Label Threads The Official Varese Sarabande Thread

[mstrox 6,651]

Both versions of The Parent Trap are Disney movies, so it’d be a pretty big get by Varese if that’s the case.  Cute movies, though.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Parent Trap did occur to me, but I thought they'd maybe find a more clever clue than just a trap.

[Jay 37,372]

Pretty much everything the club does are titles that Varese has perpetuity rights to.  How To Train Your Dragon 2 is the only one they didn't in a long while.

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

First since the John Williams Dracula half a decade ago now, right? (Talking about expansions of course; I realize they’ve released several premieres since then.)

 

Yavar

[Jay 37,372]

Sounds about right

 

I don't know enough about City Hall or Carlito's Way to know why people on FSM think the first clue is for either of those

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,433]

Both are about mobster so they would be nice candidat. I would guess City Hall for the first and Mouse Hunt for the second. That would be a really good batch

[crocodile 8,018]

It would be!

 

Karol

[Jay 37,372]

IIRC @Yavar Moradi likes City Hall's score more than LA Confidential's score, so he'll be happy if that's what it is

 

Of course, if that is what it is, he's probably already known so for a while lol

[crocodile 8,018]

It's a superior score, I agree. One of my favourite Goldsmiths in fact.

 

Karol

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

I don't know enough about City Hall or Carlito's Way to know why people on FSM think the first clue is for either of those

1 hour ago, May the Force be with You said:

Both are about mobster so they would be nice candidat. I would guess City Hall for the first and Mouse Hunt for the second. That would be a really good batch

1 hour ago, Jay said:

IIRC @Yavar Moradi likes City Hall's score more than LA Confidential's score, so he'll be happy if that's what it is

 

You remember correctly! I think LA Confidential is quite effective/serviceable in the film, and somewhat interesting on album ("Bloody Christmas" was really stripped down and less complex in film than on the album). But for me, ironically perhaps, LA Confidential is a much more dated sounding score (heavy use of 90s synths) compared with City Hall, which is more orchestral and timeless to my ears. They both have a noir sound fairly indebted to Leonard Bernstein's sole film score On the Waterfront. But IMO, City Hall wears that mantle better. It's just that LA Confidential was attached to a better and more popular film, so City Hall got a bit lost in conversation alas.

 

All this said, I'll be even MORE happy if the first clue points to Carlito's Way, which is a top 5 Patrick Doyle score for me and IMO even greater (and more original) than City Hall or LA Confidential. According to Varese a few years ago, it's the only Patrick Doyle score they released in the 90s which they control perpetuity rights on. And there's a good quarter hour of music missing, ironically including the music for the scene pictured on the back cover of the Varese album! Someone at FSM also pointed out Carlito's Way is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year...

 

In any case it sounds like we are probably in for a nice batch. Does anyone have other guesses besides Mouse Hunt for the latter? It's maybe my favorite Silvestri score so I hope it's that, but I wonder if we are missing other possibilities.

 

 

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Of course, if that is what it is, he's probably already known so for a while lol

 

Actually, I haven't really been "in the loop" re: Varese releases for over a year now. I was in touch initially with Bryon Davis there, who soon after transitioned from being a regular employee to working as a producer on contract for them, and he now seems to mainly concentrate on his own label Notefornote. And then on Lionheart in particular, I was regularly in touch with Cary Mansfield, but maybe a year or so after that (say, early 2022 somewhere) Cary also transitioned to working as a contractor. I'm fairly certain he's still actively producing releases for Varese, but we don't regularly communicate any more. We didn't have a falling out or anything but I suspect he's just really busy, and (pure speculation on my part here) probably doesn't feel it's as much his place to share advance info any more.

 

 

You'll notice that the last Goldsmith Odyssey Soundtrack Spotlight for a Varese Goldsmith expansion came out almost a week after the title was announced (and that was with us super rushing to recording and edit that short half hour show): https://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/11750439-odyssey-soundtrack-spotlight-l-a-confidential-1997

 

That because we didn't know for sure what the title would be until it was announced! Varese was happy to promote our episode later of course, but unfortunately we didn't get any advance notice in order for our podcast episode to premiere the same day as the announcement. Anyhow, maybe I'm supplying too much information, but just wanted to be upfront that folks really shouldn't read anything into reactions of mine regarding Varese releases at this point.

 

Yavar

 

 

[Jay 37,372]

I guess what I don't get is: If City Hall takes place in modern day and Carlito's Way takes place in the 70s, how is their 1930s image a clue for either?

[Jurassic Shark 12,083]

2 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

 

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,551]

3 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

 

 

 

THE WRONG BOX?

[Jurassic Shark 12,083]

Boxtrolls?

 

The Boxer?

 

The Box of Delights?

[Jay 37,372]

None of those are scores that Varese has perpetuity rights to

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,433]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

I guess what I don't get is: If City Hall takes place in modern day and Carlito's Way takes place in the 70s, how is their 1930s image a clue for either?

I would say it's more for the mobster symbol, 30's mobsters are more speaking and graphics than the modern one

[Jay 37,372]

Gotcha!

[mstrox 6,651]

The first thing that came to my head from the image was Thomas Newman’s Road to Perdition.  I know it’s not a Varese perp title and I have no clue of anything is missing from the OST, but I’m posting it here anyway just in case it’s right and I can take a victory lap.

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

I guess what I don't get is: If City Hall takes place in modern day and Carlito's Way takes place in the 70s, how is their 1930s image a clue for either?

 

Yes. Carlito was my first idea as well, but neither film matches the era of the clue.

 

4 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

 

 

I wish it were Monkey Island 2…

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

I guess what I don't get is: If City Hall takes place in modern day and Carlito's Way takes place in the 70s, how is their 1930s image a clue for either?

30 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Yes. Carlito was my first idea as well, but neither film matches the era of the clue.

 

Since when have Varese visual clues been that literal? This isn't an exact science. They're just finding imperfect stock images to evoke something. Last time (hilariously!) it was an image of two wells... for Badelt's The Time Machine! 

 

Yavar

[Faleel 5,359]

Jay: "ugh, they put the images of the main characters too early on Framed!"

 

Also Jay: "ugh, the image doesn't represent what it is exactly!!"

 

 

[Manakin Skywalker 4,897]

A crate is a type of box, just like the crate holding the Ark.

 

It's definitely the Indiana Jones 5-film boxset! Wow, I wonder how Varese got the rights...

[Faleel 5,359]

2 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

A crate is a type of box, just like the crate holding the Ark.

 

It's definitely the Indiana Jones 5-film boxset! Wow, I wonder how Varese got the rights...

Crate = Building the Crate = Chicken Run!!

[bruckhorn 105]

Box -> "I think I need a bigger box" from the Taco Bell commercial that was a tie-in to Godzilla.

 

Or:

 

Us overthinking the picture = Brainstorm!

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,551]

Box > trap > booby trap.

Boobies!!! 

It's PORKY'S!

[Richard Penna 3,694]

17 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

In any case it sounds like we are probably in for a nice batch. Does anyone have other guesses besides Mouse Hunt for the latter? It's maybe my favorite Silvestri score so I hope it's that, but I wonder if we are missing other possibilities.

 

Probably most likely, more so than my guess of Fierce Creatures which while I now know doesn't have the full film-version score, I don't think has any major shortcomings that make an expansion highly desirable.

 

I'd go with Carlito's as a good guess, and a companion to the far wider-appealing Mouse Hunt although I can skip this as I'm not remotely interested in either.

 

I'm sort of glad they got L.A. out of the way last year because I've always been a bit mystified as to why that score has the appeal it does. I've never seen the film but I skimmed through the iso score years ago and what I heard did not strike me as remarkable.

[Jay 37,372]

Looks like no day&date digital releases for either title this time

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

5 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

I'm sort of glad they got L.A. out of the way last year because I've always been a bit mystified as to why that score has the appeal it does. I've never seen the film but I skimmed through the iso score years ago and what I heard did not strike me as remarkable.

 

It's not, IMO. Even Goldsmith himself didn't consider it so, and remarked in an interview that he was fairly surprised it got an Oscar nomination and that he'd done it all better on Chinatown many years before.

 

 It's not a bad score by any means. It's a good one and supports the film admirably.

 

The film is why the score has so much popularity with people (and the Academy), simple as that. The film itself is excellent, and IMO this is a super rare case where the film elevates Goldsmith's score more than his score elevates the film.

 

Speaking purely in terms of the music itself, City Hall is so much better than L.A. Confidential isn't not even close.

 

Yavar

[Richard Penna 3,694]

59 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

It's not a bad score by any means. It's a good one and supports the film admirably.

 

The film is why the score has so much popularity with people (and the Academy), simple as that. The film itself is excellent, and IMO this is a super rare case where the film elevates Goldsmith's score more than his score elevates the film.

 

Yes, I got the impression that it's a score that works much better in the film than any major impressions outside of it. I also suspected that the no doubt excellent film makes people want to like the score by association. I hate it when that happens - a very average score can achieve a notability that it doesn't earn, simply because it's scoring a certain subject matter.

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

1 minute ago, Richard Penna said:

 

Yes, I got the impression that it's a score that works much better in the film than any major impressions outside of it. I also suspected that the no doubt excellent film makes people want to like the score by association. I hate it when that happens - a very average score can achieve a notability that it doesn't earn, simply because it's scoring a certain subject matter.

It's also one of those scores that has a single very memorable track (Bloody Christmas) that is easy to latch onto and remember afterwards. However, I still think it's a fine effort and had it not been for Titanic, could possibly have got the Oscar by association with the film (which he would have deserved if only to up his Oscar tally...).

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Actually the one track I have is The Victor. Bloody Christmas was the first additional one I tried when seeing what the rest of the score was like, and was distinctly unimpressed.

 

And I'm not a fan of giving a composer an Oscar for a score just because they should've had one by now, as that creates an artificially inflated sense of importance for a score and gives fans of it licence to bang on about how great it is.

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

Anyone think their clues are getting too easy?!

 

https://varesesarabande.com/collections/cd-club/products/city-hall-deluxe-edition-cd 

https://varesesarabande.com/collections/cd-club/products/mouse-hunt-deluxe-edition-cd

 

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Mouse Hunt could've been a score I'd have relished as I really liked the movie, but all I really hooked onto musically was the main theme.

 

And expanded from 30 mins to 66, so definitely a highly desired one at that.

[crocodile 8,018]

Really lovely batch. I will wait for Intrada's title(s) and order everything from them.

 

Karol

[Richard Penna 3,694]

A bundle of the two together for $5 off - is that a first for unrelated titles? They did a HTTYD bundle.

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

19 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Anyone think their clues are getting too easy?!

 

Haha, first people complained the Varese visual clues were far too hard, now they might be too easy! 

 

There were two alternate guesses I saw for the first clue that were very good (Michael Small's Mobsters and Patrick Doyle's Carlito's Way, which I guess I'll have to keep pining over...) but everyone did seem to gravitate towards Mouse Hunt for the second clue. I didn't see any other alternate guesses for that one! And it was kind of a weird clue too... I guess the thinking being trap > mouse trap > Mouse Hunt? Because the image certainly isn't a mouse trap...

 

Anyhow these are two great titles. Mouse Hunt might be my favorite Silvestri score and City Hall is IMO way, WAY better than LA Confidential that followed it. Much more orchestral and less 90s-dated-sounding. It just had the misfortune to be attached to a much more forgotten film. Good to see that there are 7 film alternates included, as well as 10 minutes of OTHER alternates that I guess weren't in the film or on the original album. This seems to make sense given all the written alternates that exist at the Herrick Library.

 

Hope Carlito's Way still comes in the future...

 

Yavar

[Jurassic Shark 12,083]

Finally, Mouse Hunt!

 

EDIT: It's a fun score, @bruce marshall.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

9 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Good to see that there are 7 film alternates included, as well as 10 minutes of OTHER alternates that I guess weren't in the film or on the original album.

 

Indeed; it's frustrating though when an album has been constructed such that length-wise they've effectively included the lion's share of the score, but messed around with alternates, causing fans to need a new version that doesn't offer anything earth-shattering.

 

Like The Terminal I guess - so easy to have just put the full score on CD, but instead we need an expansion that probably has 5 minutes unreleased.

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

I mean, the film presentation is only 5 minutes longer than the old 29 minute album… but it includes seven cues that are different from their counterparts on that album. Those are previously unreleased too.

 

Neil posted this interesting bit of info at FSM:

 

 

Also even five more minutes for such a short (but excellent) score is quite a lot, percentage wise.  

 

I’m nuts though. I rebought Magic when LLL re-released it with one 23 second cue that Varese left off their version! 😂 

 

Yavar

[crocodile 8,018]

Just noticed that if you order the two titles from Varese's website you can select the bundle option for $35. That's not bad. 

 

 

Karol

[Jay 37,372]

50 minutes ago, crocodile said:

Just noticed that if you order the two titles from Varese's website you can select the bundle option for $35. That's not bad. 

 

 

Karol

 

2 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

A bundle of the two together for $5 off - is that a first for unrelated titles? They did a HTTYD bundle.

 

[Brundlefly 2,385]

I watched City Hall two days ago for the very first time.

[Jay 37,372]

If somebody has time to make a thread for each title please do, I've been swamped 

[Ollie 1,059]

 

 

 

[Jay 37,372]

Nice! 

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

19 minutes ago, Ollie said:

 

 

 

This time, one will be fine and the other will have the channels reversed and a CD printing error!

[Jay 37,372]

So, which scores that Varese owns perpetuity rights to are for films considered "bloody"?

 

https://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=86092&forumID=1&archive=0

[DangerMotif 1,038]

James Newton Howard - 2006 - Blood Diamond

[1977 1,743]

Bill Conti - Blood in Blood Out?

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

38 minutes ago, Jay said:

So, which scores that Varese owns perpetuity rights to are for films considered "bloody"?

 

Not enough blood in Brainstorm from what I remember.