Gemma x 2

Actress Gemma Arterton is a hot tomato lately with two films in release – the slick kidnapping thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed, and Stephen Frears’ film version of Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel Tamara Drewe.

Both films contain a central role of a hottie, and Arterton uses the drama in one and the comedy in the second to show off her acting ability, proving she can do more than be the stoic godmother to Perseus in Clash of the Titans, and the statuesque bimbo named Strawberry Fields (Get it? Get it?) in The Quantum of Solace ( 2008).

Yes, her character is generally pushed to disrobe in Creed, buy J Blakeson’s drama for three characters has some meat in spite of not quite delivering the sharp twists some critics have been babbling in their reviews. One caveat: if you know nothing about the film, avoid looking at any publicity stills, because there are spoilers. Creed was released this month in Britain on DVD and Blu-ray by Icon, but Starz / Anchor Bay will have their own home video release on Nov. 23 for Region 1 land.

One hope: someone out there (MovieScore Media, perhaps?) might pick up Marc Canham’s Creed soundtrack for release. Canham’s scored a number of video games, and his debut feature film shows a great instinct for tight, character conflicts.

Also reviewed today is Alexandre Desplat’s score for Tamara Drewe (Silva Screen), featuring his infectious theme.

Those wanting a bit more substantive material on Arterton can read Norman Wilner’s interviews at NOW in which the actress discusses Creed and Drewe.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Soundtrack News & Reviews

This week Fox released their Alien Anthology Blu-ray set, which ports over 99.9% of the extras from the two prior sets, and adds an isolated score track for each film, making it the first time the complete scores for Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection have appeared on a commercial release.

The full score to Alien already appeared in the first DVD set, and featured a batch of unused cues. No word on whether the BRs contain those alternate cues, but DigitBit’s exhaustive review and comparison of extras of all prior sets states the ‘alternate production sounds’ found on the first Alien special edition DVD aren’t on the BR.

Given Jerry Goldsmith’s Alien is available on a non-limited 2-CD set from Intrada, and a 2-CD set of John Frizzell’s Alien Resurrection is due this month from La-La Land Records (albeit limited to 3500 copies), at least two of the scores are fully represented on CD.

Also of note to those in Region B land and those capable of playing Region B Blu-rays, neat British company Eureka Entertainment has released Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? on BR as part of their Masters of Cinema series.

Eureka’s collection features a number of titles not available anytime soon on BR in North America, and their Rock Hunter BR has more extras than the R1 DVD released by Fox. Among the goodies is an alternate music & effects track, with alternate main title music.

Also of note is yesterday’s report that the Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica is being axed after one season. SyFy will blow out the last episodes, and while they’ve another BG prequel series in the works – Blood and Chrome – I think they should grab some of the profits from the hugely successful BG series (it made a mint) and make one or however many feature-length movies to wrap up the Caprica storyline, or at least tie it to the new series.

Fans hate nothing more than being left in the cold with unresolved characters and stories they stuck with for months. At least there’s a solid soundtrack album of Bear McCreary’s music.

Lastly, here are some soundtrack reviews recently uploaded, with more to come, including FSM’s 5-disc monster, TV Omnibus: Volume One (1962-1976), which offers amazing treats for jazz fans.

Uploaded late last week are a pair of Les Baxter scores from La-La Land: the music and backing tracks from the bubble-headed Beach Blanket Bingo (1965); and the biker film Hell’s Belles (1969), featuring the original album and unreleased cues that offer more musical impressions of the belle belles in Hell’s Belles who may catfight now and then, but never actually ring hellish bells. (Ahem.)

Silva’s reissue of Brad Fiedel’s superb score for James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The CD’s release is somehow perfectly timed for the Governator’s recent TV appearances on the news as he comments on a contentious proposition with big buddy Cameron, who recently visited the Alberta oil sands and said ‘it’s a gift’ as long as we don’t fudge things up anymore.

Also from Silva (and wholly unrelated to Arnie & Jimmy) is The Town, sporting a more toned down electronic mélange by Harry Gregson-Williams and David Buckley.

Lastly, from Intrada comes another rare Gil Melle score. Following the label’s recent release of Melle’s pioneering electronic score for The Andromeda Strain is The Organization, the third and final installment in the Virgil Tibbs saga on the big screen.

Melle wrote Andromeda that same year, and it’s amazing to hear the contrast between his all-electronic score and this large orchestral jazz work that really grooves. Not great is the CD’s running time, plus a few picky points that really aren’t Intrada’s fault (but no doubt they’re getting blamed for).

Melle’s writing is also featured on the FSM TV Omnibus, and I’ll have a review up this weekend.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com

Psycho returns to the Big Screen (with BIG SOUND)

(A frame-by-frame guide on why showers are not safe.)

For Rue Morgue’s current October issue, where Psycho is saluted for being 50 years young & still grisly, I posed three questions to a number of composer specially contacted for the article.

The final piece contains several quotes, but there were further details, opinions, and some digressions that obviously didn’t fit the retro’s purview, so I divided the transcripts from the Q&As into three parts, of which two have already run.

However, before you choose to dig into the pieces, let me direct your attention first to James Burrell’s blog on Psycho memorabilia (and take a good look at that beautiful Belgian poster – much more attractive than the North American campaign).

Part 1 of our Q&As with composers has comments from Elia Cmiral (Splinter), Daniel Licht (Dexter), and John Frizzell (Whiteout).

Part 2 features comments from Austin Wintory (Grace), Michael Wandmacher (Piranha 3D).

In Part 3 – to be uploaded around Monday, closing out this Psycho-themed month – I’ll focus solely on a discussion with Christopher Young (Drag Me to Hell), and maybe a few other goodies.

Those wanting to experience Psycho on the big screen can do so via the TIFF Bell Lightbox, where a cleaned up version of the film will have an exclusive run, starting today!. I’ve seen the print and heard the new Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, and I’ve blogged about what to expect when you see it in theatres this weekend, or on Universal’s new Blu-ray edition.

This past Sunday I caught a live performance of Michael Nyman’s NYman with a Movie Camera, accompanied by the composer leading the Michael Nyman Band.

In a nutshell: Nyman composed an original score to Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), and then edited an original film patterned after the structure of Vertov’s movie, and set to his score. The NYman footage comes from the composer’s own archives, and the resulting film is really, really good.

I’ll have a review of the Vertov film, Nyman’s film, and notes on the DVD versions out there this weekend.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com

SOLD! One Aston Martin DB5

Although the original James Bond Aston Martin DB5 – heavily customized – for Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965) – cost its former owner around $12,000 back in 1969, the tricked out classic sold today for a whopping $4.1 million US. Proceeds from the sale will go to charity, but the lucky owner now has an icon of film history, not to mention an auto handcrafted in 1963.

Here are some detailed pictures of the pretty car, as well as a BBC report on its sudden reappearance after decades, and its sale today. A related piece on Yahoo News features more pictures and video footage.

Man, I wish I had that toy car with the rotating license plates, rocket launchers, trick passenger seat, bullet shield, and more.

Since we’re talking Bond, I have to direct you to Illustrated 007, a colourful blog with many book covers and publicity art that many Bond fans may never have seen before. The German paperback books are particularly striking, since they don’t focus on star mug shots; they’re about style, mood, and the tease of sex and violence.
Worth visiting, because with MGM currently in the financial crapper, it’ll be a while before a Bond film hits the screens. I’d just hate to think the last 007 hit we had to settle for was 2008’s Quantum of Solace.

Blacch!

It offered no solace. Not one ounce.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com

The world mourns, escape from whackers, and Hogtown gets a new face

Paul the Octopus is dead. He who named the right winning team in the world soccer championships is no more. Those who wanted to cook him should be pleased he is no more than gelatinous goo, frozen until he can be laid to rest in a shrine (and not transformed into garden fertilizer).

The tributes to Paul’s wisdom, dedication, eagle eye, and oracular skills are everywhere, including here and here. You can hear “Paul the Octopus Song” if your heart needs more consolation, or search the World Wide Weebe for video footage and spot his crafty little smile.

In other news, Randi and Evi Quaid are seeking asylum in Canada for being persecuted by the American legal system for unpaid bills. Wait, that came out wrong. The Quaids said they feared a group of black ops of “star whackers” who have already killed 8 of their friends, including Heath Ledger, and David Carradine.

Here’s the story and some BBC video that shows what a great country we have, and why celebrities worried about getting whacked like a mole (get it?) should move here, because we care.

Randy Quaid is best known for his early roles in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971), playing a musicologist in the director’s What’s Up, Doc? (1972), and his breakthrough role as a Colonel Sanders-like carny owner bent on tainting the world with Zygrot-27 so he could have a planet of circus freaks in Alex Winters’ genius film Freaked (1993).

Ahem.

Lastly, Canada’s largest city has a new mayor, and this is him, although I swear the original promo edit showed more footage of Rob Ford reading like an 8 year old from a sheet of paper.

Maybe his campaign group realized he looked un-mayoral, so they pasted on top of the embarrassing footage more stills shots, including Rob standing in the entrance of the streetcars he plans to tear out of our roads, footage of buses he plans to pack onto busy streets already jammed with cars, and subways for the routes he plans to build with MagikMoney, that special wad of cash that only boastful candidates swear they can find once they’re in office.

Any revisionism at this stage is moot, though, because of the three leading candidates (each of whom I disliked), the most flawed won. In a recent CBC news piece regarding the battle between incumbent/conservative-minded Larry O’Brien and challenger/former mayor Jim Watson, someone branded O’Brien as Ottawa’s own version of Ford, and apparently his brand of anti-gravy train politics proved so divisive that he was dumped in favor of Watson.

Will Ford behave like the buffoon he is and make a mess of the city while trying to stop trough of Bisto-flavoured money from gliding into the wrong hands? Will he really tear up streetcar tracks and opts for buses in a city core in which he doesn’t live? Will he prove to be the anti-arts monster some feared after watching his moping debate on TV?

The choice the city had during the election was Joe Pantalone, glued in the public’s mind to David Miller’s lefty management style that proved inert during last year’s horrendous garbage strike and the rogue TTC strikes; “Furious” George Smitherman, the ex-Liberal cabinet minister who stayed vague on every policy and political position (Left? Right? Centrist?) until last week; and Rob Ford, who apparently was the only figure the bulk of the voting body (not me) felt could shakeup the status quo and turf some of Miller’s annoying policies and bullshit taxes.

Miller was eloquent and passionate about this city, and genuinely believed in its greatness in spite of T.O. being kinda dumb now and then. But he did nothing to support the voters during the G20 debacle nor defended their rights when the city’s police chief lied about certain rules; he installed what he termed “revenue tools,” such as the much-hated car registration tax for anyone living in the GTA because the city needed cash to cover its mismanagement of funds; and he focused on light rail transit because it was the only workable solution when the federal & provincial governments felt little need to aid in building TTC infrastructure for the next 50 years.

To Miller: you had noble goals, but good riddance.

New Mayor Ford has to kill that car tax because it’s theft: you can’t make up a tax, and penalize drivers for using vehicles on the roads they own. How about a tax on brussel sprouts to stop people from cooking the malodorous green hairballs? I'd support that.

Streetcars are fast when they’re plentiful on dedicated lanes – as on Spadina – and more convenient than cars, so tearing up tracks in favour of buses is asinine.

The car isn’t evil; people need it to get around areas where the city and province were lazy and myopic in believing there was no need to upgrade rail and subway lines during the seventies and eighties. Europe's been way ahead of us for almost a hundred years; you build new and upgrade old infrastructure to accommodate the influx of citizens and traffic you know will be there within 20-50 years.

The media has fixated on a division between car and green cultures, and aided in widening the gap instead of pushing for a compromise, because people make use of both. You can’t have a city made just for cars, nor one filled with only bicycles and lots of foot traffic.

Ford will have to acknowledge both cultures have to blend instead of undoing what he perceives as wasteful spending on green infrastructure. The current streetcars are sardine cans, and desperately need to be replaced with wider vehicles, not buses. Hybrid buses don’t work that well; they cost more than $700,000+, and several drivers I chatted with on the rides home in North York (circa 2009) said they consistently broke down, and the city was re-using the more reliable diesel buses. (If you travel along Bay Street during rush hour, you can see the vintage GM buses that still work in spite of being 30 years old.)

Toronto is in Canada, by a lake, and gets cold and windy in winter. Light rail not good enough. Subways move fast and carry more people. Stop settling for above-ground vehicles that won’t handle the weather, the population density, and stop denying the needs of those near the 905/416 border who would prefer a fast subway line in place of highway gridlock.

Finish the damn Sheppard Subway (or Stubway, depending on one’s leaning). It was supposed to go far east and west, not 5 stops, with people forced to disembark for bus or the proposed light rail lines.
And as nice as the new subways to run the Yonge-University line are, they have one mighty flaw: no anti-crazy people barrier.

If you enter a car and find some fine soul talking to an imaginary phone, or if some brain dead twit is singing aloud to music blasting in mono from her phone, you can go to the next car.

If there are screaming kids, a urine-scented dude, teens using handrails as monkey bars, people with their own private atmosphere of aftershave/cologne/hairspray/faux Chanel, farting wankers, or those oversized teens who like to lie down on a bench because ‘it’s theirs’, why, the next car might offer some solace.

If in the summertime a busted air conditioning unit is making people rather funky, you can check out the next car, where people seem to be smiling a lot more than you.

If it’s 12am and the guy across from you starts puking beer, and the train’s rattling noise is interrupted by the sound of undigested beer nuts making tapping sounds as they spew from the drunk’s mouth to the car floor, you can leave and hop into the next car, and be free from the foul stench that accompanies fresh steaming vomitus.

Right now, the subways consist of interlocked train cars, but the new trains offer the novel design of one continuous train – cars without walls, and a long ‘gangway’ permitting passengers to ‘move down’ a train’s 450 feet length (assuming people will actually break their normal behaviour and actually ‘move down.’ Right…).

Things the TTC, David Miller, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, and whoever else missed when they approved the purchase of the new cars: walls good. A flowing miasma of curing undigested food matter: bad.

Next time you buy a train, don’t just kick the tires. Ride the existing system and experience the passengerial lows.

Paul would’ve spotted the weaknesses in the new trains immediately.

Auf wiedersehen, you slimy, sage glopnick of sea goo.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com

What's Up, Peter?

Peter Bogdanovich will be in town to introduce separate screenings of John Ford’s The Searchers (this Friday) and Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (this Saturday) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Bogdanovich knows his subjects – the films as well as the directors – because he interviewed them for separate books and articles, and directed a classic documentary on Ford in 1971 in which the veteran cinema icon answered the questions posed by the young, fledgling director with monosyllables, and bided time by nibbling on his favourite hanky.

As a director, Bogdanovich went through the Roger Corman School of Filmmaking, working on the re-edits and reshoots of Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968) before making his own striking debut with Targets (1968) about an extreme fan, Boris Karloff, and a high-powered rifle.

For years he’s written about classic Hollywood in print, and during the seventies he dramatized his nostalgia for the works of Howard Hawks, John Ford, Ernst Lubitsch, and Leo McCarey in a string of films, of which two are packed with visual, dialogue, and stylistic nuances and elements from said filmmakers: the screwball comedy tribute What’s Up, Doc? (1972), and the urbane, slick music fable At Long Last Love (1975).

Doc was recently released on Blu-ray via Warner Home Video [WHV], and replicates the content from the 2003 special edition DVD that came in a boxed set of Barbra Streisand films. (The single DVD edition will be reissued this November.) Doc has fans and detractors, and I’m sort of in the middle. Loved it as a kid, but 25 years later, it doesn’t hold up so swell. Here’s (subjectively) why.

Love has only appeared on rare TV airings because it’s an orphan film. A $6 million production that was pulled by studio Fox in 1975, this salute to thirties musicals features a libretto almost entirely based around 16 Cole Porter classics crooned and kicked to life by Madeline Kahn, Cybill Shepherd, Duilio Del Prete, and, uhm, Burt Reynolds.

It is not a good film, and deserves the nomenclature of dud and bomb. Not all of the songs are classics, and years ago the Medved Bros. awarded the film a Golden Turkey Award. The lengthy review covers the plot, the score, and the reasons this earnest salute to fluffy thirties music-fantasies just doesn’t work.

Most of Bogdanovich’s films are on DVD, and while The Great Professional: Howard Hawks (1967) is still unavailable (though probably appears on TCM now and then), Directed by John Ford (1968) is out on DVD via WHV separately, or as part of the John Wayne-John Ford Film Collection, released in 2009.

Amazon.com lists a number of books about Hollywood by Bogdanovich, but my favourites include Pieces of time: Peter Bogdanovich on the movies, 1961-1985 (originally published by Timbre Books), and This Is Orson Welles (first published in 1992).

The Welles book is a fat tome of transcribed conversations between the two directors, and it covers several of Welles’ classic, maligned, unfinished, and unrealized films, and those wanting a real treat should search for the original book on tape version that features extracts of the pair’s discussions.

Now if only Bogdanovich can get Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind out.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com

Abandoned Matinees IV - The Allenby (Toronto)

Torontoist just published a short piece on the Allenby Cinema (formerly the Roxy), recently transformed from a shuttered rep cinema by Greenwood and Danforth to a convenience store adjoining a gas station. The cinema’s marquee has been ‘preserved’ due to its historical significance, and Tim Horton’s is said to move into the street front section, so the building will have a new life.

This is the weirdo compromise that’s typical in Toronto: a façade or marquee is designated as historical, and it’s somehow retained while the rest of the building is altered for its new purpose.

On the one had, it can be regarded as a way for developers to weasel out of preserving the entire building, doing a kind of ‘There! See? We kept part of it out of respect! Now shut up let us run our business’ stance. At Danforth and Broadview sits a massive Shoppers Drug Mart, and if you look closely at the western edge, those arches are all that’s left of the original building – a funeral home.

Now, some may have been creeped out had the drug store been integrated into the original frame of a place where cadavers were tweaked and displayed and mourned before being boxed up or incinerated, but is there really any value in these token gestures at preservation?

Do the arches, or the Allenby’s marquee really make people stop and feel fuzzy that a piece of local history lives on, albeit repurposed? Would the current venues have been better served by simply starting from scratch and junking the old hulls and ornamentations in favour of a wholly new building that graphically tells people ‘Here is a gas Station. Fill up now!’?

Hard to tell, because while the Allenby looked like hell in its shuttered state from outside (see end of this page), it didn’t look that great in its final days either, spray-painted with movie iconography like the inside of someone’s van, as a poster commented on that site. (As is the case with many of these old ‘nabes, few historical photos exist of the building’s original exterior and interior layout during its heyday, except maybe this lobby shot, far down the page.)

The Allenby cinema boasted an early outfitting of optical Dolby sound and big screen picture, and yet, as happens to many neighbourhood venues, after its central attraction – the Rocky Horror Picture Show – withered from a major cult phenom into a fringe attraction, it closed.

The only amusement one can find in reading about a doomed theatre is some of the ideas that owners, consortiums, and preliminary buyers had for a building that once showed movies. Dance halls. Antique car showroom. Beer hall. Youth center. Mixed arts venue. Whatever. In T.O., some of the surviving cinema shells became carpet stores, dollar stores, book shops, computer surplus shops, while others were altogether demolished.

The question that runs through my mind is whether the Allenby could’ve succeeded as a rep cinema in light of the TIFF Bell Lightbox and Toronto Underground Cinema opening this year, as well as the re-opening of the Carlton. Single screen cinemas like the Bloor and the Royal survive, as well as the Revue, literally saved by the community.

I hope 5 years from now each and every one of the above (and those I missed in the above, hastily drawn tally) are still vibrantly alive, and have adapted through careful programming, local events, etc.
Maybe the ‘nabes will also serve as large venues for digital broadcasts of sports or arts events.

If it became the de facto standard to outfit a theatre with film and digital projection, as well as a 3D add-on, one would think networks and film distributors and studios might find the environment of a cinema could hold digital screenings of a huge diversity of programs.

I would’ve paid to see the finale of Lost in a cinema with digital sound and picture minus ad breaks, and maybe if the CBC’s plans to air hockey in 3D twice this season are still on the go, fans might consider going to cinemas for a HD-3D broadcast (minus the beer).

This is a travesty, whereas maintaining cinemas for some kind of public event isn’t. I’m glad the Eglington lives on, but it kills me that its original purpose will never happen again.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

New & Imminent Soundtrack Releases

Not long ago, Warner Music annouced a gigantic boxed set featuring Danny Elfman's scores for Tim Burton's films. The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversay Box includes 16 CDs, and features previously released scores with unreleased cues and unreleased "oddities." The retrospective is packagaged in a zoetrope, and can be pre-ordered for (gulp) $499.99 U.S. + tax/shipping at the official website.

Elfman recently spoke with the New York Times' Dave Itzkoff in September, and Richard Kraft for Film Score Monthly last week.

I've pasted the latest tally of international score releases, and will have a batch of new soundtrack reviews around mid-week, coupled with an interview with Durham County's Season 2 composer, Peter Chapman.

The Soundtrack List (updated, as of Monday Oct. 18/2010):
.
.
Beat Records (Italy)
Il sorriso del grande tentatore / The Devil is a Woman (Ennio Morricone) --- 1000 copies, early Nov.

Ragazza tutta nuda assassinate nel parco + L’occhio del ragno (Carlo Savina) --- early Nov.
.
.
.
.
Columbia France
Les aventures extraordinaires d’Adele Blanc-Sec (Eric Serra)
.
.
.
.
Disques Cinemusique (Canada)
Music from the Golden Age of French Cinema (various) – 4 CDs, Nov.2
.
.
.
.
Film Score Monthly (FSM) (USA)
Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Ron Jones Project 1987-1999) --- 14 CDs, ltd. to 5000 copies, late Sept.

TV Omnibus: Volume One (1992-1976) (various) --- 5 CDs, ltd. 2000 copies
.
.
.
.
FJV (France)
Kaki Schifrin: Le Concert a Paris – 2007 (Lalo Schifrin) --- 500 copies, mid-Oct.
.
.
.
.
GDM (Italy)
Colp gobo all’Italiana / Getting Awat with It the Italian Way (Piero Umiliani) --- early Nov.

Drammi Gotici / Gothic Dramas (Ennio Morricone)

Il giustiziere / The Human Factor (Ennio Moricone) --- early Nov.

Johnny Oro (Carlo Savina) --- ltd. 500 copies, early Oct.

20 Sigarette (Louis Siciliano) --- early Nov.
.
.
.
.
Intermezzo Media / Mask Records (Italy)
Bandidos / You Die… But I Live (Egisto Macchi) --- mid-Nov

Buone notizie / Good News (Ennio Morricone) --- coming soon

Nel buio del terrore / The Great Swindle (Carlo Savina) --- mid-Nov.
.
.
.
.
Intrada (USA)
Organization, The (Gil Melle) --- 1000 copies

Tobruk (Bronislau Kaper) --- 2000 copies

Uncommon Valor (James Horner) --- 3000 copies

War Wagon, The (Dimitri Tiomkin) --- 2000 copies
.
.
.
.
Königskinder Music (Germany)
Konferenz Der Tiere / Animals United (David Newman) --- Coming soon
.
.
.
.
Kritzerland Records (USA)
Sadismo (Les Baxter) --- 1000 copies

Unforgiven, The + The Way West (Dimitri Tiomkin + Bronislau Kaper) --- reissue & remaster, ltd. to 1000 copies, early Oct.

Whisperers, The (John Barry) + Equus (Richard Rodney Bennett) --- ltd. 1000 copies, late Nov.
.
.
.
.
Lakeshore Records (USA)
Howl (Carter Burwell)

Tillman Story, The (Philip Sheppard) --- Oct. 26

Waiting for Superman (Christopher Beck)
.
.
.
.
La-La Land Records (USA)
Alien Resurrection (John Frizzell) – 2CDs, 3500 copies

Greystoke: Tarzan Lord of the Apes (John Scott) --- expanded, 3000 copies

Mirrors 2 (Frederik Wiedmann)
.
.
.
.
Largo Music (France)
47 bandes originales pour 47 films (Vladimir Cosma) --- 17 CDs, coming soon
.
.
.
.
Milan / Jade Records (USA/Europe)
Mumu (Reinhardt Wagner)
.
.
.
.
MovieScore Media (Sweden)
Dark Prophecy (Bill Brown)

Horde, The (Christopher Lennertz)

Jackboots on Whitehall (Guy Michelmore) --- Oct. 26

Julgamento / The Trial (Nuno Malo)

Legend of Silkboy, The (Alain Mayrand)

Ninja (Stephen Edwards) --- Oct. 21
.
.
.
.
New Line (USA)
Music of DC Comics: 75th Anniversary, The (various)
.
.
.
.
Perseverance Records (USA)
Rain Man (Hans Zimmer) --- ltd. 2000 copies, mid-Nov.

Red Sonja (Ennio Morricone) – ltd. 2000 copies, mid-Nov.

Unforgettable (Christopher Young) --- ltd. 1200 copies --- coming soon
.
.
.
.
Quartet Records (Spain)
Dedicato a una Stella (Stelvio Cipriani) --- 500 copies, late Oct.

Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, The (Giuliano Sorgini) + Horror Express (John Cacavas) --- 500 copies

Ull per ull / An Eye for an Eye (Marc Vaillo) --- 500 copies, late Oct.

Yellowbeard (John Morris) --- ltd. 1000 copies, late Oct.
.
.
.
.
RCA (USA)
Captain Blood: Classic Film Scores for Errol Flynn (various)

Captain from Castile: The Classic Film Scores of Alfred Newman

Casablanca: Classic Film Scores for Humphrey Bogart (various)

Gone with the Wind: Max Steiner’s Classic Film Score

Lost Horizon: The Classic Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin

Sea Hawk: The Classic Film Scores of Eric Wolfgang Korngold, The
.
.
.
.
Silva Screen (USA / UK)
100 Greatest American TV Themes (various) --- Nov. 9

100 Greatest Musicans (various) --- Nov. 9

100 Greatest Western Themes (various) --- 6 CDs

Classic Greek Film Music (various) --- Oct. 16

Doctor Who: Series 4 – The Specials (Murray Gold) – 2CDs

Tamara Drew (Alexandre Desplat)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Brad Fiedel)

Town, The (Harry Gregson-Williams)
.
.
.
.
Universal / Polydor Germany
Café Berlin / Café Wernicke (Peter Thomas) --- 3CDs

.

.

.

.

Universal Japan
World of Katsuo Ohno, The

.

.

.

.

Varese Sarabande (USA)
Filmucite 2: Closing Night Gala, 2008 (various) --- CD Club, 1000 copies

Formula, The (Bill Conti) --- CD Club, 1200 copies

Gathering of Eagles (Jerry Goldsmith) --- CD Club, 3000 copies

Let Me In (Michael Giacchino)

Lost: The Last Episodes (Michael Giacchino) --- 2 CDs, 500 copies

Snake Pit (Alfred Newman) + Three Faces of Eve (Robert Emmett Dolan) --- 1500 copies, CD Club

Nightflyers (Doug Tim) --- CD Club, 1000 copies

Special Relationship, The (Alexandre Desplat) --- 1000 copies
.
.
.
.
Verita Note (Japan)
Ti ho sposato per allegria (Piero Piccioni) --- coming soon
.
.
.
.
Warner Music (USA)
The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversay Box --- 16CDs, 1000 copies, approx. release date: Dec.
.
.
.
.
Warner Music Spain
Lope (Fernando Velazquez)
.
.
.
.
Water Tower Music (Warner Bros.) (USA)
Supernatural: Seasons 1-5 (Christopher Lennertz, Jay Gruska)
.
.
.
This handy-dandy list was compiled from various sources, including catalogue announcements at Screen Archives Entertainment, Soundtrackcollector.com, Chris’ Soundtrack Corner, and Intrada.
.
.
.
Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Flynn in WWII, Part II

While Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and Henry Fonda made news as leading actors doing their duty for their country in the military service during WWII, Errol Flynn reportedly raised eyebrows among more critical fans for staying in the movies, playing heroes instead becoming one. If he looked as fit as the dashing figure who defended Canada, France, Norway, and the U.S. from Nazi schwein, why wasn’t he legitimately in uniform?

According to historian Rudy Behlmer, Flynn tried like made to enlist, but he was branded 4F no mater what division he tried to enlist, due to recurring malaria, a bad heart, and, er, health issues stemming from a really ‘engrossed’ libido. That unfortunate circumstance – being technically unfit for military service – was kept hush-hush by Warner Bros. because it would certainly have tarnished their top star.

From the striking figure he cut as a doctor in Dive Bomber (1941), Flynn’s health – and zeal for living a hard-fun life – looked perfect, but his indulgences in drink, love, and puffing away like a chimney eventually caught up with him in the late fifties; he was great playing cynical drunks in Fox’ CinemaScope productions of The Sun Also Rises (1957) and The Roots of Heaven (1958), but he looked like hell, and it’s tragic one of the most virile figures in cinema died at the age of 50.

Unlike George Sanders, whose enjoyed great success playing his own brand of cynical, caddish men (if not sublimely polite English shits, like Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray), Flynn was a benevolent cad; he might rib you for not making a play for a girl in a bar and making it too easy for him to bed the wench, but he’d save your life if some drunk disliked your ‘look’ and tried to dislocate your nose from the centre of your face. (Sanders would’ve just stood there, letting a dry, sly grin creep across his face while yours was being rearranged into amateur art.)

Uncertain Glory (1944) is very much a refinement of Flynn’s cinematic cad: in the film he plays a convict destined to lose his head under the guillotine, and yet after escaping to his ex-best friend’s pad, he shags the girlfriend while the boyfriend is out doing errands for Flynn’s benefit. He even has the audacity to ask for his friend’s best suite before embarking on a hasty train trip; not only does he get to keep the pin-striped suit, but he gets some cash for the trip, and flees before his friend sees evidence that said girlfriend wasn’t faithful during the last hour.

What a lucky smiling bastard.

Flynn eventually does a few very noble, selfless things, but if there’s room for a little skirt-chasing, why shouldn’t he have a little fun?

Director Raoul Walsh did a lot of films with Flynn, and he seemed to recognize what aspects of his screen persona worked, and how to find that perfect balance between cad and hero – and it worked beautifully in Uncertain Glory and Desperate Journey (1942).

In Objective, Burma! (1945), though, Flynn was reduced to the lead of an ensemble cast largely filled with character actors, and it’s not only one of his best performances (free from the schtick that mucked up Edge of Darkness), but was key in making this one of the best war films of the period.

The mission in Burma is pure rabbit rubbish, but it’s told in an engrossing docu-drama style, goosed by a vibrant Franz Waxman score, and blessed with sharp cinematography by James Wong Howe. Like Dive Bomber, Burma is an amazing amalgam of sound, image, and editing, and it really deserves to be back in circulation – if not as a 35mm print for rep cinemas and cinematheques, than a digital projection, because these films deserve a return to the big screen for appreciative Flynn and WWII action fans.

Both Uncertain Glory and Objective, Burma! are part of the TCM Spotlight: Errol Flynn Adventure box, and Burma has been remastered and augmented with new extras, including a great commentary track with Behlmer, Jon Burlingame, and Frank Thompson. (The DVD review includes a comparison of the extras present on the 2003 and 2010 releases.)




Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Flynn in WWII, Part I

The busy week begins with reviews for a quartet of WWII films (via Warner Home Video) starring Errol Flynn, as he moved from swashbuckling adventure films to romances, westerns, dramas, and war actioners during the early forties.

The first film, Dive Bomber (1941), is really pre-WWII, but one senses the movie's psychological effect hard and fast: preparing the American moviegoing public for the inevitability of WWII - a message that happened to precede the bombing of Pearl Harbor by few months. Flynn plays a surgeon, and the movie's quite an involving drama, with suspenseful aerial scenes instead of gung ho combat sequences.

TCM's latest Spotlight series is on Flynn's wartime action films, and I've uploaded reviews of the first 3 of 5 films in this highly recommened boxed set: Flynn as an Aussie in the bombing run thriller Desperate Journey (1942), Flynn playing a Norwegian (!) anti-Nazi rebel in Edge of Darkness (1943), and Flynn playing a RCMP officer (!!) in Northern Pursuit(1943).

You know, he wasn't bad as a Canadian!

Coming shortly are the remaining two titles in the set, Flynn as a Frenchman (!!!) in Uncertain Glory (1944), and the thrilling action classic Objective, Burma! (1945).





Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Soundtrack Reviews

Just uploaded is another quartet of soundtrack reviews:

- Albert Glasser’s The Boy and the Pirates and Attack of the Puppet People suite (Kritzerland)

- Danny Elfman’s 1989 classic, Batman, newly expanded in a 2-disc edition (La-La Land Records)

- Jeff Toyne’s supernatural thriller Within (MovieScore Media)

- and Jacob Groth’s score for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Milan)

Film music fans should also take note of Azureus Rising (2009), Edwin Wendler’s score for a short animated film. The music’s available as a free soundtrack EP download from the composer’s website. Wendler’s worked on diverse projects, and while some of the budgets may have been tight, his writing his quite solid. Further info on Wendler’s Azureus score is archived at the filmmakers’ website.





Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com