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9/30/01 - When Good Ghouls Go Bad: (Christopher
Gordon) "Launched on VHS and DVD six weeks prior by Twentieth Century Fox
Home Entertainment, When Good Ghouls Go Bad is a Fox made-for-TV
kid's film set to air on the cable network Fox Family Channel during their
annual Halloween programming festival. The kid at the center of the story,
Danny, has just moved to a new town, and he is horrified to learn that
thanks to a curse, nobody is allowed to celebrate Halloween. Danny teams
up with his recently departed Uncle Fred (as performed by the always
entertaining Christopher Lloyd, appearing as the only substantial name in
the production, and a rarity for Fox Family films) to drive away the
ghosts responsible. As to be expected, the movie is a light combination of
horror and humor, with designs for an audience similar to
Monkeybone or the more popular Nightmare Before
Christmas. With the production of the film located in Australia,
veteran television composer Christopher Gordon was hired to conduct a
performing group known as 'Pro Musica Sydney'...." *** Read the entire
review.
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9/29/01 - The Phantom: (David Newman) --All new
review-- "Even people who are vaguely familiar with the style of
composition of David Newman know that the son of the infamous Alfred
Newman is capable of writing large, melodic themes for dramatic films. His
ability to highlight a score with a spontaneous cue of orchestral marvel
has not gone unnoticed. His score for Hoffa has arguably the most
memorable and thematic material of his career. Newman produced one of the
best cues of the year 2000 as well: a short, but brilliant piece for the
outlandish ending of Bowfinger. In the middle of the 1990's, there
was a short-lived push to bring more radio and comic action icons to the
big screen, highlighted by the popular failure of 1994's The
Shadow. Carrying a somewhat less interesting cast, The Phantom
failed to an even greater extent, pushed aside by the heavy-weight summer
releases of 1996, including Independence Day. The fad of comic book
legends had died off by then (and attempts to bring it back, all the way
to 2000's X-Men suffered similar fates), but the film scores of
that genre remain as a curious entry...." ***
Read the entire
review.
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9/27/01 - Opinions about the music for Enterprise,
the newest series in the saga of Star Trek, are coming fast and
furious. Quite literally. The response to the Paramount and/or UPN
executives' decision to use a Russell Watson performance of Diane Warren's
"Faith of the Heart" song during the Enterprise opening titles has
been disasterous, with a vast majority of Trek music fans expressing their
extreme disgust with the song. Despite the popular success of the show so
far, the song is the sole and instantaneous source of angst for both
devoted and casual fans of the Star Trek franchise. At Filmtracks'
ScoreBoard and E-mail box, the song has been referred to as
"lousy," "dated," "awful," and "disgraceful." Others said, "it must
go" and "it ruins the credits." On the other hand, response to Dennis
McCarthy's orchestral underscore has been neutral to positive. Do you have
an opinion about the Enterprise song controversy? Let it all out at
the Filmtracks
ScoreBoard.
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9/11/01 - In response to the horrific terrorist attacks
today against the United States of America, Filmtracks offers its concerns
and condolences to all of those affected, and especially our friends who
work at the record labels in New York City. There is no excuse or
explanation that will bring back the thousands of lives lost. Americans
can be, more than perhaps any other civilization, the most vengeful people
of the world, but it is important for rage to be contained in favor of
patience. With the most powerful military might of any nation, the United
States will likely avenge these cowardly attacks with an overwhelming
force of retaliation. Let us all just hope that our world leaders think
hard and long before leveling their missiles on the countries suspected of
housing the terrorist masterminds. We encourage you to talk about this
second day of infamy in American history at the Filmtracks
ScoreBoard. May the United States prevail in justice.
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9/10/01 - Medicine Man: (Jerry Goldsmith) --All new
review-- "A much too forgotten gem in Goldsmith's career, Medicine
Man was a score that has managed to survive the horrific box office
failure of the film. While containing an interesting cast and politically
charged message, the film's timing and lack of mainstream appeal doomed it
to the back shelves at the rental stores. Goldsmith's large-scale score
for the film, though, continues to sell well and be re-used at public
events. Its generous performances of ethnic and orchestral creativity show
the obvious labor with which Goldsmith toiled to write this score... a
considerable labor that would be lacking in his scores a decade later. In
1992, Goldsmith was still at the height of his mastery of electronic and
orchestral melding, and Medicine Man takes both of these elements
and combines them with a diverse percussion section to recreate the
exotic, foreign, and romantic atmosphere of the rain forests. The only
redeeming part of the film is indeed the Goldsmith score, which simply
dominates several scenes..." **** Read the entire
review.
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9/9/01 - Goldeneye: (Eric Serra) --All new review--
"In 1995, the Bond franchise was finally beginning to get some things
right. The belated debut of Pierce Brosnan marked the end of the longest
lapse ever in the production of the series, and along with some thigh
crushing actresses and an intensely popular movie poster and game spinoff,
the film was a fiscal success. It paved the way for three more Bond films
to star Brosnan, ensuring the continuation of the original idea to a time
that Ian Fleming couldn't have even dreamt about. The music for
Goldeneye was the only tricky proposition. John Barry had been
quoted by numerous sources that he believed the modern 80's and 90's Bond
films were nothing more than formula immitations of the 60's Bond films
(and to and extent, he is right). He declined participation in the
project, leaving The Living Daylights as his outstanding final Bond
score. The producers at M-G-M decided, and rightly so, that they wanted to
continue Barry's late Bond score push into the modern rock and electronica
sound, keeping only a faint resemblence to the 60's jazz for the sake of
continuity...." * Read the entire
review.
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9/8/01 - Michael Collins: (Elliot Goldenthal) --All new
review-- "Proving that the young composer was here to stay, Michael
Collins garnered Elliot Goldenthal with his second Academy Award
nomination. Although he would not win such an award in the 1990's (nor
would he be nominated again), the years of 1994 through 1996 were
Goldenthal's ticket to success. While Goldenthal has been criticized by
the older generations of film scoring for what may appear on the surface
as a haphazard method of film scoring, he has produced a small handful of
scores from all times in his career that stand apart as being among the
best of their years. Michael Collins, along with Interview with
a Vampire and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, is among these
few strong entries in the composer's career. The year of 1996 was a rather
bland entry itself, coming on the heels of an outstanding 1995 for film
scores, and Goldenthal's Michael Collins hit early in the fall
season to awaiting ears...." **** Read the
entire review.
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9/7/01 - Judas Kiss: The Film Music of Christopher
Young: (Christopher Young) "The career of Christopher Young has been
as diverse as any in the current generation of film music composers. When
he first blasted onto the scoring scene in the 1980's, he stunned
audiences with his magical and robust horror scores, many of which
produced the kind of massive orchestral terror not heard in a
generation. His Hellraiser scores alone put him on the map in
Hollywood, leading to five or so years of producing quality horror and
suspense scores for such films as Copycat and Species. His
fan base strong at the time, many of Young's works filtered out into the
secondary market in the form of promotional CDs handled by Intrada
Records, since only a fraction of his recorded work has been published on
a commercial album. These promotional albums have since become highly
valuable collector's items. Young's ability to adapt for nearly any
scoring project makes him a respected veteran of film scoring, with his
filmography showing a bizarre collection of seemingly unrelated subject
matters...." ** Read the entire
review.
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9/6/01 - Arlington Road: (Angelo Badalamenti) --All new
review-- "One of 1999's scariest psychological thrillers, Arlington
Road is both a mental and emotional horror film. It's one of those
"urban nightmare stories" in which your newly befriended next store
neighbor turns out to be a cold blooded mass bomber, and a mastermind who
never loses. The film is one that will keep you on the edge of your seats
for a number of scenes, though it stretches logic beyond reasonable bounds
at nearly every important turn of the plot. The story is ultimately a
futile endeavor, with every value and or person you care about shattered
or dead, and it's the kind of film that makes you sit and wonder why you
have just spent two hours in order to feel so bad about the
world. Nevertheless, the film has inspired a sort of cult following, in
spite of the boycott that some conservative organizations have placed on
the film for its grotesquely bloody and disturbing opening scene. Called
to the task of scoring this thriller is Angelo Badalamenti, who is best
known for his collaborations with director David Lynch...." * Read the
entire review.
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9/5/01 - The Lion in Winter: (John Barry) "When John Barry
scored the stage story of The Lion in Winter in 1968, he was at the
height of his James Bond popularity, with the world knowing him only for
his sassy Bond scores (or maybe for his jazz band recordings --who could
ever forget Beat Girl?). Only serious film score collectors were
aware of the true merits that Barry displayed in his earlier 1960's score
such as Zulu and Born Free. Upon glancing at the script and
cast for The Lion in Winter, one would not have associated Barry
with the project even at that time, but his friendship with the director
of the film allowed Barry the opportunity to create a score that would
change the public's impression of him forever. What's important to
understand about the score to this film is the simple fact that it wasn't
necessary for Barry to create such an "over the top" score. In the end,
however, it would be John Barry standing on the stage alongside Katherine
Hepburn and screenwriter James Goldman and accepting an Academy Award for
The Lion in Winter...." ***** Read the entire
review.
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9/4/01 - Stargate SG-1: (Joel Goldsmith, David Arnold, Kevin
Kiner, Richard Band, and Dennis McCarthy) "It's easy to be skeptical
whenever a television series follows a popular film, and especially a film
that has a score that has risen to the status of "cult classic" in the
years since its composer has become famous. The television scores, due to
budgetary restrictions, usually offer of a much poorer quality than the
original. They also, in many cases, fail to use the popular themes from
the original film; nor do they often establish strong themes of their
own. When the first Stargate SG-1 album came out, it was a surprise
to many people who had enjoyed the film score, but were not familiar with
the television show. The show not only made use of David Arnold's themes
for the film, but heavily so, and the interpolation between the original
music by Joel Goldsmith and Arnold was overwhelming. With the popularity
of the show persisting, a second album of Stargate SG-1 music was
released three years after the first, providing a comprehensive blanket of
music from the show's musically successful first season...." **** Read the entire
review.
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9/3/01 - Battle Beyond the Stars/Humanoids from the
Deep: (James Horner) "Imagine, for a moment, a time when film music
collectors listened to James Horner's music in the theatres and not
one of them compared that music to a previous Horner score. Sounds
funny, doesn't it? Well, in the case of Battle Beyond the Stars,
this phenomenon existed because Horner hadn't produced a major feature
film score yet. But being the first in an illustrious career doesn't
automatically mean there isn't some "borrowing" going on. Horner's career
has been a hotbed of controversy regarding Horner's tendancies to re-use
and borrow material. Even that hotbed has a storybook beginning. Horner
was lucky enough to be noticed by Roger Corman for use in the films
represented on this album, and it is Battle Beyond the Stars which
directly caused Horner's employment on Star Trek II: The Wrath of
Khan and an acquaintence with Battle Beyond the Stars art
director James Cameron. Horner was fresh out of his Doctorate education in
music composition and theory when he landed the position with Corman,
making his story very similar to Cliff Eidelman's, especially with the
dual involvement with the Star Trek franchise...." **** Read the entire
review.
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