Lost Issue: Ancient, Dead Reviews

Joel Diamond: The Believer

Joel Diamond had to look no further than his upbringing to find inspiration for his score to director Henry Bean's film The Believer. Because the film takes place in New York City -- and in a variety of cultural idioms -- the native New Yorker's experience working with Haitian, Latin, Asian and Hassidic music produced an abundance of musical ideas.

And they all came in handy for The Believer

Cliff Martinez's Traffic

by Jason Foster

Steven Soderbergh's latest film, the critically acclaimed Traffic, was generating strong Oscar buzz even before its release. Considering the praise the director already received for his work on Erin Brockovich -- combined with the buzz of Traffic -- Soderbergh is now an obvious leading candidate for a Best Director nomination come Oscar time. Traffic, which deals with Americ

Downbeat: Harsh Realm

by Jason Foster

Jason originally wrote the following for use in "Downbeat," our section in FSM dealing with current scores and the challenges featuring well-known (and some not well-known) composers. He talked to Mark Snow about Harsh Realm -- which was canceled before anyone could blink. So, we didn't run the piece. Recently, however, Harsh Realm has been broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel so we thought we'd dust this off

Obligatory Oscar Babble

By Jason Foster

The latest batch of Oscar nominations arrived Tuesday morning to the usual debate about the snubs and surprises. Of course, the major difference this year for film music fans is the combination of the Dramatic Score and Musical/Comedy categories back into one. What you are about to read is my analysis of the nominees. However, my logic is based on about 10 percent musical quality and 90 percent Oscar tradition/politics/wha

The "End of" Wrap Up

(...The Year/Decade/Century/Millennium...)

1M1 1/3/00

By Jason Foster

First off, let me apologize for my absence of late (in case anyone noticed and/or cared). Due to some recent commitments, my writing time -- and free time in general -- has been greatly reduced. However, I hope to once again contribute on a regular basis when the New Year gets rolling. But for now, I give you my final column of the year

The Potential Problem of Soundtrack Collectibility

1M1 12/1/99

By Jason Foster

Now that the second edition of Robert L. Smith's soundtrack price guide is available, it's time for collectors to once again confirm the value of their respective collections and wear out E-bay with ludicrous high-priced auctions. Don't get me

The Future of Film Music

By Jason Foster

1M1: 11/8/99

As the 20th Century comes to a close, there have been and continue to be various retrospectives on everything that came to pass in the last one hundred years. Since film music's history has already been well documented, perhaps it's time to take a look forward rather than back.

But first, a tad bit of reflection may be in order.

Over the past decade, film music has arguably become

The Potential Impact of DVDs on the Soundtrack Fan

By Jason Foster

1M1: 10/21/99

We all know by now what little treasures these things called DVDs can be. We've seen exactly what they can offer the movie fan in terms of supplements, but that about what they could potentially offer to the film score fan?

So far, the only things film score wise we've been able to have are isolated score, composer commentary, and the occasional composer profile a

Scoring the Baseball Film

1M1: 10/13/99 -- World Series Edition

By Jason Foster

Now that the World Series is only a little over a week away, I feel compelled to write about something that combines my two favorite pastimes: baseball and film music. So, in doing that, I've chosen to discuss some of the better scores for baseball-themed films.

Over the years, there have been many films made about baseball. They've spanned several genres --