jamesluckard
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Posts posted by jamesluckard
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Hi,
I finally got around to doing a cue sheet, chronological CD breakdown and CD analysis of CMIYC, which I'd been meaning to do for ages. I'd be glad to share it with everybody. I already emailed it to befan@hotmail.com, but haven't heard anything or seen anything here. Is he just away for a few days? Is there a better way for me to get it to whoever will post it on the CMIYC page?
Thanks,
James
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Two of my absolute favorite John Barry CDs (and I have almost all of them) are "Raise The Titanic" and "The Specialist."
You can get "The Specialist" dirt cheap at amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00...3453083-6681754
Both are prime examples of Barry's lush sound, and "The Specialist" also has a huge range of styles, from Bond-ish action, to jazzy, sexy romanticism. It's the one I'd recommend.
Barry seems to have a thing for writing amazing scores to godawful movies, but don't let that stop you from enjoying the music.
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It's from Jeff Beal's "Pollock" score. Go to this link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=music&n=507846
and check out the track "Alone in a Crowd." Sorry to disappoint those who hoped it was Williams, but I'm sure he'll turn out something just as unexpected and fun.
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It's a gripping thriller that obviosuly was an inspiration for "The Sum of All Fears."
A disgruntled Vietnam vet, brilliantly played by Bruce Dern, teams with a Palestinian terrorist played by Marthe Keller to fly the Goodyear blimp into the Super Bowl and blow it up. Robert Shaw is the Isreali intelligence agent trying to stop them.
Keller's character is especially interesting -- an unusually strong, intense, focused woman for film, who Harris freely admits was the forerunner of Clarice Starling.
The film is sharply directed in an almost documentary style by the late John Frankenheimer. I suppose he went for this handheld camera, realistic acting approach because the storyline is so seemingly cartoonish. It works quite well.
The highlight is the finale, which was filmed at an actual Super Bowl. Amazingly, producer Robert Evans was friends with someone big at the NFL and Frankenheimer was friends with the head of Goodyear from having made Grand Prix, so they were able to do everything for real.
Harris, no doubt fearful of lawsuits, made his villain the fictional Aldrich blimp, which might as well be the Acme blimp. In the film, though, when you see the actors among the real Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers and flying on and fighting around the actual Goodyear blimp, it's very impressive.
I highly recommend it.
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Do you mean the piece that starts when Russell Crowe asks Kim Basinger "Why was Susan Lefferts at the Night Owl?"
If so, it is indeed from GoldenEye. It's track 9, "Run, Shoot, and Jump."
I really think Serra's GoldenEye deserves a bit more respect than it gets. Yes, as a Bond score it's crap, no argument here. I remember one film review at the time saying the lack of the James Bond theme in the film created an almost Pavolvian feeling that something was missing, which I thought was clever and accurate. Pity they wouldn't meet John Barry's price for it.
However, judged purely as an action score I think it's quite strong, and the love theme is gorgeous. The first time it plays is in a lushly orchestrated version as Pierce Brosnan drives up to the Monte Carlo casino. It's a quintessential Bond moment, and knowing all Brosnan went through to get the role, and how he had recently lost his wife, who had believed so strongly in him, the scene and Serra's lovely theme had an added poignancy.
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I also heard a bit of Patrick Doyle's "Est/Ouest" score in it. Now, I know both deal with Russia, so it's not surprising that they'd share a similar musical vocabulary, but the main tune from K:19 actually sounded quite close to one of the themes from Est/Ouest. However, they both could simply be dervied from a classical piece I've just never heard, as is so often the case with film music.
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I'm really surprised that nobody's mentioned my absolute favorite moment.
At the end of ROTJ, Luke is dragging Vader's body to the ship they're going to take off the disintegrating Death Star. Vader asks Luke to take his mask off, and there's a shot of the two of them, totally alone in this cavernous hanger, father and son. The Imperial march is played by a lone harp, almost in time to a flashing light on a wall in the background.
The mere thought of that moment still gives me chills. Man, the word genius just isn't sufficient for Williams, a new word has to be invented for him.
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I'd totally forgotten about Master and Commander.
It's being overseen by three composers. Richard Tognetti is involved with Russell Crowe's character's violin music, apparently Crowe learned to play it.
The two composers are Iva Davies, who I haven't heard of, and Christopher Gordon, who composed the absolutely stunning score to the Showtime remake of On The Beach which aired in 2000. It's my favorite book, and although the flick was wildly uneven and incompetently directed, the score was breathtaking, with one of the most poignant love themes I've ever heard.
Can't wait to hear Gordon get to do a big time Hollywood blockbuster, it's always cool to listen to someone talented's first chance at the big time.
Weir's scores are always a hodge-podge, like Michael Mann's, but brilliantly so, just like Mann's. I read an interview that said this is because Weir listens to music when he's preparing the films, and uses what he likes and thinks is appropriate for each scene.
He is also willing to go out on a limb with young, untested composers and seemingly wacky choices, which always end up a perfect fit, which is admirable.
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Hi, just wondering what scores everybody's most looking forward to this year.
I just read that Craig Armstrong is scoring the new Tomb Raider film, as well as Richard Curtis's new Brit-Rom-Com Love Actually.
He seems like a perfect match for Tomb Raider's subject matter, with his very modern, orchestral-meets-synthesized-meets-world music sound. Never saw the first film, but heard the normally fantastic Graeme Revell's score, which was an excruciating hour of tuneless Muzak -- but what could you expect when he had only ten days.
I'm equally excited by the prospect of Love Actually, both film and score. I'm a huge fan of Richard Curtis. Four Weddings, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones feature the most witty, playfully intelligent screenwriting around, and it's a huge departure for Armstrong.
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Actually, putting the Schubert at 6 was just a judgment choice. You could put a small portion of it at 2 if you wanted. However, the track on the album is a bit different from how it sounds on screen. The gentle, swaying, waltz-like bit that is heard as Anderton "scrubs" the images is only a brief phrase in the music, they just looped it endlessly for that scene.
The majority of the music in the four minute bit they used is the furiously rising music used as Anderton realizes he's the one in the prevision -- indeed the track even starts out with this music. It seemed wrong to put this so early, so I put it where the second "scrubbing" scene goes.
If you wanted, you could copy just the waltz-like bit and put it where it belongs, before Pre-Crime To The Rescue, but you'd only have about 44 seconds of music, and it'd be an abrupt edit, since the music never stops as it moves from one theme to another.
Hope this clarifies,
James
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The rest of the source music never really interested me, so I didn't ask about it.
That said, the end credits do say "Pine and Oats" was written by Guy Moon & Bob Kurtz, while "The Ad-Mall" and "The Neuroplex" were written, produced and performed by Paul Haslinger. "The Ad-Mall" would include the Guinness commercial, as well as the Lexus one, etc.
There's no "Courtesy of such and such record company" afterwards, so these must have been written just for the film, and probably never released otherwise
I also left off "Bad Boys" by Inner Circle, since it's just a quick musical gag and not really related to the film like the other songs.
Beyond these, there's also the Haydn minuet playing as Anderton enters the greenhouse. Again, the credits say this was performed by The Angeles String Quartet just for the film. Then there's the Swedish folk song Miss Van Eych sings, "Sma Grodorna." Last, there's "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" played by Gideon on the organ. All unreleased.
I think that covers all the source music in the film.
James
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I've been working for a while on making my own 2 CD set of the music from Minority Reoprt, in film order. Sadly I haven't heard of an expanded promo version, like for AI, so the score remains incomplete, but here it is, using the commercial Score album.
All the track names in italics are the album names
DISC ONE
1) PREVISIONS: 0:00 ? 1:03 OF CAN YOU SEE
2) PRE-CRIME TO THE RESCUE: WHOLE TRACK
3) SYMPHONY N° 6 IN B MINOR, ?PATHETIQUE,?
OP. 74; 2ND MOVEMENT - FIRST 2:31
PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKI
CLAUDIO ABBADO, VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
-----You could put 2:41 to 3:30 of Sean and Lara here -- it's the music that plays over the hologram of Lara, but since it appears elsewhere as well, I left it off.
4) CAN YOU SEE?: 2:18 ? END OF EVERYBODY RUNS!
5) A WOMAN NAMED ANNE LIVELY: 1:14 ? 2:26 OF VISIONS OF
ANNE LIVELY
6) SYMPHONY N° 8 IN B MINOR, ?UNFINISHED,?
D 759; 1ST MOVEMENT - FIRST 4:19
FRANZ SCHUBERT
CARLOS KLEIBER, VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
7) TWO MINUTES: 3:54 ? 4:48 OF EYE-DENTISCAN
8) EVERYBODY RUNS! : 0:00 ? 2:18 OF THIS TRACK
9) ANDERTON?S GREAT ESCAPE: WHOLE TRACK
10) THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT: WHOLE TRACK
11) DR. EDDIE AND MISS VAN EYCH: WHOLE TRACK
12) SEAN: WHOLE TRACK SEAN AND LARA
13) SPYDERS: WHOLE TRACK
DISC TWO
1) EYE-DENTISCAN/TAKING AGATHA; 0:00 ? 3:19 OF EYE-DENTISCAN
2) SOLITUDE (3:09)
BILLIE HOLIDAY
3) VISIONS OF ANNE LIVELY: 2:26 ? END OF THIS TRACK
4) MOON RIVER (4:09)
HENRY MANCINI AND HIS ORCHESTRA
6) THE MAN IN THE WINDOW: 3:20 ? 3:54 OF EYE-DENTISCAN
7) LEO CROW? THE CONFRONTATION: WHOLE TRACK
8) ?SEAN? BY AGATHA: WHOLE TRACK
9) RUN!: 1:03 ? END OF CAN YOU SEE?
10) PSYCHIC TRUTH AND FINALE: WHOLE TRACK
11) A NEW BEGINNING: WHOLE TRACK
12) SEAN?S THEME: WHOLE TRACK
13) MINORITY REPORT: WHOLE TRACK
Just to confuse everybody, the album track called "Can You See?" does not actually include the music from that scene, which is on the track '"Everybody Runs!" In addition, the first 1:14 of "Visions of Anne Lively" do not appear in the film, so I left that off.
As for the non Williams music, this all started because the shopping mall scene with "Moon River" was my favorite scene in cinema last year -- I thought the music was a brilliant choice. I wanted to add this piece onto a CD of the score, but realized it was not the usual version with lyrics. I called Twentieth Century-Fox's music department and they checked their records, it's actually a combination. The first half is from the score to the opening scene of the film. This music is unreleased, but I ripped it off my DVD. Then, right before the voices would come in there, it changes to a piano version played by Mancini himself from an album of his. I've included links to that album, as well as the two classical albums with the actual film versions of those pieces. As for Solitude, which plays in The Gap, I had an mp3 of it which was the right version, but I don't know which album this version is on, as Billie Holiday recorded it quite a few times.
LINKS:
TCHAIKOVSKY
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00...7321255-7803130
STRAUSS
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...ssical&n=507846
MANCINI
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=music
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I just finished my own 2 CD set of the music from MR, in film order. (Including source music - classical, pop, etc) Your cuesheet was very helpful for comparison, Jim, but I should point out a couple of minor errors.
Your track 7, Sean and Lara, should be called only Lara. There's no scoring over Sean's hologram, only hers. Also, it's not the first part that appears there, but 2:41 to 3:30. Actually, though, I just left this bit off entirely. Since nearly the entire album track Sean and Lara plays over the Sean pool sequence, I put the entire track there and just called it Sean. You could cut out this bit, however, and have it on your CD twice for true film order.
And second, you call the piece at the Hall of Containment "So Many." Most of it actually is on the CD - from 1:14 to 2:26 of the album track Visions of Anne Lively. I called this track "A Woman Named Anne Lively."
I was going to post my guide to making your own MR soundtrack in film order here and at Amazon, as I usually do, but wanted to check with you first. I used two of your titles for tracks, "Two Minutes" and "The Man in the Window." Is this okay?
James
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Notice I said best Bond film, score and girl, not best Bond. Lazenby may not be perfect, but the film is. I do think Lazenby is underrated, though. He has his flaws, the biggest being his lack of acting experience, but he brings an everyman masculinity to the role that the others have all lacked. When you watch him in the film, you're not watching "Sean Connery as James Bond," or "Roger Moore as James Bond," etc, but you actually seem to be watching a regular guy named James Bond who's in some awfully perilous situations.
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OHMSS, without the slightest doubt. The best Bond score to the best Bond film, with the best Bond girl.
The new album is fantastic, "Gumbold's Safe" is a piece I've been waiting years to hear, and the sound quality is a revelation, like that of YOLT.
James
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Sorry, only now I'm even more confused.
Chris says the Varese CD sounds better, but Miguel says the Varese CD is identical to his Alhambra CD, with poor sound. Huh?
If anyone can clear this up, having heard BOTH CDs I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks,
James
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I forgot to sign in when I asked my question, but it's still me.
Anyway, I actually have the 1941 DVD. Just got it yesterday at Circuit City for 9.99, less than the CD will end up being, which is slightly crazy.
However, I want to get the CD too, since it'll pesent the music as Williams intended it to be heard outside the film.
I used to object to how different Williams' albums are from his actual film versions, but I saw him in concert last week, and his argument for the validity of soundtrack rerecordings was quite strong. (Basically, that it's how he'd prefer you to hear his music.)
Anyway, I just bought the Jaws soundtrack album, which I know is signifigantly different from the actual film cues on the new Decca CD, and I'd like to do the same with 1941.
I have read, though, that there is a noticable diference in sound quality between the two CDs of 1941, even though they contain identical tracks. One person claims the newer Varese CD is best, while somebody at eBay who's selling the older Bay Cities CD claims it's superior. Anyone aware of this?
Thanks again,
James
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Okay, saw MR again tonight, and here's what I have to report.
First of all, "Sean's Theme" does, indeed, come after track 16, before track 9 in the end credits.
Second, track 2 is actually a combination. The first half, up to about the 1 minute mark is the opening murder music, however, it then mixes into the music from the "Can You See?" scene, when Agatha jumps out of the pool and grabs Anderton, thus the track name. So there's really no way to do this chronologically. Putting it first, before track 3, makes the most sense to me, even though the second half would fall after track 4.
Track 4 is also confusing. As far as I can make out, it's actually multiple cues blended together. The first one "Sean," goes up to 2:40, the next "Lara," from there to 3:40. From there to the end is a mystery to me. "Lara" plays over the hologram of Anderton's wife. However, there is no music over the hologram of Sean, as I remember. I believe -- but don't quote me on this -- that "Sean" is actually the music from the scene where Sean disappears at the pool, which would come after track 11. However, this track is really so confusing that I wouldn't swear to anything about it.
As for track 6, aside from the first part, which is obviously in the greenhouse, I believe it is also a combination of multiple cues, though I'm not sure from where.
Next, track 8. The first half is, of course, the music from the scene where Anderton climbs about on the Mag-Lev cars as they whiz along the highway and down the side of a building. However, the second half, from about 2:25 to the end is from elsewhere, though I have no idea where.
Finally, track 12 is also a compliation of more than one cue. Again, though, I can't figure out from where.
All this ends up meaning that creating a true chronological CD is basically hopeless.
However, the listing as it stands is about as close as you can get, putting 9 before 1 as the closing credits.
The guy who said it all sounds alike kind of has a point. Much as I love this score, a great deal of it truly is underscore. It's not especially distinctive, and it's tough to figure out what went where. The only way to do it properly would be to make an audio tape of the whole movie and match bit for bit, and it's not really that important to me.
Also, if anyone else is interested like I was, I called Fox's Music Publishing Dept today, and they checked on which version of "Moon River" was used in the film. It's not good news, because the version in the film is unobtainable. The first half is the version which plays over the opening credits of "Breakfast at Tiffany's," which has never been released. (The existing soundtrack album consists only of re-recordings which are quite different from anything in the film.) It then segues into a different version, which they didn't have any info about, but sounds to me like just a synthesizer rendition.
Next time I see it I mean to note down the two classical tracks, I think they were Schubert and Tchaikovsky.
Lastly, the song playing in The Gap was "Solitude," sung by Billie Holiday, if anyone's curious.
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I saw the movie three times over the weekend, absolutely loved it, and I tried to pay close attention to the music. I'm 90% sure that "Sean's Theme" is, indeed, the first piece in the closing credits, coming before "Minority Report."
As I remember, "Sean's Theme" starts when the credit "Directed by Steven Spielberg" comes up, and plays over the first part of the credits, which are, in effect, the opening credits, since there were none at the beginning and they must contractually be there. This segment has the aerial shot of the Precogs' log cabin receding into the distance. Then, "Minority Report" plays over the closing credits which immediately follow, with the black background.
Hope this helps. I'll be going back to see the movie tomorrow, having listened to the score frequently in the last few days -- I didn't listen to it before seeing the film. I'll check for sure on the music order then, since I intend to burn a CD of the music in the proper film order, as I did with A.I.
To make a complete A.I. CD, I had to get the Ministry "Greatest Fits" CD to get their song 'What About Us," which was written for A.I., but not on the CD. Likewise, I'm going to pay close attention to the version of "Moon River" which plays in the mall sequence, in hopes of tracking it down. I thought its use was brilliant, a nod to Kubrick using light, cliched pop music in an entirely opposite context, and a complete "Minority Report" CD needs that too, to me at least.
James
I made a Catch Me If You Can cue sheet and CD analysis
in JOHN WILLIAMS
Posted
I just tried that, but when I previewed it, all my columns were gone, making it impossible to read. I wrote it in Word, and it seems like I can't just post it here.