FILM SCORE FRIDAY 3/22/02By Scott Bettencourt
CRAIG ARMSTRONG will be scoring Philip Noyce's remake of
Graham Greene's The Quiet American, starring Michael Caine
and Brendan Fraser.
DAVID ARNOLD will reunite with World Is Not Enough
director Michael Apted for the Jennifer Lopez drama Enough,
as well as scoring the new Bond film, which has been given the
faux-Fleming title Die Another Day.
Despite talk that John Williams was interested in the gig,
MYCHAEL DANNA has been signed to score Ang Lee's feature
The Hulk. I would assume that with two Spielberg films
imminent as well as a new Star Wars and a new Harry
Potter, Williams has enough on his plate, especially for a man
who was talking about retiring just a few years ago. Danna will also
score Denzel Washington's directorial debut, the untitled "Antoine
Fisher Story."
As rumored, DANNY ELFMAN will indeed reunite with
Family Man director Brett Ratner for Red Dragon, the
Hannibal Lecter prequel (and remake of Manhunter). Whatever
one thinks of Ratner's abilities (and few would argue he's the
second coming of Ridley Scott or Jonathan Demme), he has assembled
an extraordinary cast--besides the inevitable Anthony Hopkins,
there's Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson, Harvey Keitel,
Mary-Louise Parker and Philip Seymour Hoffman, in the roles played
in Manhunter by William Petersen, Tom Noonan, Joan Allen,
Dennis Farina, Kim Griest and Stephen Lang, respectively.
RICHARD GIBBS will score the feature version of I
Spy (his third score for director Betty Thomas), with Owen
Wilson and Eddie Murphy playing the Culp and Crosby roles. If only
they could have found some funny actors.
JOHN OTTMAN will reunite with director Bryan Singer for
X-Men 2 (aka X2).
RACHEL PORTMAN will score Nicholas Nickelby for
director Doug McGrath, whose Emma won her the Oscar.
JOHN POWELL is replacing Carter Burwell on the feature
remake of The Bourne Identity. No word on if Burwell had
written any music before leaving the project.
As if there weren't enough superhero movies being made,
Daredevil will reach the screen with a GRAEME REVELL
score, for director Mark Steven Johnson (Simon Birch!),
featuring Ben Affleck, Colin Farrell (no actor has done more movies
that have been seen by fewer people), Michael Clarke Duncan and Jon
Favreau
IN STORES THIS WEEK
Dragonfly - John Debney - Varese Sarabande
E.T. The
Extra-Terrestrial - John Williams - MCA Records (75:34 of music,
including three previously unreleased cues)
Green Dragon
- Jeff & Mychael Danna - Varese Sarabande
IN THEATERS TODAY
Blade II - Music by Marco Beltrami - Score Album due in
late August
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial - Music by John
Williams - see above for album info
Sorority Boys - Music
by Mark Mothersbaugh
Stolen Summer - Music by Danny Lux
THE G STANDS FOR GOING GOING GONE
The following GNP Crescendo CDs are now out of print:
The 4th Floor (Brian Tyler)
Hellraiser II:
Hellbound/Highpoint (Christopher Young)
Outland/Capricorn
One (Jerry Goldsmith)
Victor/Victoria (Henry Mancini)
And Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth (Randy Miller) will be
out of print shortly.
AT LONG LAST, HE'S A RESPECTED CLASSICAL COMPOSER
Bernard Herrmann's "Souvenirs de Voyage" will soon be receiving
its first public performance in France, along with concert works by
Nino Rota and John Williams. For more info, go to this link.
WELL, WE ALL LIKE THEIR FILM SCORES
Regarding Michael Ware's review
of the latest Godzilla soundtrack:
From: "Gorham, Jim M." <Jim.Gorham@itgtech.com>
Your comment applying to the line...A young
woman is involved in Weasel News Channel (I meant Fox News
Channel, sorry!)...is completely inappropriate. If
you have a political view or "Politically Correct" view, please
keep it to yourself and do not include it in your
reviews.
As an avid music and film score aficionado I feel
"politics" has no place here and I'm offended you put it there. If
you have a problem with Fox News, take it up with them. I'm sure
Bill O'Reilly would like to trade political banter with you. Just
leave it out of here. Comments like that cheapen the whole
thing. This seems a strange complaint to me. I
would assume that a News Channel would either present the news with
no political bias whatsoever, or else present a variety of points of
view from all across the political spectrum. Do you mean to imply
that Fox News doesn't do this?
LOOKING FOR FILM MUSIC IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
At Slate.com this
week, critic Andy Baer surveys the five nominees for Best Original
Score, and -- surprise -- he doesn't think any of them deserve to be
nominated. His preferred choices include Waking Life,
Mulholland Drive, Amelie, The Royal Tenenbaums
and The Anniversary Party, demonstrating as always the
prejudice that film critics have against composers who regularly
score films for a living.
Meanwhile, film music's most lauded whipping boy, John Williams,
gets more teasing from two top-notch online humor magazines. The Onion's list of improvements
made to the new E.T. include:
Revised John Williams score swells 40 percent more
majestically. And a recent Modern
Humorist column, comparing nominees' prepared speeches to the
speeches they will actually give, includes this entry on Williams:
NOMINEE:
John Williams, Best Score
for "A.I." and "Harry Potter"
PREPARED REMARKS:
"Thank you for honoring me
once again."
WHAT HE WILL ACTUALLY SAY IF HE WINS:
[Walks
on stage. Opens mouth. Emits pleasing C-Major chord. Wins four
more Oscars.] I would include their bit about
Randy Newman as well, but the overt politics of the Newman parody
would be guaranteed to offend some of our readers.
ONE RING TO BAKE THEM ALL, DUDE
From: "John Walsh" <johnswalsh65@hotmail.com>
I have an old copy of the Bo Hanson Lord of the
Rings and have loved it for years. The very things I like about it
will send the Williamsoids fleeing from it--it's moody, certainly
not action-specific. To clue you in on what it's like, it was
given to me by a Deadhead DJ who had a psychedelic music radio
program. And it's as far from the Rosenman as you can imagine.
Good music to get high to. I guess.
A TEN FOOT POLL
From: "Pulliam, Ron, <RPULLIAM@co.alameda.ca.us>
My favorite TV composer is Christopher L.
Stone.
I don't guess he's big enough to have been included in the
laundry list???? No insult toward Mr. Stone was
intended. I merely listed all the TV composers I could think of off
the top of my head, not counting sitcom composers who have so little
to work with. I did intentionally omit Shirley Walker, only because
I thought she might easily overpower the competition. I would
have voted for her, anyway.
OPEN YOUR EARS
From: Brad Taylor: JBT9955@aol.com
The song ["If I Didn't Have You"] has a good
chance of finally winning [Randy] Newman the Oscar he's deserved
for so long, both because everyone thinks he should win one and
because the competition is so weak. After all, does anyone want
the terrifying phrase "the Oscar winning movie Vanilla Sky" to
ever be spoken aloud?
No one wants to hear that except the Academy members who
would like nothing more than to give an Oscar to a Beatle! If
anything, they're more starstruck than we
are. Point well taken. The Academy seems to
love giving Oscars to music legends like Dylan and Springsteen.
However, the Academy has already rewarded the Beatles all at once --
Let It Be won the 1970 Oscar for Best Original Song Score.
Quite fishily, it seems to me, since the movie is essentially a
concert documentary and thus the songs weren't actually written for
the film.
NOT ENOUGH MOVIES ABOUT THIEVES WERE RELEASED LAST YEAR
From: "Greg Bryant" <gbryant@isoc.net>
4. BEST UNRELEASED
SCORE
Heist, by Theodore Shapiro
It's good to know that I'm not the only person on earth to
have noticed this score. It's also good to know that I'm not the
only person on earth who went looking for this score after seeing
the movie only to be greatly disappointed that there was no
release. A promo perhaps, someone??? I'd had
hopes that Warner Bros. would at least release an Oscar promo of
this score, as they did with so many of last year's movies
(especially the invaluable though maddeningly sequenced two-disc
A.I. promo) but they didn't, possibly because the film,
though distributed by Warners, was produced by another company,
Franchise.
And am I wrong, or is Heist's main theme extremely similar
to a Goldsmith piece, possibly L.A. Confidential?
BASIL + PAUL + FLESH + BLOOD
I just wanted to thank Prometheus for releasing the new CD of one
of my all-time favorite scores, Basil Poledouris' glorious Flesh
+ Blood. I know there have been complaints about the sound
quality of the extra cues, but they only really suffer in comparison
with the wonderful sound of the previously released pieces.
The only drawback to the CD is the sequencing. I can understand
how the difference in sound quality might make a chronological
sequencing disconcerting, but the placement of the extra cues
emphasizes the fact that they are just that -- extra cues.
The original Varese F+B CD was superbly sequenced,
balancing action and non-action music in a way that made the forty
minute running time seem to fly by. It's great to have the new cues,
but this isn't a score like LOGAN'S
RUN (and no, Lukas doesn't pay me to extra to keep plugging it)
where the extra cues make it feel like a completely different and
greater score.
Flesh + Blood is Verhoeven's most underrated movie, and
richly deserving of a letterboxed DVD release. The Jennifer Jason
Leigh nudity alone should guarantee sales, though alas it does
include one of Verhoeven's trademarked violent rape scenes. He's one
of my favorite directors, but his predilection for rape scenes is
troubling to say the least. I can think of at least four in his
films, not including the implied rape from Hollow Man.
Actually, five if you count the garden-hose-enema torture scene from
Soldier of Orange.
I read a fascinating book on Verhoeven (I can't remember the
author's name, but I can't imagine Verhoven's been the subject of
too many books so it shouldn't be hard to track down) which said
that part of the inspriation for F+B was The Wild
Bunch. Verhoeven was fascinated by the potential of the William
Holden/Robert Ryan relationship, between the leader of the gang and
the ex-comrade who's helping track them down, and tried to explore
that with the Rutger Hauer and Jack Thompson characters.
Unfortunately, the studio insisted on emphasizing the romance
instead, ending up with a film with fascinating (and presumably
intentional) parallels to the Patricia Hearst story.
One disconcerting fact emerges from the Verheven bio: he didn't
intend Showgirls to be a comedy. Oh well.
Anyway, great score, great composer, great CD, highly
recommended. Though it's not the ten-course musical feast Conan
the Barbarian is, I think the F+B score actually works
better in its movie than CTB does. By the way, I hope these
hip abbreviations will catch on, like T2 and ID4.
THE MISSING LINK
If you'd like to see the cover(s) for the Attack of the
Clones soundtrack, click here.
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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