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5/31/04 - The June/July, 2004 Cue Clue Contest is now under
way! Filmtracks and the Sony Music family of labels are proud to offer five
winners a copy of the new, expanded release of Dances With
Wolves. Due to the advanced level of difficulty of the clips in the
past few contests, the three clips for this contest have been chosen to be a
bit easier. If you haven't already done so, visit the Filmtracks Cool Stuff page and enjoy the
three mystery clips. Remember, you only need to identify at least one of the
three clips correctly in order to be entered, but you can double or triple
your chances of winning by identifying multiple clips. Good luck!
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5/30/04 - Dances With Wolves: (John Barry) --Updated
Review-- "...In 2004, as part of a celebration of Barry's 70th birthday,
Sony released Dances With Wolves once again, removing the pop tracks
and featuring about twenty minutes of previously unreleased material and
alternate versions of famous cues that were also previously unavailable in
original form. The extended material is sprinkled through the album with a
few negligible extra minutes in existing cues. The full film versions of the
"Buffalo Hunt" and "John Dunbar Theme," as well as an extension of the love
theme in "Falling in Love," are welcomed additions. Unless you are a serious
John Barry collector, however, this expanded album may not offer you much
more satisfaction than the gold one from 1995. Despite the press stating that
the 2004 Sony album is the "entire" score, Barry reportedly recorded 100
minutes of music for Dances With Wolves, and thus it is likely not
complete. Sadly, if you put all of the pop and other alternate versions of
this music together on one set, it would have to encompass two CDs...." ***** Read the entire
review.
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5/21/04 - Basic Instinct: (Jerry Goldsmith) --Updated
Review-- "...the score was available on the Varèse Sarabande
label at the time of the film's release, and offered 10 cues over 45-minutes
that served as an adequate representation of the various thematic ideas and
instrumental motifs that Goldsmith created for the score. A dozen years
later, the Prometheus label released an expanded album for Basic
Instinct that presents Goldsmith's full effort in film order. While
casual fans could probably stay content with the original 1992 album, the
Goldsmith collector should definitely be intrigued by the 2004 album. As
time has passed, Basic Instinct has proven to be even more of a
fascinating and unique work in Goldsmith's career, and while the material
absent from the original album is not earth-shattering, it is still as
interesting as the music you've heard before. The filler cues --underscore,
essentially-- for the film is just as eerie and tense as the rest of the
music, and it simply expands upon the mood of the original 45 minutes and
places it at about 75 minutes in length..." ****
Read the
entire review.
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5/15/04 - Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius: (James Horner)
--All New Review-- "After producing four scores all for release in the
last two months of 2003, James Horner continues his fast pace of writing with
both his replacement score for Troy and a his heartfelt work for
Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, both of which released on album on the
same day in May, 2004. The story of Bobby Jones could seem like 120
minutes of Hell if you're not enthusiastic about golf and its history. Robert
Tyre Jones, Jr. remains the one and only person to have ever won the title of
Grand Slam Champion by winning the British Amateur, the British Open, the
U.S. Open, and the U.S. Amateur, all in 1930. Having done so at age 28, the
film serves as a biography of Jones' life up to and including that golfing
record. It's a no-thrills detailing of Jones' sickly childhood, his 'miracle'
year of performance on the golf courses of Scotland and America, and his
ultimate decision to retire early to spend time with his family. The film was
pounded by critics for being a boring depiction about an event that few
people really care about..." ** Read the entire
review.
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5/9/04 - Toy Story: (Randy Newman) --All New Review--
"When pouring endless amounts of money into the development of the
groundbreaking Toy Story project, Disney and Pixar were unsure if the
leap in computer animation technology was going to be a success. Several
years later, with little Woody and Buzz toys all over the world and a sequel
feature film all to themselves, the Toy Story franchise has become a
monumental success. The film would be the launching pad for Pixar technology,
with several similarly constructed animation films to follow. For Disney, the
established core composer of their animated musicals at the time was Alan
Menken, who was concurrently writing for Pocahontas. Instead of
choosing this tested route, the studios handed the Toy Story scoring
assignment over to Randy Newman, who was already established as a composer
who could also bring a flair for happy, lazy songs to a project. While Menken
could have matched Newman's underscore (if not exceeded it in even its
slapstick quality), Menken didn't have the kind of jolly heart in his songs
as Newman...." *** Read the entire
review.
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