar for a film score.

Yanni followed suit but not nearly as good a composer, same with David Arkenstone, same with Giorgio Moroder and even Harold Faltermeyer.

Randy Edelman has some sort of hazy rock background, but I know little about that.

Graeme Revell was a member of an Australian industrial rock band prior to scoring Dead Calm.

David Foster is a pop song writer and film scorer best known for St. Elmo's Fire.

Joe Strummer, member of the Clash, scored a few films after that band broke up.

Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin, scored Death Wish 2 & 3 for director Michael Winner.

Jan Hammer, jazz rock fusion artist who just released the 2CD score album (finally) to Miami Vice.

John Carpenter has always been a rocker type and he does have his own rock band and many rocker friends.

Jack Nitzsche was an arranger for the Rolling Stones and Neil Young and got his first scoring gig through a film that starred Mick Jagger.

I'll stop here, but you get the idea that there are many more composers emanating from the rock world. And like my previous list of animated films, you may find several more I have forgotten.

As well as pretty much everyone who's scored a Farrelly Brothers movie -- Todd Rundgren, Freedy Johnston, Jonathan Richman, Ivy.

Yeah, I guess I left out a couple. Damn.

While doing some research for upcoming columns, I was thumbing through Miklos Rozsa's autobiography Double Life and came upon this puzzling section:

Quo Vadis, because it was produced abroad, was completely boycotted by Hollywood and received no Academy nominations. When Korngold was asked if he was going to nominate the music, he replied that he couldn't nominate what he hadn't heard.

Quo Vadis received EIGHT nominations, including Best Picture, two for Best Supporting Actor (Leo Genn and Peter Ustinov), and one for Rozsa's epic score.

That's an odd mistake to make, wouldn't you say?

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