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9/30/03 - The Quest: (Randy Edelman) --All New Review--
"Perhaps nobody clued him in on this probable fact before this film was made,
but Jean-Claude Van Damme is much better at kicking people in the groin than
he is at directing films. Being so, Van Damme --the kickboxer who you always
see getting into enjoyable scuffles with relentless tabloid photographers on
city streets in real life-- decided to make The Quest his directorial
debut. The film, not much different from the formulas of the other kickboxing
films in which he stars (except for an awkward role for Roger Moore), was a
critical disaster, and went straight from empty theatres to video stores and
midnight showings on cable channels. The film wasn't laughable, per se, but
it simply repeated all the same old Van Damme moves in a poorer light, making
it useless if you've seen him bash opponents (or, best yet, kick over palm
trees) on screen in the past. Composer Randy Edelman, however, seems inclined
to take on any project of dubious merit and provide a decent score for
it...." ** Read the entire
review.
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9/29/03 - Daylight: (Randy Edelman) --Expanded Review--
"This 1996 urban disaster film is a suspenseful Sylvester Stallone drama
which, despite following a stereotypical plotline, was received with better
than expected applause from audiences. The director and his production team
would go on to create the better known film Dragonheart later in the
same year, with both films utilizing scores from synth and orchestra expert
Randy Edelman. Some film music fans argue that the mid-1990's was the height
of quality output from Edelman, following his immensely popular
Gettysburg score with these two strong efforts in 1996. While
Dragonheart remains the better known of the pair by far,
Daylight stands on its own as a worthy action score. The film was
entertaining in its claustrophobic treatment of a new disaster challenge, and
Edelman responded by composing an equally energized, sophisticated urban
score. While many casual film music listeners associate Randy Edelman mostly
with fluffy comedy ventures..." *** Read the entire
review.
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9/28/03 - Shanghai Noon: (Randy Edelman) --All New
Review-- "The appeal of Jackie Chan films was at its height when the idea
for Shanghai Noon splashed across the big screens. His previous hit
films in America, Rumble in the Bronx, Mr. Nice Guy, and
Rush Hour, had varying levels of lower intelligence, but for the most
part, any script that allows Chan to wiggle through a shopping cart and kick
someone in the groin at the same time is worthy of a reel of film. The
concept of Shanghai Noon presented the same awe-inspiring stunts from
the funnyman, but this time in the setting of the Wild West... not the usual
urban environment for Chan. Pairing up with comedian Owen Wilson, the two
battle the law and kidnappers on the road to saving a princess, and several
playful references to famous westerns (including, of course, High
Noon) are included along the way. The film's success would lead to a
sequel for the two leads, and both entries would be scored by Randy
Edelman...." *** Read the entire
review.
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9/27/03 - Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story: (Randy Edelman) --All
New Review-- "A handful of biographical films have been made about Bruce
Lee, the master of martial arts who mysteriously died in July of 1973. Many
of them have taken artistic liberties with the factual aspects of Lee's life,
and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is no exception. Starring Jason Scott
Lee (no relation) as the famed kung fu favorite, this film gets more of the
facts straight about Lee's personality than any of the others, but still
suffers from some awkward alterations of setting and circumstances. For
director Rob Cohen, the film would mark his jump from television films to
feature projects on the big screen, and his choice for the score would be the
versatile Randy Edelman. The two would collaborate several more times in the
following years, from Dragonheart and Daylight to The
Skulls and XXX, and it's easy to understand how the partnership
came to be so strong after its initial outing. The score for Dragon: The
Bruce Lee Story avoids all of the stereotypical Hong Kong elements..."
**** Read the entire
review.
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9/26/03 - The young career of John Ottman has already given
movie-goers and film music enthusiasts much to think about. A jack of all
trades, Ottman is one of only a few artists in the history of Hollywood to
have significant talents in directing, editing, and scoring of films.
Finishing a week of reviews of Ottman's scores, Filmtracks
celebrates John Ottman's career with a Composer Tribute. Most people
became familiar with Ottman's skills in 1995, when his blossoming
collaboration with director and friend Bryan Singer led to massive critical
and popular acclaim for the cult hit The Usual Suspects. Since then,
his more than a dozen feature film scores have consistently gravitated
towards the romantically perturbed, ranging from the classically troubled to
the straight-forward horror of slasher films. He remains a passionate master
of the thriller and mystery genres, with popular scores for Incognito,
Apt Pupil, and Cruel Intentions. All but one of Ottman's album
releases (2002's Trapped) are now reviewed at the site. Filmtracks
also maintains nineteen other
Composer Tributes.
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9/25/03 - Eight Legged Freaks: (John Ottman) --All New
Review-- "Who could ever forget the hairy horror films of monsters caused
by nuclear radiation in the 1950's? You had giant spiders in
Tarantula, and even better yet, giant ants that attack Los Angeles in
Them!. The 2002 flick Eight Legged Freaks both paid tribute to
that genre and mocked it at the same time, utilizing modern CGI effects to
produce a similarly themed attack on trailer folk by huge arachnids. The
film's original title, "Arac Attack," played to the tongue and cheek nature
of the project, but that title was dropped because producers realized that
real life people weren't much more intelligent than the ones getting killed
in the film, and they would probably confuse the film with a Gulf War action
documentary. Whether the giant spiders were unleashed on hostile Iraqis or
trailer-dwelling Americans, the Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich film was much
more of a comedy spoof than a serious horror film, and so they needed a score
that was playfully sinister...." *** Read the
entire review.
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9/24/03 - Apt Pupil: (John Ottman) --All New Review--
"One of the more obscure collaborations between director Bryan Singer and
composer/editor John Ottman, Apt Pupil was adapted from the same
collection of Stephen King novellas as Stand By Me and The
Shawshank Redemption. Its disturbing, modern tale involves a teenage boy
who discovers that an elderly man who lives near him is actually a Nazi SS
officer in hiding. In return for keeping the old man's secret, the boy forces
him (Dussander) to recount the glory of the Third Reich. The two manipulate
each other in a cat and mouse game of psychological enticement, with the film
often fading back into scenes of 1941 horrors. John Ottman's involvement with
the picture was first and foremost that of editor, for it is this duty that
Singer had employed of Ottman first. The project had proven difficult for
Ottman given time constraints and a decision to take the editing process
digital halfway through the endeavor. By the time Ottman reached the time to
compose the score, his energy had been drained..." **** Read the entire
review.
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9/23/03 - Urban Legends: Final Cut: (John Ottman) --All New
Review-- "A jack of all trades, John Ottman is one of only a few artists
in the history of Hollywood to have significant talents in directing,
editing, and scoring of films. With his film Urban Legends: Final Cut
in 2000, Ottman became the first person in modern times to accomplish all of
those tasks for a single studio project. His enthusiasm for the project was
never in doubt; he had already established himself as an in-demand composer
and editor, and the next logical step for Ottman was to direct his own
feature film (something he had done as a teenager with great, amateur zeal).
The process of tackling so many duties for one project left him unavailable
for other assignments in a year's span between 1999 and 2000, and thus he was
unable to participate with long-time collaborator Bryan Singer for the
original X-Men film. By his own word, Ottman was exhausted by the end
of the Urban Legends: Final Cut experience, and while he wouldn't
hesitate to jump into the director's chair again..." *** Read the entire
review.
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9/22/03 - The Usual Suspects: (John Ottman) --All New
Review-- "Few films offer the superior level of intelligence in writing
as The Usual Suspects, a crime thriller and mystery that grips you in
its ambiguity from beginning to end. Its surprisingly deep cast, remarkable
writing, and frightening sonic ambience all make for a ultra-creepy film that
continues to achieve cult status ten years after its release. Jokes about
Keyser Sšze are a delicious part of modern movie culture, and the performance
of actor Kevin Spacey earned him a ticket to the forefront of the industry.
The film would be the second collaboration between director Bryan Singer and
composer/editor John Ottman, with their first project being the largely
unknown film Public Access just previous to The Usual Suspects.
The composer/editor hybrid is very rare in the professional industry, mostly
because the two tasks require entirely different sets of skills and a whole
lot of time. On the other hand, having a single composer/editor for a film
allows that individual to produce a perfect fit between film and score..."
**** Read the entire
review.
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9/21/03 - Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over: (Robert Rodriguez) --All
New Review-- "With the children stars of the series growing older
quickly, the Spy Kids concept will likely end as a trilogy. With this
in mind, and cranking out this third installment to the Spy Kids
franchise in record time (and delaying his Once Upon a Time in Mexico
film in the process), director Robert Rodriguez continues to expand his
ethical beliefs of family and loyalty in the series. This time, a malevolent
Toymaker, performed by Sylvester Stallone, has an insidious plan to take over
all the kids in the world by trapping their minds in their video games, and
our favorite Cortez family has to play the game itself to free a trapped
member. The twist on the film is its use of 3-D imagery during video game
sequences that make up the latter half of the film. Critically, the film
fared poorly compared to the first two, with the 3-D elements considered
blurry and badly rendered in its colors. Nevertheless, the film is meant as
silly fun..." ** Read the entire
review.
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9/19/03 - British composer David Arnold is an artist whose
talents stretch to nearly every realm of the music industry. Finishing a week
of reviews of Arnold's recent scores, Filmtracks
celebrates David Arnold's career with a Composer Tribute. His music,
as well as the albums he has produced, have been heard by more people than
most film music collectors realize. Arnold's sudden influence in the film
music industry came early in his career (1994-1996), when he scored such
large-scale orchestral efforts as Stargate, Last of the Dogmen,
and Independence Day. Arnold's career after 2000 has been defined by
his techno-influenced urban grooves for Shaft, Baby Boy,
Changing Lanes, and 2 Fast 2 Furious. His list of credits as a
record producer is lengthy, and he works with a wide variety of artists
(across several genres) to arrange album recordings. Look for reviews of
Shaft and A Life Less Ordinary in months to come. Filmtracks
also maintains eighteen other
Composer Tributes.
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9/18/03 - Enough: (David Arnold) --All New Review-- "In
his post-2000 scores, David Arnold is becoming less and less of the composer
that fans fell in love with in the mid-1990's. As part of his effort to break
out of his type-cast assignments relating to orchestral bombast, Arnold
scored the Michael Apted film Enough. The plot offers some of the same
drama and suspense elements that you can expect from Apted, whose
collaborations with several top composers have tallied to quite an impressive
list (James Horner, Danny Elfman, John Barry, and Maurice Jarre, among
others). In Enough, Jennifer Lopez plays the role of "Slim" (ironic,
given all of the talk about Lopez having her rear end artificially slimmed
down), a working class waitress whose life becomes seemingly perfect when she
marries a rich contractor and moves into the comfortable suburbs. Then, of
course, the contractor becomes an abusive wacko, the wife runs away, the
husband and his henchmen pursue her, and she has to save herself and her
child by beefing up and training for the inevitable chance to kick his face
in...." *** Read the entire
review.
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9/17/03 - Changing Lanes: (David Arnold) --All New
Review-- "After announcing himself back into the techno scene with
Shaft in 2000, composer David Arnold began accepting scoring
assignments with which he could vary those techno elements in different urban
settings. After the hip score for Baby Boy in 2001, and at roughly the
same time as his suspenseful, but stylish effort for Enough, Arnold
went to the far end of the techno scale for Changing Lanes. The film
was a diversion for director Roger Michell, who is better known for comedies
(and a partnership with composer Trevor Jones for his scores). In it, a
traffic accident turns into a tale of vengeance and desperation between two
men (Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson) who are both battling their own
internal demons and have little to lose. The film is saturated with the ills
of urban lifestyles and struggles, with the fates of the two men intertwined
in a nasty, self-destructing battle. The film never plays the race card,
however, which is one of the reasons it was critically acclaimed, and that
also makes a statement about the soundtrack...." * Read the entire
review.
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9/16/03 - Baby Boy: (David Arnold) --All New Review--
"Director John Singleton is known best, of course, for 1991's Boyz N the
Hood, and his 2001 companion film Baby Boy is a similarly
structured urban drama involving the disadvantages and trials of African
American black men. The film is once again a challenging look at the central
themes that Singleton often raises in his projects, and while critics praised
his ability to maintain his realistic perspective of the genre, many black
audiences were less than pleased about the stereotypical portrayals of urban
blacks in predictable and disappointing situations. Everyone agreed, however,
that Singleton's film presented far more questions than answers. An
interesting answer to one question was David Arnold, whose hiring for the
score on the project was considered a curious move by the fans of the
composer. The British composer is known in the United Kingdom for his pop
arrangements and album productions. He is widely recognized as the composer
of several very large-scale orchestral film scores of the 1990's in
America..." *** Read the entire
review.
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9/14/03 - Jeepers Creepers 2: (Bennett Salvay) --All New
Review-- "As teenie slasher flicks go, this series has a little more
unusual premise than others in the horror genre. The first Jeepers
Creepers film met a cult audience in 2001, raising the idea that a
flying, flesh-eating "Creeper" monster arises once every 23 years to kill and
maim as part of his voracious feast. Despite continuously poor critical
results (and even a backlash against the series from devoted, slasher genre
fans), the same production team has resurrected the creature and set a film
just a few days after the previous one, with the target now being a stranded
group of varsity basketball players, cheerleaders (yum, yum... no surprise!),
and coaches traveling on bus in the same rural area. Director Victor Salva
once again leads the film, strangely causing continued protests over his
conviction for child molestation a dozen years ago. Salva had worked with
composer Bennett Salvay for the first film in the series (the name similarity
is just a coincidence), and Jeepers Creepers 2 would be their fourth
collaboration...." ** Read the
entire review.
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9/12/03 - Filmtracks has honored six talented composers over
the past month with a series of new Composer Tributes at the
site. Even more composer tributes will follow in the weeks to come, and
Filmtracks wants to know which composers you think should be featured with a
new tribute. The tributes have traditionally been created when a composer has
at least eight to ten reviews of his/her works at Filmtracks, so by
supporting a new tribute for a composer, you are enccouraging us to review
more of that composer's scores. You can send Filmtracks an e-mail using the
address at the bottom of this page, or you can voice your composer choices in
public at the Filmtracks
Scoreboard. Keep checking back each Friday for a new tribute.
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9/11/03 - Freddy vs. Jason: (Graeme Revell) --All New
Review-- "With these two series running as long as they have, it's
difficult to maintain any kind of continuity when you start thinking about
their music. The Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th
movies have held a cult audience since 1980, practically inventing the teenie
slasher genre and opening the doors for more modern incarnations like
Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Despite a badly
fading interest in the most recent films in both original horror franchises,
fans found the prospect of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees together in the
same film to be irresistible. With Freddy resurrecting Jason and the battling
him over frightened teenie victims to slay, audiences propelled Freddy vs.
Jason to the number one spot atop the box office earnings list for a week
in the late summer season in 2003. The film exceeded most expectations by
fans of the series, and so did the score by Graeme Revell. The two series
have not been known for their superior scores..." *** Read the entire
review.
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9/10/03 - One of the most popular musicals of all time
(grossing over $3 billion), Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the
Opera begins production on its film version this week, aiming for a
December
2004 release. The project was to star original cast members Sarah
Brightman and Michael Crawford when Warner Brothers was to produce the film
for a 1991 release. Stalled by a dozen years of production delays and
Webber's successful translation of Evita to the big screen in 1996,
The Phantom of the Opera is now being produced independently by
Webber, with Warner Brothers serving as distributor. The only original cast
member to be considered for a role reprise now was Crawford as the Phantom (a
Tony-winning performance). But despite massive ad campaigns by fans of the
musical, Webber has personally cut Crawford from the role in 2003. Both
Webber and director Joel Schumacher expressed an interest in a younger
Phantom, and Attila/Tomb Raider 2 star Gerard Butler --who has
never sung professionally in his life-- has been given the role. Emmy Rossum
(Christine), Alan Cumming (Firmin), Minnie Driver (Carlotta), Patrick Wilson
(Raoul) also star. The film does not directly mirror the musical in plot, and
Webber will be composing new songs to accompany at least seven of the
original songs. The score will be less operatic and contain more modern
orchestrations. Published outrage over Crawford's dismissal by Webber has
been widespread, and you can read news, comics, and other information about
this debacle at www.phantommovie.com, where the
Crawford/Phantom online movie campaign is located. Even Filmtracks, a site
devoted to scores (and not musicals), is receiving e-mails from irate,
flabbergasted Phantom fans. What do you think? Voice your opinion at the Filmtracks
ScoreBoard. Let us all hope that the voice coaches are competent and
well-compensated.
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9/8/03 - Muppet Treasure Island: (Hans Zimmer) --Updated
Review-- "How far we have progressed in our entertainment industry? Well,
try to imagine how Robert Louis Stevenson would react if he saw his classic
story mangled considerably for the purpose of bringing singing Muppets to the
big screen. The Muppets have always been a hit or miss kind of species of
entertainment, either capturing you with their lovable personalities or
causing you to seek out the nearest stuffed doll for destruction. The film
and score for Muppet Treasure Island will probably divide people along
the same lines. There is truly hideous material to be found here. And yet,
for collectors of Hans Zimmer music, there might be some reward in it. Zimmer
was a year off of his Academy Award win for The Lion King, and the
same crude equation would be put to work for Muppet Treasure Island,
with Barry Mann composing the songs this time. Zimmer's role in the project
wasn't too demanding, with only a minimal amount of score required for the
picture (Zimmer would, however, dedicate the score to his young child)...."
*** Read the entire
review.
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9/5/03 - It is not often that top talent can be so consistently
found in the genre of television scoring, but veteran composer Lee Holdridge
has made a monumentally successful career of it. For his vast contribution to
film and television, Filmtracks
celebrates Lee Holdridge's career with a Composer Tribute. He has
written music for films on nearly every network and cable entity, including
NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, TNT, HBO, and Showtime, and his massive 2001 score for
The Mists of Avalon remains his most outstanding mainstream success.
His work for documentaries is also critically acclaimed, with several
big-name documentary titles under his belt in the last ten years. The
expansive list of works by the Latino-born composer also extends to popular
song-writing abilities employed by the world's foremost opera and pop
singers. The great majority of his music has unfortunately never seen a
commercial CD release, leaving collectors scrambling for the few promotional
albums of his diverse works. Filmtracks also maintains seventeen other Composer
Tributes.
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9/3/03 - Quest for Camelot: (Patrick Doyle) --All New,
Double-Length Review-- "After the fiscal success of Warner Brother's
venture into the animated realm with Space Jam, they decided to put a
Disneyesque spin on an Arthurian legend. Their goal was to follow the mold
--to the last detail-- of the popular Disney and Fox animation musicals that
had received so much critical praise earlier in the 1990's. They went over
the top for Quest for Camelot, signing the highest talent for the
singing and speaking voices. The cast was magnificent, with several top names
accompanied by the most famous vocalists in the world. They hired veteran
songwriters and composers to produce what they hoped would be one of the top
selling soundtracks of all time. Unfortunately, despite all their intentions,
Quest for Camelot turned out to a colossal failure, destined to be
ridiculed by adults and shunned by children for its very substandard
animation, mismatched speaking and singing voices, and considerable problems
with the flow of the plot. You could use Quest for Camelot at a studio
to illustrate the anatomy of a doomed picture, but the music itself wasn't
the cause of the failure...." **** Read the entire
review.
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9/2/03 - The Jungle Book: (Basil Poledouris) --All New
Review-- "There have been several film and video adaptations of Rudyard
Kipling's original story of The Jungle Book. On film you can go back
all the way to the diverse 1940 Miklos Rozsa score for the original film
rendition of the tale. Most people, though, are familiar with the 1967 Walt
Disney animated version and its Academy-Award recognized song "The Bare
Necessities." The 1994 live-action version, starring Jason Scott Lee, Sam
Neill, Cary Elwes, and John Cleese, offers a similar Tarzan-themed story with
additional challenges for the forest-dwelling young man to conquer. Despite
newly revamped action sequences, this new revival of The Jungle Book
didn't click well with audiences, and thus fell out of mainstream attention
with haste. Composing the score for this adventure is Basil Poledouris, who
was already established for ten years as an A-list composer in Hollywood. He
was in between his popular and successful Free Willy assignments, and
was going through a phenomenon much like James Horner in the early 1990's..."
*** Read the entire
review.
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9/1/03 - Il Postino: (Luis Bacalov) --Updated, Expanded
Review-- "Based on the novel "Ardiente Paciencia" by Antonio Skarmeta,
Il Postino tells the lovable tale of a postman on a small island in
Italy who has little reason to be excited about his isolated job. That is,
until he delivers post to the legendary poet Pablo Neruda in exile and, with
the help and inspiration of Neruda's work, puts the charms on the island's
most beautiful young woman. The heart-warming romance story is tainted by a
somewhat disruptive ending, as typically are bittersweet romances of
Mediterranean attitude. Neruda's poetry sets a memorable mood throughout the
film, as does the original score by Luis Bacalov. The film, much like Life
is Beautiful a few years later, would be a quick phenomenon in America,
where its short-lived momentum would carry it to rare foreign-film success at
the Academy Awards. Most film score fans will recall Bacalov's Il
Postino score as that defeated James Horner's Apollo 13 and
Braveheart at the Oscars in February 1996...." **** Read the entire
review.
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