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The bit that you skip #160: John Williams – Alarm!
John Williams can crack a real good tune. Sure, just like James Horner (and many film scorers), Williams has taken inspiration from classical composers. Just listen to Antonín Dvořák’s 4th movement of his 9th symphony and you’ll stay clear of any beaches the rest of your life. That’s fine. I don’t see at plagiarism any…
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The bit that you skip #159: Paul Leonard-Morgan – Ma-ma’s Requiem
Comic books were a part of my formative years. Since I have memory, I’ve been surrounded by comic books and comic book readers. From the Novaro and Editorial Vid translations that added Mexican colloquialisms to the deluge of import comics we had in the late 80s, early 90s, reading was a nice bit of escapism.…
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The bit that you skip #158: Elliott Goldenthal – Coffee shop
Heat floored when I watched for the first time. It was a small theater in a multicinema and I was by myself. The ending was bittersweet, the cinematography was perfect, and the music had a life of its own. For the longest of time, I would drop everything if the movie was on TV, and…
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The bit that you skip #157: Harold Faltermeyer – Fletch
Besides working as a session musician with the likes of Laura Branigan, Pet Shop Boys, and Billy Idol, Faltermeyer’s music was the lifeblood of three 80s classics: Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, and Fletch. If you find yourself wondering what is “Fletch”, congratulations, you still have a long life ahead of you. If you do…
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The bit that you skip #156: Mark Isham – Run to touchdown
Today I’m double dipping and going obscure. Again, the subject is Varsity Blues, which I’ve covered for this column. And I’m going obscure because this song is actually unreleased. I mean, you could pay over a hundred bucks for a copy of the score on Ebay, but I don’t have that type of cash. Football…
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The bit that you skip #155: Mark Mancina – Death is Certain
When Training Day was released in Mexico in the dead middle of November of 2001, I had no idea what I was in for. The trailers did spoil a bit of the story, but thankfully we still had a few great lines and bits of dialogue that took you by the neck. Set over the…
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The bit that you skip #154: James Horner – Main Title
James Horner always had a bad rep with several soundtrack afficionados. Sure, there is a lot of swiping and interpolation from classical music composers, specially with James Horner’s “danger motif”, which is just Rachmaninov’s Symphony #1. Great composer to steal from, though. I loved Horner’s work. The Mask of Zorro, Patriot Games, Aliens, all have…
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The bit that you skip #153: Tristram Cary – Centre Music
Another alumni from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Tristram Cary cut his teeth composing film, with The Ladykillers and Quatermass and the pit as fine examples of him being able to tackle “traditional soundtracks”. Quatermass in particular fits Hammer “orchestral horror” mold. That doesn’t mean Cary didn’t indulge into abstract experimentation. Tristram Cary composed and executed…
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The bit that you skip #152: John Baker – The Caves of Steel
Isaac Asimov always said that science fiction was a genre that could adapt to any tried and true genre of literature. Time proved him right and his Elijah Baley trilogy consisting of The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn are a concatenation of a hard boiled detective story and speculative…
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The bit that you skip #151: Brad Fiedel – Desert suite
Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the definite blueprint of how to make a sequel. Themes from the original are still there, with enough callbacks for the fan, but still original enough to deliver something different. Whereas the doom-laden 1984 classic ended up on a gloomy note, the 1991 sequel leaves the door open, reusing the…
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