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 Post subject: It's been a terrific...
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 7:19 pm 
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Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2005 3:48 pm
Posts: 2773
12/21/12

It's been a terrific year for us here at Intrada. The best we've ever had. My thanks goes out to all of you who've supported our releases. Summer was extraordinary, with THE AVENGERS taking the spotlight, of course. But winter has been terrific as well with CONAN keeping the hamsters busy around the clock. Literally.

My favorite scores this year, as with the last several years, are becoming smaller in number. I try but I just can't get into this mostly odorless and tasteless style of scoring that dominates today. Those "take the music out of this action movie and plug it into that action movie and no one will notice" types of scores. In fact, sad to say, I found much of music for SKYFALL to fit into that category. I think I could hear what was happening, and shades of John Barry's slowly shifting brass harmonies hovered in the background. But to be honest, I didn't hear much of a theme. The score could probably be inserted into another movie and remain mostly un-noticed. Were you to shove the score for GOLDFINGER into any other movie, even another Bond movie... well, I think we'd all notice. In any case, it wasn't until the final reels of the movie that I felt music was adding to the feel. I refer to the familiar strains of Monty Norman's classic theme. Cool movie, though! Even if it weren't a Bond flick it would be a terrific tale.

But for the really good scores this year? THE HOBBIT has powerhouse music. Put John Williams with American history and I'm there. Yep. LINCOLN. Probably my choice for best score of the year. I also enjoyed the score for SPIDER-MAN a lot. I'm certainly a fan of Horner's and he delivered the goods for me on this one. Alan Silvestri brought THE AVENGERS to life. There are some others but my musical treats this year mostly come from the incredible plethora of older film scores now being issued by us soundtrack labels.

Not counting our stuff, of course, I'm thrilled with the two new Mancini releases from Quartet. Wow! SANTA CLAUS. What a present this one is. And THE RED PONY from Varese Sarabande. We're talking pure Goldsmith, here. And his 1967 western score for HOUR OF THE GUN given a fresh new reading from Prometheus is a blast as well. Love that "Whose Cattle?" action riff from the brass and percussion! John Barry's BODY HEAT, all of it. What's not to love? Thank you FSM. And all of that STAR TREK music, the origin stuff, the real beginnings. All of it's available now, thanks to La La Land. And this year has been kind to us Blu-ray folk as well, with the spectacular LAWRENCE OF ARABIA leading the pack for me. But hot on its heels was the grand collection of James Bond movies, all 22 of them, under one roof. And I must mention the fun I'm having with the fabulous treasures coming out on the Twilight Time label. I loved finally viewing THE RAINS OF RANCHIPUR in widescreen at last and discovering where all that wonderful Friedhofer music came from. And though it's not within most people's radar probably, I was thrilled that the Warner people archived on DVD-R a bunch of the Italian sword-and-sandle movies from the sixties. When I was a kid I loved heading over to our Air Force base theater Sunday afternoons and watching THE SLAVE (SON OF SPARTACUS), GOLD FOR THE CEASARS, HERCULES SAMSON AND ULYSSES, all those crazy juvenile mini-epics with really cool scores by Franco Mannino, Piero Piccioni, Angelo Lavagnino, Alessandro Cicognini, you name 'em!

In summary, here's hoping the holidays find you with family and friend, with warmth and good spirit... and with hopes for sanity and health for all of us in this restless world. See you in 2013!


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