FILM SCORE FRIDAY 7/11/03

In a bold experiment that has many film music fans scratching their heads, Trevor Jones' score to this week's fantasy adventure THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN* is being released as a paid download from Apple's iTunes Music Service. The CD will be available from Colosseum overseas, and Varese Sarabande will release the CD in the U.S. on July 29th, but only as a website mail order -- it will not appear in U.S. stores.

Also on July 29th, Varese will release a second four-disc 25th Anniversary compilation, but, like the League CD (I refuse to call the film "LXG"), it will only be available through the website, and only through the end of 2003. Along with more widely available cues, it will contain a couple cues from long out-of-print CDs (Tai-Pan, Man on Fire), a few from unavailable CD Club releases (The 'Burbs, We're No Angels, Bloodline), and a couple from LPs that Varese never released on CD (Sky Bandits, Careful He Might Hear You).

For those who bought Ghosts of the Abyss but feel like their James Cameron film music collection is not quite complete, the Italian label Digitmovies has released a CD of Stelvio Cipriani's score to Cameron's first movie, PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING, which featured flying piranha as well as Cameron regular Lance Henriksen, available at Screen Archives and Intrada.

And Intrada is also offering a composer promo of the orchestral score (73 minutes!) to the recent Western THE LONG RIDE HOME, starring Randy Travis and Eric Roberts and composed by newcomer Gela Sawall Ashcroft.

An orchestral suite of Richard Jacques' scores for the HEADHUNTER videogames will be performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra at Gewandhaus, Leipzig in Germany at the GC - Games Convention on August 20th of this year. For concert venue information visit www.gewandhaus.de. Tickets will be on sale this month.

The Hard Word - David Thrussell - Metropolis
Lawless Heart - Adrian Johnston - Pacific Time

The Cuckoo - Dmitri Pavlov
The Housekeeper - Frederic Botton
I Capture the Castle - Dario Marianelli
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Trevor Jones - Score CD due July 29 from Varese Sarabande (mail order only)
Northfork - Stewart Matthewman
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - Klaus Badelt - Score CD due July 22 from Disney
Tattoo - Martin Todsharow
Washington Heights - Leigh Roberts - Song CD due on Rumba Jams

July 15
Johnny English - Edward Shearmur - Universal
July 22
Pirates of the Caribbean - Klaus Badelt - Disney
Seabiscuit - Randy Newman - Decca/UMG
Spy Kids 3D: Game Over - Robert Rodriguez - Milan
July 29
Le Divorce - Richard Robbins - Grandstand
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Trevor Jones - Varese Sarabande (mail order only)
Varese Sarabande 25th Anniversary Celebration vol. 2 - various - Varese Sarabande (mail order only)
Date Unknown
All This and Heaven Too/A Stolen Life - Max Steiner - Marco Polo
Amerika - Basil Poledouris - Prometheus
Battle Cry - Max Steiner - Screen Archives/BYU
Creepshow (& bonus cues) - John Harrison - La-La Land
The Hellstrom Chronicle - Lalo Schifrin - Aleph
Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Denny Zeitlin - Perseverance
Mighty Joe Young, etc. - Roy Webb, et al - Monstrous Movie Music
Night and the City - Franz Waxman/Benjamin Frankel - Screen Archives
Red River - Dimitri Tiomkin - Marco Polo
A Summer Place - Max Steiner - Screen Archives/BYU
This Island Earth, etc. - Herman Stein, et al - Monstrous Movie Music

July 12 - James Bernard died (2001)
July 13 - Ernest Gold born (1921)
July 14 - Michel Michelet born (1894)

SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS - Harry Gregson-Williams

"Pitt is out to steal and ransom a glowing occult dealie called The Book Of Peace, but Fiennes, tasked with delivering the book safely to Syracuse, stands in his way. A great deal of swash is buckled, but the battle ultimately ends peacefully, so Pfeiffer just steals the book herself. (Oddly, the book's sole purpose is to ward off evil, but the evil Pfeiffer nabs it with ease. It apparently just defends Syracuse from portentous weather and threatening background music.)"

Tasha Robinson, The Onion

"Music by DreamWorks regular Harry Gregson-Williams is vigorously supportive."

Todd McCarthy, Variety

SWIMMING POOL - Philippe Rombi

"What begins as a funny two-person variation on The Real World finds the murky terrain that Philippe Rombi's Bernard Herrmann-meets-Ennio Morricone score announces from the start, as Rampling starts to view her unexpected housemate as a subject for her work rather than a distraction from it."

Keith Phipps, The Onion

"The ominous score and precise, lingering frames tell you otherwise, but Swimming Pool is less a thriller than a comedy, and a formulaic one at that, predicated on an amusing but bizarrely simplistic clash of personalities and cultures: the veddy English old maid and the ooh-la-la French slut."

Dennis Lim, The Village Voice

"Then she lifts the tarp on the backyard swimming pool to reveal the dark water and dead leaves, and Philippe Rombi's good score issues its first mysterious plinks."

David Edelstein, Slate.com

"Cinematographer Yorick Le Saux's crisp lensing and Philippe Rombi's elegant mystery score represent strong contributions."

David Rooney, Variety

TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES - Marco Beltrami

"Action is ably supported by a Marco Beltrami score that is unobtrusive by current standards."

Todd McCarthy, Variety

FROM: "Philip Harwood"

Thank you for posting my Gregory Peck compilation. Some habits never cease. As an English major at Hofstra University, I was deeply involved with the University's radio station, WRHU-Radio Hofstra University, 88.7 FM. I hosted and helped program the classical music program, and was also the producer and host of a weekly one hour program, Soundtrack, the show which celebrated the art of film and theatre music. Each week, I would present a certain topic and play music based on that topic. It could be a certain composer or genre, or music for a certain year of films and shows, or an hour devoted to an actor. I became known as the station ghoul, since the moment someone in the film or theatre industry went to that theatre in the sky, I was on the air with a tribute. For my own creative enjoyment, I am still putting these compilations together today. It would be great to be back on radio again.

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com