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7/23/04 - A public memorial service for Jerry Goldsmith will be
held today (July 23rd, 2004) at 2:00 p.m. at Hillside Memorial Park in Los
Angeles, California. All friends, associates, and fans are encouraged to
attend the event. The address for Hillside Memorial Park is 6001 Centinela
Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90045 (telephone: 310-641-0707). If you cannot attend
the ceremony, you can share your thoughts about Goldsmith and his music's
influence at the Filmtracks
Scoreboard. Goldsmith passed away peacefully at the age of 75 on
Wednesday after a lengthy battle with cancer.
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7/22/04 - Legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith has
died at the age of 75 after a long battle with cancer. He passed away
peacefully in his sleep Wednesday night (July 21st) at his Beverly Hills home,
according to his personal assistant, Lois Carruth. With a career spanning six
decades and including roughly 200 major projects, Goldsmith was one of the most
prolific composers in Hollywood's modern age. He was also active in composing
orchestral pieces for special occasions and taught occasional music classes at
local universities. Nominated for 17 Academy Awards, most recently for Mulan in 1998,
Goldsmith's only win came in 1976 for The Omen. Among his best known film
scores are The Planet of the Apes, Patton,
Alien, Poltergeist, Hoosiers, Total Recall,
Basic
Instinct, and five of the feature Star Trek films.
His battle with illness slowed his artistic production in the 2000's, with his
final finished score being Looney Tunes: Back in
Action. The last entry in his career was 2003's Timeline, a score
that was sadly rejected from the film. He was reportedly signed to score two
projects in 2004, although his cancelled appearances at concerts and other public
events was an indication that he may not have been healthy enough to continue
writing. Earlier this year, the Varèse Sarabande label released a
comprehensive set, Jerry Goldsmith at
20th Century Fox, celebrating his career, and they have plans to release
his rejected Timeline score as well. Filmtracks and all fans of film music
extend the best of wishes to all of those who were close to Goldsmith, and you can
discuss his life and career at the Filmtracks
Scoreboard. A true Hollywood legend has been lost.
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7/14/04 - Deep Blue: (George Fenton) --All New Review--
"At the start of the 2000's, The BBC television series The Blue Planet
took the world by storm, featuring IMAX-sized visuals of the oceans' wonders
and selling in great numbers once available. Richard Attenborough's narration
and George Fenton's score for The Blue Planet, along with the wondrous
vistas, made that film the success it was. For the 2004 expansion of the
The Blue Planet concept, a major documentary feature film from BBC
Worldwide and Greenlight Media entitled Deep Blue was made as a normal
cinema counterpart for the television series. The film has slowly been
debuting across the globe and Miramax has reportedly acquired Deep
Blue for North American release in early 2005. It is a $5 million
production which used twenty specialized camera teams, shooting more than
7,000 hours of footage at over 200 locations around the world and descending
as far as 5,000 meters in the most powerful submersible craft available...."
***** Read the entire
review.
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7/11/04 - Terror Tract: (Brian Tyler) --All New Review--
"Every popular composer has a story about breaking into the industry at some
point early in his career, and, for Brian Tyler, the 2000 television film
Terror Tract was instrumental in the recognition it would provide him
when moving on to the other horror films of the early 2000's for which he
made his name. Finishing his second year of scoring films and television
series, Tyler was recommended to the directors of Terror Tract, which
finally aired on the USA cable television network in the fall of 2001 and was
based upon three separate short horror stories. Real estate agent John Ritter
introduces the three stories by showing you the homes in which they take
place and serving as the overarching connection between the supposedly
unrelated tales. Directors Lance Dreesen and Clint Hutchison are soundtrack
collectors themselves, and had used some of Hollywood's most famous horror
scores as temp music in Terror Tract. They recognized that their film
would need an orchestral sound in order to distinguish itself..." *** Read the entire
review.
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7/8/04 - Big Wednesday: (Basil Poledouris) --All New
Review-- "There haven't been many dramatically weighty films in the genre
of surfing throughout Hollywood's history, but director John Milius wanted to
present the public with just that in 1978. An avid surfer during his
developmental years in Southern California, Milius wanted to change the
perception of surfing films that had been dominated by pop culture music and
had neglected the serious and professional aspects of the sport. While Big
Wednesday accomplished its goal in providing drama both on and off the
waves, the film earned its niche in small cult groups across the world while
being sadly forgotten by most mainstream viewers. Another surfing enthusiast,
and one of Milius' close friends, Basil Poledouris, was also studying film in
the same area in the 1970's. Poledouris' knack for musical whimsy, composing
impromptu themes on the piano for Milius' early film projects, led to an
early and fruitful collaboration on Big Wednesday...." **** Read the entire
review.
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7/5/04 - The Punisher: (Carlo Siliotto) --All New
Review-- "First appearing as an auxiliary character in a Spiderman comic
in 1974, Frank Castle would eventually gain his own comic series (and
international fame) in the mid-1980's. His story being one of emotional
torment, Castle is a former decorated Marine who abandons his service when
his family is gunned down in cold blood, becoming "The Punisher" as an
expert, freelance crime fighter. For the film, some of the facts of the
original comic have been twisted to suit a more modern age, but the table is
still set for Castle to become his own superhero of sorts and, in this case,
take down the wealthy, criminal Florida family which wrongly killed his own.
The most important aspect of the Castle character remains intact: his ability
to fight as a superhero without any supernatural superhero powers. He relies
simply on good hand to hand combat tactics and a mastery of weaponry in order
to seek his revenge. Conversely, on the far other end of the spectrum of
humanity is Italian composer Carlo Siliotto, a man in his mid-50's..." **** Read the entire
review.
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7/3/04 - Narrow Margin: (Bruce Broughton) --All New
Review-- "Among the better forgotten thrillers of the 1990's was
Narrow Margin, a tale of witness protection from director Peter Hyams.
Gene Hackman's deputy district attorney is assigned to protect book editor
Anne Archer, who is the only witness of a mob assassination, from the
wilderness of Canada back to Los Angeles to testify. The film rented an
entire train for the majority of its running time, with the rail trek through
British Columbia taking several suspenseful turns as killers from the mob
have infiltrated the voyage. For train enthusiasts, this film ranks up there
with Under Siege 2: Dark Territory as an exciting modern thriller,
although Narrow Margin has the distinct advantage of featuring two
outstanding actors in their prime. Hyams has been made notorious for his
difficult relationships with members of his crew, and notably with his
composers. Having worked with Jerry Goldsmith early in his career and then
with half a dozen composers since, it is no surprise that there is no
consistent composer for the majority of his films...." *** Read the entire
review.
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