In our podcast interview, Toyne discusses his collaborations with Tyler, and scoring Rogue -  DirectTV’s first foray into original programming, starring Thandie Newton and Marton Csokas.

In  Season 1, Toyne’s music (set for a commercial release later this year) is both strategic and stealth, fluidly gliding between each episode’s sound design and the profanity-laced dialogue. The fragmented life and identity crises of central character Grace – undercover cop by day &night, barely functional mom when time permits – is nicely complimented by an incomplete theme which periodically expands and recedes as Grace experiences the extreme vicissitudes of her quest for rogue justice.

A 2007 interview [M] with Toyne regarding one of his early film scores, Shadow in the Trees, is also available. A review of the 10 episode Rogue: Season 1, will follow early next week.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )

Director John Moore actually cuts away from this scene and never returns. Is he insane, or just stupid?

When the IMDB made available a teaser trailer for A Good Day to Die Hard [M], my first reaction was ‘They made a 5th film? WHY?’

The film premiered, was peed on by most critics, and vanished until its rather speedy home video release, and I’ve written a lengthy review of this massive disappointment that’s such an insult to the franchise’s fans, as well as action fans deserving some semblance of a coherent plot. This isn’t to say action films are genetically predisposed to being logical and coherent, but if you blow more than what, $100 million on a franchise entry starring costly Bruce Willis, the least you can do (that’s you, Fox) is ensure the script that is greenlit for production isn’t utter shit.

Director John Moore delivers a massive quotient of car destruction and gunfire, but why he chose a visual style 20 years out of date is a mystery. The only genuine elements that reveal true craftsmanship are the car chase through Moscow, the editor who made sense of Moore’s messy camera work, and composer Marco Beltrami who wrote one of the best action scores [M] in recent years. It pays homage to Michael Kamen’s DH scores, some Beethoven, and maybe some Goldsmithian boom matter.

The CD is never far from my reach, and if things click this week, I should have finished an interview with Beltrami, of which material regarding the upcoming World War Z will appear in Rue Morgue, and the full podcast will appear at Big Head Amusements soon after.

I had to take a small pause between writing those long reviews because a) I had some camera tests to do, and edit the footage into demo material (all of which will be uploaded shortly), and b) my frozen shoulder became plural: while the left side is slowly mending, the right side’s ongoing workload of doing its own thing + compensating for the left side’s lethargy and limited range has taken a small toll.

Frozen shoulder works like this: you sleep until pain wakes you up (4.5 hours), maybe slap ice packs on the arms if the pain’s severe, get mobile to loosen the muscles, work in some specific exercises, add ice to stop inflammation, get on with the day, and buffer the work load / pain level / sleep deprivation with rest breaks, some medicine, and a steady diet of protein to build up the muscles that have literally gone limp. Twice a week there’s physio which isn’t covered by OHIP because I’m not under 18 / nor over 65 / nor on welfare [OHIP’s exclusions merely encourage people to avoid rehab and cost the system more, not less], and usually the soreness from therapy yields one nasty pain throng the morning after.

However, I can reach upper shelves to get at the oatmeal tin, and my arms actually look fit. The absurdity lies in the fact part of each arm is in fact fit, while other areas – triceps, deltoids – are a mess. If you suddenly reach for a fallen object, the pain that runs through either arm is insane, and it takes about half a minute before you can move the arm, wiggle fingers, and stop swearing profusely.

Lesson to all: sleep properly, exercise daily, and if you’ve been doing repetitive tasks at a specific job for 12+ years, find alternatives or you’ll be fucked, and feel 80.

There is nothing amusing about seniors moving their arms and legs to Vera Lynn or swimming with floral skull caps. If you don’t use specific muscles, they wither; and to get them back is an ordeal because of something called The Wall of Supreme Pain that you have to push through. My coping lingo of late are variations of fuck, Jesus Fucking Christ, and Ow-ow-ow!

Coming next: a podcast with Rogue’s composer Jeff Toyne, and reviews of Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines on Blu from Twilight Time, plus the sequel Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies from Fox.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )

Although best known for their classic sci-fi scores, Monstrous Movie Music have expanded their range, trying to show genre composers in a different light, and their CD of The Tall Texan [M] (1953) features a really solid score by Bert Shefter, better known as the other half of the composing team responsible for The Fly (1958). Shefter and Paul Sawtell scored a variety of films, but early in his career the former composed music for a low budget Lippert western starring Lloyd Bridges – an always reliable dramatic actor often given short-shrift because of his extensive career in TV. A great example of his range is Attack on the Iron Coast (1968), a predictable low budget WWII entry worth watching solely for Bridges’ performance.

Next up is Elmer Bernstein’s The Shootist (1976), coupled with The Sons of Katie Elder [M] (1965)from La-La Land Records. Whereas the latter score is filled with elements from Bernstein’s The Magnificent Seven (1960), the former is a grim little gem, and has some subtle resonance because it was John Wayne’s swan song.

Also from LLL is Jerry Goldsmith’s Bandolero! [M] (1968), which features a blend of arresting dramatic cues and a rather poppish (and evil corkscrew) main theme. LLL’s been going through Goldmsith’s western catalogue, releasing several premiere and expanded releases – Rio Lobo [M] (1970), Stagecoach [M] (1966) – but one they’ve yet to tackle is 100 Rifles [M] (1969), which Film Score Monthly released back in 1999. I’ll defend this score as one of (if not) the composer’s best western, and I’ve written a long, blathering review to support why this represents one of his finest examples of kinetic, polyrhythmic action writing.

This thing starts with a bang and doesn’t stop, and because it was written a year after Planet of the Apes, there’s some bleeding of experimental ideas that elevate an upper B-western to something more engrossing. The film itself is also a fine example of director / co-writer Tom Gries’ knack for solid storytelling and action, and he remains a seriously forgotten mini-master whose work deserves greater attention (which means there will be a few review of his fine work coming soon).

Note: because FSM is no longer producing soundtracks, quantities of older releases like 100 Rifles are running low, so you might want to check out their website or vendor Screen Archives Entertainment for what’s still available, as this particular title is likely to sell out very soon.

Also: SAE has reported a trio of fast-sold out CDs will be reprinted by FSM and should be available in 6-8 weeks. Check both sites for word on when the 3-CD set of Jerry Fielding’s The Wild Bunch, the 2-CD set of John Barry’s King Kong, and the multi-disc set of the  Superman films are back in stock. SAE does have stock of Goldsmith’s Under Fire which features great guitar work by Pat Metheny.

Lastly, Intrada just released Fielding’s Beyond the Poseidon Adventure on CD. The main theme is just a variation of Wild Bunch, but the score proper is pretty solid. Nice to see Fielding’s modernist work is still being championed. (Intrada also released a gorgeous expanded CD of Pino Donaggio’s Dressed to Kill, which I’m reviewing for Rue Morgue for an upcoming issue.) The label also reissued Goldsmith’s Inchon, a score I’m not particularly fond of, but was quite bummed out to see selling out in less than 24 hours. The original 2 disc set is back in print as a non-limited release.

Now if only someone would release the blasted movie on Blu-ray.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )

What a hot little monster.

Twilight Time’s release of Leave Her to Heaven [M] (1945) on Blu brings some attention back to this superb melodrama-film noir creature, starring a strong-willed woman whose self-preservation instinct goes into scheming overdrive when she isn’t the centre of attention.

By a similar relation, the heroine in The Strange Woman [M] (1946) is a strong-willed woman who uses her cunning abilities to exploit her position as the wife of a small town’s industrialist; as his riches and influence expand, so does her power, and yet instead of being purely evil, we know why she lacks the proper restraint in not chasing after her husband’s younger son nor chasing and winning the love of her best friend.

It’s called backstory, and in both of these film versions of novels by Ben Ames Williams, the heroines are not nice, but their backstories are emotionally tragic – which is very different from your standard noir or melodramatic thriller in which the villainess is just a shadowy, sultry, mysterious creature who perpetually threatens the masculine power of a hero whose flaws we do know about.

Jenny in Strange Woman grew up as the slutty daughter of the town drunk, and as eeeevil as she is, she spends her newfound riches as the wife of Mr. Poster funding the construction of a new church, and maintaining weekly temperance meetings because she truly knows the extent of alcoholism on young kids.

Ellen in Heaven has an extreme Elektra complex, and she’s never sated by being in control of everyone’s attention, constantly redirecting it towards herself. As horrible as she is, we all know people who make sure conversations cycle around their experiences, and parties that are celebrations of their wonderfulness rather than a gathering of mirth and benign drunkenness with friends & families.

Long ago, Ellen’s family gave up disciplining and controlling their daughter, and her behaviour is almost sociopathic – she almost recognizes there’s an element of wrongness, but it’s all shrugged aside because of a dominant emotional reaction and the thrill of opportunity.

The sophistication within Heaven is wholly absent in a terrible TV remake – Too Good to be True [M] (1988), and the truncation of vital material really made a mess of what was a compelling story.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )

See? Glass and steel are fine in an classical urban setting.

I’ve uploaded a review of The Human Scale [M] (2012), the last Hot Docs film that’s amazingly timely, although Jan Gehl’s philosophy of bringing life back to dead urban centres using the European model isn’t new; however old his hometown of Copenhagen is (a few hundred years at least?), the concept of living and working in the urban core by using you legs or feet to cycle or walk has been ongoing for quite a while, and isn’t exclusive to European culture.

Andreas Dalsgaard’s film globe-hops between cities where Gehl’s international team of crack architectural ethnographers ['people who make cities not dead'] have solved problems / are in the process of assessing areas for viable solutions with forward thinking governments / and are faced with outright disaster zones.

To Torontonians, our city’s a bit of a freak in that the downtown core and surrounding municipalities are constantly thickening from people coming here for work and wanting shorter commutes home, but as a liveable / affordable city, it’s becoming further tiered towards specific incomes.

There’s also a car culture fighting for road space, a pathetically underfunded transit system stressed by the success of boosted ridership, and a suburban-based and supported mayor wanting big shiny subways in spite of there being limited funds.

This is just a sliver snapshot of the complexities that face all cities, and the variants mean Gehl’s team, when they’re called in for help, have to spend a lot of time analyzing where things began to shift, and how cities can be less unwelcome to its own citizens.

Gehl’s philosophy runs contrary to Le Corbusier’s approach of modern design where cities are divided according to specific life functions – where you live, where you shop, where you relax, and where you work. In sketches and models, it looks sleek and organized, but from a practical stance it’s a little crazy if the end result is wasting time in lengthy commutes.

Some of Le Corbusier’s designs – his use of poured concrete, especially – are marvelous and predate the Brutalist style (which has its merits,  in spite of sometimes resembling giant concrete bunkers that seem to say ‘Stay the fuck away from me!’), but his use of space borders on the megalomaniacal style of Egyptian pharaohs, or Cambodia’s Angkor Wat: grids and re-channeled waterways that force the pedestrian to be overwhelmed by design.

Perhaps the middle-ground is Mies van der Rohe, whose work is modern, sleek, and austere, but is designed to bring natural light into buildings, and welcome visitors and workers. It’s quite German from the stance of being ordered, organized, and meticulously planned, but whereas Le Corbusier’s work seems to have brilliant ideas impregnated in concrete kitsch, Mies uses glass and steel to impress through order, and perhaps make humans feel as though they’re part of a functional, humanistic machine instead of some ancient aesthetic monster.

In their 2004 doc Regular or Super: Views on Mies van der Rohe [M] (TVA Films), directors Patrick Demers and Joseph Hillel took great pains through visuals and interviews to illustrate the balance Mies created between modernism and urban surroundings, because his buildings were inherently designed to be functional first, and serve humans.

The bringing together of people is essentially what Gehl’s philosophy’s all about, and while there are wholly valid arguments for living in the ‘burbs – I grew up in North York, and had a great childhood – when space is a premium, you have to plan things with some logic and foresight.

What Gehl’s philosophy fails to acknowledge is some people don’t like to live in close quarters with noisy families, loud garbage trucks, pollution, etc., and they want a chunk of organized land where they can create their own little urban world. This is not an evil thing, but as land surges up in value and homes become smaller, cheaper, uglier versions of that classic suburban ideal, maybe accepting a revised version of urban life is necessary.

Coming next: two film version of stories by author Ben Ames Williams – Leave Her to Heaven (1945) on Blu from Twilight Time, and Strange Woman (1946).

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )

Hey Bernadette! Why so serious?

Just uploaded is a review of Twilight Time’s new Blu-ray of The Song of Bernadette [M] (1943), one of several Fox titles TT’s licensed for release. The reason I’m plopping the review links here and now is because of the lengthy Editor’s Blog [rant] which follows.

I kind of get the feeling way back a year ago, when I soap boxed about the major labels sticking to reissuing their top 100 classic films, and leaving all other titles to indie labels to handle in their own special edition releases.

At the present time, we have Olive Films mining Paramount’s classic catalogue with generally decent pricing for the DVD and Blu-ray dual runs, although for my tastes the price point is a little high when the release are bare bones editions. More of an irk are shorter John Wayne films – 56 min. westerns – which really, really ought to be double-bills since the age of fans interested in his early B-westerns is increasing, and their buying power is probably lesser.

Wait a minute, I think that answers the question.

As classic film fans continue to grey (and some respire), indie labels – and major studio shingles – are pushing their price points higher because maybe there’s no assured way to get a stable return, let along enough to cover the expenses of releases in development. Olvie is unique in that none of their releases are limited; while I suspect their print runs are not a crazy 90,000, it still has to be substantial. Besides, they may opt to reissue select titles as Blu-ray MODs the way Warner Home Video’s [WHV] done with certain titles.

WHV continues to support classic films, but besides franchise like the upcoming Charlie Chan films and certain tie-ins from the back catalogue, they’re also being selective, since their Warner Archive series has done so well. We’ve seen catalogue titles go OOP and get repressed as slightly pricier MODs, and there’s the Paramount titles of which WHV is handling classics that are recognizable and have less grey audience.

The one label that’s baffling to me is KINO, because they’re pricing indie films with a limited or non-existent recognition factor close to the $30 range which seems counter-productive: What are the odds buyers with limited resources would spend $30-$35 (when you add tax) for an indie film like If I Were You?

From a Canadian’s standpoint, it’s a bit amusing that this Canada-UK co-production has to be imported for a premium price as well. More amusing is the case of I Killed My Mother / J’ai tuer ma mere, Xavier Dolan’s film which was released in Quebec (and no where else in Canada, much to the ire of allophones), lacks any English subtitles, and after 3 years, is finally available in Dolan’s home turf with English subs as an import.

KINO scored a coup because for whatever reason, either the Canadian rights holder refused to sell the film with an English subtitle track on video, or they missed the window by a mile. In Canadian home video release history, the non-release of the film to English Canadians ranks as the biggest blunder ever. This was the most in-demand Quebecois film in video stores after it ran the theatre circuit and won awards, and while consumers could see Dolan’s later films on video, his debut remained restricted because of poor decision making, or something. KINO will certainly benefit from Canadians, since we’ll be importing a home grown title August 13, albeit 3 years after its must-see fever has subsided.

In any event, what’s happening is certain films are deserving of premium pricing, whereas others maybe not so much, and labels are testing the waters to see what price point works in the current market, especially since the studios have their own pricing schemes.

WHV is augmenting some BR titles with extras, or porting over extant extras so there’s a consistency between formats. Fox is sort of doing the same, but their price point is similarly high – perhaps because they’re still not wholly confident the classic film market is worth the gamble anymore. That’s why The Comancheros and Cleopatra (1963) are out in dual limited and straight blue case editions, with the former offering a bound book for an extra $8… which frankly doesn’t seem worth the extra dollars since the text info is likely repeated within the docs and commentary tracks, and the images will only be glanced at once. I get the attractive packaging option and the extra cost of using dead trees, but again, in a market that’s struggling to maintain relevance, labels should stick with singular releases that offer value-added extras.

Indie labels paying extra licensing fees will boost the list price of a smaller / limited run, but studios charging an extra 50% for a 24-page book seems silly. Only Disney can get away with high SRPs, but they have their disappearing classics / bullshit vault which ensures all editions go on moratorium. People will buy their limited window titles, but Disney’s losing out in the end because of auctions and third-party vendors who will within a short time be able to flip their Disney duplicates online.

(There’s also irate customers unable to buy their favourite film for their kids, but the ire smolders away after 4-5 years when the title comes back, released from the vault just as Goofy and Mickey and Fanny the Rude Jellybean were running out of air and close to their death beds. The odor that stems from dead rodents and anthropomorphized whatnots is unreal, and dead jellybeans leave permanent stains because of their translucent dyes. Even stainless titanium vault plating isn’t immune.)

I guess what interests me with Fox is the obvious uncertainty they have for an industry they massively supported not that long ago with boxed sets for classic stars and franchises, a film noir line, TV series, and other older titles. Fox’ history with home video goes beyond tape – they were among the first labels to issue very expensive sets of classic films on laserdisc (Patton and Alien were loaded with superb extras), and during the laser / CED war they also supported RCA’s doomed CED format with classic and contemporary titles. They were part of the top-level studios mining their archives for titles audiences wanted.

What they’re likely looking for, as are any studios with extensive classic catalogue titles older than the 1990s, is how much of an interest is out there. WHV has its loyal Warner Archives buyers to draw from, not to mention the premium occasional buyers are willing to spend for the odd $20-$25 MOD.

Fox is still a newcomer to the MOD camp, and like MGM and Sony, they’re trying to figure out which media stream applies best to which title, (but unlike WHV, they’re MODs are bare bones, and housed in frankly banal sleeve art that utterly fails as front-line promotional material. There’s nothing attractive about the covers, and the back copy reads dull).

But in terms of straight DVD and BR releases, they’re still hesitant when it comes to classic titles, and I’d argue they’re currently watching and gauging and monitoring what gets returned this season after some gambles, especially the upcoming At Long Last Love [M] (1975) which was slated to be an exclusive Twilight Time produced special edition / Screen Archives Entertainment release, but will be available to the masses on Blu June 4th. This is a studio gambling on one of the biggest duds in musicals – and I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised by the interest.

Perhaps Fox’ shift in giving classic titles another chance beyond TV licensing and pay airings comes directly from the indie labels, and the small yet tangible activity of those limited and smaller-run physical releases which continue to appear on the shelves of online and surviving bricks & mortar stores out there.

Studios have every reason to be cautious, but they have to find a median in pricing, extras, and pressing runs, because graying collectors aren’t the cash cow they believe them to be. You want them to pass on the zeal for classic films to friends & families so they too might make a straight purchase, but if the value isn’t there, they’ll balk and stick with a digital download, and that’s not how personal collections are built.

Coming next: a pair of docs on urbanism, and Twilight Time’s radiant Blu-ray of Leave Her to Heaven plus a related review.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )

Boynton constructs her films like docu-dramas, letting the characters and events propel the plot, but she also interpolates post-event interviews where specific characters reflect on what should’ve been, where the journey took a detour, and whether anything could’ve been done differently to avoid some disastrous situations.

Big Men [M] (2013) is about a country that tries to take advantage of an economic boom – an offshore oil reserve – by using skills and investment from western companies but disallowing their total control of the natural resources. Boynton cross-cuts back and forth as Ghana slowly becomes an oil producer, and the awful situation in Nigeria where the promise of jobs, education, and a higher quality of life went out the window when oil + greed = rampant corruption.

Both films pretty much begin with characters flying into exotic regions, encountering some culture clashes, and learning how to adapt their methods to seal the deal and start work on a tough project, and there’s much to admire in the way Boynton whittles down her material into taut dramas, but the two films reach their own specific points where the momentum starts to wind down, and in Big Men, the big dramatic end point doesn’t really happen.

The film’s strengths lie in the interviews where each culture reflects on pivotal events – such as European exploitation during the colonial era, heady independence, sudden wealth, and missed opportunities – but because Ghana is still in the process of learning how to set up a system from which it will be the chief benefactor of its new-found riches, the doc just kind of slows down.

That perhaps lessens Boynton’s intended impact on audiences, but Big Men looks and sounds gorgeous on the big screen, and its director knows how to use sound & images to create dramatic beats.

I’ve uploaded the capsule review from its recent screening at Hot Docs, plus a review of her first film which is equally noteworthy for its premise.

Coming shortly :some reviews of Twilight Time releases, and if things click over the next day or two, a short-short video about running between screenings during Hot Docs – all arty-farty, of course.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )

And she will!

When Impulse Pictures / Synapse Films announced they were releasing Sexcula [M] (1974) on DVD, my first response was ‘Really? It actually exists?’

The real congnocenti of CanCon are aware of this oddball horror-hardcore porn, primarily because of its mention in Calum Vatnsdal’s mandatory (and very wryly written) book They Came from Within: A History of Canadian Horror (2004), perhaps the best chronicle of Canadian film and the reasons why we maintain a collective disdain for things produced during the tax shelter years.

Sexcula was reportedly a beneficiary of the CCAP which allowed investors to dump cash into a film production and receive between 60%-100% credit for their generous cultural donation, which means Hey! We sort of financed authentic maple porn!

We made films in a variety of genres, but horror seemed to be the one that’s saved more than a few from utter oblivion (except airings on TV because of minimum Canadian content regulations, as on Bravo and Showcase).

Not all horror titles have been rescued, but a few genuine classics have been given proper home video releases. (Rituals comes to mind primarily because, well, I just finished my last rewrite on my chapter for the book Terror of the Soul, edited by Andre Loiselle, and slated soon for publication by U of T Press .)

The story behind Sexcula is perhaps a classic case where after delivering a completed film and earning his write-off, the film’s producer really had no reason to release the film, so after no one seemed interested in handling the unique property, it was locked away, save for a print that was bought by the National Archives in Ottawa, where it rested under the same roof as the country’s other multimedia history.

Porn – just a few kilometers from the Parliament buildings. Why, if the Prime Minster really wanted to, he could drive down and see Sexcula for himself and see Debbie Collins’ overactive pelvic muscles.

Impulse’s DVD perhaps signifies the best alternative for CanCon of any ilk: if someone with a keen interest and savvy business is able to market the film to niche audiences who lie waiting in Canada, the U.S., and maybe Canadian naval bases, then let them do so, because the possibility a Canadian label will eventually get to locked-up cult titles, gems, and grandiose duds is a pipe dream.

There’s simply aren’t enough indie labels in Canada willing to handle pure tax shelter CanCon, and the one corporation that owns almost everything that used to be independent, EOne, is still sorting through a truly massive catalogue of indigenous, American, and international titles it owns or to which it has various distribution rights. A good assets management film geek is what they need (Me?), but until all those rights agreements between distributors and investors (dentists, podiatrists, construction impresarios) are addressed, the prime source for CanCon remains foreign labels dedicated to our cult, our kitsch, and our classiques. (Still waiting for the Grey Fox, though. The investors fudged a 30th anniversary release in 2012, so maybe it’s time on Blu-ray will come in 2017?)

The only logical follow-up to a film titled Sexcula would be Spermula (1976), starring Udo Kier and Dayle Haddon, but alas, that review will have to wait.

Yes, Udo made a feature-length film called Spermula.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )

Just uploaded is a quartet of video game scores from 2013 and 2012 featuring music by major feature film and TV talents.

Top-lining the quartet is Bear McCreary’s score for Defiance [M], which he’s released as a 90 minute (yes, that’s correct) digital album on his own label Sparks and Shadows. From La-La Land come Tyler Bates’ grand God of War: Ascension [M], Mark Mancina’s Sorcery [M], and Christopher Lennertz’ Starhawk [M].

The styles of each composer ensure no score sounds identical (and the subjects of each game is significantly different), but I really like Lennertz’ work the most because its more cohesive, and shows off his fine writing chops. I also love the fact game makers mandate the kind of budgets typical of Hollywood productions, and the scope of these scores is massive – especially Bates’ score.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )

Have to admit I’d never heard of John Barry’s First Love [M], but La-La Land’s production is really beautiful, especially the graphic design of the booklet and sleeve. Given this was a Paramount production, perhaps it’s in the pipeline at Olive, since they’ve been mining the studio’s catalogue on DVD and Blu-ray for the last few years.

Also from LLL is an expanded release of James Newton’s Howard’s Grand Canyon [M] – a personal favourite – and a remastered reissue of John Williams’ Jane Eyre [M], which features one of the composer’s most memorable romantic themes.

Perhaps due to the interest from a theme extract in Silva Screen’s compilation CD Titanic: The Epic Musical Voyage [M], the label sought out Howard Blake’s score for S.O.S. Titanic [M], and their elegant CD features both score tracks and period source music.

Also of note (and a little self-serving): in the May issue of Rue Morgue magazine I’ve reviews of John Williams’ The Fury, which LLL released as a 2-disc set in tandem with Twilight Time’s new Blu-ray [M]; Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders’ fun score for Warm Bodies (Red River Entertainment); and Mondo Tees’ 2-LP set of Poltergeist, which features the Rhino mastering of Jerry Goldsmith’s superb score for Tobe Hooper & Steven Spielberg’s eighties classic [M].

In addition to a review of TT’s Christine Blu-ray (which looks & sounds gorgeous), I’ve a tally of 10 top British horror scores, noting several that deserve a release after lying dormant in vaults, garages, boxes, and closets for decades. One title that was shortlisted is Ron Grainer’s Straight On Til Morning, an underrated gem of a score & film which ranks as one of Hammer’s best seventies shockers. I think I asked a producer years ago about a score release, and the response was the familiar ‘they wanted an irrational amount of money,’ which is a pity, since so few of Grainer’s work exists in complete form on CD.

The point of the RM tally was to alert fans of the good music out there, but the stealth goal on my part purpose is really simple: it’s a challenge to producers, labels, and rights holders to find common ground and release some of Britain’s best horror scores. I know there’s at least one or two bull-headed producers out there who share the same love for Ron Grainer’s Village + Children of the Damned, Humphrey Searle’s The Haunting, Paul Ferris’ Witchfinder General, Delia Derbyshre + Brian Hodgson + Dudley Simpson’s Legend of Hell House, and Guy Farley’s The Broken.

Lastly, and somewhat related: the Cole Porter – Peter Bogdanovich cult film / career assault At Long Last Love [M] has popped up on Amazon.com as a pre-order title (At Long Last Love ’75 [Blu-ray])

TT announced the release several months ago as an exclusive title, and while Fox engaged the label to handle all the production details, perhaps the studio realized the film’s pent-up potential and chose a broader release. No word on whether it’s an exclusive deal the way Warner Bros. isolated the new Funny Girl Blu-ray to Amazon.com (Funny Girl [Blu-ray]), bit after years of being written about by a select few but rarely seen by anyone after its original release (if not sparse TV airings), the mystique surrounding Bogdanovich’s misstep should soon be revealed.

Coming shortly: the last set of reviews from Hot Docs 2013 + a related DVD review.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com ( Main Site / Mobile Site )