Number 47

Day 1 - Friday

I knew the weekend ahead was going to be a great one when I found myself greeted by my rental car with a door chime that played the love theme from Sparatcus! I kid you not, the chime used the exact 3 note motif playing it 3 times just like in the theme. All it was missing was the 4 note cadence to end the phrase. Ironically, my first stop after getting my car was to go to the offices of Varese Sarabande where I was to meet Robert Townson so he could sign my copy of his Spartacus book. [Insert Twilight Zone theme here!]

THE SAINT was a popular '60s British television mystery series starring Roger Moore as a suave detective and modern-day Robin Hood. FSM Online is now offering FREE 4-CD sets of Edwin Astley's distinctive music for the series (newly released by Network DVD), including over 200 selections of music and songs!

We have three sets to give away and three ways to win

Number 46

Like last year's 2nd Annual Film Score Monthly gathering, I'm preparing for my trip from Texas to California for this year's Fans of Film Music event. Our own film score über-fan Peter "drivingmissdaisy" Hackman has taken over the reins from Lukas Kendall to put together what looks to be like a stellar event.

Saturday's main event will take place at Dark Delicacies in Burbank. It will start off as a meet and greet for film score fans followed by a composer panel and Q & A moderated by fellow FSM board regular, Daniel Schweiger. The composers currently scheduled to appear are: Tyler Bates, John Debney, Tom Hadju, Daniel Licht, John Ottman, Stu Phillips and Michael Wandmacher. Also joining us will be the super monkeys from La-La Land Records!

SPACECAMP was an elaborate juvenile adventure from 1986, starring Kate Capshaw, Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston, Tate Donovan, and a young Joaquin Phoenix (during his Leaf Phoenix days). The rousing orchestral score was composed by none other than John Williams (the film was one of his rare box-office flops of the 80s -- I was shocked to learn that its grosses were even lower than Monsignor's), and a score LP was released by RCA at the time of the film's release but was only released on CD as a limited edition in Japan several years later. Intrada's release, taken from the album masters and limited to 3000 units and already sold out at most sites, features the first U.S. CD release of one of Williams' most underappreciated scores.

COHEN AND TATE was a dark thriller about a kidnapping gone wrong, starring Roy Scheider and Adam Baldwin as the kidnappers and Harley Cross (The Believers, The Fly II) as their victim. The film, which received only a limited theatrical release, marked the directorial debut of Eric Red, the screenwriter of the original The Hitcher, and the score, released here for the first time, is by Oscar winner Bill Conti. The Intrada Cohen and Tate CD is limited to 1200 units.