Intrada Soundtrack Forum

9/5/07

As you may just be finding out now, David Newman took his second Bill & Ted adventure score pretty seriously. It's always great to hear comedy scores with loftier goals. Elmer Bernstein aimed high when John Landis suggested the concept for ANIMAL HOUSE in 1977. He stayed up there throughout the eighties with AIRPLANE, STRIPES, GHOSTBUSTERS and others. A few composers monkeyed with the concept even earlier. Ernest Gold flirted with serious music in comedies of the sixties. Ditto Andre Previn. Robert Folk's serious action music for an otherwise whacked-out IN THE ARMY NOW stands out. So do his POLICE ACADEMY efforts. John Williams' dynamic stuff for Steven Spielberg's epic WWII comedy 1941 makes for exciting, even intense listening.

BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY hits all the right notes, too. Refusing to get silly, David Newman scores the profuse action with dynamite rhythms, aggressive brass, swirling strings, you name it. When the duo end up in hell, Newman growls in kind with his own ferocious material. In opposite manner, when they make it to heaven, Newman opens the pearly gates with rich, passionate strains for orchestra, chorus in tow.

So go ahead. Give BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY a spin and take your comedy seriously!

9/13/07

One of the needs in releasing CDs every two weeks is being considerably further along in the game. Between research, restoration, editing, mastering, art, liner notes, approvals and whatnot, we've gotta be far enough ahead to have stuff staggered in manufacturing, others simmering in approvals, things amidst editing, under development, you name it. So the fun? Well... knowing what's ahead. In a nutshell, you can look forward to a lot of projects, some with ambition, others with modesty. Certainly, we're in a luminous period for soundtracks these days.

Not just here. When I was growing up I'd never have imagined getting an album for INVITATION TO A GUNFIGHTER. But we just did, more than four decades later, thanks to Film Score Monthly. Guess that kind of dates me. Or rather, it tells you how early I got hooked on this stuff! But I digress.

Coming this next Tuesday will be our 49th limited Special Collection release. It's composed by an active veteran, the CD plays somewhat briskly at 35 minutes, and we've only got 1500 copies to go around. We'll have cover art and samples up for you this Monday at 5:15 pm, our time.

And then, two weeks later...

9/18/07

Marco Beltrami scores a solid new western that warrants your attention: 3:10 TO YUMA. It's a remake of a 1957 movie, sort of. [No spoilers so read on.] The first time around, Van Heflin and Glenn Ford played farmer and outlaw, this time Christian Bale and Russell Crowe do the roles respectively. Elmore Leonard's story is good. So are both movies, actually. But James Mangold brings more intensity to his remake, allowing the son who can't quite see the goodness in his dad or the evil in the outlaw play a bigger part in the tale. And, of course, we get two great actors making the moral conflicts compelling.

On to the music. Marco Beltrami manages an unusual feat today. He manages a melody, almost lost in today's film scoring scene. How he gets to it is of interest, too. The score plays via guitars, percussion, strings. Ideas are sparse, western-ish but in a contemporary way. Which means rhythm takes priority over tune. But that's the rub! As the story unfolds, so does the music. Ideas grow in substance, colors thicken. Then, at some point about two thirds of the way in, you notice Beltrami has brought trumpet into the mix. Shards of a longer melody have emerged. Things happen and composer and picture finally merge with a strong finish. Sure, Beltrami tips his hat to Morricone. Guitar rhythms, a lean trumpet solo in Spanish garb, percussion in tandem with the strumming, whatever. It's not a pretty score. It shouldn't be. Heard alone, it may be too stark, too lean, too mean. But it's the right timbre for this movie! It's also nice to hear a score get a decent mix in a movie today. It's not top-billed to be sure, but it gets a solid co-starring role. (The absence of car crashes and explosions is most welcome, too.)

If you've got two hours to spare, go see this movie. Okay, I take that back. You'll need more than two hours, what with getting to the theater, parking and whatnot. So make it three hours. It's still worth the time!

9/20/07

This isn't a very good heads up - my apologies. While we pranced around here this week with THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN, our Lalo Schifrin CD for PLANET OF THE APES (TV) from two years back kind of disappeared on us. Normally we try to holler when one of our limited releases gets down to the last 100 copies or so. After that, we just let 'em run out. But in this instance, for very complicated reasons (meaning we weren't paying attention) we've only got about 10 copies of Special Collection Volume 25 left on our shelf. If it's been one of those CDs on your list of stuff to get some day... that day may have arrived!

9/26/07

On time, every time. Well, okay... most of the time. Anyway, our next Special Collection lands this coming Tuesday, on schedule. If we have an early arrival, we'll even try to mail a few orders out ahead of time. But plan on October 2.

You already know the title. THE MONSTER SQUAD. You know it's limited to 3000 copies. But if you don't know the score, trust us. It's a good one! However, take note. We'll say that about everything Bruce writes, of course, so we're not unbiased.