One of the few Jerry Goldsmith scoring sessions I had the privilege of attending was for The Sum of All Fears, the fourth Jack Ryan movie (and in effect, a reboot of the series) directed by Phil Alden Robinson. Years later, I would then have the opportunity to put together an expanded release of the soundtrack. The highlight of the score is the opening title, an operatic and heart-wrenching aria sung by Shana Blake Hill, but it was a pleasure to rediscover …
Ah, good old Jerry Goldsmith. His music is definitely near and dear to my heard, and while I did not produce the new La-La Land Records soundtrack album of Warning Shot, I did get a chance to work on it as the art director. I based the CD cover artwork off of the old Liberty Records LP (which was really just an ‘inspiration’ album featuring Si Zentner playing music from Warning Shot and other Goldsmith films), and kept the inside of the …
Two of my latest projects were just announced for release on December 1: James Newton Howard’s score to The Fugitive, in a 2-disc set with the complete score, a few alternates, the original album suites, and a few extra bonus tracks! I co-produced the album and wrote the liner notes; Jeff Bond provided a wonderful track analysis. Jerry Goldsmith’s complete score to Innerspace! I didn’t produce this one, but wrote the in-depth liner notes featuring new comments from Joe Dante …
My latest album project has just been announced. The original scores to 1966’s Seconds and 1994’s I.Q., both composed by the late, great Jerry Goldsmith. I produced the album, with exclusive liner notes written by Jeff Bond. It’s now available for pre-order at La-La Land Records, so go get it!
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 Robert Wise died last night. For those of you who might not be familiar with him, he directed such films as The Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and more. He also edited Citizen Kane. He was a great talent, and I had the good fortune to meet him on three different occasions since I moved out here to Los Angeles. The first time was at a reception …
Got up early for a saturday, and headed up to the valley to pick up John. We headed on over to the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood for the familiy screening of Looney Tunes: Back in Action. As I had gone to the scoring session about a month or so ago, I was looking forward to the final film – and I wasn’t disappointed. The beginning of the film is a bit of a mess, as so many things are …
Note to self: when a press screening is held at the studio, or a private screening room, you don’t need to get there until about 15-20 minutes beforehand. Not knowing that “rule”, Matt and I found ourselves hanging out at Fox for about 45 minutes before the screening of Alien – the Director’s Cut. Anyone who knows me knows that Aliens is certainly one of my favorite films. The first film was always a “good film” to me, even if …
The thing about Star Trek: Nemesis is that when all is said and done, the movie really did feel like another television episode. Now I’m not saying it’s a bad film – or even the worst Trek film. It’s just that, well, it didn’t feel like it was a story big enough to warrant a big-screen adventure. Now there are a few things that happen that would only work on the big screen – I refer to most of the …
Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan? Honestly, I never would have thought this movie would have worked. Sure, they changed the story so that it’s not a militant Arab group that gets the fission bomb (it’s now a neo-Nazi group), and it’s no longer Denver that gets nuked – it’s Baltimore. And yeah, making Jack Ryan in his late 20’s is a bit of a stretch, but you know what? It all worked. And it was a pretty engaging film. I …