FILM SCORE FRIDAY 3/21/03

Just another reminder, the latest CDs from the Film Score Monthly label are: THX-1138, Lalo Schifrin's score to George Lucas's very first feature, a witty, dystopian sci-fi drama unlike any Lucas film that came after it; and HOME FROM THE HILL, Bronislau Kaper's Americana score for the Vincente Minnelli directed drama.

Children of Dune - Brian Tyler - Varese Sarabande
Home From the Hill - Bronislau Kaper - Film Score Monthly
Piglet's Big Movie - Carl Johnson - Disney (5 score cues + songs)
The Spirit is Willing/The Busy Body - Vic Mizzy - Percepto
Tears of the Sun - Hans Zimmer - Varese Sarabande
THX-1138 - Lalo Schifrin - Film Score Monthly

Boat Trip - Robert Folk
Down & Out With the Dolls - Zoe Poledouris - Song CD on Lakeshore
Dreamcatcher - James Newton Howard - Score CD due April 1 from Varese
Piglet's Big Movie - Carl Johnson - Soundtrack on Disney, w/ songs + 5 score cues)
Spun - Billy Corgan
View From the Top - Theodore Shapiro - Song CD on Curb

March 25
Thunderbirds - Barry Gray - Silva
April 1
Dreamcatcher - James Newton Howard - Varese Sarabande
The Guys - Mychael Danna - Sony Classical
April 15
Identity - Alan Silvestri - Varese Sarabande
April 22
Varese Sarabande 25th Anniversary Collection - Varese Sarabande
Date Unknown
Amerika - Basil Poledouris - Prometheus
The Big Sky - Dimitri Tiomkin - Screen Archives/BYU
Captain From Castile - Alfred Newman - Screen Archives
Dr. Phibes Rises Again - John Gale ­-Perseverance
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
Monte Walsh/The Crossfire Trail - Eric Colvin - La-La Land
Roughing It - Bruce Broughton - Intrada Special Collection
A Summer Place - Max Steiner - Screen Archives/BYU
This Island Earth, etc. - Herman Stein, et al - Monstrous Movie Music

March 21 - Alfred Newman wins second Best Score Oscar for Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1956)
March 21 - Miklos Rozsa begins recording score to The Green Berets (1968)
March 22 - Stephen Sondheim born (1930)
March 22 - Angelo Badalamenti born (1937)
March 23 - Michael Nyman born (1944)
March 23 - Aaron Copland wins only Oscar for The Heiress score (1950)
March 24 - Brian Easdale wins only Oscar for The Red Shoes score (1949)
March 24 - John Barry wins fourth Oscar for Out of Africa score (1986)
March 25 - Bronislau Kaper wins his only Oscar for the Lili score (1954)
March 25 - Maurice Jarre wins third Oscar for A Passage to India score (1985)
March 25 - John Barry wins fifth Oscar for Dances With Wolves score; Stephen Sondheim wins first Oscar for song "Sooner or Later" from Dick Tracy (1991)
March 26 - Alan Silvestri born (1950)
March 26 - Malcolm Arnold wins his only Oscar for Bridge on the River Kwai score (1958)
March 26 - Alan Menken wins Oscar for Little Mermaid score (1990)
March 27 - Victor Young wins posthumous Best Score Oscar for Around the World in 80 Days (1957)
March 27 - Charlie Chaplin et al win score Oscar for Limelight (1973)

NOWHERE IN AFRICA - Niki Reiser

"Niki Reiser's African-flavored symphonic music (similar in style to Hans Zimmer's film scores) underlines the visual sweep."

Stephen Holden, New York Times

"There's a real cinematic sweep to the widescreen lensing by Gernot Roll and symphonic score by Niki Reiser."

Derek Elley, Variety

"With sumptuous widescreen photography and a pounding world-music score, the film makes for an absorbing travelogue at best, as pretty as a picture book and just as flat on the surface."

Scott Tobias, The Onion

WILLARD - Shirley Walker

"The opening credits for 'Willard,' which feature stop-motion animation and a symphonic, Danny-Elfmanesque score by Shirley Walker, evoke the whimsically cracked spirit of Tim Burton, circa 'Beetlejuice.'"

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald

"Right from the opening bars of Shirley Walker's half-Astor Piazzola, half-Bernard Hermann score, 'Willard' is hopping up and down, like an attention-deficient child, desperate to scare you; as a result, it never does."

Scott Foundas, Variety

FROM: "Tor Harbin"

Just a little stream-of-consciousness response to the 1/16/03 Film Score Daily [Oscar Predictions and Other End of the Year Lists]:

- You left out "Spider-Man" in "Best Title Design" (good idea!), even though, IMO, it would still lose to "Catch Me If You Can".

- That was a great and funny line you picked from "Goldmember" and I agree about Goldmember's theme; very lovely.

- "The Mission" from "The Sum of All Fears": one of the best score tracks of the year.

- Some of my choices for "Best Costume Design": "Catch Me if You Can" (Mary Zophres), "Goldmember" (Deena Appel) and (just for fun and 'cause the costumes were quite good) "Scooby-Doo" (Leesa Evans).

- Other fine, unreleased scores:
Lilo and Stitch (Alan Silvestri)
The Powerpuff Girls(James L. Venable)
Scooby-Doo (David Newman)
Undercover Brother (Stanley Clarke)

Also wanted to add my two cents about today's column

(1/23/03: The Worst Movies of 2002):

- I'm glad that you shot down "The Sweetest Thing" and "I Spy" (seeing the trailer was enough for me; the dialogue and -- for lack of a better word which has yet to be invented -- "jokes" were the acme of awfulness and I find it impossible to believe that people got paid to come up with that shinola), but why did you leave out:

National Lampoon's Van Wilder
(The) Hot Chick
Sorority Boys
Eight Crazy Nights
40 Days and 40 Nights (actually, this film was perfectly bearable until the next-to-last scene; hey, Weinsteins, they're called 'script readers'; look into them!)

And for the record, I liked "Big Fat Liar".

I didn't see Hot Chick or 8 Crazy Nights. Sorority Boys and 40 Days and 40 Nights were bad, but Van Wilder was at least made watchable by Ryan Reynolds' performance.

You're right about the Spider-Man titles. I should probably have mentioned them in place of Die Another Day, but I'm a huge fan of Daniel Kleinman's work for the recent Bonds; he does a wonderful job of paying homage to the great Maurice Binder's style while taking it in new directions.

FROM: "Peter Barkley"

SUBJECT: reply to composer's list
 
Your list is a good one. Whether I would put it in that order is hard to say. I would move Laurence Rosenthal a lot higher based on "Comedians" and "Rashomon", but that is a matter of opinion. I would however add two names for you. David Buttolph who composed the opulent and powerful scores for "House of wax", "Phantom of the Rue Morgue", "The Enforcer" (Humphrey Bogart's film) and "Kiss of death" (the original). The other composer is Roy Webb in particular for his haunting score to "The Body snatcher" which remains one of the finest works for an American horror film. Last of all turning to Britain I would name James Bernard for "Horror of Dracula" and Clifton Parker for "Curse of the Demon". Again a matter of opinion of course. I've never heard Rosenthal's score for the stage play Rashomon. I know very little David Buttolph - only House of Wax, Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and the rare import Horse Soldiers CD. I don't know as much Roy Webb as I should, especially since he scored for both Ray Harryhausen and Alfred Hitchcock movies long before Herrmann did (Harryhausen, Herrmann, and Hitchcock were the key filmmakers of my teen years).

I know very little Clifton Parker, but Curse of the Demon is a terrific score (I especially love the music for the materialization of the demon) and I'm thrilled that Columbia recently released a DVD with both cuts of the film.

Looking over my list of favorite composers again, I notice that Franz Waxman is the only composer who was no longer living when I started listening to film scores (in the early/mid-70s). I think this makes a big difference in the formation of favorites -- it's much easier to get excited about a composer when he still has new works coming out. When I started going to movies a lot, Herrmann, Rozsa and North were still working, and Friedhofer was still living but too little heard from.

FROM: Jedbu@aol.com |

SUBJECT: Oscar prediction-Best Picture
 
The films to watch in this category will be the Miramax films, especially CHICAGO and THE HOURS. This will be a chance for "Humble Harvey" and the rest of the movieloving world to see how much influence he actually has. CHICAGO is the better-loved of the three films nominated (I'm not including GANGS OF NEW YORK in this missive because while the Academy will more than likely reward the long-overdue Scorsese, the older voters will probably not care for the film as a whole and whatever momentum the film had last fall sputtered out with the mediocre box-office returns), a musical hasn't won in this category since 1968 and so many moviegoers were surprised by the musical talents of the cast. THE HOURS has an incredible cast, an excellent literary pedigree and enough critical hosannas to make most film people green with envy. But it will not win.

Why?

Simple -- Harvey and Scott Rudin HATE each other.

1) Rudin was the main producing force on THE HOURS, and the two blushing brides fought like the two ladies in that Bud Light commercial that two men fantasize about in front of their incredulous dates. When Rudin accepted the Golden Globe for the film, he did not mention Weinstein at all, and that will be remembered.

2) The film was a co-production with Paramount, and since "Humble Harvey" probably has more money tied up with CHICAGO (and GANGS, for that matter) he is going to put more effort into that film than one for which he only has a partial connection.

3) Many people have been writing about how depressing THE HOURS is, and while that has never hindered downbeat films before (SCHINDLER'S LIST, BRAVEHEART) those films had a major uplift in some form at the end, even if that came with a major protagonists death. If a film does not have that, in the minds of many Academy voters, it won't fly with them (see CITIZEN KANE and SUNSET BOULEVARD for this one).

Now some may say, the studio system is dead. Harvey doesn't have that much pull. For those of you who say the former, I say-pshaw!! If it is dead, then why do we still have Oscar campaigns, bitter rivalries between studios (see Weinstein and/or Eisner vs. Katzenberg) and constantly updated tallies for each studio? For those who say the latter, I say-double pshaw!!!! Miramax employees (both creatively and office-bound) have a lot of votes, Disney has a lot of votes and all the management, agents and promotion people have votes. The only chance THE HOURS has is if the film sweeps the SGA, DGA and WGA awards, which would mean that the momentum for CHICAGO has dropped off the radar, and Weinstein has been neutralized-and there are some at Dreamworks that would kill to have that happen. But CHICAGO is doing well with the unwashed masses, the soundtrack album is selling very well and the ads have started to stress the musical aspect more than at the beginning (a smart move or a bad one, take your pick), and I have yet to meet anyone who has seen THE HOURS, let alone rave about it.

I do believe that Kidman will win over Zellweger, and I think that Zeta-Jones would be walking away from the pack except for Latifah's nom (which might draw some attention), but I'm willing to go out on a limb and pick Reilly to win not just because he was wonderful-he always is, and his number was my favorite part of the film-but because there is always one win in the acting choices that sort of comes out of left field (remember Jim Broadbent last year?), and he had other great parts in 2002 as well. If Scorsese wins the DGA, he will win the Oscar, but it might still go to Marshall. Day-Lewis will probably win, especially since ABOUT SCHMIDT only got two nods.

This could be a fun Oscar night.

FROM: "John Holm"

I thought I would let you guys know about some film score related bonus material on the new DVD of Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie. I'm not sure if this is something many FSM readers would rent. If you don't know, Veggie Tales is a popular series of videos presenting Christian values and Bible stories through computer-generated animation with talking vegetables (think Pixar without a high budget). The theatrical movie teaches kids (and maybe some adults) the values of compassion, mercy and forgiveness through the story of Jonah, the guy who was swallowed by a whale. Jonah is played in the movie by an asparagus.

The DVD features some interesting segments on the scoring of the movie. Co-Director Phil Vischer and composer Kurt Heinecke talk about how the score was written. Apparently, Vischer liked to hum tunes as he was putting the movie together and this ended up being the film's "temp track." Heinecke then took those themes, wrote some of his own and even incorporated a hymn into the final score. We get to watch a brief scene from the film with and without music to demonstrate the impact of adding music to a scene.

The most interesting feature lets the viewer watch two scenes from the film with four different audio options. Track 1 is the "humming" temp track. Track 2 is a synth mock-up of the score. The third track is an early take from the orchestra featuring missed notes and background noise. Finally, we get the complete orchestra track. It would be nice if there were more DVD's that would let us hear the gradual progression of a film score.

Keep up the good work on the website!

FROM: "Brad Igou"

SUBJECT: Congrats and did you know--
 
As a charter member of your CD club, I again need to thank-you for the wonderful CDs that keep coming, especially the Rozsa and some of these hard-to-get classic scores. Ice Station Zebra was a surprise. I've always liked that score. Perhaps you'll consider Legrand's Three Musketeers, a delirious romp.

Since you are the all-knowing soundtrack people, you may already know that at the Philip Glass website there are downloads available from three unreleased scores, in case anyone is interested. Click on Filmworks. There is much other music as well from other non-film works. You do need to "register," but it's not big deal. I ended up burning a 75 minute CD, which may be enough Glass at one sitting.

Finally, I attended several days of the Film Music Festival at the Kennedy Center in January with Leonard Slatkin and John Williams. What a blast! To hear these works performed by a stellar orchestra, and some live to film, was sheer bliss. It is encouraging to hear a major director finally giving film music its due. He actually said that the Darth Vader March should be considered on the same level as Verdi's march from AIDA. Well -- Sounds like a second festival is down the road in a couple years! Score one for the East Coast!

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