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| Film Score Friday 7/3/09
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| Posted By
Scott Bettencourt
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7/2/2009 - 9:00 PM |
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| The latest release from Film Score Monthly, limited to 1500 units, presents Quincy Jones' score for the 1968 caper thriller THE SPLIT. The film was based on the seventh of Donald E. Westlake's novels (fittingly enough, the book was titled The Seventh) about the master thief Parker, and was produced by the team of Chartoff and Winkler, who had turned the first Parker novel, The Hunter, into the classic Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin. The Split featured Jim Brown as "McClain," the Parker character, with an impressive cast including Diahann Carroll as McClain's ex; Julie Harris as the mastermind; Ernest Borgnine, Jack Klugman, Warren Oates and Donald Sutherland as Brown's gang of thieves, who plot to rob the L.A. Coliseum during a football game; and Gene Hackman and James Whitmore as the flies in the ointment. Jones' score is delightfully catchy and funky, featuring a handful of new songs including a memorable title tune, and our CD represents the first release of The Split's music, also including thorough notes on the score by Alexander Kaplan, and a lengthy history of the Parker novels and films by yours truly. |
| Comments: 1 (read on)
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| This Year's Movies, Part Four
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| Posted By
Scott Bettencourt
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6/30/2009 - 9:00 PM |
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| OBSERVE AND REPORT
COMPOSER: Joseph Stephens
WRITER: Jody Hill
DIRECTOR: Jody Hill
CAST: Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Michael Pena, Ana Faris
As Variety aptly pointed out, the mall cop in this, the love-hate comedy of the year, is closer to Travis Bickle than to Paul Blart. I found it hilarious but I can certainly understand those who found it tasteless, unfunny and awful.
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| Comments: 0 (read on)
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| More Wisdom Bites the Dust?
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| Posted By
Michael Barrett
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6/29/2009 - 9:00 PM |
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| When I read interviews with Golden Age composers, it seems they always repeat this homily about their craft: "The background score is supposed to support the movie without calling attention to itself. The moment the audience notices the music, that means it's bad and not doing its job properly."
I'm sorry I can't cite any specific quotes, but you know I'm not making this up. This bit of wisdom is still repeated today. It's the basic thing everybody supposedly knows about film music. It's practically the definition of the form.
And it's a crock, isn't it? |
| Comments: 5 (read on)
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| My One and Only Original Holy Grail (and How It Got That Way)
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| Posted By
Neil Shurley
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6/27/2009 - 9:00 PM |
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| To my knowledge, it’s never been released on LP, CD, mp3, minidisc, reel-to-reel, cassette or even 8-track, but thanks to the miracle of the internets, I can actually hear it anytime. Though the movie that spawned it doesn’t yet exist on dvd, clips are available on the YouTube, including the scene containing my most wanted piece of music. The clip’s chock full o’ dialogue and sound effects, but the music’s there, behind the scene, right where it was originally meant to be. |
| Comments: 1 (read on)
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| Aisle Seat: GHOSTBUSTERS Anniversary Edition
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| Posted By
Andy Dursin
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6/21/2009 - 9:00 PM |
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Remember a time when most summer movies weren’t sequels, prequels or remakes? (Aren’t you as sick of the terms “reboot” and “reimagining” as I am? They’ve outlived their usefulness this summer in particular!).
Sure, there were some sequels that were big hits in the Summer of 1984 (“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” fitting the bill on that end), but the season was populated with blockbusters that today would be called “original intellectual properties”: “Gremlins,” “The Karate Kid,” “The Last Starfighter,” “Red Dawn,” “Revenge of the Nerds,” and even films that have gone on to achieve some degree of a cult following like “Buckaroo Banzai,” “Dreamscape,” and the Henry Thomas-Dabney Coleman thriller “Cloak and Dagger.” |
| Comments: 8 (read on)
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| Remember LAST YEAR? Are you sure?
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| Posted By
Michael Barrett
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6/21/2009 - 9:00 PM |
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| Film is closest to music of all the arts, closer than to the novel or even the drama. So if we think of a movie in terms of something that can be replayed infinitely like a symphony, its visual movements and motifs organized in time, presenting variations on its themes of style and image rather than something that follows characters in a narrative, then this picture fits the bill. All by herself, Delphine Seyrig in her many poses makes one heck of a visual motif. |
| Comments: 0 (read on)
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Today in Film Score History:
July 3 |
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| David Shire born (1937) |
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| Delia Derbyshire died (2001) |
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| George Bruns born (1914) |
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| Jean Prodromides born (1927) |
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| Peer Raben born (1940) |
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| Robert O. Ragland born (1931) |
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| The Great Escape opens in Los Angeles (1963) |
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| Film Score Monthly Online |
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Prince David, Part 1 |
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Giacchino's Endless Summer, Part 2 |
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Year One, 101 |
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Mann's Man |
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The Kingdom of Kent, Part 2 |
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Score Restore: Whose Life Is It Anyway? |
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By George! Part 2 |
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George Fenton: Live at the LSO, June 2009 |
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The Rozsa Memoirs: Rozsa as Teacher |
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Wong's Turn: Castle iTunes |
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Ear of the Month Contest |
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