8th February 2010
SOUNDTRACK REVIEWS
Film Score Monthly (FSM) has kindly sent
three of their recent soundtrack CDs for review...
The
1968 film Bullitt features a hugely charismatic star, Steve
McQueen at his brooding best; one of the best car chases in cinema
history; and an edgy jazz score that's become synonymous with "cool".
Never mind that most people in the UK probably only know it from the
classic 1997 Ford Puma advert, which incorporated clips from the movie!
Somewhat amazingly - and I assume this will
come as something of a shock for many people who own a copy of
Bullitt on CD - the original score (that is, the actual music used
in the film itself) has never been released, until now. All previous LP
and CD releases, including the expanded version released in 2000 on the
composer's own label, have been re-recordings. Even more surprisingly,
the new Film Score Monthly release marks the score's CD debut in the US
(the Ford Puma advert, which was the catalyst for much interest in the
film's music, was a campaign created for the European market).
Film Score Monthly's new Silver Age
Classics release of Lalo Schifrin's score features both the complete
original score (42'17") and the original late-60s album recording (the
twelve-track, 34'00" programme used for the LP-based releases). Their
disc features both the original album recording, (which, incidentally,
featured a number of jazz greats doing session work), and the film
recording, in stereo, from the original 1" eight-track and ½”
three-track masters, respectively.
The disc comes with a twenty-four page
illustrated booklet which includes extensive background information and
detailed track notes, by John Bender and Alexander Kaplan.
With such a broad potential customer base,
which will surely extend well beyond hardcore film score collectors, the
limited edition pressing of three thousand copies seems a touch
conservative. Buy it now to avoid disappointment!
Collectors
have already been wowed by several "well I never thought I'd see
that"-type score releases this year, now that some of the
harder-to-crack studios have prised open the vault doors. Perhaps none
has been as welcome as FSM's new Islands in the Stream CD, which
features the original film recording of one of Jerry Goldsmith's
favourite scores.
The beautiful, melodic score primarily
explores variations on a single theme, which is for the film's main
character, Hudson, a thinly-veiled avatar for the author of the novel
the film was based on, Ernest Hemingway.
Islands in the Stream was one of the
composer's great collaborations with director Franklin J. Schaffner (Planet
of the Apes, Patton, The Boys From Brazil, etc). It
was previously only available as a mid-80s re-recording conducted by
Goldsmith himself, (Intrada's much admired, but ultimately unsatisfying,
Excalibur Collection edition). Although the track list on the new
disc is broadly similar to that of the Intrada disc, it re-instates one
significant section of music, from the boat chase cue Eddy's Death
(omitted from the Intrada version because the composer wasn't happy with
the performance of the orchestra).
Until FSM's disc was announced, source
tapes for Islands in the Stream were widely thought to have been
lost, and the original score was often spoken of in hushed, reverential
tones. The new disc was created from a stereo, 15ips, quarter-inch tape
supplied by soundtrack producer Bruce Kimmel, who fortuitously made a
copy of the masters in 1979, before they disappeared from Paramount's
vaults (a story recounted
here). The disc was mastered by Goldsmith's long-serving
engineer-of-choice, Bruce Botnick, and the results are outstanding.
The disc comes with a twenty-page booklet,
featuring in-depth notes by Jeff Bond and Alexander Kaplan, studded with
evocative images from the film, and topped with a cover painting by one
of the the all-time great film poster artists, Bob Peak. The disc is a
limited edition of five thousand copies.
After
two heavyweights, releasing a score by two composers which most
collectors won't have heard of, for a relatively obscure 1972 Western,
would seem to be a recipe for bankruptcy, but it's precisely the type of
obscure gem that the label excels in re-vitalising, and one of the
reasons I admire the company so.
It may be pretty obscure, but the film in
question, Jeremiah Johnson, has impeccable credentials. It was
directed by the late, great Sydney Pollack, written by Apocalypse Now's
John Milius, and it starred Robert Redford. It may not have joined the
pantheon of all-time classics, but it is widely regarded as something of
a minor masterpiece.
The film's two composers, John Rubinstein
and Tim McIntire, were actors by trade, but moonlighted as a composer
and singer-songwriter on the side. The Jeremiah Johnson CD offers
a charming programme of beguiling, folksy Americana, featuring several
charming themes, and focussed around several ballad-like songs.
The music from the film was previously only
available on LP in a presentation peppered with dialogue samples,
intended to form a narrative re-telling of the film. FSM's disc offers
the complete score, in stereo, without the dialogue. The dialogue-laden
versions of the cues are offered as alternates, along with additional
score tracks and a collection of original demo tracks. The original LP
programme can be more-or-less replicated by making a playlist (as
described in the booklet). The music is in stereo, taken from various
source elements.
The disc comes with a twenty-four page
booklet, containing exemplary notes by Nick Redman, which made me order
the film on DVD. There's also a typically-revealing track-by-track guide
by Alexander Kaplan. The disc is limited to three thousand copies.
FSM CDs can be ordered from specialist
soundtrack etailers, including the label's distribution partner,
Screen Archives Entertainment.
3rd February 2010
ZETA MINOR NEWS
There's a new BBC Audio competition
starting today, giving you a chance of winning three new BBC radio
comedy CD sets: The Museum of Everything, ElvenQuest and
Bleak Expectations!
Click on the image, right, to go to the
competition page!
2nd February 2010
ZETA MINOR NEWS
We have two new competitions starting
this week, offering you the chance to win
three new TV drama DVDs from Acorn (Ken Russell's adaptation of Lady
Chatterley, the fourth season of Wild at Heart, and the
recent Robbie Coltrane mini-series Murderland); or a set of three
Blu-ray discs featuring three highly-acclaimed recent movies, The
Last King of Scotland, Crash and Michael Clayton,
courtesy of Pathé Productions Ltd.
Click on the banners, above, for the
Acorn TV Drama and Award Winning Blu-ray competitions.
27th January 2010
EVENT NEWS
Honor Blackman (Goldfinger, The
Avengers, etc) will be signing in the basement of the
Vintage Magazine Shop, 39-43 Brewer
Street, London on Saturday the 27th of February, between 12-2pm.
25th January 2010
INCOMING
Titles
with press release information added in the last couple of days include
the
Lubitsch in Berlin box set, from Masters of Cinema; two
Stateside escapades for the Most Haunted gang,
A Living Hell on Earth and
The House That Fear Built; three acclaimed recent movies on Blu-ray
from Pathé,
The Last King of Scotland,
Crash and
Michael Clayton which, for some reason, aren't being listed by
many etailers; and a 35th anniversary re-release of the BBC sitcom
The Good Life.
Many other titles have been added to the
database this week, including the TV movie
Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman; new
sitcom
Bellamy's People (a spin-off from the radio series Down The
Line); Battlestar Galactica: The Plan on
DVD and steelbook
Blu-ray; the first season of
Stargate SG-U (Stargate Universe); and a
box set of three recent Clive Barker-related films from LionsGate (Midnight
Meat Train, Book of Blood and Dread).
19th January 2010
INCOMING
Press
releases added to the database in the last couple of days include:
The Secret Diary of a Call Girl - Series 3; the epic
BBC documentary series
A History of Scotland;
Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman: The Movie; the second series of the
BBC's version of Wallander (which is being released on
DVD, and also within a box set of seasons one and two on
DVD and on
Blu-ray); the third seasons of cult Adult Swim animated favourites
Robot Chicken and
Aqua Teen Hunger Force; and the third season of
The Avengers, which completes Optimum's release of the Honor
Blackman era. There's also a snippet or two of information about
Network's forthcoming
Catweazle - 40th Anniversary Edition.
HAMMER DVD NEWS
Sony
in the US has announced that their next collection of Hammer films,
Icons of Suspense, will be released on April the 6th.
The set will feature six rarely-seen Hammer
movies: Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (aka Never Take
Candy from a Stranger), The Snorkel, Maniac, Cash
on Demand, The Full Treatment (aka Stop Me Before I Kill!)
and Joseph Losey’s The Damned (aka These Are The Damned).
Sony is promising that the films will be
restored to their optimum length, including eleven minutes to one of my
favourite Peter Cushing films, Cash on Demand. Here's the full
text of their In Production press release:
Probably one of the best-known companies
releasing horror films, Hammer Film Productions was the pre-eminent
producer of gothic and lusty favorites such as The Curse of
Frankenstein, Dracula Has Risen from His Grave
[sic],
Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, The Horror of Dracula, The
Vampire Lovers, Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll... among many others,
which still maintain a cult status today.
Among Hammer’s voluminous output in the
50’s and 60’s were a number of excellent, albeit lesser known, suspense
films directed by the likes of Val Guest, Joseph Losey and Michael
Carreras. Hammer titles released by Columbia Pictures have been the
subject of previous DVD releases (Icons of Adventure and Icons
of Horror sets), and now these stylish black and white Hammer
suspense films are set to go to DVD in the upcoming box set, Icons of
Suspense (due out in 2010).
One well-known issue with films from this
period, and for Hammer films in particular, is the fact that they were
often censored or edited for either U.S. or international audiences. The
restoration work done in order to bring these films to DVD has included
the restoration of deleted scenes, and includes the presentation of the
longest possible versions.
The films in this set include Never Take
Candy from a Stranger (the UK release title was Never Take Sweets
from a Stranger), The Snorkel, Maniac, Cash on
Demand, Stop Me Before I Kill! (UK title The Full
Treatment) and the long-awaited release of Joseph Losey's These
Are The Damned (UK The Damned).
All six of these films feature stark black
and white cinematography, and most are Cinemascope titles that will be
presented in their original widescreen theatrical aspect ratio.
Familiar actors and directors from Hammer
grace these films, but Peter Cushing turns in one of his best
performances ever, in Cash On Demand. Cushing is the fussy bank
manager who is forced to ally himself with a bank robber in this tense
story, based on a play. The original film version was cut by nearly
eleven minutes, because audiences found it difficult to sympathize with
Cushing’s character. The restored footage makes this film even more
tense and surprising. Be sure to keep your eye out for this collection!
As before, Sony are offering customers the
chance to vote for one of three potential sleeve designs. You can see
them
here
(note that the page loads with a trailer for Columbia Classics movies
playing!) Click on the Knife Art, Phone Art and Noose
Art labels to see the covers.
EVENTS NEWS
Author Paul Cornell will be attending a
signing copies of Marvel's
Captain Britain and MI13: Vampire State at the Forbidden Planet
Megastore, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, on Thursday the 28th of January,
between 6 and 7pm. As always, signed copies can be ordered from the Mail
Order department, on 020 7803 1900.
15th January 2010
INCOMING
Press releases added to the database
yesterday include: Robbie Coltrane's compelling return to crime drama,
Murderland; a "50th Anniversary" edition of Ken Russell's
D.H.Lawrence adaptation,
Lady Chatterley; the fifth series of genealogy show
Who Do You Think You Are? (Patsy Kensit, Boris Johnson, David
Suchet, etc); and the fourth series of Stephen Tompkinson African drama
Wild at Heart.
12th January 2010
INCOMING
More press releases have been added to the
site, for: the first series of fondly-remembered 80s sitcom
Chance in a Million; Ondi Timoner's documentary
We Live In Public; block-busting supernatural shocker
Paranormal Activity (on
DVD and
Blu-ray); and the film that represents the
nadir of Christopher Lee's lengthy and generally respectable
career,
Howling 2 - Your Sister is a Werewolf.
11th January 2010
INCOMING
New titles continue to be added to the
Incoming
database, so visit often for the latest updates!
In the last couple of days I've added
detailed information for many British catalogue films coming from
Optimum, as well as adding press release blurb for, amongst others, Jon
Amiel's charming study of Charles Darwin, Creation (on
Blu-ray and
DVD); the Judd Apatow comedy Funny People (which stars Adam
Sandler and Seth Rogan, on
DVD and
Blu-ray); two Satyajit Ray films, currently only being listed by
Amazon,
Company Limited and
The Stranger; Pedro Almodóvar's recent hit Broken Embraces (on
DVD and
Blu-ray); Derek Jarman's
Edward II (on DVD only); an odd Prisoner Cell Block H
release showcasing a run of episodes, titled
The Edna Pearson Story, which were previously heavily-edited
here for legal reasons; a collection of animated nuggets from Family Guy
creator Seth McFarlane, the
Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy; Humberto Solas' Cuban classic
Lucia; Chan-Wook Park's off-kilter vampire thriller Thirst,
on
Blu-ray and
DVD; and football hooliganism movie The Firm, on
DVD and
Blu-ray.
5th January 2010
ZETA MINOR NEWS
Happy New Year!
I hope that everyone had a nice Christmas.
I've been incredibly busy over the last few weeks, and this has drawn my
attention away from the website, I'm afraid. I apologise for the lack of
updates recently.
In my absence Graves has been
characteristically diligent in keeping our forthcoming releases
database,
Incoming,
up to date. While the PR companies are still sending out press releases
for January titles, the etailers have pretty fleshed-out listings for
the next three months and beyond, in some cases. It will probably be at
least a week before things start getting back to normal, and the press
releases pick up momentum again.
My thanks to all the companies that have
kindly agreed to run competitions with us over the last year, especially
BBC Audio, who have been with us week in, week out. Other stalwarts
include Optimum, 2 Entertain, Titan Books and Silva Screen Records.
Without their support the site would be a lot less interesting!
Thanks, too, to everyone who uses our
affiliated links to buy their discs. The tiny percentage kicked-back to
us by the etailers helps oil Zeta Minor's wheels!
I'd also like to thank Karl, who hosts Zeta
Minor and Roobarb's Forum, and is always there when I lose all my
login cookies!
Last
month's Zeta Minor News
can be viewed here.
Previous Zeta Minor News entries can viewed
here.