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12/20/01 - The Blue Planet: (George Fenton) "Wildly popular
in the United Kingdom, this eight hour long series of shows by the BBC
Natural History Unit aired in 2001 after years of collecting breathtaking
original footage to create one of the most comprehensive ocean wildlife
films of all time. The ambitious project offers a look into nearly every
element of marine life, and its spectacular cinematography has earned it
both respect and popular success on the BBC. Three years ago, as the film
was being assembled, the producers approached one of the foremost British
composers of television and film, George Fenton, to compose the lengthy
mass of music required for the shows. The event allowed Fenton the same
opportunity to write for such a magnificent scope as he would for an IMAX
project, leaving no instrument unused in an effort to adequately
compliment the expansive elements of the sea. After the completion of the
score, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Choir of Magdalen College in
Oxford were so impressed and enthusiastic about their own performances of
the score that a live concert of music from the show was
arranged...." **** Read the entire
review.
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12/19/01 - Jack the Bear: (James Horner) "Even as late as
1993, James Horner was still actively involved in smaller projects. At the
time, his well known scoring assignments were mixed with several back
shelf films which had shown promise in production, but which faded quickly
upon release in the theatres. The film Jack the Bear was an example
of such a project, with a reasonable cast, a serious subject matter, and a
top flight composer on board. While it enjoyed moderate critical success,
the film failed for a number of reasons, most of which related to the
unnecessary move by the screenwriters to shake the story up with Nazi
undertones and other violent and sufficiently scary scenes. For what was
originally a heartfelt tale about a son saving a father from the depths of
despair, the film was fragmented with too many sensational and unexplained
twists. None of this, however, would ultimately help James Horner's score,
which suffered an equally tepid response from film score fans...." ** Read the entire
review.
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12/16/01 - An American Rhapsody: (Cliff Eidelman) "An
arthouse film that briefly gained international attention in the summer of
2001, An American Rhapsody is a character drama about a family torn
apart by the political iron rule imposed upon Hungarians in the
1950's. The film hasn't yet maintained enough critical acclaim to propel
it into mainstream awards status, and the score for the film by Cliff
Eidelman has likewise faded into immediate obscurity. For Eidelman, An
American Rhapsody is a return to the big screen that many of his fans
had been awaiting for three years. His last feature film score and album
release of his work was for One True Thing in 1998, and since that
time, Eidelman has been occupying his time with television and concert
pieces. Rumours as to why Eidelman has been left out of the opportunity to
score a mainstream film have abounded, and some have scoffed at the small
scale of An American Rhapsody. Nevertheless, Eidelman is back, and
his touch for emotional writing with an orchestral ensemble has not been
lost in that time...." ** Read the
entire review.
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12/9/01 - Ready to win a free CD? The December-January Cue Clue
Contest is now under way! For the last contest, over a thousand
contestants entered for twelve prizes, with winners from all around the
globe. Filmtracks and Varèse Sarabande are proud to offer another
ten prizes for this new contest. When you enter the contest, click the box
in front of which of the following albums you'd like as a prize if you
win: Shrek (this year's popular animation score by Harry
Gregson-Williams and John Powell), Rush Hour 2 (Lalo
Schifrin's exotic orchestral sequel score), American Outlaws, (Trevor
Rabin's sction-packed score for snythesizer and orchestra), The Glass House (the suspenseful
underscore by Christopher Young), or Ghosts of Mars (the newest
John Carpenter entry). Listen to the Cue Clue Clips on the Filmtracks Cool Stuff page and give
it your best shot. Remember, you only need to guess one of the three clips
correctly to qualify. Good luck!
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12/8/01 - Charlotte Gray: (Stephen Warbeck) "Scoring a host
of European films and television productions, Stephen Warbeck is quickly
rising as a popular composer in Western Europe. Even with his Academy
Award win for Shakespeare in Love, it is taking a bit longer for
that popularity to cross the Atlantic and catch on in America. For a
project that was supposed to exhibit an original score at the heart of a
film, Captain Corelli's Mandonlin turned out to receive a lower
critical and popular response for Warbeck's score and the film as a whole
than many had expected. Nevertheless, Warbeck's strong use of classical
compositional style for considerable orchestral ensembles has continued to
hold the curiosity of people everywhere who were introduced to his
energetic work for Shakespeare in Love and have wanted to hear more
of the same. Ironically, while Shakespeare in Love has set a
template by which American fans might want to hear more, Warbeck's best
known scores since haven't allowed him to explore that same comical line
of writing...." *** Read the
entire review.
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12/3/01 - The November/December, 2001, Theme of the Month is
an Audio Library
Bonanza! When Filmtracks opened in 1996, it was a review site devoted
only to textual content, and the number of audio clips with those reviews
was limited to a sum of about 100. As part of the April/May, 2000, Theme
of the Month, Filmtracks expanded the number of audio samples offered with
its reviews to a total of 350, and created the library in which to list
them. With the demand for audio samples always increasing, Filmtracks'
November/December, 2001, Theme of the Month is devoted to the addition of
1,200 audio clips to Filmtracks, making it the largest and most eclectic
film score audio library on the web. Each clip at Filmtracks is carefully
hand chosen using our expertise of each score, which gives you a much
better representation of the scores than the batch processed clips you
often find at other sites. New clips are always being added, so check
back for more!
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