Intrada Soundtrack Forum

4/4/06

The title TRUE GRIT's popping up a lot lately. Makes me want the original soundtrack. Alas, it's just still not to be. In the meantime, Varese Sarabande has re-packaged their two earlier re-recorded John Wayne albums into one CD under the TRUE GRIT roof. At the same time, Tadlow announces a new recreation of the score for today's audience. The title also headlines a collection of western themes on the Silva Screen label.

And, yes. There's also that actual TRUE GRIT album that came out when the movie was young. It's still around, too, now occupying space in the DRG catalog. It's easily the most skippable of the bunch. Play it only when you want pop and jazz in your saddle since Bernstein's trademark melodies are all but absent.

The actual score's been a winner from the get go. Sometime when you have a chance, listen to how Bernstein writes his main theme in two big parts. One half's a warm diatonic melody, the other half's a rousing, angular idea. Both get equal time. How he uses these halves separately and in tandem makes for much of the impact, too.

Gee. Maybe we'll be able to enjoy a real soundtrack album for it someday.

4/6/06

We'll begin shipping orders for HOUSE OF BAMBOO tomorrow as scheduled. The CDs have just arrived now as I write. We'll check them in this afternoon and start mailing them out in the morning.

The new batch of TOMBSTONE is due in late next week. Thanks for your patience while we whipped up a bunch more. It's a good one.

As I've mentioned before, it's impossible to predict the condition of the remaining 35mm mag tracks housed at 20th Century Fox. They've got one of the richest archives of film music anywhere and people are working hard to restore the precious masters involved. Some reels play in beautiful condition, others have simply deteriorated beyond use. Anyway, knock on wood, we're hitting a wonderful period where several projects are proving to survive in excellent condition. HOUSE OF BAMBOO is one of them. It sounds terrific. Fans of classic fifties CinemaScope music in full stereo will find Leigh Harline's score an exciting listening experience. Samuel Fuller's solid movie is also available on DVD so you can even see what goes where if you're so inclined. Anyway, we've already mastered our next Fox project as well. Yep, it's great news! More stereophonic splendor recorded a half century ago, in beautiful condition, coming to a CD player near you soon!

4/11/06

If you're one of the many people currently waiting for a new shipment of TOMBSTONE to arrive we've got good news. Our plant informs us they'll deliver us the new batch this coming Friday the 14th.

If you've also got a copy of HOUSE OF BAMBOO in your same order, we appreciate the wonderful patience you've shown. We'll prioritize your backorders in an effort to minimize any more delays.

We have yet another Special Collection title coming at the end of this month, too. Hopefully we'll have caught up with everything just in time to get behind again.

Fellini's right. Life is a circus!

4/13/06

Less people got noisy copies of TOMBSTONE than we thought. Since the click on the first disc came at the program's end maybe the annoyance was diminished. Whatever, we're now sending out new replacements. There's no way for us to know who ended up with one from the crummy batch, of course. Rather than make you contact us if that's the case we decided the nice thing to do was simply send everyone who ordered it a new disc. Look for it in your mailbox and replace your old one just to be sure. We've got copies available for other dealers, too.

Related but "what's wrong with this picture" department. It costs less to manufacture a replacement CD, put it into a slimline jewel case, package it, label it and slap postage on it than it does to buy a single gallon of gas out here!

Those of you who simply have it on backorder needn't worry anyway. The rest of our new batches arrive tomorrow morning. Besides, I like busy Fridays. Maybe I'll join Jeff and George in the mailroom for this one. Jeff can do the hard part and process everything, George can do the laborious part and wrap everything and I can just do the really easy part and stick on the postage. Actually, maybe I can get one of my kids to do that and I'll just watch.

4/14/06

As I said I would, it's Friday and I'm working in the mailroom, helping process backorders. I'm just extra labor. Making boxes, sticking on postage.

Anyway, we play CDs while we wrap. Jeff just handed me a pile of stuff to go through. I glance at the stuff and it makes me think for a second about someone besides Bruce Broughton. Yep. I speak of Ennio Morricone. I mean, come on. Just a few days ago we got a whole bunch of new Morricone albums. SENZA SAPERE NIENTE DI LEI; COME IMPARAI AD AMARE LE DONNE; MENAGE ALL'ITALIANA; SVEGLIATI E UCCIDI. So now I thumb through today's pile. IN FONDO AL CUORE; UNA STORIA ITALIANA; KAROL: UN PAPA RIMASTO UOMO. I can't pronounce the titles but I see Morricone's name everywhere.

All these in just a couple of weeks. Can you imagine picking your favorite composer - like Jerry Goldsmith or Hugo Friedhofer - and having nearly a half dozen new releases coming out every few days? Wow! Then again, you'd be broke.

On the other hand, if Morricone's your favorite composer, you're probably both tickled and broke right now!

4/20/06

Something for DVD fans. If you don't already know this, the HD revolution's officially begun. HD DVDs have arrived. Unlike past format changes, this one's driven not just by manufacturers or consumers but also by industry and government standards. HD is here and already relegating current broadcast standards obsolete. We can still opt for a competitive HD format like Blu-Ray but it's certainly clear we're being coaxed into some kind of switch.

If you're the kind of buyer who snaps out your wallet when deluxe two-DVD sets arrive for blockbusters like KING KONG and stuff, you probably should plan on keeping that wallet in check until an HD version lands. The standard DVD has become a proverbial dinosaur.

Dammit! All these libraries once again going up there with the dodo birds! Mercifully, HD DVD formats appear to be backwards compatible. I haven't made the switch so you'll want to find out for yourself.

Anyway, Warner released a couple of HD titles this week. I flipped through copies of THE LAST SAMURAI and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA at Best Buy last night. The packaging is a bit smaller so they'll take up less room. Another really big plus! I did check and found that every feature listed on the standard 2-DVD editions were included on these new-fangled HD versions! If that trend continues, at least we won't need to keep two different versions in our libraries. Getting away from dual layer changes during the movie will be another asset.

But like LPs and lasers and SACDs and other things kicked out the door, we'll be rummaging through DVDs wondering how long or if all over again. HD versions of KING KONG are probably right around the corner and it's a given that pending blockbusters will be in tow. But I'm betting it takes a while before you find THE STONE BOY or VISITING HOURS popping up in HD!

Go ahead Anchor Bay. Prove me wrong!

4/25/06

In case you wonder about stuff like this, I do actually read books now and then. I've got one in front of me right now, in fact. Appealing to my interest in cinema of the seventies, Joe, our art designer, gave me a book called "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls". Peter Biskind writes it. If you're interested in the gritty stuff going on during that fabulously controversial period in Hollywood history and haven't read this book, consider doing so.

It's sub-titled "How the Sex-Drugs-And-Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood". And my favorite movies, directors and players are all here. Not always doing stuff the way I thought they were, either!

My walls are covered with movie posters from this period. By the way, music is definitely downplayed. Many of these movies don't even have music, per se! Others have adapted scores, minimal original scoring, whatnot. How I got fascinated in them isn't apparent since I mostly kept up with movies via composers and soundtrack albums. Anyway, we're talking FIVE EASY PIECES; NASHVILLE; DELIVERANCE; LAST PICTURE SHOW; NETWORK; DOG DAY AFTERNOON; COMING HOME; THE GODFATHER; SHAMPOO; McCABE AND MRS. MILLER; AMERICAN GRAFFITI; A CLOCKWORK ORANGE; ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN and so forth. Okay, some of the others have great scores: JAWS; TAXI DRIVER; STRAW DOGS; CHINATOWN; STAR WARS; THE CONVERSATION. I'm fascinated with the directors of that era, too: Kubrick, Peckinpah, Ashby, Lumet, Altman, Rafelson, Scorsese, Spielberg, Bogdanovich, Lucas, Pakula, Coppola. And, of course, the players: Nicholson, Hoffman, Brando, De Niro, Pacino, Hackman, Beatty, Dunaway, Fonda, others.

So here's a book about them. What they did to change Hollywood. How they rebelled and fought and made their own rules and eventually shot movies their own way. And finally how the old studio system broke down but movies were saved because these new guys had taken over.

It's just a great read. And for the most part my favorite composers are no where to be found.

So there. I don't just play music by Goldsmith and Williams and Horner all night long. I read, too.

When I'm not watching movies, that is.

4/28/06

Let's monkey around with something. We talk about favorite scores. Why not give equal time for guilty pleasures? Not just random obscurities by favorite composers, either. That's cheating. Anyone can appreciate Elmer Bernstein stuck on a picture like SATURN 3. Let's talk real guilty pleasures. Stuff you'd have trouble praising with a straight face. Stuff you'd only take with you to an alternate desert island. But favorites, just as much as any Williams, Goldsmith, Herrmann classic, whatever - just not with their stature.

My opinion's no better than yours. But someone's gotta lead. If you've got guilty pleasures to spotlight, feel free to pop onto our forum and babble. Think of stuff that was once accessible to people. On a record, a cassette, a CD. If it's never been released, save it for another day. Let's stick with soundtracks that made it into stores. Anyway, I'm gonna show you mine. Maybe you'll turn around and show me yours.

HOW TO MUDER YOUR WIFE (Neal Hefti) An old United Artists LP. It's all soft lounge-meets-jazz-meets... well, I'm not sure. It's pleasant, even spunky sometimes. But the main theme's really just a bouncing background tune. The album ends with an odd vocal by a bunch of would-be-bachelors. I can't defend this guilty pleasure. I won't try.

TORN CURTAIN (John Addison) On Decca LP, Varese Sarabande CD. Music for a heavyweight movie by a lightweight composer. Addison's got some solid stuff, those British war movies, so forth. But scoring Hitchcock, even sorta lame Hitchcock with glossy, hummable tunes is pushing things. Especially if you recall a meatier score by Herrmann was dumped! The movie's got a great murder setpiece. I can't think of a musical setpiece to match but anyway I sure do play the darn album a lot.

BLESS THE BEASTS & CHILDREN (Barry DeVorzon & Perry Botkin, Jr.) An oldie from A&M. Maybe not even a gulity pleasure, I don't know. It does have some famous stuff on it. Anyway, "Cotton's Dream" is a gem, especially in the action-ish "Stampede" sequence. You may know the tune better in it's later incarnation as "Nadia's Theme", of course. This one's also got some beautiful Carpenter vocals. Still, no one ever talks about this score so I guess it's a guilty pleasure.

NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY (Stanley Myers) Dot label, this time. A melange of styles. Haunting opening, odd assortment of tracks thereafter. The American Breed even get to sing. It's a short album so nothing goes on for very long. I've never seen the movie but the record's coming to my alternate island with me.

I'm checking over the list and everything's turning up from the 1960's and 70's. Guess that makes sense. It's when I discovered this stuff. I'm trying to pick one from the last decade or so but no dice. The one's I like I don't feel guilty about, the one's that I don't like won't make it to my island anyway. So I'll just wrap with another oldie.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH (Piero Piccioni) Mainstream LP, CAM CD. Good movie, too. Half the album's only so-so, even for a guilty pleasure. But the other half's beautiful, especially if you like Spanish music. I do. The finale with trumpet in the lead, mixing flamenco and bullfight with jazz by way of organ will follow me to the very end.

Okay. I put my fanny on the line. If you've got five to share, I invite you to wander over to the forum and unload some of your own guilt. Think of it as soundtrack therapy!