Eplicon

He ends cues with the ubiquitous two notes, sustained on the latter (The Reivers, Jaws 2, Superman, The Empire Strikes Back)

Whatever Lucas said recently about preserving films and wanting to keep the films he loved as a child preserved, it's more or less a double-edged sword that he's dealing with. To quote Michael Corleone from The Godfather Part II: "We're all part of the same hypocrisy..." I'm still getting the set. A few minutes of changes here and there does not take away anything from the core elements of the film. The story is still there. (Most of) the characters are still there. The plot of good vs. evil, Luke's quest to follow in his father's footsteps are still there. The special effects might be a little different, but they were not the main points of the film. In the original trilogy at least, Lucas knew they were supposed to supplement the movie, not take over it (which unfortunately, the opposite has been true for the prequels). I'm eager to hear the new 5.1 sound mix when the X-Wings attack the Death Star, when the Falcon is pursued through the asteroid field, when Luke races through the Endor forest, among other things -- Lucas's tin ear towards Williams' music notwithstanding.

I guess Pop is close enough. When I need to relax, I listen to Enya. When I'm feeling angry, I listen to Alanis Morissette. And then there's The Beatles if I need to just rock. Or Madonna for a change of pace. Or classical, if I need to think. Film music probably covers all these grounds, but it's not quite the same experience. West Side Story kicks ass. (I prefer the original Broadway Cast album over the film version; for a recording over 40 years old, it still sounds incredible.) In 1978, this was actually my second favorite movie and soundtrack behind.... Star Wars.

Odd, I thought I had posted in this topic once upon at time. Senility strikes again. First Williams LP was Superman; I was 13. It cost me $16.99 plus tax. First Williams CD was Superman; I was 21. It still cost me $16.99 plus tax. And with less music, to boot!

Varese is okay about their orders (haven't lost one yet in the eight years that I've used them), although I wish their choice was something other than UPS Ground. Takes way too long, especially if you live on the east coast!

"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal." - Igor Stravinsky

Germany has or had this loophole concerning copyright laws, which was why labels such as Tsunami were able to get away with so many unauthorized but "legal" albums. Fortunately, many of them have since seen the light of day as legitimate releases from FSM and other labels. Admittedly, some of the Tsumani albums weren't so bad sounding. Others were atrocious. Anyhow, I think there was something have to do with copyright ownership expiring after so many years, which was how Tsumani got around the loophole. Since then, the copyright laws have extended the ownership clause or whatever it is. I don't remember what it was. Something like a 100 years. I might be way off on that.

Fitzwilly is Williams in his Mancini mode. "Make Me Raindbows" bears an uncanny resemblance to his theme to Sabrina, if that helps any. It is all that '60s, pop flavored score -- the sort of thing Herrmann really hated (partly because he couldn't write like that). I've never heard The Long Goodbye and it's one of a couple of Robert Altman films I have not seen, but I'm sure it will be interesting to hear. (Now if someone would only release Images, that would be something!) I'm fairly satisfied with the latest offerings from Varese. The Timeline album is probably what Goldsmith conceived for release, so complete or not, I'll think of it as his final legacy. I would guess given the circumstances, the LA Musicians might have given Varese a break on the re-use fees had they chosen to release something longer. They loved him.

The current Great Escape was a re-recording with a smaller orchestra. That's how they did soundtrack albums back then. And Bernstein wrote a lot more music than that for the film, so I'm sure this deluxe edition will be the actual film performances with extra music and all. I have no problems with it. I guess if Goldsmith's Timeline was a limited issue, it probably would make more sense business wise. Not all consumers are all that wise, and with the movie being less than a box office hit and Tyler's soundtrack available everywhere, it would confuse people all the same. As for Fitzwilly, that's swell. Now all they have to do is release How to Steal a Million.

I'm sure there's a new generation of Star Wars fans who are discovering Williams for the first time and that there are ten year olds today just getting familiarized with these movies and its music like a generation did before in 1977. But why all the gimmicks? I could have done without the "floatiing heads" syndrome that plagues so many DVD releases. That's a no-no; CD soundtrack releases should always correspond to the original poster art work. I'm guessing it wasn't Sony's choice and was something they were contractually bound to by Lucasfilm. The problem is, studios realize that there are certain movie fans out there who wouldn't know what movie they're buying unless the stars' faces are plastered all over the cover.

Weird; I just popped the disc into both my DVD-R and CD-RW drives, and for some reason it only shows up as an audio CD without any other content. The last time I accessed the multimedia contents was almost two years ago when I was using Win 98 SE (I now use Win XP) and could get those files just fine. Typically the disc is supposed to autoload and ask if you want to install the contents or you can access the disc separately. But it doesn't seem to do either one anymore.

As an early "hybrid" CD, it did test the imits of the technology at the time, and was incompatible with certain drives (and probably Mac computers). But it's nice to view if you get the opportunity. You get the trailer, Stone talking a little about the movie, Stone talking a little bit about Williams, and Williams talking a bit of the music.

Star Wars: the SE version (the segue between the launch of the X-Wings right into the Death Star attack run kicks ass every time!) The Empire Strikes Back: original 2-LP configuration (this has always been my favorite version of the soundtrack since day one, missing music and all) Return of the Jedi: Anthology (I like how they the two versions of the funeral pyre music in alternate tracks rather than combinating it)

Sometimes I feel all the technobabble and using buzz words on proprietary stuff confuses the consumer into thinking they're getting a superior product. It's all BS to me. It's vague on what Sony has done, but it seems like they just took the already existing masters that Matessino and Redman made and processed it through their DSD thing. So we'll probably hearing as someone said, better sounding poor mixes! There wasn't any word about either of these guys getting involved to oversee this project one more time, so I am assuming they probably weren't around to do so. The SE still had some odds and ends that were not included, and one of the important pieces -- the classic Star Wars overture (i.e. the concert version) was not there at all. Matessino said in hindsight he wish he had put that on. I guess I'm wary because when Sony re-released the soundtrack to West Side Story, it sounded exactly the same as the previous version -- no attempt to correct anything (I guess some of the surviving music tracks they used inevitably had the dialogue/foley in there and nothing could be done). Other than that tiny intermission piece, it really wasn't worth it. The packaging was also a little misleading about the "previously unreleased" material as well.

Erik -- those are nice storage shelves! What brand are they and how many does each unit hold? I'm looking to get something big like that!

Yeah, it was good when there seemed that no expanded Superman soundtrack would see the light of day. The concert hall recording kinda killed some of the sound (some of the orchestral sections seemed to be buried in the most important passages), but given the RSNO didn't have much time to rehearse, they pulled it off fine. So the drive of the music is also slower. (Yeah, yeah, I know about the argument that since they weren't performing to film, they didn't need to perform at the film's pace.) And since the recording was based on re-constructed orchestrations (when it seemed that it was lost) , there will be some differences to be heard. Supposedly some of the differences are due to the way Williams originally wrote the music in his sketch book before changes were made during the recording sessions. The main theme, unfortunately, is just the concert version with the original prelude/fanfare tagged on at the beginning. Wasn't as exciting as I would have liked. The liner notes are terrible. The author didn't know anything about the movie, makes obscure musical references, and does a really bland job at describing the music.

While I never got to see Bernstein perform live, I always enjoyed his anecdotes about his career and work in film (even if he liked repeating the "fast music" story for the exodous scene from The Ten Commandments many times over). He did that several years ago when AMC had a special on, of all things, movie soundtracks. But the special also brought up The Magnificent Seven, which again, Bernstein explains the use of fast music to speed up slow scenes. They showed a clip from the movie with and without the music. I remember reading that he was somewhat of a rarity in that he would compose his music directly to paper without having the need to doodle away at the keyboard to find the themes he wanted. He was that confident and knew exactly what he heard in his head. NPR did this thing today: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3861732. And this the other day: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3858639

I don't plan to quadruple-dip this baby. Have too many Star Wars CDs already and I don't even listen to all them that frequently.

Babes dig expensive jewelry. It was a con that Abagnale learned from his father that would foreshadow the little crime spree he would go through later. Both of them used their charm and charisma (even if the two "bookend" women were not much to look at) to get what they wanted. Women are kinda susceptible to that sort of thing. I haven't read Abagnale's book, but maybe the necklace trick was something that really happened.

Wow. This is stunning. When Raksin passed, I was thinking of the composers we lost this year, and who would be the next to depart us. I just wish it wasn't so soon. Although Bernstein was a composer I got into much later when I began collecting soundtracks (when he was doing all those comedies in the 1980s, I really didn't make any connection with the name as the same guy who did all those great themes to The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Ten Commandments, and more). Even late in his life, he was still producing very fine music, either for film or the concert hall (the aforementioned concerto is very good). Bernstein's passing won't leave a hole in the world of film music, because like Goldsmith, both have left behind a great deal of work to fill that in. One of the last greats from the Golden Age is gone, but I thank him for the music he gave us. I hope Williams stays well for the years ahead.

I was re-reading the special issue that Film Music magazine put out in 1999 for Goldsmith's 70th birthday (a must read if you can find this; I think this issue is no longer available -- I'm not sure if the print magazine is still around for that matter). I almost forgot I had this since I only subscribed to it for one year, but it sure has a treasure trove of reading material. There are interviews with Lois Carruth, Kenneth Hall, Bruce Botnick, Sandy DeCrescent, Alexander Courage, Arthur Morton, Stuart Baird, David Anspaugh, plus the big guy himself. One of his comments was, "I'd just like to do more concerts and keep writing music for films," when asked about his future plans. When queried about what he had achieved in his lifetime of scoring, he responded: "It's a lifetime of trying to be better. I always wanted to be a good composer. I had a lifetime to practice at it, and even have a lifetime to continue doing it." Quite a modest statement from a modest man. Makes me wish all the more he were still here.

Nice photo; I hadn't seen that one before. I want to dress in all-black one day so I can look dead serious, too.

This isn't a recent photo (January 2003) and was taken with a regular camera, so the resolution isn't the best, but you get the idea. My CDs have overflowed to the point where I need a secondary storage unit (the one you see is designed to hold 548 or so CDs). The CDs at the time were arranged alpha by title, but before that it was alpha by composer/alpha by title. I've since then gone back to that. The main shelf are all movie soundtracks, while on the far right, you can barely make out the misc stuff (concert works by film composers, some classical, etc.) The first title on the main shelf is The 13th Warrior and the very last is Young Sherlock Holmes. You can also make out the various Star Trek albums in there. At the top you can make out the Rhino Ben-Hur soundtrack and the Star Wars Anthology set in front of an old Superman II poster. In the mirror you see a reflection of an Audrey Hepburn poster and a different (I think European) version of the Braveheart poster. The tagline is completely different: "His passion captivated a woman. His courage inspired a nation. He heart defied a king." (Much better than the "Every man dies. Not every man really lives," eh?) Artoo is that old radio controlled toy put out by Kenner in 1979.

"Victory Celebration" didn't bother me that much; it fit better within the context of the new ending. At the time I described the piece as sounding more at home for a Coke or AT&T commercial -- all that sharing a Coke with someone, reaching out and touching somebody, in a worldly theme sort of way. My opinion still hasn't changed on it, but I like it anyway.

Nothing of Struzan strikes me as anything fanciful anymore. I liked it when he did the BTTF films, but since then, it's been fairly monothematic. No "ooh" or "aah" factor in there. This is what the Episode I poster should've been like, even though it lacked the flavor of the original trilogy.