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| Poledouris |
Cherry 2000: (Basil Poledouris) Despite sinking $10
million into
Cherry 2000 in 1985, Orion Pictures had no idea what
to do with the film, delaying it two years before finally giving up on a
theatrical release and sending it directly to video. The
tongue-in-cheek, B-rate science-fiction/action flick stars the
counter-intuitively squeaky Melanie Griffith as a female mercenary in
the post-apocalyptic world of robot infiltration and societal disorder
in California and Nevada. With flashy cars, atrociously dumb dialogue,
and futuristic sexuality on the line, the film holds no punches in its
lighthearted
Mad Max depiction of future societal brutality. But
then again, the film is laughably horrible, perhaps in a
semi-intentional way, sending Griffith and her vintage Ford Mustang on a
mission with a misguided young man on a hunt for another copy of a
specific sex robot (the titular "Cherry 2000") after the male lead's
original one is accidentally electrocuted by a washing machine. They run
into nasty degenerates in the deserts on the way to a sunken Las Vegas,
where they do find their target sex toy but predictably fall in love
with each other instead. Every once in a while, you get the impression
that crew members "above" this variety of trash take the job anyway as
some kind of humorous diversion, and
Cherry 2000 represented that
type of situation for composer Basil Poledouris. At the time, he was
best known for his grand, thematically complex scores for sword and
sorcery films like
Conan the Barbarian and
Flesh + Blood.
Released at roughly the same time as
RoboCop,
Cherry 2000
was the kind of project that allowed the composer to use the opportunity
as his own testing grounds for his budding instrumental ideas
(especially involving synthesizer techniques) and have unhindered fun in
the process of venturing into the realm of futuristic Western. By this
time, Poledouris was beginning to really get the knack of combining
massive orchestral performances with trademark electronic rhythms and
synthesized instruments, setting the framework for a variety of
subsequent hybrid scores (culminating, interestingly enough, in
Free
Willy). While
Robocop was initially the more popular
expression of this experimentation,
Cherry 2000 would eventually
reveal itself to be the dark horse winner in these endeavors.
If you walk into
Cherry 2000 expected a serious
score, you may be disappointed and wonder why you spent the time and/or
money on one of its several semi-rare to rare albums. Instead, it's a
collection of positive, if not silly parody ideas on a very large scale,
poking obvious fun at Spaghetti Western and European romance music all
the while enunciating itself strictly though Poledouris' distinctive
musical voice. So infectious is the composer's entertaining stance for
Cherry 2000 that it's hard not get drawn into the bizarrely
eclectic nature of the music for this film and recognize that it truly
is the production's only redeeming element. Despite its attention to
thematic harmony and tonal rhythms at almost every turn, the score is
neither robust nor awe-inspiring. Instead,
Cherry 2000 makes its
name with personality alone, tackling the futuristic Western genre by
expressing itself with backwards-looking themes against a backdrop of
synthetic rhythms and electric guitars. The Hungarian orchestral
performances highlight several well-developed themes, and as usual for
Poledouris, these motifs weave in and out of each other in every cue and
change their guises as the score progresses. The film opens with
Poledouris' sappy love theme, a wishy-washy and overly sensitive
representation of the male lead's obsession with his Cherry 2000 sex
robot. Intriguingly, while this idea is conveyed by strings and solo
woodwinds throughout these early scenes and the many flashbacks to his
love affair with the machine, Poledouris shifts it to the electronic
realm for the romantic interactions between the man and Griffith's
mercenary. It swells into an action theme during the plane sequence in
"End of Lester" and explodes with banging chimes and full symphonic
glory at the outset of "The End" with almost ridiculous pomposity. In
many ways, the love theme is the core of the score's narrative, the only
idea to truly evolve throughout its length. The nutty villain, Lester,
is treated to a quirky keyboarded idea starting in "Moving" and
dominating the second half of the score; in "Truck Fight" and "Lester on
the Move," Poledouris combines the strangely light-footed celesta-like
tone of the synthetic keyboarding for this motif with muscular
orchestral backing, an odd but effective approach to the character. In
both "Truck Fight" and "Lights On" (among others), this motif is
overtaken by the primary Western-styled theme for the female
mercenary.
Almost the entirety of Poledouris' tribute material to
Ennio Morricone in
Cherry 2000 is dedicated specifically to
Griffith's character, though the stylish solo electric guitar in "Drive
to Gloryhole" is an early exception. Several different phrases within
this theme clearly address this parody element, none with fuller
development than in the latter stages of "Thrashing of Sky Ranch." The
light treatment of this idea early in "'E' Flips Sam" is notable in that
it represents practically the only soft statement of the identity. Few
dull moments are to be found in
Cherry 2000, for Poledouris is
almost constantly heard exploring one of his amusing parody themes.
There are even a few secondary ideas for specific scenes, a notable one
of harmonically pleasing rising figures at the end of "Magneto" and,
with synthetic choir, during the entirety of "Pipeline." The mock
Western rhythms by themselves are a subset of the heroine's theme, often
including deep brass minor-third progressions and standard percussion
appropriate to the genre but usually accompanied by futuristic waves of
electronic mastery foreshadowing the tones of
Wind (especially at
the outset of "End of Lester"). In cues like "The Barricades" and
"Photograb," these cute but very palatable rhythms carry passages often
about a minute long. The highlight of these rhythmic loops and their
synthetic effects is arguably "Lights On," a cue accompanying the start
of the climactic fight in a Las Vegas casino but opening with twenty
seconds of futuristic wonder that most sci-fi movie-makers would
probably love to steal for the opening frames of their own projects. The
last 80 seconds of "Thrashing of Sky Ranch," however, is a more
sustained singular highlight that employs some challenging rhythmic
meter changes that brilliantly express the composer's knack for playing
to stereotypes in the genre. On the whole, what Poledouris accomplishes
with this charming combination of future and past is a remarkably
effective score with a very distinct personality. Nothing remotely like
Cherry 2000 has been written by Poledouris (or any other
composer) before or after, making it a very refreshing glimpse at an
untapped sub-genre of parody. There is a touch of Jerry Goldsmith to be
heard in the meandering, light electronics at times (especially in the
sensitive woodwind and keyboarded statement of the love theme in "Ambush
in the Cave"), the vigorous pace of its chase cues offering familiar
deep and pulsating synthetic rhythms with pounding timpani on every
measure.
The Hungarian ensemble utilized for
Cherry 2000
doesn't seem to be that large, but their lack of depth is fully
compensated for by a driving enthusiasm in their performance. Some of
that creative, flashy soundscape is written right into Poledouris'
composition, but sharp performances by every section of the orchestra
highlight cues throughout the score. The ensemble is enlarged by a 'wet'
mixing sound and deep bass (the bass strings will cause your floor to
vibrate) that allows the electronic instruments to echo along with the
organic elements; this effect also enhances the futuristic feeling of
the score. In sum,
Cherry 2000 is a comedic Western parody with
electric guitars that never sounds hokey, and how Poledouris managed to
pull it off so well is a mystery. It's a perfect match between
synthesizers and orchestral traditions, with neither element allowed to
overshadow the other. It stands alongside Goldsmith's
Hoosiers as
one of those great electronically rooted scores that sucks you into its
themes and emotions to such an extent that even ardent detractors of
such hybrid music may cease to notice the synths. If
Cherry 2000
has a significant weakness, it extends from the film's lack of a truly
cohesive narrative, occasionally forcing Poledouris to be sidetracked
with source-like material. So much of the "downtime" in the score is
handled with soft and fuzzy statements of the love theme that truly
satisfying development of the main theme is lacking. Some listeners
won't care for the prancing attitude inherent in the silliness of
certain scenes either, even when the emotion Poledouris is trying to
convey is one with more serious connotations, like the love theme). The
lack of ensemble depth at times may also bother those expecting to hear
the composer's beefier orchestral mannerisms from the era. That said, if
you allow the score to creep into your list of favorite all-time guilty
pleasures, which could easily happen to those of you who have heard
thousands of scores and ache for originality, then
Cherry 2000
could very well be a five-star score. It is a reliably refreshing change
of pace that you may find yourself returning to often for a respite from
the plethora of otherwise less-than-inspiring film music to come from
the software generation of composers in subsequent decades. This fact is
in part why the score has remained one of the most notable on album in
the history of soundtrack CDs, fetching thousands of dollars for a
single copy and eventually afforded limited treatment by no less than
three separate specialty labels.
The original album for
Cherry 2000 was
Varèse Sarabande's very first Club title in 1989, limited to
1,500 copies and plagued by a number of issues. It's hard to imagine
that demand for the $12 CD at its initial mail-order offering was so
tepid, because it would eventually join Goldsmith's
The 'Burbs to
become the cornerstones of Varèse's original Club series. A
horribly erroneous arrangement of tracks out of chronological order is
accompanied by completely mangled track listings (albeit with welcome
sexual overtones) on the packaging, omitting two tracks and shuffling
others. Several typographical errors are also to be found on the
packaging. Still, an original
Cherry 2000 copy once sold once for
$2,500 in auction (though Filmtracks sold its #26/1,500 for a more
reasonable $300 in 1999), making it one of the most storied CD
collectibles ever to exist. When considering the unique personality of
the score, the mystique of the CD was nearly unparalleled for over a
decade. As the 2000's dawned, however, that mystique began to fade as
the bootleg CDr market began to flourish. An inconsequential limited-run
bootleg of
Cherry 2000 (together with Poledouris'
Flesh +
Blood, another Varèse Club title) circulated in a supposed
pressing of 500 copies, and several reproductions of that bootleg
followed. In 2004, however, Prometheus Records attained the rights to
both
Cherry 2000 and Poledouris'
No Man's Land (also an
early CD release by Varèse and certainly out of print and as
difficult to find as its Club title companion) and pressed them together
as a non-limited album. The inclusion of
No Man's Land is an
unexpected but logical bonus. The two scores came from Poledouris during
a distinct and specific point in his career, and both were out of print.
The music is presented here in the full length of the original 30-minute
album, but the "Porsche Power" and "Drive My Car?" cues have been
combined into one track.
No Man's Land is a cop thriller long
forgotten, and the score was Poledouris' first chance to produce an
entirely synthetic pop and drama effort for the big screen. After such a
hectic period in 1986-1987 (including the incredibly long score for the
TV series
Amerika), Poledouris perhaps should have passed on
No Man's Land. The score suffers from the same uninspiring
characteristics that would surface once again in
Love and
Treason, and beyond all his other works, its style is now extremely
dated. The only notable aspect of
No Man's Land is that the
droning, ambient "Payoff" cue would be tracked in the "Crazy Ivan"
sequence in
The Hunt for Red October.
The treatment of
Cherry 2000 on the Prometheus
album is substantially better than what you get on the Varèse
collectible, with the cues presented mostly in film order, additional
material sprinkled throughout, and a correct track listing on the 2004
offering. The additional cues aren't terribly exciting or important,
with the exception of a rousing rendition of the Lester theme late in
"Lights Out" (in fact, much of the added music on the later albums is
related to that theme). Other additional cues are largely redundant and
short in length, the overall time padded by three alternate mixes (only
two of which are labeled as such; "Lester on the Move" is simply an
alternate version of "Moving," though both are entertaining). The same
musical contents and master source were accessed by Intrada Records in
2011 for yet another re-release of the score on CD, this time switching
the track titles and their order once again (mainly moving the three
alternate mixes to the end and inserting the seemingly sparse and
synthetic source material, including the rather irritating "Movietone"
and "Jake's Jukebox," into proper order). The 1,500-copy product did
accomplish two purposes, however, primarily meeting continued demand for
the score since the 2004 album had gone out of print. Secondly, the 2011
album also provides 17+ minutes of music from Poledouris' 1984 score for
the medical drama
The House of God. In this previously unreleased
work, a chamber orchestra of 40 players alternates between bright,
propulsive baroque rhythms under pleasant themes for various soloists
(including hearty material that foreshadows the main theme of
Kimberly, especially considering the solo role for trumpet) and
somber, weighty background drama for strings, all of it cleanly
harmonious and easy on the ears. For those seeking the best album on
which to enjoy
Cherry 2000, the Intrada combination with
The
House of God is superior to the Prometheus pairing with
No Man's
Land, if only because of a better arrangement of tracks and more
palatable secondary score on the product. If you already own the
Prometheus album, however,
The House of God is likely not
substantial enough to merit purchasing the Intrada album unless you are
a Poledouris completist. Despite its storied history, the original
Varèse album serves no continued purpose other than to complete
fans' collections of the label's Club titles. On any album,
Cherry
2000 is a fantastically overachieving score representing a composer
at arguably the prime of his career, one that very closely skirts
five-star territory. If you could never get a hold of
Cherry 2000
in its previous forms, now is definitely the time to do so.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Score as Heard on the 1989 Varèse Album: ***
- Score as Heard on the 2004 Prometheus and 2011 Intrada Albums: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For Basil Poledouris reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.54
(in 35 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.29
(in 36,752 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The inserts for all three official CD albums from 1989 to 2011 include
extra information about the score and film. All copies were hand numbered on
the original Varèse Sarabande release.
