Tip-Top Quotables: "No one should ever be allowed to say there is no history of racial tension here," plus a few other great lines this week

My favorite monthly section in old Source magazine issues was "Hip-Hop Quotables," in which the Source editors printed out their favorite new rap verse of the month, from the first bar to the last. "Tip-Top Quotables," which I've named after that Source section, is a collection of my favorite quotes of the week from anywhere, whether it's a recent TV show or a new rap verse. "TTQ" won't appear on this blog every week. It'll appear whenever the fuck I feel like it.

* "Much as I scoffed at the very notion of a good MacGruber movie, I'd probably put it at the very top of SNL adaptations. At a minimum, it's the one SNL-to-screen adaptation to take a mostly one-joke sketch idea (e.g. 'It's Pat' or 'The Roxbury Guys') and successfully expand and reconfigure it for the screen. And while I'm here, I'll echo the praise for [Will] Forte's performance, which is committed and fearlessly self-deprecating. After all the things he does in this movie—the loud back-to-back sex scenes, the celery stick, the 'just tell me what you want me to fuck' scene—he can probably bid farewell to any Al Franken-like political aspirations he might have had."--Scott Tobias, The Dissolve, "The '80s ambience, jury-rigged gags, and dumb bravado of MacGruber"

* "Every good spoof needs a straight man. Airplane! had Leslie Nielsen's Dr. Rumack, who never cracked even as he pulled eggs out of a sick woman's mouth. Blazing Saddles had Gene Wilder's Waco Kid, who didn't bat an eye at outlaws punching horses in the face. [Powers] Boothe's unflappable Col. Faith is a sturdy presence throughout MacGruber, but the movie's true straight man is [Jorma] Taccone, who shoots MacGruber as if it were a legitimately badass balls-to-the-wall action spectacular. Most modern spoofs, shot on the cheap by hacks, look like garbage. MacGruber looks good enough to stand beside (or, in some cases, ahead of) its inspirations. No matter how broad Forte gets—and at one point, he's waddling through an action scene naked, with a celery stalk hanging out of his ass—Taccone never shoots him like he's in on the joke. There are many deadpan actors; Taccone is the rare deadpan director."--Matt Singer, The Dissolve, "From box-office bomb to cult favorite in the making: Classic MacGruber"

(NOTE: The Harold Faltermeyer-esque score cue from the "celery stalk hanging out of MacGruber's ass" scene starts at 2:00 of "MacGruber's Suite" by MacGruber score composer Matthew Compton. Don't miss the profane hidden track that starts at 5:30.)

* "There was no main title... and I didn't make a theme for [the end credits] either because I always wanted to leave on whatever tone the outgoing scene had. So there was a different end-title piece of music each time. It's one of the most important chunks of musical real estate because it's a chance to sum up your musical story, but there's no picture, there's no dialogue. It's not competing with any other sound. It's a great spot to showcase the music. So, the end titles became my favorite spot. But I also used it as a place to do something that was unexpected. One track is called 'Falling off a Bicycle,' and another one is called 'Goodnight Nurse Elkins.' Those started out as one-of-a-kind pieces. I hadn't written anything like that for the rest of the show. So, I threw my hardest musical curveballs for the end credits."--Cliff Martinez, discussing with TVGuide.com the electronic score music he wrote for the first season of The Knick



* "Composers were close, and often attended each other's recording sessions. One such day, Elmer and his friends were listening to one of their peers record a score with a strikingly memorable theme. They snuck a few musicians to a smaller studio, and recorded a jazz combo version of this composer's theme, arranging it from memory. That night, when they all got together socially, they played their tape, telling their mark it was the radio. Shocked to hear a small combo playing his own theme, the panicked composer turned white and asked what the music was. Elmer and his friends told him it was a hit song that had been on the radio for weeks. The poor composer thought he had accidentally ripped off a popular song, and momentarily contemplated the task of rewriting his entire score! Elmer and his fellow pranksters laughed, and poured him a drink."--Outlander composer Bear McCreary, recalling an elaborate prank that his mentor Elmer Bernstein told him he used to pull on other film composers

* "Even though that theme was used on The Next Generation, I associate it with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was like the coming of Jesus Christ to me. The score is super thematic, it's deep, it employs many modern sounds. Despite the fact that Goldsmith was traditional, he was always trying to find ways to be with the times that were, so he'd bring in the blaster beam, that thing that was the new thing and some of his efforts had dated themselves, like in the '80s we used some of those electronics, but Star Trek remains timeless. That Blaster Beam thing, a lot of the water phone sounds they use and so forth. you combine that beautiful sweeping version of that theme over the most beautiful thing ever created by man— the Enterprise— and it's just complete, absolute orgasm."--X-Men: Days of Future Past composer John Ottman on the one film score he'd take with him to a desert island



* "The heart of the film is that the Guardians are all adrift in their universes, emotionally and spatially lost. So, it's appropriate that the film starts on a song that croons, 'Nothin's a matter with your head, baby, find it/ Come on and find it/ Hell, with it, baby, 'cause you're fine and you're mine.' It's a mission statement as much as a stylistic choice, a ballad of inclusion in a cold universe. It's also Star-Lord's best way of seeking out maternal advice while lost in space; the song's inquiry of 'Don't you feel right, baby?' allows Star-Lord to converse with a woman that he's lost, one who he rejected right before her passing in a fit of childish sadness. The film is, among about 50 other things, the chronicle of Star-Lord's struggle to accept that he was just afraid and not a bad person."--Dominick Mayer, Consequence of Sound, "How Guardians of the Galaxy Topped the Charts"

* "I can't believe that the only name they got right was fucking Kumail Nanjiani."--Harmontown co-host Jeff B. Davis, mocking L.A. Times TV critic Robert Lloyd's typo-ridden positive review of Harmontown, which misidentified Davis as "Jim Davis" and misspelled "podcast" as "pocast" (in fact, Davis was wrong--not even the L.A. Times critic got Nanjiani's name right either)

* "It looks more like a colonoscopy than a costume. Plus, even if you have superpowers, it's impossible to crawl along the roof while keeping your back arched and your rear high. Too many covers like that, and Spider-Woman is going to need physical therapy."--Amanda Marcotte, mocking Spider-Woman's ass-up pose in the poorly received variant cover artwork drawn by erotic comic book artist Milo Manara for the first issue of Marvel's relaunch of Spider-Woman, as part of a Slate post called "This Week in Butts"

What ever happened to Babyface?: These are among the tracks I've added to AFOS rotation this month

Babyface featuring Toni Braxton, "Give U My Heart (Upscale R&B Remix)," and Toni Braxton, "Love Shoulda Brought You Home" (both from Boomerang; now playing during "The Whitest Block Ever")

Love, Marriage & Divorce, the new album "starring" Toni Braxton and Babyface, is the first time I've paid attention to new music by either one of them in like 13 years (when Babyface tried to update his sound and recruited the Neptunes to produce "There She Goes," to be exact). The project--a collection of tunes about rocky relationships (where the fighting often leads to sex), infidelity, divorce and post-divorce reconciliation that stem from Braxton and Babyface's experiences with divorce--plays to each of their strengths as artists: Braxton's terrific contralto, especially when she sings a blistering kiss-off to an ex like Love, Marriage & Divorce's "I Wish," and Babyface's skills as a craftsman of New Jack-era, pre-Jodeci/R. Kelly R&B of the baby-making kind.

There's a scene early in Boomerang where a heavy-handed--and enthusiastic, of course, because he's played by Geoffrey "No Caffeine: Never Had It, Never Will" Holder--TV ad director presents Eddie Murphy's skirt-chasing ad exec Marcus Graham with a rough cut of a hilariously unsubtle lipstick ad, which is full of shots of supermodels wagging their tongues between pairs of cherries and sucking on bananas. Marcus' response to the footage is "I like the orange, and I like the ice cream. You gotta get rid of the cherries and lose the banana... That's a little too overt, you know? We should go a little more subtle... At least there wasn't no sausages in this one." His preference for classing things up also best sums up why most of Babyface's hits still hold up today and you can sing along to them without snickering, while the much lewder slow jams that followed Babyface's string of hits--like, for example, Silk's "Freak Me"--come off as unintentionally funny when you re-encounter them these days, mostly because their lyrics have been parodied so often by the likes of Murphy's Boomerang co-star Chris Rock ("Suck Your Big Toe"), Dave Chappelle ("Piss on You") and The Lonely Island ("Dick in a Box").

It's nice to hear Braxton and Babyface singing together again because I remember very well when I first heard them together: the duet "Give U My Heart," which Babyface produced for the Boomerang soundtrack. That album, which represented the best in mainstream R&B at the time, dominated the R&B airwaves in 1992 (you couldn't hide from the mammoth radio hit that was Boyz II Men's "End of the Road," which is the very last song featured in the film's end credits). "Give U My Heart," a New Jack tune that still holds up today, made me think, "Who's this chick with the smoky voice? She's like a younger Anita Baker. I'd like to hear more from her." And five months later, we did get to hear more from her when the Boomerang soundtrack hit us with the single "Love Shoulda Brought You Home," which, in fact, was written for Baker, but she declined to record it because she was pregnant at the time, so she suggested to Babyface and L.A. Reid that they give the song to the girl who sang its demo version: Braxton.

The release of Love, Marriage & Divorce isn't just why "Love Shoulda Brought You Home," which Angela (Halle Berry) quotes from when she breaks up with Marcus in Boomerang, and the film version of "Give U My Heart," known as the "Upscale R&B Remix," have been added to "Whitest Block Ever" rotation. It's Black History Month, and I think Boomerang is just as important and vital a film for directors and moviegoers of color as, say, the box office hit Lee Daniels' The Butler and 12 Years a Slave. In 1992, there wasn't a film like director Reginald Hudlin's Boomerang. "Part of the appeal of Boomerang for the Hudlins was that the film's subject matter--a brazen look at the battle of the sexes--had never been explored in a black film with multimillion-dollar production values," said the Philadelphia Inquirer in its 1992 profile of Hudlin and his producer brother Warrington Hudlin, who were fresh off the success of House Party.

The Hudlins' 1992 hit paved the way for the current hot streak of black, or as USA Today likes to say, "race-themed," rom-coms: Think Like a Man (soon to be followed this summer by Think Like a Man Too), The Best Man Holiday and Kevin Hart's About Last Night. That's why Boomerang, which I just saw for the very first time, is worth another look. It's also a damn good comedy (peep its ensemble cast--there are so many funny performances throughout Boomerang) and one of Murphy's best, even though, like Odie Henderson says in his post about the film, it sort of falls apart at the end. (That's due to the Hudlins rewriting the film at the last minute so that Marcus wins back Angela instead of winding up without either Angela or Jacqueline, the marketing department boss--and freak in the bed--played by Robin Givens. It was supposed to originally end with that shot of the Empire State Building lighting up behind Murphy, his future Life co-star Martin Lawrence and David Alan Grier hugging each other--again, that cast!--on the rooftop.)

(Photo source: Brian Orndorf)

Comedy movies like Boomerang get slept on simply because they're comedies, and we know how well the Oscar crowd treats comedy movies. The Butler and 12 Years a Slave garner lots of accolades (particularly for dramatizing tumultuous moments of African American history not from a white audience surrogate's point of view or the oppressor's point of view but from a black point of view) but are dismissed by some black moviegoers for being "misery porn." Armond White is a crazy old troll who hasn't written anything coherent or worth taking seriously in 13 years (the last White article I remember enjoying reading was his angry takedown of SNL's first post-9/11 episode because all the cops, firefighters and city workers Lorne Michaels brought out on-stage for Paul Simon's opening musical number were middle-aged white men), and White's heckling of 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen at the New York Film Critics Circle awards dinner was just plain rude and stupid, but I understand where he's coming from when he disses 12 Years a Slave for being "torture porn."

There's an interesting Tumblr exchange about this very subject between David Brothers from Image Comics, who's similarly said that he's had it up to here with misery porn, and another African American comics blogger, cartoonist Darryl Ayo. "I do feel like the [black-driven movies] that come across my desk tend to be what you describe--something about how much it sucks or sucked to be black, instead of just movies about people," wrote Brothers to Ayo. "The Butler, the Help, 12 Years a Slave, Django Unchained, Precious, The Blind Side, all these movies traffick [sic] in black misery. I feel like Hollywood's black people, outside of what feels like exceptions, have just a couple ideas as to what black folks are all about, and keep going to the misery well because it has a built-in triumphant narrative if you look at it right... I'm over feeling sad about being black."

Boomerang--which I watched on Netflix Instant because I was in the mood for a film with black stars that was neither somber Oscar bait nor a corny Tyler Perry film--may be a throwback to His Girl Friday, one of Hudlin's favorite movies and an influence on the Murphy film, or any one of those '50s and '60s ad exec rom-coms with Rock Hudson or Tony Randall, but one thing that keeps Boomerang remaining vital all these years is the humor based in political consciousness that Hudlin said he and his brother wanted to inject into House Party and Boomerang in that Philly Inquirer piece. Several of my favorite scenes in House Party involve awkward interactions between black folks and white authority figures, from the school principal who thinks the head bully called Kid's dead mom a garden tool to the inept cops who toss the not-exactly-thuggish Kid in jail and get their comeuppance at the end.

The Hudlins did the same thing in Boomerang, throwing in a little scene where Marcus and his friends, despite their Manhattan ad agency cachet, are racially profiled while browsing around a menswear store (Marcus' comedic handling of the racist clerk brings back a little bit of the fire Murphy brought to the scene that Roger Ebert memorably said was the moment that made Murphy a movie star, the 48 Hrs. redneck bar scene), as well as another bit where Berry says good night to Grier in fake Korean and jokes that it means "I'm sorry I shot you, but I thought you were robbing my store." It's the Hudlins' way of saying, "Sure, this is the same opulent and insular ad agency world from those Rock Hudson and Tony Randall rom-coms, but because our characters are black, these things that are unfortunately everyday to us--like racial profiling--are as much a part of this world as the tuxes, gowns and lavish product premiere parties." And in House Party and Boomerang, the Hudlins preferred to ridicule the racist assholes who keep these problems alive instead of building Oscar-bait dramas around these problems or speechifying about them, an approach I'd like to see more often from filmmakers of color. It's laughing to keep from crying (hey, that's the title of a Tyler Perry play).



Another thing that's made Boomerang age well is the ensemble, and unlike some other Murphy films in that pre-family-movie period of his career (particularly 1994's Beverly Hills Cop III, where, according to Bronson Pinchot, Murphy was so disengaged with the lame material that John Landis told him, "Just rest, Eddie, and I'll do the scene with Bronson," and he shot Pinchot's scenes with Murphy without Murphy), you can tell Murphy enjoyed being there because of the cast he was surrounded with. During one of the business meeting scenes, he looks like he's about to break character and corpse when the ponytail on Grace Jones' hat hits him in the face, and he looks like he's about to do the same thing too when John Witherspoon explains why "you got to coordinate" in a quotable scene Ludacris once referenced. In a later scene where Angela tries to cheer up a depressed Marcus by bringing him along to a kids' art class she teaches, the interplay between Murphy and the kids appears to be ad-libbed, and his amusement over interacting with those child actors brings to mind how much fun he clearly had watching Pinchot hilariously ad-lib in the first Beverly Hills Cop.





Everyone in that Boomerang cast gets a chance to shine, even bit players like the actor who plays the butler for Eartha Kitt's Lady Eloise character, plus there are three cast members who appeared in Bond movies (Holder was in Live and Let Die, Jones showed up in A View to a Kill and Berry later starred in Die Another Day) and the two black Catwomen (Kitt and Berry). Berry would have been an okay Catwoman had the idiots behind Berry's Catwoman fiasco adapted Ed Brubaker's Catwoman comics instead of inserting all that Patience Phillips/Egyptian superpowers shit. On the other hand, her romantic rival Givens would have been a great Catwoman. Peep how Givens dominates her sex scenes with Murphy. It's very Selina Kyle.

That willingness to take a brief break from the heroism of Reggie Hammond and Axel Foley to play such an emasculated character (who, at one point in one of his sex scenes with Givens, starts sucking his thumb) and win back women who hated the misogyny of Raw and wanted more of Murphy's Coming to America rom-com side--plus hitching his wagons to Black New Wave filmmakers--were good career moves for Murphy. Early '90s "Hammer Time in her shoe" line aside, Boomerang stands the test of time, thanks to the Hudlins, the cast they assembled ("I remember talking to one of the producers at the time and saying, 'Ten years from now, people won't believe we had all these people in the same cast,'" recalled Hudlin to Blackfilm) and a soundtrack that still slaps.

(Photo source: Big Media Vandalism)

March Madness March of the Day archive

The "Fruit of Islam" sequence from Malcolm X

Friday, March 2, 2012: Intro
Monday, March 5, 2012: "The Plot" from Mission: Impossible by Lalo Schifrin
Tuesday, March 6, 2012: "The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)" from The Empire Strikes Back by John Williams
Wednesday, March 7, 2012: "Main Title" from The Great Escape by Elmer Bernstein
Thursday, March 8, 2012: "Space March" from You Only Live Twice by John Barry
Friday, March 9, 2012: "Prelude to War" from Battlestar Galactica by Bear McCreary
Monday, March 12, 2012: "Washington Ending & Raiders March" from Raiders of the Lost Ark by John Williams
Tuesday, March 13, 2012: "Fruit of Islam" from Malcolm X by Terence Blanchard
Wednesday, March 14, 2012: "Main Title" from Batman by Danny Elfman
Thursday, March 15, 2012: "Stripes March" by Elmer Bernstein
Friday, March 16, 2012: "Monster Battle March (Main Title)" from Invasion of the Astro-Monster by Akira Ifukube
Monday, March 19, 2012: "Baraat" from Monsoon Wedding by Mychael Danna
Tuesday, March 20, 2012: "Prelude and Main Title" from Superman: The Movie by John Williams
Wednesday, March 21, 2012: "March of the Beggars" from Duck, You Sucker by Ennio Morricone
Thursday, March 22, 2012: "Attack" from Patton by Jerry Goldsmith
Friday, March 23, 2012: "Blame Canada" from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut by Trey Parker and Marc Shaiman
Monday, March 26, 2012: "Captain America March" from Captain America: The First Avenger by Alan Silvestri
Tuesday, March 27, 2012: "Main Title" from Spartacus by Alex North
Wednesday, March 28, 2012: "Main Title" from Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Jerry Goldsmith
Thursday, March 29, 2012: "Theme from Human Target" by Bear McCreary
Friday, March 30, 2012: "1941 End Credits" by John Williams

March Madness March of the Day: "Theme from Human Target" by Bear McCreary

"Bear McCreary's Christopher Chance theme is as important to that character as the Raiders March is to Indiana Jones, the Imperial March to Darth Vader, or Jerry Goldsmith's 'It's A Long Road' theme for the Rambo character," said a Human Target fan in an online petition where he called for Fox to bring back Jonathan E. Steinberg and the Walking Dead scorer as the showrunner/composer duo on Human Target during its second and unsurprisingly final season.

Although it bore little resemblance to the terrific and psychologically complex Vertigo master-of-disguise comic it was based on, the much more straightforward TV version of Human Target, particularly in its first and best season, was an enjoyable action drama in the vein of Burn Notice and Leverage. But it was far more globally minded than the confined-to-Miami Burn Notice (shot on location in Miami) and the confined-to-Boston Leverage (shot in Portland, Oregon, which poses as Boston and other cities, much like how Human Target's Vancouver homebase was disguised--a la the comic book version of Chance--as San Francisco and other locales). So in the music department, Steinberg, who once said his globetrotting and martial arts-heavy version of Human Target was built out of the DNA of the Star Wars, Star Trek and Indiana Jones films he grew up watching, encouraged McCreary to think big and epic.

"The real thrill of scoring Human Target comes from the unprecedented creative freedom I’ve been given to create the kind of sweeping, thematic and adventurous score largely absent from both the small and large screen in recent years. And while the heart of the score is old school, its [sic] not a throwback or a parody," wrote McCreary in his blog post about working on Human Target's pilot episode. "My goal was to create a continuation of classic orchestral scores, not a regurgitation of them."

McCreary's score music, from the 33-second main title march that trumpeted Chance's heroics to the themes he wrote for each love interest or villain, sounded superb. It was reminiscent of the dashing-sounding work of the late Shirley Walker, whom McCreary idolizes, and her staff of composers on Batman: The Animated Series, and it was accomplished on an amazingly large scale, despite a limited network TV budget (snowy Vancouver as not-exactly-snowy SF... again?!). Human Target's first season featured music performed by a 60-piece orchestra or larger, like in the series highlight "Christopher Chance," both the last episode before Steinberg and McCreary's exit and the last good episode (other than a Steinberg-penned second-season ep that reunited Mark Valley's eccentric and remorseful assassin-turned-bodyguard with Lennie James' unrepentant thug Baptiste, his ally-turned-nemesis-turned-ally).

One thing I enjoyed about the first-season Human Target opening title sequence, which evoked Human Target's comic book roots and was produced by the highly esteemed Imaginary Forces title design studio of Mad Men fame and directed by Karin Fong, was how it was animated and edited to the rhythms of McCreary's classy and cinematic-sounding march.

"This perfect timing between music and images was achieved because I actually wrote the music first, months in advance, and delivered it to the animators as a guideline," wrote McCreary at the beginning of his Human Target stint. "This combination of imagery and ballsy orchestral music make [sic] a bold statement, that this series is going to be something special. Chance is not your typical action hero and his music is not your typical electronica-inspired TV scoring. The title promises that you are about to watch a movie."



The ballsy orchestral sound lasted only one season. This was due to Human Target becoming a victim of showrunner musical chairs, one of many aspects of the TV industry I'll never fully understand. Tim Jones did decent work as the original score composer for one of Human Target producer McG's other action shows, the more comedic and soapy Chuck, but when Jones replaced McCreary on Human Target, his efforts paled in comparison to McCreary's. Jones' much less epic Chuck sound was wrong for Human Target, as was the whole Chuck-ification of Valley's show that was spearheaded by Steinberg's replacement, Chuck veteran Matt Miller, in Human Target's second season (why do the words "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" come to mind?).

In Human Target's second-season opening titles, Jones' theme briefly references McCreary's Chance theme at the beginning, but it morphs into this strange and unengaging beast that doesn't match the movements of the mostly unchanged opening title graphics. It's emblematic of Jones' less epic approach, which was the opposite of what McCreary said he wanted to achieve with his music for Chance.

Jones' theme is so out-of-place in the opening titles that "Human Touch" by Rick Springfield--who starred as Chance in an earlier and much more short-lived TV incarnation of Human Target--would have been a better replacement.

March Madness March of the Day: "Prelude to War" from Battlestar Galactica by Bear McCreary

A key word in composer Bear McCreary's approach to his original score music on Battlestar Galactica, a gritty and adult take on the '70s human-vs.-robot space opera of the same name, was minimalism. Frequent Galactica episode director Michael Rymer said that he and the show's crew wanted to reinvent "the language of the space opera," so musically, in Galactica's first couple of seasons, McCreary spoke this language through a smaller-than-usual orchestra, sparse strings, taiko drums, gamelans and Middle Eastern chants.

"It was based in reaction to Star Wars and Star Trek, the trumpet bombast that we associate with space operas," said McCreary to TV critic Alan Sepinwall in 2008. "[The producers of the series] told me they wanted no themes, and this is probably because in their minds a theme is a French horn playing Luke Skywalker's theme as he stares at the twin sunset."

Executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick ended up ditching their "no themes" rule and McCreary proceeded to write themes for each character (or character relationship, like the theme that represents the bond between Commander Bill Adama and President Roslin or the Celtic motif for Bill and his son Lee--the Adamas are apparently Irish Latinos, like Martin Sheen). But the composer continued to keep it minimalist during moments where most other composers would opt for bombast, like the memorable "Prelude to War" theme from the second season's nail-biting mid-season cliffhanger (the Galactica and the Pegasus point their nukes at each other).

If you listen closely to "Prelude to War," most of it consists of only strings, a duduk and percussion. Yet McCreary somehow managed to raise our adrenaline with just those elements.

And McCreary did it again with "Prelude to War" in the video below, this time performing the march with just a piano.



"Prelude to War" is also the title of a ballet where McCreary rearranged Galactica themes like "Prelude to War" and "Diaspora Oratorio" for choreographer Ricardo Fernando and the dancers of the Theaterhagen in Hagen, Germany. McCreary detailed the ballet's world premiere on his blog in 2009. (The most interesting part of McCreary's chronicle of the ballet briefly mentions that NBCUniversal placed restrictions on what McCreary was allowed to use from Galactica in his work, which brings to mind how 16 years before, the same corporation claimed certain parts of David Letterman's departing talk show as their "intellectual property." Notice how the dancers aren't dressed like Viper pilots or Cylons.) The "Prelude to War" theme gets the ballet treatment from 0:48 to 2:33 in the footage below.



UPDATE: McCreary himself brought to my attention the ultimate version of "Prelude to War."



All the other "March Madness March of the Day" posts from this week:
"Space March" from You Only Live Twice by John Barry
"Main Title" from The Great Escape by Elmer Bernstein
"The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)" from The Empire Strikes Back by John Williams
"The Plot" from Mission: Impossible by Lalo Schifrin

John Barry (1933-2011)

My favorite element of the 007 movies--besides the women--is the score music. John Barry, who died earlier this morning at the age of 77, wrote 11 of those 007 scores and made them so enjoyable and listenable outside the context of those movies. It's hard to listen to Barry's rousing and cool On Her Majesty's Secret Service main title theme without going up to a mirror and kneeling and pretending to aim a gun--just like what Danny once did on Hustle when he rehearsed a heist to the tune of Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme blaring from a stereo.

I'm sure Barry would have rather been remembered for more than just Bond, so I'll mention that my two favorite non-Bond pieces of score music by Barry are the entire score from 1965's The Knack... And How to Get It and the theme from the Roger Moore/Tony Curtis buddy detective show The Persuaders!



"Another of the great composers has left us," tweeted Bear McCreary, who's currently scoring NBC's The Cape. "I'm cranking up The Black Hole in your honor."

Besides The Black Hole (an example of great opening title theme, schizophrenic and uneven movie--when I was a kid, I thought the Black Hole coloring book was more fun), I'm also fond of Barry's themes from The Ipcress File, The Lion in Winter, Midnight Cowboy and Game of Death.

Barry also appeared on-screen as orchestra conductors in a couple of movies he scored. He cameoed in the 1968 Michael Caine heist flick Deadfall, which Fox Movie Channel aired last week, and The Living Daylights, his final 007 project (the above photo is from his Living Daylights cameo). Barry's musical output dried up in the late '90s (his last screen credit was the 2001 WWII codebreaking thriller Enigma), but British musicians kept alive his work by sampling some of his film themes. Mono sampled an Ipcress File cue in 1996's "Life in Mono," Fatboy Slim crafted a memorable hook out of the guitar riffs of Barry's first major film theme, the 007-esque Beat Girl theme from 1960, in 1998's ubiquitous "Rockafeller Skank," and Robbie Williams introduced the You Only Live Twice theme to a new generation in 1998's "Millennium" (seven years later, another of Barry's Bond themes got a similar introduction to a new generation when Kanye West sampled "Diamonds Are Forever" in "Diamonds from Sierra Leone").

Vanity Fair's intriguing profile of Barry from two years ago offers great insight into what made Barry tick and why everyone from his Out of Africa boss Sydney Pollack to Michael Caine thought of him as a man with the Midas touch, especially when it came to music.

A Fistful of Soundtracks' "Assorted Fistful" sets its sights on Bear McCreary's Human Target soundtrack

Former Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary's beautifully crafted score cues for Human Target were a highlight of the first season of the Mark Valley series, an enjoyable Burn Notice-like throwback to '80s action shows despite co-star Jackie Earle Haley's weekly overuse of the word "dude" and the fact that Human Target bears little resemblance to the angsty, not-so-lighthearted Vertigo comic book that inspired it.

Most first-season Human Target episodes featured music performed by a 60-piece orchestra (McCreary upped it to 94 for the "Christopher Chance" season finale that guest-starred Armand Assante, Amy Acker and Lee Majors as a predecessor to Valley's title hero, an assassin-turned-bodyguard). This made McCreary's orchestra the largest group of musicians assembled for a TV series in years, a huge leap from the 30-piece orchestra McCreary often conducted on Galactica, the 29-to-34-piece orchestra Shirley Walker and her team of composers led during another made-for-TV DC Comics adaptation, Batman: The Animated Series, and the 37-piece one Michael Giacchino assembled for Lost.

"At the first production meeting we had, even before the pilot, I said we must have an orchestra," said Human Target's first-season showrunner Jonathan E. Steinberg in the press release for this month's Human Target soundtrack release. "This show is about an action hero, it's built out of the DNA of the movies I grew up on, Star Wars and Raiders and Star Trek. Those movies don't work without that orchestra."

Human Target, which debuted on Fox as a mid-season replacement last January, will return to the Fox lineup in mid-November (the season premiere was originally scheduled to air earlier this month--that's why the soundtrack release was slated for October--but the network postponed the premiere). However, Steinberg and McCreary didn't return for the second season. Matthew Miller, a writer/producer from Chuck, replaced Steinberg as showrunner, brought along Chuck composer Tim Jones and plans to insert into Human Target more Chuck-style "needle drops" (slang for existing songs), to the delight of a Human Target fan who said in HitFix.com's comments section that "I absolutely hate needle drops. I also love Bear McCreary's music. Human Target in its first season was a great callback to the silly shows of my childhood--The Fall Guy, The A-Team, etc. I don't like Chuck, and I don't like any of these proposed changes. I won't be tuning in for Season 2."

On his blog, McCreary explained his exit by saying "the series is now under new creative leadership, and as a result I have not been asked to return... We are likely to hear a very different musical approach to Human Target season 2, but I hope and trust the series will remain a fun adventure."


McCreary's departure is a disappointing development for fans of the show's Emmy-nominated first-season music like myself, but luckily, McCreary, who's currently busy juggling AMC's The Walking Dead and the Syfy shows Caprica and Eureka, has assembled a whopper of a Human Target soundtrack release. WaterTower Music's digital release of the Human Target soundtrack consists of 160 minutes of McCreary's music from the show, while La-La Land's physical version of the soundtrack on October 19 will contain even more music and encompass three discs.


I've added my favorite tracks from the Human Target album to daily "Assorted Fistful" rotation on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel. During one of these standout tracks, "The New Christopher Chance" from last season's cliffhanger, you can hear what Steinberg had in mind when he said his version of Human Target was built out of the DNA of Star Wars and Raiders. "The New Christopher Chance" contains "Katherine's Theme," a romantic motif McCreary wrote for Acker's character. The sweeping theme brings to mind both Han and Leia's Empire Strikes Back love theme and "Marion's Theme" from Raiders.

Tune into A Fistful of Soundtracks to get your Human Target music fix while you wait another few weeks for Jackie Earle Haley to come back and abuse the word "dude."

There's old friends and new friends and even a Bear: Grading this fall's new TV themes

The TV theme isn't quite dead yet. The endangered art form is finding refuge in scripted cable shows like Bored to Death and nighttime network cartoons like Seth MacFarlane's shows, where opening title sequences aren't limited to five seconds, unlike almost all other prime-time network shows (according to film music scholar Jon Burlingame, many showrunners have downsized title sequences because the five networks are desperate to keep viewers from changing the channel and are ordering showrunners to keep things fast-paced).

On the Fistful of Soundtracks channel, I stream a few TV themes, but my tastes lean more towards the longer instrumental themes (Cowboy Bebop, The Persuaders!) than the 30- or 60-second ones with lyrics. I don't miss the latter category, but once in a while, it's nice to see a new prime-time show open with an old-fashioned example of the latter (The Cleveland Show). Here's a rundown of five of this fall's new original themes, including Cleveland's.

Archer: The new spy spoof from Adult Swim veteran Adam Reed (Sealab 2021, Frisky Dingo) doesn't join the FX schedule until January, but I caught a sneak peek of the first episode right after the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia season premiere. I'm a sucker for spy show themes like Archer's. Aqua Teen sound designer Michael Kohler's Scott Sims' theme is like a less avant-garde take on J.G. Thirlwell's over-the-top Venture Bros. theme. (Kohler is the same guy who remixed the Superfriends theme for a classic Cartoon Network promo.) Grade: B.

Bored to Death: Jon Brion meets A Shot in the Dark-era Henry Mancini in a brassy theme written by Jason Schwartzman and series creator Jonathan Ames and performed by the Rushmore star/ex-Phantom Planet drummer and his current band Coconut Records. The lyrics are like the show's dorky P.I. hero (also named Jonathan Ames): under a slick veneer lies a not-so-slick bundle of nerves. The full version of the theme can be streamed at Entertainment Weekly. Grade: B+.

The Cleveland Show: MacFarlane's '80s fetish continues with an old-fashioned theme that's easily the best part of the show. It's reminiscent of the peppy themes from forgotten late '70s/early '80s sitcoms like Angie and House Calls. I've found myself singing along in Cleveland's nasally voice. The final version closely resembles the preview rendition performed last year by Mike Henry--Cleveland's very white portrayer--except "my happy black-guy face" is now "my happy mustached face." Grade: B+.

NCIS: Los Angeles: This spinoff-of-a-spinoff opens with a so-so and really brief Media Ventures/Remote Control Productions-style instrumental from Media Ventures vet James S. Levine, who apparently has been instructed to score the show's comic relief moments in ABC "Please Laugh Now" music mode, to borrow Alan Sepinwall's words. LL Cool J's old producer Marley Marl would have come up with a doper theme. Grade: C.

Trauma: Bear McCreary's latest opening theme isn't as memorable as his work from Battlestar Galactica, but it's an energetic, ass-whupping 7/4 opener in the style of his Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles chase cues. Too bad the rest of the low-rated Trauma, which is set in a San Francisco where all the Asians have disappeared, isn't as interesting as McCreary's theme (though Cliff Curtis is always a standout actor, and I like to check in on the show occasionally to play a game of "Spot the S.F. location I once passed by"). I like how McCreary is candid about some of the show's missteps on his blog: "They really messed with [the intro] after I delivered it. It sounds like it is almost mono now and sounds really small and wimpy. I'm hoping in the next few episodes I can re-mix it and make it sound better." That is if there will be any next few episodes. Grade: B.

Let's have some asses wigglin': AFOS August 2009 segment playlists

Starting today at 3pm, these August '09 playlists (intro'd by yours truly, of course) will air Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4am, 10am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 7am, 9am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm all through August on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel.

This summer marks several anniversaries related to some of my favorite movies or soundtracks: the 25th anniversary of both Ghostbusters and Purple Rain (an example of a movie being outshined by its soundtrack, although I always find myself keeping the channel on Purple Rain whenever it airs on TV) and the 20th anniversary of both Batman (a movie I liked more as a kid than I do now) and Do the Right Thing. So four of this month's segment playlists contain music from those four movies.

"Purify Yourself in the Waters of Lake Minnetonka":
1. Prince and the Revolution, "Computer Blue," Purple Rain, Warner Bros.
2. Prince and the Revolution, "Take Me with U," Purple Rain, Warner Bros.
3. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, "Take Me with U," Purplish Rain, SPIN Media LLC

"Imitation Spaghetti":
4. Lalo Schifrin, "Quick Draw Kelly," Kelly's Heroes, Film Score Monthly
5. Seatbelts, "Go Go Cactus Man," Cowboy Bebop: Blue, Victor
6. Alan Silvestri, "The Mexican--End Credits Medley," The Mexican, Decca/UMG Soundtracks
7. J.G. Thirlwell, "Spag," The Venture Bros.: The Music of JG Thirlwell, Williams Street

"Five Definitive Star Trek Cues":
8. Gerald Fried, "The Ritual/Ancient Battle/2nd Kroykah" (from the episode "Amok Time"), Star Trek Volume Two, GNP/Crescendo
9. Sol Kaplan, "Kirk Does It Again" (from the episode "The Doomsday Machine"), Star Trek Volume Two, GNP/Crescendo
10. Jerry Goldsmith, "Spock Walk," Star Trek: The Motion Picture: 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition, Columbia/Legacy
11. James Horner, "Battle in the Mutara Nebula," Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, GNP/Crescendo
12. Michael Giacchino, "Enterprising Young Men," Star Trek, Varèse Sarabande

"#followvarèse":
13. Elmer Bernstein, "Library & Title," Ghostbusters: Original Motion Picture Score, Varèse Sarabande
14. Patrick Doyle, "Overture" (from Much Ado About Nothing), Varèse Sarabande: A 25th Anniversary Celebration Volume Two, Varèse Sarabande
15. Royal Scottish National Orchestra, "Trailer" (from Judge Dredd), Hollywood '95, Varèse Sarabande
16. Jerry Goldsmith, "End Titles" (from The 'Burbs), Varèse Sarabande: A 25th Anniversary Celebration Volume Two, Varèse Sarabande
17. Shawn Davey, "Harry Pendel: The Tailor of Panama" (from The Tailor of Panama), Varèse Sarabande: A 25th Anniversary Celebration Volume Two, Varèse Sarabande

"Unstreamed Ghostbusters":
18. Elmer Bernstein, "We Got One!," Ghostbusters: Original Motion Picture Score, Varèse Sarabande
19. Elmer Bernstein, "We Got One! (Alternate)," Ghostbusters: Original Motion Picture Score, Varèse Sarabande

"Always Bet on Brown":
20. Billy Preston, "Slaughter" (from Slaughter), Ultimate Collection: Billy Preston, Hip-O
21. Danny Elfman, "Art's Demise/Chase/Punch Out/Viva Las Vegas," Mars Attacks!, La-La Land
22. Danny Elfman, "Final Address," Mars Attacks!, La-La Land

"Omnia Illa Et Ante Fiebant":
23. Bear McCreary, "Grand Old Lady" (from the episode "Islanded in a Stream of Stars"), Battlestar Galactica: Season 4, La-La Land
24. Bear McCreary featuring Raya Yarbrough, "Assault on the Colony" (from the episode "Daybreak"), Battlestar Galactica: Season 4, La-La Land

"1989, a Number, Another Summer":
25. Danny Elfman, "Batman to the Rescue," Batman: Original Motion Picture Score, Warner Bros.
26. Bill Lee, "Wake Up Suite," Do the Right Thing: Original Score, Columbia

Bonus track:
27. Bear McCreary, "Kara's Coordinates," Battlestar Galactica: Season 4, La-La Land

Time 4 sum aksion: AFOS June and July 2009 segment playlists

Starting today, these June and July '09 playlists (intro'd by yours truly, of course) will air Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4am, 10am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 7am, 9am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm all through the rest of June and the first half of July on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel.

The '90s action score cues block came about after I rattled off names of my favorite original cues from '90s action flicks on Facebook's LivingSocial app and Twitter and then realized all those tracks together would make for a great block on AFOS.

"Love Theme Three-Way":
1. Isaac Hayes, "Love Scene Ellie (Ellie's Love Theme)" (from Shaft), Shaft Anthology: His Big Score and More!, Film Score Monthly
2. Vangelis, "Love Theme," Blade Runner, Atlantic
3. Bernard Herrmann, "Conversation Piece," North by Northwest, Turner Classic Movies Music/Rhino Movie Music

"Adams Family Values":
4. Bear McCreary, "Cybernetic Life Form Node," Caprica, La-La Land
5. Bear McCreary, "Caprica End Credits," Caprica, La-La Land

"Favorite '90s Action Score Cues":
6. Mark Mancina, "Footchase," Original Score from the Motion Picture Bad Boys, La-La Land
7. Nick Glennie-Smith, Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams, "Hummel Gets the Rockets," The Rock, Hollywood
8. Bruce Broughton, "The Launch," Lost in Space: Original Motion Picture Score, Intrada
9. Bruce Broughton, "You're No Daisy; Finishing It," Tombstone: Complete Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Intrada
10. James Horner, "The Flying Circus," The Rocketeer, Hollywood
11. David Arnold, "White Knight," Tomorrow Never Dies: The Original Motion Picture Score, Chapter III
12. Jerry Goldsmith, "End of a Dream," Total Recall: The Deluxe Edition, Varèse Sarabande
13. Shirley Walker, "Ski Mask Vigilante (Expanded)," Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, La-La Land
14. Danny Elfman, "The Chase," Sleepy Hollow, Hollywood
15. Basil Poledouris, "Klendathu Drop," Starship Troopers, Varèse Sarabande
16. Jerry Goldsmith, "The Fire Dragon," The 13th Warrior, Varèse Sarabande
17. Jerry Goldsmith, "Red Alert," Star Trek: First Contact, GNP/Crescendo
18. Trevor Jones, "Promentory," The Last of the Mohicans, Morgan Creek
19. James Horner, "The Ride," The Mask of Zorro, Sony Classical/Sony Music Soundtrax
20. Jerry Goldsmith, "Arthur's Farewell," First Knight, Epic Soundtrax
21. Danny Elfman, "Zoom B," Mission: Impossible: Original Motion Picture Score, Point Music

"Buttercream-Frosted Murdercake Mix":
22. J.G. Thirlwell, "Assclamp!," The Venture Bros.: The Music of JG Thirlwell, Williams Street
23. J.G. Thirlwell, "Bolly," The Venture Bros.: The Music of JG Thirlwell, Williams Street

"Movement of Giacchino":
24. Michael Giacchino, "To Boldly Go," Star Trek, Varèse Sarabande
25. Michael Giacchino, "End Credits," Star Trek, Varèse Sarabande

There won't be any more new episodes of A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series. I've dumped the one-hour episodic format for the lengthier, more flexible and Scion Radio-inspired format that you see here. You'll still be able to check out past eps of AFOS: The Series Wednesdays at 10am and 3pm.

AFOS "A-to-Z April" playlist

1. American Gigolo: Giorgio Moroder, "Hello Mr. W.A.M. (Finale)," American Gigolo, Polydor
2. Battlestar Galactica: Bear McCreary, "Mandala in the Clouds" (from "Maelstrom"), Battlestar Galactica: Season 3, La-La Land
3. Confessions of a Police Captain: Riz Ortolani, "Il ricordo di Serena" (from Confessione di un commissario di polizia al procuratore della Repubblica), Easy Tempo Vol. 1: A Cinematic Easy Listening Experience, Right Tempo
4. Damage: Zbigniew Preisner, "The Last Time" (from Damage), Varèse Sarabande: A 25th Anniversary Celebration Volume Two, Varèse Sarabande
5. ER: James Newton Howard, "Theme from ER," ER, Atlantic
6. Finishing the Game: Brian Tyler, "Ready or Not," Finishing the Game, Brian Tyler
7. Game of Death: John Barry, "The Big Motorcycle Fight" (from Game of Death), Game of Death/Night Games, Silva Screen
8. The Hunchback of Soho: Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra, "The Hump" (from The Hunchback of Soho), Futuremuzik, Scamp
9. Infamy: DJ Z-Trip and Garron Chang, "Infamy Movie Theme" (from Infamy), djztrip.com
10. Justice League: The New Frontier: Kevin Manthei, "Plan to Action," Justice League: The New Frontier, La-La Land
11. The Knack...And How to Get It: John Barry, "Here Comes Nancy Now!," The Knack...And How to Get It, Rykodisc
12. Lupin the 3rd: You & the Explosion Band, "Theme from Lupin III '78," Lupin the 3rd, Pioneer
13. The Man Who Knew Too Little: Christopher Young, "The Man Who Knew Too Little," Varèse Sarabande: A 25th Anniversary Celebration Volume Two, Varèse Sarabande
14. Northern Exposure: David Schwartz, "Alaskan Nights," Northern Exposure, MCA
15. Ocean's Thirteen: David Holmes, "Snake Eyes," Ocean's Thirteen, Warner Sunset/Warner Bros.
16. The Prisoner: Ron Grainer, "Main Titles," The Prisoner [File #1], Silva Screen
17. Quantum of Solace: Four Tet, "Crawl, End Crawl," Crawl, End Crawl (from the Motion Picture Quantum of Solace), Columbia/MGM
18. Raiders of the Lost Ark: John Williams, "Airplane Fight," Raiders of the Lost Ark, DCC Compact Classics
19. Shaft in Africa: Johnny Pate, "Shaft in Africa (Addis)," Shaft in Africa, Hip-O Select/Geffen
20. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Bear McCreary, "Highway Battle" (from "Queen's Gambit"), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, La-La Land
21. The Untouchables: Ennio Morricone, "The Strength of the Righteous (Main Title)," The Untouchables, A&M
22. V for Vendetta: Dario Marianelli, "Remember Remember," V for Vendetta, Astralwerks
23. WALL·E: Thomas Newman, "Define Dancing," WALL·E, Walt Disney
24. XXX: Randy Edelman, "Prague Arrival" (from XXX), Varèse Sarabande: A 25th Anniversary Celebration, Varèse Sarabande
25. You Only Live Twice: John Barry, "Fight at Kobe Dock - Helga," You Only Live Twice, EMI/Capitol
26. Zodiac: David Shire, "Graysmith's Theme," Zodiac, Varèse Sarabande
27. John Williams, "Superfeats" (from Superman: The Movie), Superman: The Music, Film Score Monthly
28. John Carpenter and Alan Howarth, "The Siege of Justiceville," They Live: 20th Anniversary Edition, AHI
29. Maurice Jarre, "Building the Barn" (from Witness), Paramount Pictures' 90th Anniversary Memorable Scores, Sony Classical
30. The City of Prague Philharmonic, "Fanfare/'I ain't Captain Walker'" (from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome), The Essential Maurice Jarre Film Music Collection, Silva Screen
31. Shirley Manson, "Samson and Delilah," Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, La-La Land

The two-hour "A-to-Z April" block repeats Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4am, 10am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 7am, 9am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm all through April on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel.

Maurice Jarre (1924-2009)

The composer of rich and powerful scores for epics like Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Grand Prix(*), the Jesus of Nazareth miniseries and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome has died. Jarre was 84. When he accepted an honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the Berlin Film Festival in February, he was confined to a wheelchair and looked very frail.

(*) Besides the awesome racing sequences and Jarre's energetic, if a bit repetitive, score, another highlight of Grand Prix is the eye candy--Françoise Hardy and Jessica Walter. Lucille Bluth was quite a hottie back then.

Though he dabbled in the small screen (Nazareth, Shogun), Jarre told interviewer James Fitzpatrick he didn't enjoy writing TV scores because "everything is too hurried with poor sound and nobody caring about wrong notes." Monsieur Jarre, if only you were still alive because I would have liked you to meet Michael Giacchino, Bear McCreary and Jeff Richmond.

Jarre's most lasting collaborations were with David Lean (Arabia, Zhivago), Peter Weir (Witness, Dead Poets Society) and John Frankenheimer (Grand Prix, The Train). The father of New Age musician Jean Michel Jarre and Glory screenwriter Kevin Jarre told Film Score Monthly he admired Mozart and his music because "The harmony is so perfect, and the orchestration is so simple and natural. You listen to Mozart and you get a great lesson in humility. To me his music is perfect."

So were many of Jarre's film scores.

AFOS: "All This Has Happened Before" playlist

Airing this week on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel is the 2008 Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series episode "All This Has Happened Before" (WEB93), which features the most memorable season finale cues from Battlestar Galactica, as well as selections from scores to other remakes that outstripped their predecessors like Galactica has (Casino Royale, Buffy). jim.aquino.com is no longer online, as are all the pre-WEB97 playlists I posted there, so I'm reposting each playlist as each pre-WEB97 ep reairs.

1. Bear McCreary, "Passacaglia," Battlestar Galactica: Season One, La-La Land
2. David Arnold, "Blunt Instrument," Casino Royale, Sony Classical
3. David Holmes, "Boobytrapping," Ocean's Eleven, Warner Sunset/Warner Bros.
4. Christophe Beck, "Suite from 'Hush': Silent Night/First Kiss/Enter the Gentlemen/Schism," Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More, With Feeling, Rounder
5. Bear McCreary, "Prelude to War," Battlestar Galactica: Season 2, La-La Land
6. Kronos Quartet, "Heat," Heat, Warner Bros.
7. Bear McCreary, "Something Dark Is Coming," Battlestar Galactica: Season 2, La-La Land
8. Marco Beltrami, "Bible Study," 3:10 to Yuma, Lionsgate
9. Bear McCreary featuring Bt4, "All Along the Watchtower," Battlestar Galactica: Season 3, La-La Land

Repeats of A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series air Monday night at midnight, Tuesday and Thursday at 4am, 10am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm, Wednesday night at midnight, and Saturday and Sunday at 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm.

"AFOS A-Go-Go" 09/23/08-09/29/08 playlist

1. David Holmes, "Not Their Fight," Ocean's Thirteen, Warner Sunset/Warner Bros.
2. John Carpenter and Alan Howarth, "The Bank Robbery," Escape from New York, Silva Screen
3. Lalo Schifrin, "Omega Team," Spooks, Aleph
4. Carter Burwell, "How Is This Possible?," Burn After Reading, Lakeshore
5. Roy Budd, "Theme to Mr. Rose," Rebirth of the Budd, Sequel
6. Quincy Jones, "Main Title," The Hot Rock, Prophecy
7. John Morris, "Voodoo You Do/The Big Fight/The French Mistake," Blazing Saddles, La-La Land
8. George Shaw, "Carol of Death" (from Marcus), J-ok'el/Marcus, MovieScore Media
9. Bear McCreary, "Fight Night" (from the Battlestar Galactica episode "Unfinished Business"), Battlestar Galactica: Season 3, La-La Land
10. Bear McCreary, "Sheriff Carter's Theme," Eureka, La-La Land
11. Ennio Morricone, "Terrazza Vuota" (from Metti Una Sera a Cena), More Mondo Morricone, Colosseum
12. Tangerine Dream, "Love on a Real Train (Risky Business)" (from Risky Business), Rare Requests, Vol. III, Liquid 8
13. Roy Budd, "The Car Chase" (from Fear Is the Key), Buddism, Cinephile
14. Neil Patrick Harris, "Everything You Ever," Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Mutant Enemy Productions
15. Jed Whedon, "Horrible Credits," Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Mutant Enemy Productions
16. Rose Royce, "Car Wash," Car Wash, MCA

"AFOS A-Go-Go" airs every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday in September on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel.