> The previous entries in this series can be found below:
> Part 1:
> https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=139461
> Part 2:
> https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=139645
> Part 3:
> https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=139963
> Part 4:
> https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=140222
> Part 5:
> https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=140461
> ---------------
> Kimberly (1999)
> Unfortunately we’re now in the late period of Poledouris’ career which
> seems to have been dominated by comedies of dubious quality and some TV
> projects… though there is a Sam Raimi film in the mix, so small positives
> I guess. Anyway, now to talk about Kimberly.
> Like with Amanda before it, there’s no Wikipedia article for this
> flick thus I’m going off of the quick blurb on IMDb which reads “four
> young men fall in love with the same woman and struggle to keep their pact
> with one another not to woo her”. So… a late 90’s R-rated indie version of
> a 1940’s screwball comedy? Anyway, the director made some other flicks
> I’ve never heard of and the cast includes a mix of known names (Sean
> Astin, Molly Ringwald, Pattie Duke) and ones I’m less familiar with
> (pretty much everyone else). Film apparently didn’t do well commercially
> and has very low ratings on RottenTomatoes and Letterboxd.
> As for the score, it’s fine.
> Saxophone heavy “romance in New York” scoring that largely sounds
> interchangeable with any number of romantic comedies of the 90’s,
> Poledouris does do quite nicely with the primary theme (“Main
> Title”) which has a stately, Neo-European tone about it at first but
> prove quite malleable as the (very brief) album unfolds. The one major
> stumbling block for Kimberly getting a higher rating here is the
> comedy music. While in the James Horner Honey, I Shrunk the
> Kids/Looney Tunes mold, the handful of tracks dedicated to this
> material completely ruins any sort of mood the rest of the score was
> setting. I mean, yeah… this is a romantic comedy, but still.
>
> Overall Kimberly is a very minor work from Poledouris but one that
> still delivers a handful of tracks worthy of an Basil centric playlist.
> Just take “Main Titles”, “Dating and Training”,
> Proposal/Finale” and “End Credits” off of the album and
> you’ll have a nice little 3.5 sampling of Basil in small scale romance
> mode. As for the whole enchilada… you can probably skip it.
> SCORE:
> 2/5
3/5 for me, solid little score.
> ---------
> Mickey Blue Eyes (1999)
> A romantic comedy crime picture (or RCCP for short), Mickey Blue
> Eyes apparently follows a lovably befuddled Hugh Grant who gets mixed
> up in mafia dealings thanks to his soon to be father-in-law (James Caan).
> I’m assuming hilarity ensues though not too much as I’ve heard of this
> this flick and according to Wikipedia it did decently enough commercially
> but got panned by critics. Oh, and apparently there’s a bunch of The
> Sopranos actors in this as well… or something.
> As for the score… well, there’s barely anything to discuss. Poledouris is
> given a minimal amount of space to write original music (at least based on
> the album) which essentially is just segue pieces of base-level dramatic
> music between needle drops of stereotypical Italian-American songs from
> yesteryear. The only really notable piece is “Gina Runs from
> Ambulance” which has Basil trying to give some romantic gravitas…
> before the track is cut short. There’s also another composer credited who
> ends up getting the two big climatic cues for some reason (some guy named
> Harry Rabinowitz). Basically, this is very much a song forward affair
> where not only is that the primary draw but also the only reason to pick
> this up.
> SCORE:
> 1 1/2 out of 5 (mostly for that one Basil track I mentioned)
Yeeeeah never checked anything out on this one haha.
> ----------
> For the Love of the Game (1999)
>
O.K, full disclosure here: I was planning on watching this
> one before writing my review (I have a DVD copy) but just never got around
> to it. Thus this entire review might prove to be null and void once I
> actually watch the picture… so, reader beware… or
> something.
> A sports drama film about an aging baseball star (Kevin Costner) as he
> reflects of his career and life before playing his final game in Yankee
> Stadium. Based on the 1991 novel of the same name by author Dana Stevens
> (who also wrote the screenplay), this is part of that interesting time in
> filmmaker Sam Raimi’s filmography where he tried branching out into more
> “acclaimed” pictures between his early horror days and the major
> blockbusters that defined his later career. Admittedly this period in the
> 90’s gave us flicks such as The Quick and the Dead, A Simple
> Plan and The Gift so can’t complain too much. Anyway, Love
> of the Game failed at the box office and got royally panned by critics
> upon release… so maybe I shouldn’t waste my time watching it?
>
As for Basil’s music, if you wanted to hear a broadly
> Americana variant on Farewell to the King minus all the ethnic and
> jungle material, then that’s essentially what we have here. As with the
> previous titles covered in this section, the 1999 Varese Sarabande album
> I’m basing this review on is rather brief (just over 33 minutes) though
> there is a “Deluxe Edition” from the same label that doubles the runtime
> plus some. Anyway, the music itself is very nice with Poledouris fully
> embracing his weighty romantic side for the majority of the runtime with
> the notable exceptions of some wild, heavily distorted electric guitar
> work in the track “Tuttle Knockdown” and bluesy steel guitar in
> “Gus Hits” which brought to mind the opening of Killers of the
> Flower Moon for me (but less dire).
> While I fully confess that the longer, full presentation probably opens
> the score up more and further develops Poledouris’ themes, as for the
> presentation I heard… it’s solid. Not an amazing late career work, but
> still quite good and definitely leagues beyond the prior two titles I
> covered in this installment. For fans of Poledouris in romantic drama
> mode, definitely check this one out.
> SCORE:
>
3 1/2 out of 5
Aw man, love this score!....then again, when I say "love", I probably mean 4/5, so I guess we're not that far off.
Also, I keep forgetting to reply to these suckers, but been loving this journey so far.
| 
