In a location adjacent to a place in a city of some significance, what comes out of my head is plastered on the walls of this blog.
Thursday, February 23, 2023
Sweet and sour notes.
Well, Varese Sarabande disappointed me just like I knew they fucking would. Not only is The Time Machine: the Deluxe Edition the first Club title out this year, but it’s the only one being released this week. To cheer myself up, I’m just gonna talk about the latest releases from a label that still believes in taking chances: Dragon’s Domain.
Dennis McCarthy - Tunes of Future Past - Even if McCarthy's music worked for me (which it doesn't; I've never been a big "Star Trek" fan), this would still be the weakest of the titles. The piano work in the sound clips is nice, but the actual music isn't grabbing me. Oh, well.
Black Scorpion (Kevin Kiner) - Back in the mid-1990s, Showtime aired a series of direct-to-video Roger Corman productions under the banner 'Roger Corman Presents'. Their mix of sex, violence and questionable plotting made them catnip to a 14-year-old with nothing to do on Thursday nights. One of the more prolific titles (having spawned two sequels and a TV series) was this one. I barely remember tuning in, but the sound clips are decent; kind of the same orchestral/electronic hybrid approach that served Kiner well on Leprechaun.
Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story (Ernest Gold) - Following the label’s enjoyably eclectic compilation of the composer’s works from last year comes this release of Gold’s score for the 1985 miniseries about a Swedish diplomat who helped to save Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust. The orchestrations in the clips sound quite rich and one can never have enough scores for made-for-TV movies.
The Hummie Mann Collection - Vol. 2 - Two more Mann scores are paired together in a release: his orchestral score for Joe Dante’s riotous (and still timely) HBO satire The Second Civil War and an electronic effort for the director’s cut of the Jonathan Kaplan drama Brokedown Palace. The score was replaced by one from David Newman and I look forward to comparing the two in a future post.
The label is offering a special deal: buy all four titles and get 25% off. Not quite feeling the McCarthy, but we’ll see.
Been too damn long since I did one of these in a non 'the year in movies' context...and yet, here I am talking about the movies. Is there much else in this world worth talking about?
- It seems that Dreamworks wants some of that sweet live-action remake money that's keeping the rides at Disney World operational, because they've just announced an adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon. Maybe, it'll hew closer to the book and maybe, it'll be a straight remake. One bit of good news: John Powell, who wrote arguably some of his best music for the animated features, is scoring this. Some people (let's call them 'whiner-babies') are upset that Powell is working on this instead of something more 'original'. Again, this is good news. If Powell wasn't scoring this, it'd likely go to Lorne Balfe or Tom Holkenborg or some other lesser Remote Control acolyte. Picture that in your mind and tell me that would be a world worth living in. P.S. I'm instituting the 'anyone who suggests Tom Holland for Hiccup gets punched in the brain' challenge. Who's with me?!
- The scuttlebutt online has it that one of Varese Sarabande's next CD Club releases will be Klaus Badelt's The Time Machine: Deluxe Edition. A complete release of a score from a forgotten composer whose main theme is pretty obviously lifted from Goldsmith's The Edge. Meanwhile, the likes of Leviathan, Mr. Destiny, Out for Justice, Hudson Hawk, Mobsters, Ricochet, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Christopher Columbus: the Discovery, Hot Shots! Part Deux, Demolition Man, Addams Family Values, The Hudsucker Proxy, I Love Trouble, Timecop, Terminal Velocity, The Quick and the Dead, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: the Movie, Sudden Death, Thinner, Free Willy 3: the Rescue, Kull the Conqueror, Mouse Hunt, Sphere, Paulie, Soldier, “Merlin”, In Dreams, Instinct, The Sixth Sense, Deep Blue Sea, The 13th Warrior, End of Days, "The 10th Kingdom", "The Mists of Avalon", Dragonfly, Ice Age, Blade II, Reign of Fire, Peter Pan, Goldsmith's Timeline, I, Robot, Fantastic Four or Serenity can't get goddamn arrested at the label. Oh, and I hear tell that they (or someone) are also planning Silvestri's The Clan of the Cave Bear. Fucking interns.
- Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, the Guy Ritchie action-comedy that was meant to be released in 2021, is set for release on March 3rd. This news was revealed to me mere days after I decided to watch the film online after getting sick of waiting for it to come out. (A rather literal comparison, as the week I watched it, I was sick at home with Covid.) The main trouble with the film was that there were villains from the Ukraine, which…yeah. You’d think that re-dubbing the film to correct this problem would take no more than a few months. All told, the film was pretty good. Still, it’ll be nice to see it in a theater, official-like.
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was released over the weekend. I have no desire to see it in a theater, though, (First time in 15 years. Thanks a lot, jackholes.) for a number of reasons. a) It looks to be a big, splashy narrative set in a vast, CGI-created world...which completely contravenes the small scale of the first two. The appeal of the first two movies lied in its heist movie plots. It's how you can tell them apart from the rest of the MCU. What difference is there between this and a Guardians of the Galaxy movie*...or Green Lantern, for that matter? b) Kang. Though this is supposedly a different version of the character than the one that stopped the season finale of "Loki" dead in its tracks, he has the same yen for dull speechifying, which...fuck off. c) No Michael Pena as Luis. For real, I'm calling it:
* - Now, this doesn't mean that the Marvel bubble has burst for me. Guardians of the Galaxy - Vol. 3 is very much a priority; unlike the makers of Quantumania, James Gunn knows exactly what these movies are supposed to be. Also, The Marvels is directed by Candyman's Nia DaCosta and enough said there. As for Quantumania, I might check it out on Disney+ later this year...but I make no promises.
- Composer Gerald Fried, whose credits range from "Star Trek" to "Gilligan's Island", passed away over the weekend. I'd considered an obituary post for him, but given that my scope of knowledge of the man doesn't stretch beyond a couple of pretty good scores from the 70s ("Cruise Into Terror" and Survive!, available together on a 2-CD set from Dragon's Domain) and the fight music from the Trek episode "Amok Time" which I only became aware of thanks to Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy, I decided against it. Besides, Jeff Bond (who's forgotten more about film music than I'll ever know) posted an unimpeachable tribute to the man on Facebook. How could I possibly compete?
- Today, I went to see Marlowe. Pretty good; no masterpiece, but better than the reviews would have you believe. However, here's the hook: I went to see the film at the Regal Elmwood. You know, one of the theaters that was supposedly set to close last week. I had considered asking around and hearing from the staff, who would surely be concerned about the potential loss of their jobs. Not just because I had other things to do, but I thought better of it, especially as the parking lot was getting rather full as I left. Honestly, there's no reason to yell 'Fired!' in a crowded theater.
