The last few weeks have seen some fine deluxe soundtrack reissues from two of our favorite film score labels - as well as another album project from the genre's greatest living luminary. La-La Land Records has aimed for the funny bone with a brilliant new expansion of Maurice Jarre's score to Top Secret! The 1984 comedy from the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams - only their second big screen effort as writer-directors after the blockbuster Airplane! four years earlier (plus the brilliant
As we approach the end of 2020, soundtrack labels are working overtime to put out some great archival score presentations. Not to be ignored this time of year is an impressive line-up from European label Quartet Records: last week they announced three incredible expanded releases and a new re-recording. Additionally, they recently issued another two expanded releases that are absolutely worth fans' time. Those recent releases are a pair of acclaimed scores from 1990: Jerry Goldsmith's work on
There's been a flurry of great catalogue activity from our friends at soundtrack label Varese Sarabande! A trio of limited editions, an exciting wide reissue of two soundtracks to a popular film series, and a quirky, cool box set tied to a popular novelist have all been announced by the label in the last few weeks. Varese recently put the latest titles in their long running limited edition CD Club on sale, right around Halloween--so it's fitting that the first is a horror score from the late,
Varese Sarabande is releasing a special limited package collecting the soundtracks to George Miller's original Mad Max trilogy on vinyl. Miller's dystopian sci-fi tales followed the rogue cop Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson, in his first breakout role) as he navigated the scorching Australian outback after an energy crisis and nuclear war has thrown society into chaos. In 1979's Mad Max, Miller's first film, Max fought a gang of motorbiking thugs led by the vicious Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) at
On April 1, Sony’s Masterworks division and Turner Classic Movies marked the cable network’s twentieth anniversary with a new 2-CD collection of vintage Hollywood movie themes. Play It Again: The Classic Sound of Hollywood continues the Masterworks/TCM series that has previously encompassed archival releases from Doris Day, Mario Lanza and Fred Astaire. Composers represented include Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, Maurice Jarre, Elmer Bernstein, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Henry Mancini, Ennio
The last few weeks have seen some great catalogue soundtracks released, including a set of LPs from a beloved Golden Age composer and a pair of heavy hitters at 20th Century-Fox. Last week saw Intrada release two score titles. The first is the world premiere of Maurice Jarre's score to Distant Thunder, from the 1988 John Lithgow-Ralph Macchio film about a Vietnam War veteran uneasily returning to his family after a decade spent in the American wilderness. Jarre's small-scale electronic ensemble
Three-time Academy Award-winning composer Maurice Jarre (1924-2009) makes his debut on the Kritzerland label with a newly-announced two-for-one release of his scores to 1981’s Taps and 1970’s The Only Game in Town. Hollywood couldn’t help but take notice of the French-born Jarre when he scored director David Lean’s 1962 epic drama Lawrence of Arabia, and the Lean/Jarre collaboration was so successful that Jarre was asked to score each of Lean’s subsequent films. He won his first Oscar for
Calling all soundtrack lovers: Intrada has been pretty busy in the last few weeks, reissuing or expanding three diverse scores and premiering another on CD. The label's most recent batch saw a pair of double-disc score sets, and the first up was James Horner's action-packed score to 1994's Clear and Present Danger. Based on the Tom Clancy novel, Clear and Present Danger finds the irascible agent Jack Ryan (played again by Harrison Ford, his second turn in the role after 1992's Patriot Games)
Here's some recent soundtrack news from the last month to keep you up to date on two of our favorite score labels: La-La Land and Intrada. La-La Land's released several archival scores in the past few weeks. First there was The Challenge, a film written by John Sayles and directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Scott Glenn and Toshirō Mifune as two unlikely partners tasked to obtain a rare sword in Japan. Jerry Goldsmith provided a fine action score for the flick; first released on
You know it's a big week for soundtracks when multiple specialty labels announce projects in the same week; currently, we have six such titles on the horizon from four labels! First off, Film Score Monthly has prepped their third-to-last soundtrack set, and it's an oft-requested killer: an expanded edition of John Barry's score to Body Heat (1981). A neo-noir classic, Body Heat - the directorial debut of legendary screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost
Intrada's latest batch of soundtrack releases should be cause for celebration, if you're not an easily offended fan. First, and most controversially, the label has announced a second pressing of the score to Alan Silvestri's score to the 1987 sci-fi/action classic Predator. One of the best soundtrack's of Silvestri's mid-to-late-'80s period of greatness (which also saw the scores to gems like Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit), Predator is a kinetic, rhythmic score that fits
While there's a month to go before La-La Land releases the expanded soundtrack to Hook, they've got three great releases available to buy today - including their 200th title! First up is a reissue of Jerry Fielding's score to the cult classic The Mechanic, with Charles Bronson as the efficient hitman who takes the son of a recent contracted kill under his wing. Save a few audio tweaks, title changes and changes in sequence, this disc features the same material from Intrada's long out-of-print