FILM SCORE FRIDAY 5/9/03

Numenorean Records' long awaited CD release of Trevor Jones' score to THE DARK CRYSTAL is now available. The two-disc set features both the original album rerecording and the complete score as heard in the film. The score is considered by many fans to be Jones' finest work, helped by the gorgeous orchestrations of the late Peter Knight (who did Quest For Fire and Ghost Story for Philippe Sarde around the same time). The soundtrack has never had an official CD release before, and comes with a full color booklet including excerpts from a 1987 Cinemascore interview with Jones about the score. There is one minor error in the booklet's copious list of credits, though -- it credits "Poster Art" to Brian Froud, while the artwork on the front cover is clearly the work of the late, great Richard Amsel (The Sting, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Murder on the Orient Express) -- his distinctive signature is visible even on the jewel box-sized cover (this credit was probably inadvertently carried over from the original LP). The CD can be purchased from mail order outlets such as Intrada, Screen Archives, and Footlight, as well as select record stores like Aron's Records in Hollywood, California.

Martin Brest's GIGLI, starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, which was retitled TOUGH LOVE, has been re-retitled GIGLI. However, the film will be scored not by Carter Burwell but by John Powell. Oddly enough, last year Burwell was supposed to score The Bourne Identity starring Affleck's Oscar-winning screenwriting partner Matt Damon, and was replaced by -- John Powell.

The Brittany Murphy vehicle MOLLY GUNN, directed by Boaz Yakin, has been retitled UPTOWN GIRLS. Lesley Barber, who scored A Price Above Rubies for Yakin, will write the music.

The David Zucker farce THE GUESTS, starring Ashton Kutcher and Terence Stamp (now there's an Abbott & Costello for the 21st century), has been retitled MY BOSS'S DAUGHTER.

Captain From Castile - Alfred Newman - Screen Archives
The Dark Crystal - Trevor Jones - Numenorean
The Matrix Reloaded - Don Davis, various - Maverick
Nowhere in Africa - Niki Reiser - Higher Octave
X2 - John Ottman - Trauma
XX/XY - The Insects - Thrive

Daddy Day Care - David Newman - Song CD on Sony
Man on the Train - Pascal Esteve - Score CD on Milan (Europe)
The Shape of Things - Songs by Elvis Costello

May 13
Something Wild - Aaron Copland - Varese Sarabande
May 20
Finding Nemo - Thomas Newman - Disney
June 3
Bruce Almighty - John Debney, various - Varese Sarabande
Wrong Turn - Elia Cmiral - Varese Sarabande
June 10
The Third Man - Anton Karas - Silva
June 24
Baby Doll - Kenyon Hopkins - DRG
The Buccaneer - Elmer Bernstein - DRG
Harlow - Neal Hefti - DRG
Date Unknown
Amerika - Basil Poledouris - Prometheus
The Big Sky - Dimitri Tiomkin - Screen Archives/BYU
Bones - Elia Cmiral - Intrada
The Dreamer of Oz - Lee Holdridge - Percepto
From Beyond - Richard Band - La-La Land
Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Denny Zeitlin - Perseverance
Mighty Joe Young, etc. - Roy Webb, et al - Monstrous Movie Music
A Summer Place - Max Steiner - Screen Archives/BYU
This Island Earth, etc. - Herman Stein, et al - Monstrous Movie Music
The White Buffalo - John Barry - Prometheus CD Club

May 10 - Max Steiner born (1888)
May 10 - Dimitri Tiomkin born (1899)
May 12 - Burt Bacharach born (1928)
May 15 - Bert Shefter born (1902)

OWNING MAHOWNY - The Insects, Richard Grassby-Lewis

"A brooding techno-jazz score represents a further seal on the film's cool aesthetic."

David Rooney, Variety

WINGED MIGRATION - Bruno Coulais

"The movie, whose few words, spoken by the director, are explanatory captions, offers a sweeping global tour from a bird's-eye view, dressed up with a new-age score by Bruno Coulais of swelling choral music and pulsing beats. For all the soundtrack's oohing and ahhing and the glorious scenery on display, 'Winged Migration,' which opens today in Manhattan, is a reasonably tough-minded film when contemplating the rigors of avian life"

Stephen Holden, New York Times

"Since Perrin isn't interested in traditional nature documentaries, the distinction between the two separate journeys doesn't really matter; what's left is a mostly arbitrary assemblage of breathtaking footage set to new-age music."

Scott Tobias, The Onion

"There are, inevitably, things to quibble about in 'Winged Migration.' The narration, though spare, has more of a reverent air than is good for it, and the soundtrack is regrettably of the Euro-pop persuasion."

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"There is as much versatility in Bruno Coulais' score as in the birds themselves. While it's not nearly as enjoyable a freestanding listening experience as his 'Microcosmos' score, Coulais has incorporated bird's-ear-view sounds into his instrumentals, enhancing the visual package."

Lisa Nesselson, Variety

"Perrin, whose previous film was the flashy insect doc 'Microcosmos,' is more an obsessive artist than any kind of scientist, and his movie is less a conventional nature documentary (you learn almost no facts) than an abstract visual essay on the poetic mechanics of flight (accompanied, alas, by New Age music)."

John Powers, L.A. Weekly

X2 - John Ottman

"Like most pictures intended for the summer blockbuster market, 'X2,' which opens today nationwide, is a symphony of crescendos and pauses, orchestrated toward a big seat-rattling climax, during which an enormous dam breaks, veins bulge on both villainous and heroic brows, and a lot of computer-generated images pop, wiggle and shimmy to the throb and roar of John Ottman's music."

A.O. Scott, New York Times

"Here, with the same cast and excellent additions like Cox and Cumming, he [director Bryan Singer] seems more comfortable, easier on the trigger. So does his usual editor and composer, John Ottman, who imparts cool tension in his cutting and surging romanticism to his music."

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

"John Ottman, a Singer regular who did not work on 'X-Men,' returns to the fold to reassert his uniquely ambidextrous skills as an editor and, especially, as a composer with his own good ideas of how to score a mainstream picture."

Todd McCarthy, Variety

David Edelstein in Salon.com, on Ed Burns in Confidence:

As for Ed Burns, I used to hope he'd concentrate on acting because then he'd direct fewer movies. But I can avoid the movies he directs, whereas he shows up as an actor in movies I want to see. What a hard call.

An article by Richard Simon in the May 6th issue of the Los Angeles Times discusses transcripts of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist hearings that have only been now been released to the public, including McCarthy's questioning of composer Aaron Copland:

For example, after composer Aaron Copland denied ever having been a communist, McCarthy hectored the composer, "You have what appears to be one of the longest communist-front records of anyone we have had here."

Copland replied, "I spend my days writing symphonies, concertos, ballads, and I am not a political thinker."

Copland was never called to appear at a public hearing.

FROM: "Steve Halfyard"

SUBJECT: Minimalism
 
Without wishing to get into pernickety musicological debate (and I'll be entirely unoffended if you don't publish this for that very reason), Cary Wong has a point when saying that Philip Glass is often referred to as being a minimalist, implying that the term is misleading. Michael Nyman introduced the term, borrowing it from visual art in 1968 and it is a source of general annoyance to many of the composers who get lumped under that banner. Nyman refers to the term as "an albatross" in Robert Schwarz's succinct history of minimalism, and Schwarz describes both Reich and Glass as having moved beyond minimalism into maximalism. I suspect Cary Wong may be alluding to Schwarz in that opening sentence. Glass may well be called a minimalist, but in comparison to the works written in the 1960s, his recent music is far from minimal.

I'll get off my little soap box now.

FROM: "Tim Kurkoski"

This was posted today:

Just wondering if I'm the only person in the world who would love a FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON score CD.

YES YES YES! There was a lot of great music in that series, by so many good composers. I can't remember episode titles off the top of my head, but Mark Mancina did some wonderful cues for one of the first few. Kamen's titles for the show are the highlight of the existing disc, but please HBO, we need more!

FROM: "Mike Skerritt"

SUBJECT: Goldsmith's Timeline
 
Goldsmith is one of my all-time favorite composers, and I personally think he's done more to push the envelope of technique and innovation in our beloved medium than any other composer. But still, what's the big hubbub about this rejection? For one, it happens all the time (ironically, most famously to JG), but no one seemed to much care when Bernstein was excused from Gangs of New York or Randy Newman from Air Force One.

Secondly, no one's HEARD the damn thing. The maestro's output in recent years, especially with action films, has really been tepid at best. Had he been rejected from Hollow Man, I think the same collective voice of dissent would've risen, but in the end, what score would they have been defending? A stinker like Hollow Man. Maybe it has more to do with the loyalty to a man with such a groundbreaking career than anything else. Or maybe it's because Goldsmith, let's be honest, won't be around forever and people would rather see him commit his limited time to something that will see the light of day. I don't know, maybe it's both. But I'd rather hear an inspired Goldsmith scoring an inspired project than another generic action suckfest.

FROM: <emerging@rogers.com> |

SUBJECT: Zimmer, Goldsmith, October

I've read a lot of Hans Zimmer interviews and comments, and never have I come across a comment that he thinks Total Recall and Crimson Tide sound alike. In fact, people can say whatever they want of him, he appears to have a sensible perspective on other composer's scores; but I can't say that about his counterpart, Harry Gregson-Williams, who said that Jerry Goldsmith hadn't done a good score since Basic Instinct. We know that's pure rubbish. The news about Timeline is upsetting, but what's even more upsetting is the fact that Goldsmith isn't scoring The Extraordinary League Gentlemen! It's about bloody time he scored another Allan Quartermain film.

This funny man you keep talking about, Nalton, thinks The Hunt For Red October is more conservative than its sequels? Now, Red October is well-made, well-scored, well-acted, but it is American propaganda, there's no question about it. Its sequels, however, are far worse and far more obvious in their jingoism.

FROM: "James Phillips"

Regarding the current poll of which Bernard Herrmann score deserves a commercial cd release, I can only answer by paraphrasing the master in his tone of voice: "ALL OF THEM!!!"