The latest release from Intrada is an expanded edition of John Williams' score for the 1984 rural drama THE RIVER, which starred Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek as a farming family facing hard times. The film was famously one of three major studio releases that year which focused on the struggles of farming families, and surprisingly enough, all three films earned Best Actress nominations, with Spacek and Country's Jessica Lange losing out to Places in the Heart's Sally Field, whose "you like me" acceptance speech is better remembered today than the film which inspired it. The River reunited Williams with director Mark Rydell, the pair having previously collaborated on The Reivers, The Cowboys and Cinderella Liberty (and shockingly, the magnificent Cowboys score was the only Williams/Rydell collaboration not to receive an Original Score nomination, but since Williams actually received two of the five Score nominations that year, I doubt he was especially bitter). The original MCA soundtrack LP (later released on CD by Varese Sarabande) was a mixture of cues from the score and Williams' own re-working of the material. The Intrada release features both the original LP sequencing as well as the complete score composed for the film, plus a handful of alternates.
Intrada has also reissued two out-of-print, expanded editions of classic scores demonstrating two popular composers at the absolute peak of their talents -- Jerry Goldsmith's CHINATOWN, featuring both the LP sequencing and the full score from the film; and Alan Silvestri's WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, a three-disc set featuring the full original score, the LP sequencing, and the scores for Roger Rabbit shorts composed by Bruce Broughton and James Horner.
Music Box has announced two new score CD releases -- a disc pairing two previously unreleased scores by Philippe Sarde, LE FILS PREFERE and MADEMOISELLE; and the CD premiere of two scores by Paul Misraki (Alphaville), LES VECES ETAIENT FERMES DE L'INTERIEUR and LE CHASSEUR DE CHEZ MAXIM’S.
CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
Chinatown (re-release) - Jerry Goldsmith - Intrada Special Collection
The Jack in the Box - Christoph Allerstorter - Howlin' Wolf
The River - John Williams - Intrada Special Collection
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (re-release) - Alan Silvestri, Bruce Broughton, James Horner - Intrada Special Collection
COMING SOON
June 5
The Roads Not Taken - Sally Potter - Milan
June 12
The Meanest Man in Texas - Steve Dorff - Notefornote
June 19
Hackers - Simon Boswell, songs - Varese Sarabande
August 7
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (re-release) - Joel McNeely - Varese Sarabande
Date Unknown
The David Spear Collection: Volume One - David Spear - Dragon's Domain
Django Il Bastardo - Vasco Vassil Kojucharov - Beat
Doctor Who: Series 12 - Segun Akinola - Silva
Doctor Who: The Sun Makers - Dudley Simpson - Silva
Doctor Who: The Visitation - Paddy Kingsland - Silva
Ghost Warrior - Richard Band - Dragon's Domain
The Haunting of Morella - Frederic Ensign Teetsel, Chuck Cirino - Dragon's Domain
L'Agnese Va a Morire - Ennio Morricone - Beat
Le Fils Prefere/Mademoiselle - Philippe Sarde - Music Box
Les Veces Etaient Fermes de L'Interieur/Le Chasseur de Chez Maxim's - Paul Misraki - Music Box
Occhio Malocchio Prezzemolo E Finocchio - Guido & Maurizio De Angelis - Beat
THIS WEEK IN FILM MUSIC HISTORY
May 8 - Nathan Van Cleave born (1910)
May 8 - Larry Morey died (1971)
May 8 - Jerry Fielding begins recording his score for Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
May 9 - Richard Shores born (1917)
May 9 - The Informer opens in New York (1935)
May 9 - Bruce Rowland born (1942)
May 9 - David Rose wins an Emmy for his Bonanza score “The Love Child,” and Walter Scharf wins for the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau episode “The Tragedy of the Red Salmon” (1971)
May 9 - Michael Kamen records his score for the Amazing Stories episode "Mirror, Mirror" (1985)
May 9 - Recording sessions begin for David Arnold’s score for Independence Day (1996)
May 10 - Max Steiner born (1888)
May 10 - Dimitri Tiomkin born (1899)
May 10 - David Lindup born (1928)
May 10 - Jay Ferguson born (1947)
May 10 - Debbie Wiseman born (1963)
May 10 - Perry Blake born (1970)
May 10 - Isaac Hayes begins recording his score for Shaft (1971)
May 10 - Laurence Rosenthal begins recording his score for The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976)
May 10 - Dennis McCarthy records his score for the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “All Good Things…” (1994)
May 11 - Nathan Scott born (1915)
May 11 - Recording sessions begin for Miklos Rozsa’s score to So Proudly We Hail (1943)
May 11 - Recording sessions begin for Cyril J. Mockridge’s score for Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
May 11 - Elmer Bernstein begins recording his score for Hud (1962)
May 11 - Elmer Bernstein begins recording his score for Trading Places (1983)
May 11 - Michael Small begins recording his score for Kidco (1983)
May 11 - Alexander Courage begins recording his score for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
May 11 - Ron Jones records his score for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Up the Long Ladder" (1989)
May 11 - Recording sessions begin for Elliot Goldenthal’s score for Batman Forever (1995)
May 11 - Alan Silvestri begins recording his score for Eraser (1996)
May 12 - Gordon Jenkins born (1910)
May 12 - Burt Bacharach born (1928)
May 12 - Klaus Doldinger born (1936)
May 12 - Jacob Groth born (1951)
May 12 - Niki Reiser born (1958)
May 12 - Nitin Sawhney born (1964)
May 12 - Steven M. Stern born (1967)
May 12 - Ernest Gold begins recording his unused score for Used Cars (1980)
May 12 - Humphrey Searle died (1982)
May 13 - David Broekman born (1902)
May 13 - Ken Darby born (1909)
May 13 - Isaak Shvarts born (1923)
May 13 - Charles Gross born (1934)
May 13 - John Lunn born (1956)
May 13 - Alison Goldfrapp born (1966)
May 13 - Craig Safan begins recording his unused score for Wolfen (1981)
May 13 - Recording sessions begin on Basil Poledouris’ score for RoboCop (1987)
May 13 - Alan Silvestri begins recording his score to Predator (1987)
May 13 - Leon Klatzkin died (1992)
May 13 - Dennis McCarthy records his score for the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Basics, Part 1” (1996)
May 13 - Robert Drasnin died (2015)
May 14 - J.S. Zamecnik born (1872)
May 14 - Kenneth V. Jones born (1924)
May 14 - Tristram Cary born (1925)
May 14 - The Adventures of Robin Hood released (1938)
May 14 - Frank Churchill died (1942)
May 14 - David Byrne born (1952)
May 14 - Miklos Rozsa begins recording his score for Tip on a Dead Jockey (1957)
May 14 - Alex North begins recording his score for Hot Spell (1957)
May 14 - Raphael Saadiq born (1966)
May 14 - John Williams wins the Emmy for his Jane Eyre score, and Pete Rugolo wins for the Bold Ones episode “In Defense of Ellen McKay” (1972)
May 14 - Michael Kamen begins recording his score for Adventures in Babysitting (1987)
May 14 - Michael Kamen begins recording his score for Die Hard 2 (1990)
May 14 - Dennis McCarthy records his score for the Enterprise episode “The Expanse” (2003)
DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?
"'Alita' is most fattily enjoyable, then, when the plot mechanics hit pause and the clanking, sparking, metal-on-metal spectacle of it all goes into berserk overdrive -- abetted by a shrieking, high-kitsch score from Tom Holkenborg (better known, and more aptly credited in this context, as DJ Junkie XL). The motorball sequences, in particular, are whooshing Big Mac cinema of the most jittery, adolescent order, finding the sweet spot between Rodriguez’s scrappy B-movie sensibilities and the state-of-the-art spectacle afforded by resources far pricier than what he’s used to. Cinematographer Bill Pope and VFX ace Joe Letteri give the film the full, fluid benefit of their expertise, pulling off synthetic magic tricks in frame after frame, but there’s more liquid-mercury polish than real beauty in the final result: 'Alita: Battle Angel' may feel, for better and worse, like a Cameron creative property, but it also can’t escape the thin, spiritless air of a delegated assignment."
Guy Lodge, Variety
DIANE - Jeremiah Bornfield
"The opening of 'Diane' is simple but packed, like the movie: The more mundane the details, the more redolent it is of time going by too fast. Someone I know called it the most depressing film she’d ever seen. I found it one of the most exhilarating, but I admit that the exhilaration is hard-won and slightly perverse. You have to accept the bleak premise as something to move through and beyond, as Diane will finally, in a way, though not happily. (You would have to be a saint -- or demented -- to be happy about it.) The elderly -- Diane’s aunts, the parents of friends -- gather around kitchen tables, laughing and reminiscing as their bodies fail, and you have to take what pleasure you can. Invariably, they ask about Brian, and she says he’s okay and then, a beat later, not okay, and they tell her that she has done all she can do, that he’ll have to save himself now. Diane listens and then drives to her son’s apartment with groceries or clean, folded laundry and tries to jar him from his stupor. She wants him to go back to rehab, and he snarls at her to leave him be, which she never will. Driving is the movie’s central motif. In between the scenes, shots through a windshield pass rural landscapes in all seasons, often with soft, haunting music by Jeremiah Bornfield. We don’t see Diane at the wheel -- it’s her point of view, or Jones’s. Sometimes the driving shots separate years. I have a little metaphor horn that goes off in my head when I see those kinds of shots, but like all of Jones’s metaphors, it’s grounded, tactile. I know that windshield. I know those roads. I know the aloneness between someplace and someplace else."
David Edelstein, New York
“As you might have guessed, ‘Diane’ isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs. And yet, for all of its morbidity (and the funereal score Jones layers over his film like a frost), it’s not an unpleasant thing to watch. The cast imbues each scene with a gentle vibrancy. O’Connell’s edge, Lacy’s defensive rage, Phyllis Somerville’s wit, and Andrea Martin’s warmth all serve as helpful foils for Place’s disoriented stoicism. The collective humanity on display keeps the story grounded, as each loss contributes to a fine portrait of that eventual moment in life when the wheels come off the wagon and everything seems to break down before your eyes.”
David Ehrlich, IndieWire
"The way old age reveals itself in 'Diane,' apart from the stark fact that the people Diane knows keep dying, is that the characters have been around too long to bother putting on airs. Sitting in a kitchen, they drink and smoke and call each other on the same bulls—t rationalizations they’ve been peddling for years. Jones’ dialogue is scalpel-sharp, yet it flows with an organic ease. And though this is his first dramatic feature (he has made several documentaries, including the superb 'Hitchcock/Truffaut'), he directs with an unusually skilled precision and sensuality. 'Diane' has a marvelous atmosphere of New England melancholy, with eerie glass-harmonica music and images of thick bare foliage, often shot from a driver’s–seat–eye–view, that are suffused with a luminous but lonely twilight glow. The story takes its time, but will flip ahead to shock us with the matter-of-fact news of a character’s death. In 'Diane,' death happens and life goes on, though maybe with a heightened chill."
Owen Gleiberman, Variety
"Composer Jeremiah Bornfield's gentle score is used with pleasing economy, and the introspective mood is enhanced by the jukebox sounds of Bob Dylan and Leon Russell in a bar where Diane momentarily buckles under the emotional weight bearing down on her. Wyatt Garfield's textured cinematography is so muted, with its soft winter light and somber interiors, that if you think back on the movie a day later, it plays in your head in black and white -- settling on the image of Place's face as a woman who has sacrificed her life to shame and regret, yearning for well-earned peace."
David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
THE MUSTANG - Jed Kurzel
"Director of photography Ruben Impens camera makes spectacular use of the looming Sierra Nevada mountains. Coupled with the lake bed’s sudden alkali whirlwinds, the desert’s cacophonous weather, and composer Jed Kurzel’s forlorn score, 'The Mustang' is a microepic of the lost and the found."
Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle
SERENITY - Benjamin Wallfisch
"The fishing noir 'Serenity' is a fine example of a Ceiling-Watch movie. It has good actors -- in this case, Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, and Djimon Hounsou -- and it’s not reliably terrible (sometimes it’s okay), but you get embarrassed for the people involved and need short breaks, so you lean your head back and gaze at the ceiling. Ceilings of theaters can be interesting, especially old ones with intricate patterns. Even the new ones can hold your attention. The ceiling of the recently redesigned screening room where I saw 'Serenity' was pocked with speakers, which, with the help of more on the side, made for killer sound. There are parts in 'Serenity' when something vaguely supernatural happens and the tinkly triangles and shimmery harps came through nicely. I knew why because I had been ceiling-watching."
David Edelstein, New York
"The movie opens with a soaring overhead shot of a fishing boat in the middle of pristine blue seas, accompanied by a dramatic drum-heavy soundtrack. The boat belongs to a rugged, stubborn man named, in the movie's first unbelievable twist, Baker Dill (McConaughey). While out with two tourists and his first mate Duke (Djimon Hounsou), he gets a line on the one; the massive tuna fish he has been chasing for god knows how long. 'It's him. I can feel it,' he tells Duke, before wrangling the lines from two angry customers only to lose the water beast again.'"
Jude Dry, IndieWire
THINGS I'VE HEARD, READ, SEEN OR WATCHED LATELY
Heard: A Tale of Love and Darkness (Britell), Robin Hood (Bruns), Star Trek: The Next Generation: Up the Long Ladder/The Emissary/Shades of Grey (Jones), Anthology: Movie Themes 1972-1998 (Carpenter), The Island of Dr. Moreau (Rosenthal), The Great Wall (Djawadi), Applause (Strouse), Bugsy Malone (Williams), Jeux/Images Pour Orchestre (Debussy), Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Howard), Philharmonic Concerto et al (Arnold), The Post (Williams), Nosferatu the Vampyre (Popol Vuh), My Name Is Nobody (Morricone), First They Killed My Father (Beltrami), The Orville (various), The Assassin (Giong), Star Trek: The Next Generation: Evolution/Who Watches the Watchers/Booby Trap/The Price (Jones), Molly's Game (Pemberton), Les Deux Amis/E la chiamano estate (Sarde), The Chamber Suites (Cmiral), 9 to 5: The Musical (Parton), Automata (de la Riva), Orchestral Works (Delius), Pirate's Passage (Lockington), Volver (Iglesias), Murder on the Orient Express (Doyle), Heart of Glass (Popol Vuh), Ferdinand (Powell), L'Ultimo Uomo Di Sara (Morricone), The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Desplat), Goodbye, Christopher Robin (Burwell), Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Defector/The High Ground/A Matter of Perspective/The Offspring (Jones), Saw Anthology Vol. 1 (Clouser), The Wicker Tree (Scott), Saw Anthology Vol. 2 (Clouser)
Read: The Undefeated, by Jim Thompson, based on the screenplay by James Lee Barrett
Seen: I walked by my main theater for new movies, Arclight Hollywood, last Sunday and took a photo, probably the first time I've ever stood in front of that theater with no one else in sight, though that wasn't quite as melancholy as walking by Amoeba Hollywood, which will remain closed until their new Hollywood location opens, ostensibly this October.
Watched: Columbo ("By Dawn's Early Light," "Troubled Waters"), Party Down ("James Ellison Funeral"), Batman: The Animated Series ("The Forgotten"), Philo Vance's Gamble, Columbo ("Playback," "A Deadly State of Mind"), Penny Dreadful ("Evil Spirits in Heavenly Places")
REMEMBERING THE AGE OF ANTONOWSKY, PART EIGHT
Continuing a seemingly never-ending series looking back at the remarkably verbose movie poster texts from the early 1980s at Columbia and Universal under studio executive Marvin Antonowsky.
A true story. A courageous story.
A love story that will touch you forever.
A story of a girl, touched by someone with
a special kind of caring, someone who
opened up a beautiful new world for her.
It is a story of laughter. It is a story with
tears. It’s a story that brings out the best
in all of us. No one could ever
write it. But one girl lived
it.
[Touched by Love, 1980]
Robert was madly in love with Mary.
Mary was madly in love with him.
Under the circumstances
they did the only thing they could do
…they broke up.
If it’s not love,
What is it?
[ Modern Romance, 1981]
When you have a fiancée,
a lover and you have to lead
28 women of the night
down the path of righteousness
you must pray for more
than guidance,
you must pray for strength.
HANDMADE FILMS PRESENTS
The Missionary
He gave his body to save their souls.
[The Missionary, 1982]
It’s the perfect relationship between one man
and half the human race.
David Fowler is respectful, sincere,
considerate, communicative, kind,
appreciative, thoughtful, and
loving with every woman he knows.
It’s made him very popular.
Now he’s searching for the one he’d
like to spend the rest of his life with.
And with so many women to choose
from, the question is whether he’ll
find her, before he loses his mind.
[ The Man Who Loved Women, 1983]
COLUMBIA PICTURES
CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO
A NEW COMEDY FROM THE DIRECTOR
AND STAR WHO BROUGHT YOU "10"
Micky was the only woman he ever wanted to marry.
Until he met Maude.
So, he did what any honorable man would do.
He married them both.
[Micky & Maude, 1984]
He’s a famed biologist.
But she’s more interested in anatomy.
Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Harry Wolper become a widower.
Ever since, he’s been trying to bring back his wife.
But just when he was about to unravel the mystery of life,
a sexy young assistant moved in.
Now, the only life that’s
come unraveled is his own.
Creator
It’s potentially dangerous,
probably illegal and definitely crazy.
[Creator, 1985]
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