Soundtrack Release Tally

Here’s a quick tally of the latest soundtracks announced for release over the past two weeks, plus a few titles now available for pre-order from local online merchants.

Note: if you’re a soundtrack label and have information regarding an upcoming release, please use the email address (see About Me) to email press information.

Lastly, two interviews floating around web and print media: Randall Larson interviews Jessica De Rooij, the talent composer (Far Cry) behind the untalented Uwe Boll; and sliding completely under the radar, composer/jazz pianist/shrink Denny Zeitlin was interviewed in the March issue of Fangoria.

Here’s the tally:

BSX Records

John Beal’s Terror in the Aisles
Dennis McCarthy’s Letters from a Killer

DigitMovies (Italy)

Francesco De Masi’s Macist nelle miniere di re Salamone + La rivolta delle gladiatrici + Il figlio dello sceicco
Enrico Simonetti’s Kid il monello del west / Kid, Terror of the West
Bruno Nicolai’s El Cristo del oceano / Christ from the Ocean + Canossa
Nico Fidenco’s 2+5 Missione Hydra

FSM (Film Score Monthly)

Michael Small’s Marathon Man + The Parallax View
2-CD set of Leigh Harline and Bob Merrill’s The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
Ennio Morricone’s grim White Dog
The 5-disc omnibus The Cincinnati Kid: Lalo Schifrin Scores Vol. 1 (1964-1968)

GDM (Italy)

Ennio Morricone’s Oceano / The Wind Blows Free
Angelo Francesco Lavagnino’s Sfida a Rio Bravo / Gunmen of Rio Bravo

Pre-order:
Giovanni Fusco’s La guerre est fini / The War is Over
Ennio Morricone’s L’avventuriero / The Rover

Intrada

An expanded release of Basil Poledouris’ Robocop
Jerry Fielding’s Straw Dogs
A double-bill of Dominic Frontiere’s Billie + Popi
The song/score CD of Michael Mann’s Manhunter, with one extra cue

Kritzerland Records

Fred Katz’ The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

La-La Land Records

Nelson Riddle’s Batman: The Movie (1966) (previously available as an isolated score on Fox’ Blu-ray DVD)
Christopher Drake’s music for the animated Wonder Woman film
Marc Shaiman’s Speechless

Pre-order:
An expanded 2-disc edition of David Arnold’s Independence Day
A newly restored stereo version of John Williams’ The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

MovieScore Media (Sweden)

Fernando Velazquez’ chilling Shiver on CD and digital download
2 releases by Erwann Kermovant: IMAX score Un ticket pour l’espace / A Ticket to Space, and Big City

Pre-order:
Conrad Pope’s In My Sleep

Perseverance Records

David Newman’s The Runestone

Quartet Records (Spain)

Maurice Jarre’s Tokyo Blackout
An expanded release of Michel Legrand’s The Happy Ending

Varese Sarabande

Michael Giacchino’s Fringe

Pre-order:
Edward Shearmur’s Mother and Child
Marc Streitenfeld’s Robin Hood (2010)
Michael Giacchino’s Lost music for Season 5
Harry Gregson-Williams’ Shrek Forever

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

TJFF and TCMCFF

Thursday April 22 marked the midpoint between the Toronto Jewish Film Festival and the Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.

TCM’s festival (Thursday April 22 – Sunday April 25) marks another evolutionary stage for the specialty TV channel that boasted (and still does offer) classic movies, uncut, commercial-free, and in widescreen. From books to merchandise and tie-ins with Warner Home Video as well as the Warner Archives Collection, it seemed natural that the channel (which has domestic variants in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Spain, France, Latin America, Asia, and Germany) would take a stab at a film festival.

There remain countless neglected films, unrestored classics and rarely seen gems to discover, and certainly one advantage is to see them on the big screen in classic Hollywood movie palaces. Including film prints.

For TCM, it shows them to be a patron of the commercial arts, and that’s not a bad stance, since TCM’s offerings are essentially classic Hollywood fare, and their film festival is the perfect launching pad for recent restorations to make their international or North American premieres, which in turn help publicize the DVDs and Blu-ray releases coming soon.

TCMCFF isn’t a blatant commercial event, as it does bring attention to film preservation and the results of hard work and results from much-needed financial support. Theatrical runs also help sell physical home video product, and as digital downloads continue to erode the sale of hardcopies (and perhaps eclipse them), theatrical runs will be the deluxe presentation of a film.

Kind of like the old road show engagements of event films in theatres at premium prices, as was popular during the sixties, except with far shorter theatrical windows. Roughly $20 gets you the IMAX or 3D version, before it slides to home video.

In Toronto, there’s a problem with those deluxe theatrical venues; we don’t have enough centrally located IMAX screens (er, we have ONE), for example, and the bulk of the multi-screen houses have been relocated to the Dundas line, leaving areas like Bloor and Yonge weaker.

(That intersection, as well as a long stretch of Bloor, once housed several big screen theatres before they were razed and replaced by condos. Maybe the boost in density might prompt a rethink, but if the inhabitants are strictly property investors and seasonal inhabitants, a deluxe theatre centre ain’t gonna happen.)

In any event, in the case of TCM, they have the venues and audience base for classic films, whereas Toronto has been oddly ignored by the U.S. when it comes to premieres and touring classics. The norm of Los Angeles-New York-Toronto for premiere North American engagements is kind of gone, and the test will be whether we’ll get some of the goodies premiering at TCMCFF, or will have to wait for the home video edition instead of that one-time theatrical run.

Top-lining the first day of TCMCFF’s line-up is the restored version of A Star Is Born (1954), which was first reconstructed as close as possible to its original nearly 3-hour length in 1983, but given an overhaul using contemporary technologies. That film is joined by Monkey Business (1952), Casablanca (1948), the rarely seen Frank Capra adventure-drama Dirigible (1931), and the Janet Gaynor comedy-musical Sunnyside and Up (1929).

With the exception of the last two, everything else is available on DVD, in case you want to program your own selective TCMCFF. (Casablanca is also available on Blu-ray from Warner Home Video, who will release A Star Is Born on DVD and BR June 22nd.)

Also worth hunting down is Ronald Haver’s 2002 book, A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration for a detailed background of what was, at the time, one of the biggest archival hunts in film history – the missing footage of this once-maligned classic.

Over the weekend, I’ll have reviews of some of the titles still unavailable in North America, but released on DVD in Europe. For details of the goodies being offered, check out TCMCFF’s website.

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The TJFF began last Saturday April 17, but the big event was the Canadian premiere of Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, a 1948 documentary of the postwar trials that was designed as a de-Nazification tool for the allies. There exists Russian and German versions, but the English version was never completed, as it was thought the contents – which includes some concentration camp footage – was unsuitable for schools, and an American populace the government felt was better served focusing on rebuilding the economy than dour WWII horrors.

Reconstructed in 2009 from various sources with a new narration track, Nuremberg premiered to a sold out house, but the TJFF have slated a second screening this Sunday (the festival’s last day) at the Cineplex Odeon Sheppard Cinemas at Yonge & Sheppard. (Check TJFF’s website for further details.)

No word on whether the guest roster from the premiere - restoration project director Sandra Schulberg, restoration picture/sound editor Josh Waletzky, and CBC Journalist Evan Solomon - will be present, but those unable to get tickets the first time around will be able to catch the film on the big screen, and absorb its intensity before it inevitably makes its way to DVD. (More info on the film can also be found at the film's official website.)

This year’s offerings are quite diverse, and perhaps the two main strands that dominate the content are the consequences of the Third Reich’s anti-Semitic doctrines, and Jewish artistry and culture in comic books and humour.

Some of the films have repeat screenings, and the venues include the Al Green Theatre, the Bloor Cinema, Cineplex Odeon Sheppard Centre Cinemas, and the SilverCity Richmond Hill Cinemas.

I’m thematically grouping some of the reviews of films I’ve seen at the festival, and will have the first set up Saturday: The Brothers Warner (recently released on DVD by WHV), Cinema’s Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood (recently aired on PBS), and Not Idly By: Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust, a Canadian premiere.

Lastly, I’ll also have a round-up of this week’s recent soundtrack releases, followed by several CD reviews.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Flickers Around the World

‘Flickers’ is actually an old term for the movies, and it’s somewhat apropos to the four film exhibitors in Uli Gaulke’s 2006 documentary, Comrades in Dreams (Pathfinder Pictures), whose sense of showmanship and entrepreneurial spirit harken back to the Golden and Silver Age of movie distribution.

A production of Germany’s ZDF, Comrades has intertwined snippets of the personal lives and professional struggles of three friends getting their open air cinema off the ground in Africa; a young entrepreneur’s travelling tent cinema in India; a single screen cinema in America’s Midwest; and a movie house in North Korea.

Each segment has its own merits, but it’s undoubtedly the last one that’s the most fascinating because so little of North Korea is known beyond the sometimes monthly saber-rattling that has newscasts reporting of nuclear threats from the country’s totalitarian regime.

In each case, Gaulke just follows her subjects and captures their reactions with colleagues, family, and film patrons, and there’s never a moment where one sees a hand or hears an off-screen voice of the filmmakers prodding their subjects for details.

That’s particularly important with the North Korean segments, because regardless of the genuinely warm personalities, the country’s politics do materialize, and one gets a sense of how politics and the cult of the two Kims – the country’s elder founder, and the goofy son that’s now in charge – have affected ordinary lives.

Some may wish Gaulke had concentrated solely on her North Korean subjects, but there were probably two reasons that location was chosen: it offered a glimpse into a little-seen society, and the political extremes fitted well with the other subjects – exhibitors trying to entertain people in dry regions, hot climates, and similarly tight-knitted communities.

Unlike the fantasy world of Cinema Paradiso (1988) and the slapstick hijinks of The Smallest Show on Earth (1957), Comrades in Dreams is a realist drama – actually four dramas – and Gaulke’s little gem shouldn’t be overlooked.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Tools of the Trade

Internships and apprenticeships in the film industry are no different than accounting, welding, or social work – the goal is to learn a craft, make contacts, and eventually ‘follow your bliss,’ as an acquaintance nick-named Bobo often said.

That’s pretty much what Amin Matalqa did when he studied at the AFI and returned to his native Jordan to make his feature film debut in 2007, Captain Abu Raed, which is currently enjoying a theatrical release before it inevitably journeys over to DVD, much like any other film.

Raed will probably divide audiences, but not because of politics. It’s the melodrama, the conventions, and the claim one can make of Maralqa making Oscar bait – an inspirational tale of a widower whose life perks up when a group of kids in his poor home turf think he’s a pilot.

Nicknamed ‘Captain,’ Raed spins elaborate tales of worldly travels until a jealous youth breaks his spell over the kids by proving Raed is no pilot, but a lowly janitor at the airport.

That unmasking starts an awkward association between Raed and the boy, and the film swerves towards the darker subject of child abuse, and that’s where Matalqa ably manipulates his dramatic chess pieces until the finale, where things get clunky, clumsy, and either feel like a cheat, or cap a small-town humanistic drama.

It’s a film worth catching on the big screen, though, at least for the sumptuous Jordanian locations. The amber colours are hypnotic, and the HD cinematography is saturated with soothing colours; even the child-beater’s home is a kind of vintage fifties turquoise blue.

Austin Wintory’s score is also memorable for not treading into the kind of treacly manipulative style often grafted onto humanist stories. Wintory’s a very skilled composer whose lush orchestral music for Raed is the polar opposite of Grace (2009), a superb horror score (also available via BSX Records) that isn’t easy exactly listening, but it is rewarding for those wanting a blend of diverse sounds forming a portrait of an intense psychological breakdown.

The reason I focused on Captain Abu Raed here is because it’s the product of a Middle Eastern filmmaker who, while now based in the U.S., learned filmmaking tools to tell a story with a personal cultural angle. The structure and resolution may gel into something familiar (and conventional), but it’s still a personal film.

Matalqa isn’t unique by forging such a career path for himself, but perhaps an early predecessor is the late Moustapha Akkad, the Syrian-born filmmaker who learned the filmmaking ropes in the U.S. before taking a crack at directing with two major efforts: Mohammad, Messenger of God / The Message (1977), and Lion of the Desert (1980), after which he stuck to producing pretty much nothing except the Halloween sequels after the first film made him quite solvent.

I’ll have reviews of both epic films – one about religious faith, the other about a persecuted rebel – next week, since Tadlow just released a 2-disc set of Maurice Jarre’s two scores, which also happen to be among the composer’s best.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Werner Herzog in 3D

Probably the next best thing to attending a lecture headed by Werner Herzog (or his Rogue Film School) is seeing a documentary of the eccentric filmmaker in 3D, where you can reach out and pat his crazy little head with affection for making a movie every three months (or thereabouts) on all kinds of unusual subjects.

The latest 3D news isn’t that Martin Scorsese will make Hugo Cabret in 3D (he will, this fall, and further details are at hitflix.com), but that Herzog will shoot a documentary on cave paintings in the format (as reported at Movieline.com).

What’s not amusing (and rather straightforward) is his decision to capture ancient paintings in a 3D process because light and exhalations from visitors over time will destroy the art that’s been tucked away in hidden caves for eons. If the Discovery Channel can shoot sharks in 3D, and Jimmy Cameron can film his beloved Titanic wreck in 3D, then there’s nothing outrageous about inaccessible cave paintings in the third dimension.

It’s Herzog, however, which means the results will be intriguing, his voice in the narration soothing, and the behind-the-scenes footage will capture the crazy man as he and two other production technicians wiggle their way into tiny caves. David Attenborough may be the King Host of nature documentaries, but Herzog is the König of everything odd and unusual.

Speaking of 3D, with Clash of the Titans now out for a few weeks, a few articles have appeared with unsubtle warnings about the ill-affects of hasty conversion processes (see Gizmodo.com + Slate.com for separate articles). The collective fear is that poor conversions and weak films will kill the format as happened in the 80s, but in fairness, few of the 3D films of that era were any good.

Most were gimmicky horror, animated or sci-fi films, done cheaply, and with little purpose beyond shoving something in your face. The 50s had greater variety, from westerns to musicals, thrillers like the much vaunted (and deservedly so) House of Wax to alien attacks, but the format’s mothballing probably stemmed from the imperfect anaglyph process (goofy glasses, headaches for some), insufficiently widespread implementation and distribution of 3D films throughout the market. (The push was fast, but perfectly fine films like Kiss Me Kate were mostly shown flat as the format’s success waned).

Moreover, if given a choice in 1953, people seemed to prefer super wide films in Cinerama and CinemaScope than 1.33:1 films where you had to wear itchy cardboard glasses. So Herzog and Scorsese jumping into 3D is a good thing, because it means they’ll add more dramatic variety to 3D processes that may well have longevity, since digital systems are in play, and the first generation of 3D TV sets are supposed to handle Blu-ray and cable TV 3D offerings – a big difference from the fifties where TVs at best offered colour; and the eighties, where anaglyph 3D fodder was peddled out via the odd 3D TV broadcast (Hondo, Gorilla at Large, The Mad Magician), VHS tapes (The Mask), and VHD, the obsolete Japanese videodisc format that offered backwards compatible 3D films, using LCD shutter glasses for films like Jaws 3D, Amityville 3-D, and Dial M for Murder.

Hopefully 20 years from now someone isn’t citing in his/her blog the antique gear used in the format’s third wave (which now extends to, uh, 3D laptops?) as a fourth in underway. Maybe in 2030 we’ll actually be living Hitchcock’s 3D dreamland, sitting in a chair that’s in the room, tucked in the corner of a cave, or the back seat of a car being projected in a home-styled 3D room where satellite video and audio signals immerse the viewer in actual scenes.

And maybe, just maybe, the gear will have Herzog seated a few feet from you, schlucking a marillen schnapps as he recalls that 'insignificant' moment when he thought about killing Kinski.

Best use of 3D I can think of.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com