FILM SCORE FRIDAY 3/18/05

Sony Classical will release a CD of John Williams' score to REVENGE OF THE SITH (sorry, but I refuse to refer to it by the long title) on May 3rd. The package will include a 70-minute DVD called Star Wars: A Musical Journey, which will feature footage of Williams conducting music from the scores as well as 16 "music videos" from the six films, which will include every soundtrack collector's two favorite things -- sound effects and dialogue excerpts.

According to Music From the Movies, Howard has signed for two upcoming projects. The as yet unfilmed R.V. is a comedy teaming Robin Williams with director Barry Sonnenfeld (Howard scored Big Trouble for Sonnenfeld). FREEDOMLAND is an urban drama adapted by Richard Price from his own excellent novel, with an aptly cast Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore in the leads, and a much much less aptly cast Joe Roth (Christmas With the Kranks, America's Sweethearts) directing.

Interlude/Rapture (synth re-recordings) - Georges Delerue - DisquesCinemusique
The Ring/The Ring Two - Hans Zimmer, Henning Lohner, Martin Tillman - Decca
Robots - John Powell - Varese Sarabande

Don't Move - Lucio Godoy - Score CD Non Ti Muovere on EMI (import)
Ice Princess - Christophe Beck - Song CD on Disney
The Ring Two - Hans Zimmer, Henning Lohner, Martin Tillman - Score CD on Decca
Steamboy - Steve Jablonsky - Score CD on Domo

March 29
Dust to Glory - Nathan Furst - Varese Sarabande
Kung Fu Hustle - Raymond Wong - Varese Sarabande
Sin City - Robert Rodriguez, John Debney, Graeme Revell - Varese Sarabande
April 5
Filmmusik - Nathan Larson - Commotion
April 19
The Interpreter - James Newton Howard - Varese Sarabande
May 3
Revenge of the Sith - John Williams - Sony Classical
Date Unknown
Battlestar Galactica: Season One - Bear McCreary - La-La Land
The Big Empty - Brian Tyler - La-La Land
Book of Stars - Richard Gibbs - La-La Land
Farscape Classics Vol. 2 - Guy Gross - La-La Land
The Foxes of Harrow - David Buttolph - Screen Archives
Hell and High Water - Alfred Newman - Intrada Special Collection
Hitman/Hitman 2 - Jesper Kyd - La-La Land
The Howling - Pino Donaggio - La-La Land
Killer Klowns From Outer Space - John Massari - Percepto
Loch Ness - Trevor Jones - Perseverance
Marjorie Morningstar - Max Steiner - Screen Archives
Mirrormask - Iain Ballamy - La-La Land
The Punisher - Dennis Dreith - Perseverance
Son of Fury - Alfred Newman - Screen Archives
We Are Not Movies? - Mark Mothersbaugh - Commotion

March 18 - William Lava born (1911)
March 18 - John Kander born (1927)
March 19 - Jean Weiner born (1896)
March 19 - Dimitri Tiomkin wins Oscars for High Noon score and song (1953)
March 19 - George Garvarentz died (1993)
March 20 - Michel Magne born (1930)
March 20 - John Cameron born (1944)
March 20 - Miklos Rozsa wins second Oscar for A Double Life score (1948)
March 20 - Franz Waxman wins second consecutive Best Score Oscar for A Place in the Sun (1952)
March 20 - Ray Cook died (1989)
March 20 - Georges Delerue died (1992)
March 21 - Antony Hopkins born (1921)
March 21 - Mort Lindsey born (1923)
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 21 - John Williams wins his fifth Oscar for Schindler's List (1994)
March 21 - Nicola Piovani wins his first Oscar for Life is Beautiful; Stephen Warbeck wins the final Comedy or Musical Score Oscar for Shakespeare in Love (1999)
March 22 - Stephen Sondheim born (1930)
March 22 - Angelo Badalamenti born (1937)
March 22 - Andrew Lloyd Webber born (1948)
March 22 - Goran Bregovic born (1950)
March 22 - Wally Badarou born (1955)
March 23 - Michael Nyman born (1944)
March 23 - David Grisman born (1945)
March 23 - Trevor Jones born (1949)
March 23 - Aaron Copland wins his only Oscar for The Heiress score (1950)
March 23 - Philip Judd born (1953)
March 23 - Hal Mooney died (1995)
March 23 - Michael Linn died (1995)
March 23 - James Horner wins his first two Oscars, for Titanic's score and song; Anne Dudley wins the third Comedy or Musical Score Oscar for The Full Monty (1998)
March 23 - Elliot Goldenthal wins his first Oscar for the Frida score (2003)
March 24 - Brian Easdale wins his only Oscar for The Red Shoes score (1949)
March 24 - Fred Steiner's score for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" is recorded (1967)
March 24 - John Barry wins fourth Oscar for Out of Africa score (1986)
March 24 - Gabriel Yared wins Dramatic Score Oscar for The English Patient; Rachel Portman wins the second Comedy or Musical Score Oscar for Emma (1997)

HOSTAGE - Alexandre Desplat

"Giovanni Fiore Coltelacci's cinematography has the dynamic flourishes essential to drive the film to its double-whammy finish and is complemented by Larry Fulton's striking production design and Alexandre Desplat's mood-enhancing score."

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

"From the first strains of its overly dramatic, self-important score -- come on, this is not by any stretch of the imagination 'Citizen Kane' -- 'Hostage' tries hard to be more than the taut crime novel on which it is based."

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

"A lot of strenuous pretending went into 'Hostage' -- not just acting, but serious make-believe. There's the insistent grandeur of the soundtrack, which pretends that the film is depicting a revelatory drama of epic dimension. And there are the actors, led by Bruce Willis, whose collective solemnity is an effort to straight-face their way past the obvious truth -- that this is a half-hearted, derivative action film with not a single honest artistic impulse behind it."

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

"This hyped-up drama is painted in washed-out, nearly colorless cinematography and stoked with a loud musical score that pulsates with the incessant pounding of a few piano keys."

Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Willis goes through all this with his furrowed brow securely in place. He's so much better an actor than movies like this allow him to be; to show his range, the script has him cry repeatedly, each time slowing down the film and pumping up the soundtrack so we realize this is a BIG EMOTIONAL MOMENT."

Chris Kaltenbach, Baltimore Sun

"A Gallic influence even holds sway over the stark, graphics-heavy opening title sequence (care of firm Specimen France), catapulted along by the exceptionally talented French composer Alexandre Desplat. Production package is fabulous, with production designer Larry Fulton showing off an extraordinary sense of physical space with Walter's to-die for home, and Desplat tempting excess in his latest expansive and adventurous score."

Robert Koehler, Variety

"Completing the mood is an aria of a score by ever versatile Alexandre Desplat that keeps tempo with each sudden plot curve and constantly shifting emotional tone."

Michael Reichfstaffen, Hollywood Reporter

THE UPSIDE OF ANGER - Alexandre Desplat

"In fact, a lot of 'The Upside of Anger' has you scratching your head -- or, in the case of Alexandre Desplat's uncharacteristically cutesy piano score, plugging your ears. (Desplat has a better score in theaters this week, an entertainingly bombastic circus-of-horrors suite for 'Hostage.')"

David Edelstein, Slate.com

"One surprise is a score that not only is the first disappointing one from Alexandre Desplat ('Girl With a Pearl Earring,' 'Birth') in recent times, but also makes pic seem more conventional and emotionally simplistic than it is."

Todd McCarthy, Variety

FROM: "Kirk Henderson"
 

Subject: Atlantis/The Thing and Others

I was 12 when I first saw ATLANTIS THE LOST CONTINENT. It was one of my favorite movies at the time. Over the years its shortcomings have become more and more apparent. However, since FSM released the soundtrack, I watched the movie again. ATLANTIS is still not good, but it does have a certain atmosphere and charm. The sets, cobbled together from the vast MGM prop department of the time, along with the miniatures of Atlantis, the matte paintings of the volcano and crystal quarry, as well as the scale many of the shots (not even counting the QUO VADIS? footage) give the feel of a much higher budget production. It doesn't look like a low budget film, as some critics contend. The acting is for the most part atrocious, but much of the problem comes from the script, which - although fusing some interesting ideas - really lacks in decent dialogue and believable character development to give the ideas real weight and impart anything more than just juvenile thrills. Still, there are wonders. The submarine's first appearance, casually sailing, unbeknownst, behind a conversation between the two leads, and its arrival in Atlantis are still quite impressive, even beautiful. The design and realization of the sub (with the exception of the less impressive interior) continue to inspire. I remember the manimals sequence really disturbed my impressionable young mind. There was something quite eerily pathetic about the ox-man on the operating slab being force fed some horrible liquid. Of course the whole scene tumbles to hilarity when the evil scientist is thwarted from operating on Anthony Hall and grumbles, "Why do they always take away my best specimens?!" The giant crystal and the final volcanic cataclysm both left strong impressions. As for the stock footage, at the time what young kid knew Atlantis from Quo Vadis?? So the slugged footage just made the film seem even bigger. It was actually incorporated quite well, even cleverly in the Ordeal by Fire and Water where they effectively matched props and added a new matte to work over old footage. And of course I remember being impressed with the score. I searched for the soundtrack, but alas, as with THE TIME MACHINE, none was forthcoming - at least not for many years. Even though little of the film impresses now, Russell Garcia's score holds up. It's inventive and thematically rich, not at all out of keeping with some of the epic scores of the time. Garcia had a distinctive voice. Considering how good his scores to THE TIME MACHINE and ATLANTIS were, it's surprising he didn't do more work, particularly in the fantasy realm. He would have been a fine asset to Harryhausen, not that Harryhausen needed help in that department, but he could have done equally interesting scores for FIRST MEN IN THE MOON or GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD.

The inclusion of Miklos Rozsa's THE POWER on the ATLANTIS release is quite welcome, and both being Pal films, fit together nicely. It is one of Rozsa's most listenable works of his later period, and superior in many ways to GOLDEN VOYAGE and TIME AFTER TIME. It has the intense high drama the later two scores strived for but narrowly missed. Now, if Leigh Harline's complete 7 FACES OF DR. LAO is available, by all means, don't hesitate to release it. There's a film that holds up much better than ATLANTIS (in spite of the lame use of stock footage from both ATLANTIS and QUO VADIS?) and has a magical, memorable score. The recent excerpt on La-La Land's FANTASY FILM MUSIC OF GEORGE PAL just whet our appetites. It seems most of Garcia's original tracks for THE TIME MACHINE are lost, but we have a decent rerecording, conducted by Garcia himself. The only disappointment is the lack of the futuristic sounds, released in excerpted form directly taken from the film's audio track on the La-La Land release.

Dimitri Tiomkin's THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD is one of those classic scores that, among aficionados, and even though it never had a full soundtrack release, is as familiar as the many scores that did ultimately receive soundtrack releases - including Herrmann's THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Yes, there have been rerecordings of sequences from the Tiomkin score by Charles Gerhardt and another on Silva Screen, but while impressive, don't quite match the original performance's intensity. So it's good to finally hear the acetates from the Tiomkin collection, warts and all. In spite of the scratchiness (fairly limited, really), the sound is clear and orchestral detail comes though. The inclusion of Tiomkin's TAKE THE HIGH GROUND, I would personally have chosen to hear on perhaps another WWII score rather than being paired with a science fiction score merely because THE THING was both Tiomkin and a bit militaristic in places (in places only, mind you). Still, there are things to enjoy on HIGH GROUND, and perhaps it will grow on me - if I get past the habit of stopping the CD after THE THING. Now if only the original tracks to Carmen Dragon's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS could be found (highly unlikely), we'd have another release that would knock our socks off. Now there's a great score yet to be discovered in a big way.

Lastly, let me say I wonder how many of your readers realize what an amazing collection of good music FSM is putting on disc? I would imagine that most of the purchases are of the Goldsmith, Williams releases (ie. the later scores). Yet, along with these latest CDs let me say the FSM releases of THE COBWEB/EDGE OF THE CITY, THE SUBTERRANEANS, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, ON DANGEROUS GROUND, SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, CIMARRON, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, and 36 HOURS - all scores from the 50s and 60s - are all well worth the purchase if you're interested in good music no matter what era it comes from. I think earlier scores sometimes get passed over because they are seen as "of their time." Well, I've been listening and studying film music since the early 1960s and if there's one thing I can say about all film scores - they are all "of their time." Each decade has its own idiosyncratic approach which becomes more obvious over time. Buy now while they're available. Years later when you come to appreciate these scores, they will be long gone.

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com