January 17, 2011

  • Best of 2010: "Bronze Age" Film Releases

    Roger Hall's site has now posted a collection of "Best of" lists, some of which appear here as well, at:

     
    Since I spent a little time highlighting many scores from the 1930s-1970s that appeared last year, it is time now to do the same for those scores from the 1980s-1990s that saw new, or expanded editions.  Some of us may not want to think that the 1980s are 30 years ago now--others are trying to forget!--but this is one of the reasons for so many of these scores finally seeing the light of day.  There are four worth tracking down if you can.
     
    Two are by Jerry Goldsmith and perhaps are reminders that we all miss the maestro.  His score for Mamet's The Edge is a personal favorite even in its first appearance on a brief RCA CD at the time of the film's release (1997).  La-La Land expanded the presentation to just over an hour and reedited to follow film order more, fans finally get to hear what many think was Goldsmith's last great score.  The label's other late 2010 surprise was a complete release of Star Trek V-The Final Frontier with another bad film to score, Goldsmith went for character and inner musical depictions to get at the film's weightier issues.  The opening of the first disc features music not previously heard in the film and there appearance helps lend a better arc to the music overall.  The sound here too is simply awesome.
     
    Dave Grusin has always had a foot in film music though his jazz career tends to occupy him more.  His big chance to do a Spielberg-based film came with The Goonies and Varese Sarabande finally released this fast selling club disc.
     
    For fans of electronic music, Silva has released a remastered version of Brad Fiedel's iconic score for Terminator 2: Judgment Day.  This is a great reminder of what was possible on the high end and in the hands of someone who knew how to work with electronics in the late 1980s/early 1990s.  Even though I'm not a real fan of electronic music, this is a must have score for students of film music.