Soundtrack producer interviews & other news

The common trend around the holidays is to re-watch classic seasonal films on video or TV, but Cineplex is somewhat bucking the trend by offering digital screenings of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life across Canada on the big screen, Dec. 8 and 12.

The 1946 film is a perennial favourite and never missed an appearance on the idiot box each December. Although it’s been released a number of times on DVD – initially as a public domain title, and for the past 3 years via Paramount in fancy-schmancy special editions – families should get a kick out of seeing Capra’s classic in theatres for $5 single admission – just don’t bring the living room chatter into the theatre. You know who those people are. We all wish them coal for Xmas. Lots of it.

And if you’re in Texas Dec. 9th, the Alamo Drafthouse is offering 35mm print screenings of Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) at 8pm, and a 35mm print of Black Christmas (1974) at 10:30pm.

AND in Toronto, The Bloor Cinema is showing Die Hard (1988) Tues. Dec. 14 and Wed. Dec. 15. There is no other Xmas film. Period.

Just uploaded at Rue Morgue is my latest blog regarding the recent screening of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) at The Revue Cinema, in the second of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers and the cinema’s series Great Cinematographers in Revue.

My blogetorial blather was supposed to be followed by audio clips from the screening’s Q&A with Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown, but the recorded audio wasn’t good, so unless I find a cleansing solution better than Sound Forge, I’ll have a transcript posted next week.

Lastly, I’ve uploaded a pair of interviews regarding horror score releases. Kritzerland continues to bring out rare material within the horror realm, and I’ve an interview with label bigwig/soundtrack producer Bruce Kimmel regarding composer Albert Glasser (Earth vs. the Spider, The Boy and the Pirates, Attack of the Puppet People), as well as a short segment on Hugo Friedhofer’s One-Eyed Jacks (1961), recently released as a 2-disc for which I’ll have film + CD reviews this weekend.

The second interview is with George Fox, co-owner of 2M1 Records. Coming this month on CD is Andy Garfield’s score for Adam Green’s Frozen, one of the best horror films of the year. That release will be followed by a double-bill of Garfield’s Hatchet I and II scores (also on CD). I wonder if Green will produce a what-the-hell-happened-to-my-movie featurette when the latter film hits DVD and Blu-ray, given it was unceremoniously pulled from Canadian and U.S. cinemas within days of its theatrical debut. Truly one of the weirdest moments in film exhibition this year.

And lest I forget, this Sunday Dec. 5, the TIFF Bell Lightbox is screening Phillip Borsos’ The Grey Fox, with a Q&A session after the screening this Sunday, starting at 3:30pm.

Wed. Dec. 8 at 7pm has visual effects whiz Douglas Trumbull giving a 2 hour lecture at the Lightbox on Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and on Thurs. Dec. 9 at 8pm, he’ll talk for another 2 hours about Blade Runner, after which you can devote another 2.5 hours of your life to the film + Chris Marker’s La Jetee.

See? There's more to December than cookies, shopping, and fat men in white beards chuckling aloud to streetwalkers.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com

Playing with heresy

Back in the days of laserdisc, I once did an experiment where I grabbed and integrated all of the deleted scenes from a bonus disc to reconstruct a film’s first cut – just to see how the damn thing played, compared to the final theatrical edit.

The results were interesting, but the ‘restoration’ confirmed the footage was wisely chopped out / repositioned because too many things were ‘off.’ It was more than a pacing issue; conflicts didn’t have clean and logical ascensions, there were redundancies, and the running time felt a lot longer. The director was right the first time, and he wisely never went back to attempt a second version that suited his mindset, 10 years later.

Movie fans often get samplings on DVD of how a scene or a finale were originally written, shot, edited, but radically changed because the end result just didn’t work.

Joy Ride (2001), for example, contains a lengthy series of alternate scenes for the first edit that really didn’t work, and mandated substantial reshoots. The Butterfly Effect (2004) has an alternate ending that is spectacularly terrible (although the more satisfying ending used in the final edit still didn’t help an already awful film).

The new Blu-ray edition of Alien 3 (1992) contains two versions of the film, but the new restoration isn’t a definitive version, but an impression of the film’s agreed-upon design prior to firings and rewrites and reshoots. (Amazingly, the production changes didn’t create a mess in the end, but they left a lot of fans puzzled by peculiar footage seen only on pre-release trailers.)

The Exorcist (1973) is a different animal because it was never wrong nor imperfect. The version released in theatres was a smash hit, so logically one has to ask why anyone would be compelled to mess with it?

The so called ‘director’s cut’ created in 2000 by William Friedkin is a compromise made to settle the ongoing whining by writer William Peter Blatty, who not only wrote the novel & script, but produced the film, giving him clout and influence to keep pushing for a reinstatement of deleted scenes he felt were vital to the story and characters.

Warner Home Video’s new 2-disc Blu-ray release basically gathers everything from the 1998 and 2000 special edition DVDs, but with fat uncompressed sound, and a gorgeous transfer that retains the grain inherent to the film’s docu-drama styled cinematography.

The BR review [M] addresses the aesthetics of the two versions, and I’ve also uploaded a review of the film’s two soundtrack albums [M] – the original 1973 platter, and the expanded gold CD that sported an additional 14 mins. from Lalo Schifrin’s score prior to the recording session being halted by a furious director.

The BR, much like Fox’ Alien Anthology set that beholds Alien, gives viewers the choice of watching either the original theatrical cut, or the ‘director’s cut,’ so choice (on disc) is still there, but in the years since the respective new versions debuted, prints of the theatrical cuts have quietly disappeared.

They may have disintegrated, or there may never have been many surviving prints out there, but it is disturbing that whenever either film does the rounds in rep cinemas and cinematheques, the original versions – the ones that made the most money and impressed audiences and critics alike – aren’t shown, and that’s… not… right… because it smacks of revisionism that’s just a hair away from George Lucas’ obsession in fixing flaws… that just… aren’t there.








Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Bye-bye, Shirley & Irvin

Leslie Nielsen, the Canadian-born actor who found an unexpected career boost after his deadpan comedic delivery in Airplane! (1980) died yesterday at the age of 84 due to complications from pneumonia.

Best-known for the immortal quip “And don’t call me Shirley,” Nielsen’s career began in live TV before making his big screen debut as a hungry reporter in the potent kidnapping thriller Ransom! in 1956. That same year, Nielsen nabbed the co-starring role of spaceship captain Adams in Forbidden Planet, and appeared in a handful of light films before returning to TV, where he remained almost exclusively for 20+ years, acting in series like Peyton Place (1965) or one-shot roles in a string of series (including the obligatory appearance in Canada’s blasted Littlest Hobo).

The odd film roles included westerns and dramas, not to mention Canadian tax shelter ‘gems’ such as City on Fire (1979) and Prom Night (1980), and yet during his  ‘serious’ career phase he’s best remember as the captain of the luxury liner Poseidon, even though he’s dead less than a half hour into The Poseidon Adventure (1972).

That’s probably a reflection of his reliable, staid persona, something the makers of Airplane! sensed could be milked in the airplane disaster spoof that goosed the actor’s career, which yielded the short-lived cult series Police Squad! (1982) and the three Naked Gun spin-off films (1988-1994). One of his last serious roles was as a dead john who causes Barbara Streisand to fight for her freedom in the underrated Nuts (1987).

Nielsen’s final career phase encompassed voice work, TV, stage, and generally bad comedies (Mr. Magoo actually emits the stench of rotten potatoes from DVD players and TV sets), but if the waves of international reports reveal anything, his bumbling Det. Frank Drebin and plane doctor Dr. ‘Shirley’ Rumack were universally beloved. He wasn’t a great actor, but reliable, and often quite funny.

Also newly dead is 87 year old director Irvin Kirshner, whose career also began in TV and yielded a surprisingly short film output, often consisting of high-profile sequels and remakes.

Deliberate or not, he went from the dud S*P*Y*S (1974) to The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976), and The Empire Strikes Back (1980), the best of the Star Wars films. That plum box office hit yielded the James Bond film Never Say Never Again in 1983 (a remake of 1965’s Thunderball), and the brilliantly loud and violent Robocop 2 (1990), after which directed an episode of Steven Spielberg’s dud series Seaquest DSV in 1993 before formally retiring.

His most critically acclaimed films are probably his first: The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1964), based on Brian Moore’s novel, and The Flim Flam Man (1967) with George C. Scott as a snake oil salesman.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com

New & Imminent Soundtrack Releases

Here's the long-delayed tally of current and upcoming soundtracks on planet Earth. Tthis may be the longest list ever, because of the fall / Xmas releases vying for your attention.

I've added a few new labels - Counterpoint, Edition Filmmusik, Kind of Blue, and 2M1 Records - and I'll have an interview with George Fox, co-founder of 2M1 Records shortly, as well as soundtrack producer / Kritzerland bigwig Bruce Kimmel, plus a review of Warner Home Video's The Exorcist Blu-ray.

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The Soundtrack List (updated, as of Thurs. Nov. 25/2010):

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Beat Records (Italy)

Quella villa accanto al cimitero / The House by the Cemetery (Walter Rizzati)

Ragazza tutta nuda assassinate nel parco + L’occhio del ragno (Carlo Savina) --- early Nov.

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BSX Records (USA)

Bounty, The (Vangelis) --- re-recording, Nov., 2000 copies

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Chandos Records (UK)

Film and TV Music of Christopher Gunning

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Chris’ Soundtrack Corner (Germany)

Bruce Lee: The Big Boss (Peter Thomas) --- Nov.

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Colosseum (Germany)

Drei (Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil, Gabriel Mounsey)

Human Resources Manager, The (Cyril Morin)

Kommenden Tage, Die (Christophe M. Kaiser, Julian Maas) --- Nov.

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Counterpoint (USA)

Sunset Boulevard (Franz Waxman) --- 2CDs, Nov.

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DigitMovies (Italy)

Delitto d’amore (Carlo Rustichelli)

Ho incontrato un’ombra (Romolo Grano)

Il giustiziere sfida la citta (Franco Micalizzi)

Kapo (Carlo Rustichelli)

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Disney (USA)

Tron Legacy (Daft Punk) --- Dec. 7

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Edition Filmmusik (Germany)

Film Music Edition 13: Ulrike Haage

Film Music Edition 14: Yati E. Durant

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Film Score Monthly (FSM) (USA)

5000 Fingers of Dr. T, The (Frederick Hollander) – 3 CDs

Hawaii Five-O (Morton Stevens)

Kung Fu (Jim Helms) + Man in the Wilderness (Johnny Harris)

North Dallas Forty (John Scott)

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GDM (Italy)

Agente Logan Missione Ypotron / Operation Y (Nico Fidenco) --- Nov.

Come imparai ad amare le donne (Ennio Morricone)

Di tresette ce n’e’ uno tutti gli altri son nessuno / The Crazy Bunch (Alessandro Alessandroni)

Oceano / The Wind Blows Free (Ennio Morricone)

Trio infernal, Le / The Infernal Trio (Ennio Morricone) – Nov.

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Harkit Records (UK)

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Stu Phillips) --- vinyl

Follow Me (John Barry) --- vinyl

Green Hornet, The (Billy May) --- 60 mins. CD, coming soon

Lady in Cement (Hugo Montenegro) --- vinyl

Modesty Blaise (John Dankworth) --- vinyl

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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.

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Intrada (USA)

Black Sea Raid (Terry Plumeri) --- 1000 copies

First Blood (Jerry Goldsmith) --- 2CDs, 1000 copies

Gator (Charles Bernstein) --- 1200 copies

Glory & Honor (Bruce Broughton) --- 1200 copies

Patton (Jerry Goldsmith) --- 2CDs

Raisin in the Sun, A + Requiem for a Heavyweight (Laurence Rosenthal) --- 1500 copies

WarGames (Arthur B. Rubinstein) --- 2500 copies

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Königskinder Music (Germany)

Konferenz Der Tiere / Animals United (David Newman) --- Coming soon

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Kind of Blue (Switzerland)

Ennio Morricone: The Bossa Nova & Somba Soundtracks --- Dec.

Ennio Morricone: Quentin Tarantino Movies --- Dec.

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Kritzerland Records (USA)

Bridge Too Far, A (John Addison) --- 1000 copies

Bukowsical! (Gary Stockdale) --- 2CDs, 1000 copies

Carrie (Pino Donaggio) --- 1200 copies

Dead of Winter (Richard Einhorn) --- 1000 copies

Elmer Gantry (Andre Previn) --- 1000 copies

Sadismo (Les Baxter) --- 1000 copies

Stu Phillips, 3 Scores: A Time to Every Purpose + The Name of the Game is… Kill + The Meal --- 1000 copies

Whisperers, The (John Barry) + Equus (Richard Rodney Bennett) --- ltd. 1000 copies, late Nov.

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Lakeshore Records (USA)

Birds Can’t Fly, The (Paul Hepker, Mark Killian)

Fair Game (John Powell)

Faster (Clint Mansell, various) --- Nov. 23

Legacy (Mark Killian)

Megamind (Hans Zimmer, Lorne Balfe)

Welcome to the Rileys (Marc Streitenfeld)

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La-La Land Records (USA)

Alien Resurrection (John Frizzell) – 2CDs, 3500 copies

Haunted Honeymoon (John Morris) --- ltd. 1200 copies

Haunted Summer (Christopher Young) --- ltd. 1200 copies

Human Target (Bear McCreary) --- 3CDs, ltd. 2000 copies

Mirrors 2 (Frederik Wiedmann)

Unstoppable (Harry Gregson-Williams) --- Nov. 23

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Legend Records (Italy)

Gesu’ di Nazareth / Jesus of Nazareth (Maurice Jarre) --- expanded, Nov.

Tempesta, La / The tempest (Piero Piccioni) --- ltd. 1500 copies, Nov.

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MovieScore Media (Sweden)

Amalia (Nuno Malo) --- Nov. 30

Happy Now (Dario Marianelli) --- Nov. 30

I Capture the Castle (Dario Marianelli) --- ltd. 1000 copies

In a Better World (Johan Sonderqvist)

Jellysmoke / Unknown Soldier (Peter Calandra) --- ltd. 500 copies

Klimt (Jorge Arriagada) --- ltd. 500 copies

Once Fallen (Jeff Beal)

Rocket Post, The (Nigel Clarke, Michael Csanyi-Willis) --- ltd. 1000 copies

Skinwalkers (Andrew Lockington) --- ltd. 1000 copies

Trigger Man + The Roost (Jeff Grace) --- ltd. 500 copies

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Nonsuch (USA)

True Grit (Carter Burwell) --- Dec. 21

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Perseverance Records (USA)

Puppet Master (John Massari, Peter Bernstein, Richard Band) --- 5CDs, Nov.

Rain Man (Hans Zimmer) --- ltd. 2000

Red Sonja (Ennio Morricone) – ltd. 2000 copies

Unforgettable (Christopher Young) --- ltd. 1200 copies --- coming soon

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Saimel (Spain)

Angeli senza paradise (Angelo Francesco Lavagnino) --- mid-Dec.

Heroes (Arnau Batalier) --- mid-Dec.

Pa negre – pan negro (Jose Manuel Pagan) --- mid-Dec.

Ragazzo che sorride, Il (Carlo Rustichelli) --- mid-Dec.

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Silva Screen (USA / UK)

100 Greatest American TV Themes (various) --- 4CDs, Nov

100 Greatest Musicals (various) --- 6CDs, Nov

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

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

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

Doctor Who: Series 5 (Murray Gold)

Next Three Days, The (Danny Elfman) --- mid-Dec.

Tamara Drew (Alexandre Desplat)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Brad Fiedel)

Town, The (Harry Gregson-Williams)

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Sony (USA)

Black Swan (Clint Mansell) --- Nov. 30

Chronicles of Narnia, The (David Arnold) --- Dec. 7

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Sumthing Else (USA)

Deadrising 2 (Oleska Lozowchuk) --- 2CDs

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2M1 Records (Canada/USA)

Frozen (Andy Garfield) --- ltd. 500 copies, Dec.

Hatchet 1 & 2 (Andy Garfield) --- ltd. 500 copies, Dec.

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Universal France

Cinema de Maurice Jarre, Le --- 4CDs, coming soon

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Varese Sarabande (USA)

Family Plot (John Williams) --- Varese CD Club, 5000 copies

Get Low (Jan P. Kaczmarek) --- Dec. 7

Gulliver’s Travels (Henry Jackman) --- Dec. 21

Cinema de Maurice Jarre, Le --- 4CDs, coming soon

Home Movies (Pino Donaggio) --- Varese CD Club, 1000 copies

Karate Kid, The (Bill Conti) --- Varese CD Club, 2000 copies

Little Fockers (Stephen Trask) --- Dec. 21

Skyline (Matthew Margeson)

Taps (Maurice Jarre) --- Varese CD Club, 1200 copies

Tourist, The (James Newton Howard) --- Dec. 21

20th Century-Fox: 75 Years of Great Film Music (various) --- 3CDs, Dec. 7

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Verita Note (Japan)

Finalmente… Le mille e una notte (Carlo Savina) --- coming soon

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Warner Music (USA)

The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversay Box --- 16CDs, 1000 copies, Dec.

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Water Tower Music (Warner Bros.) (USA)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 (Alexandre Desplat)

Legend of the Guadians (Winifred Phillips) --- videogame

Supernatural: Seasons 1-5 (Christopher Lennertz, Jay Gruska)

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This handy-dandy list was compiled from various sources, including catalogue announcements at Screen Archives Entertainment, Soundtrackcollector.com, Chris’ Soundtrack Corner, and Intrada.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Eros I: Bum-bums, & alternative cultural titillations

Please note: hyperlinked film titles are for reviews on the Main site; a hyperlinked "(M)" denotes review at KQEK.com Mobile




"Eros" is the buzz-word, or the veiled nomenclature, for things smutty-but-artistic, and it was likely conceived so adults could discuss dirty things without actually feeling guilty.

For example, a conversation could take place on a bus, and if one maintained an ongoing use of 'veiling' terminology, one could discuss the dirtiest act imaginable, and only those-in-the-know would know what you knew, while everyone else was safely potected by an invisible sheet of textual pureness (Catholic guilt?), knowing nothing.

During the seventies, the puritanical streak in American films more or less meant erotica appeared as an ingredient in exploitation films, softcore, and hardcore.

In Canada, Quebec more or less represented the country's risque output which fizzled out by the mid- seventies, although one could include France-Canada co-productions, and maybe the odd tax shelter film. Note: Circle of Two does not count.

In Italy, erotica appeared in a fairly broad range of soft, hard, sexploitation, eurosleaze, and comedic films, but in Japan, the restriction against showing pickles, beavers, and any activity between the lower naughty bits would've yielded films whose core eroticism was neutered, so the alternative was to riff European sub-genre streams like naughty teachers, naughty students, naughty prostitutes, and a few storylines and perspectives that weren't exactly politically correct.

Impulse Pictures have been releasing rare erotic films for the past few years - the wacky German Schoolgirl Report series, Swedish meatball classics like Anita (1973)  - and their latest cultural foray is the Roman Porn series, begun by Japanese studio Nikkatsu to get adult posteriors back into theater seats.

Kick-starting the DVD wave is The Nikkatsu Roman Porn Trailer Collection (M), featuring 38 trailers of naughtiness, plus a bonus feature. (The first titles in Impulse's new wave of feature-length classics will be Female Teacher: Dirty Afternoon, and Debauchery.)

Leaping back to Italy, the sex comedies of the seventies live on via the (geuinely) inimitable persona of Tinto Brass, and wonders behold, Tinto has gone digital!

His first HD film (via Cult Epics) is Monamour (M), made in 2005, and looking far more filmic than the indie horror shocker The Rig (M), made in 2010, and reviewed this past weekend.

How is it that Brass, the king of the posterior, emperor of the round rumpty-dumpty, spiritual leader of unfettered nethers, and iconoclast of the bountiful bum-bum can make an inventive movie experience that betters the efforts of younger, hungrier emerging filmmakers schooled in the latest gear?

Because he's a filmmaker [who succumbed to the erotic bug during London's Swinging Sixties], a veteran of Italy's New Wave [who went rogue], and a striking editor whose concept of montage is rooted in the rule-breaking techniques of Godard, if not the abstract and impressionistic brilliance of editor Franco Arcalli (with whom he worked on Deadly Sweet).

Eros is fun, silly, provocative, and really, really educational. The reviews support these facts with irrefutable evidence, and as we've learned today, Eros has artistry.

Ahem.








Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com