Elliot Goldenthal’s first studio feature film score, Pet Sematary is a haunting, and unnerving horror score. The original soundtrack release only ran 30 minutes, and there was certainly more goodness to release. So when we found out that the rights had, indeed, reverted back to Paramount, we seized the opportunity to grab this title and give it the deluxe treatment. The primary source was a pristine 4-track 1/2″ analog tape, which was lovingly transferred, and then I edited the album …
Today La-La Land Records released the third expanded release in the Batman film series that started in 1989, and ended quite horribly with 1997’s Batman & Robin. Elliot Goldenthal’s score for Batman Forever is a tour-de-force of musical bombast, thematic expressionism and orchestral fury. In short, it’s bizarre and awesome and I love it. Working on this one was a thrill in that I not only got to co-produce the score with Neil S. Bulk and MV Gerhard, but I got to do the …
The concert this evening was a double-header. The first half was a celebration of music from the Alien film series, and the second was a tribute to Jerry Goldsmith in honor of what would have been his 80th birthday. Conducted by Diego Navarro, music from Alien was preformed, as imagery was projected on screen (it was not meant to be live-to-picture sync, however). Goldsmith’s score to Alien is iconic, creepy and brilliant – and hearing it performed live was bone-chillingly …
Director Michael Mann takes on the period crime genre with Public Enemies, his film about the FBI’s pursuit of notorious criminals John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) and Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum) by Special Agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). After Purvis chased down and killed Floyd, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup), in an effort to boost the agency’s reputation, assigning Purvis to the Chicago area where he is to focus on apprehending Dillinger, who …
S.W.A.T., based on the 1970’s television show, has very little to do with the original, with two exceptions: composer Elliot Goldenthal uses the TV theme a lot in his score, and the show actually appears on a television screen during one scene. Other than that, the movie is really just about Los Angeles SWAT, as seen through the eyes of Jim Street (Colin Farrell), a SWAT officer who is demoted after an incident in which his partner (now off the …
Saw Frida tonight. The story about the famous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (played by Salma Hayek) was directed by Broadway favorite Julie Taymor. Taymor of course is known for her amazing work on “The Lion King on Broadway“, and a film I thought was amazing to look at visually, but utterly wretched, Titus. Suffice it to say, I was not going into this film with high hopes. I also didn’t know anything about Frida Kahlo, aside from a few paintings, …