AFOS: "Sleazy Listening" playlist

Airing tomorrow at 10am and 3pm on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel is the Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series episode "Sleazy Listening Revisited" (WEB84) from February 12-18, 2007. In WEB84, I replayed the playlist from the 2003 AFOS: The Series ep "Sleazy Listening" (WEB27), which contained the recently deceased Jerry van Rooyen's greatest piece of film music, "The Great Bank Robbery."

"What's New Pussycat? (Main Title)"

1. Tom Jones, "What's New Pussycat? (Main Title)," What's New Pussycat?, Rykodisc
2. Teo Usuelli, "Piacere Sequence" (from Alla ricerca del piacere), Beat at Cinecittà Volume 1, Crippled Dick Hot Wax!
3. 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. Isaac Hayes, "A House Full of Girls" (from Truck Turner), Double Feature: Music from the Soundtracks of Three Tough Guys & Truck Turner, Stax
5. Ennio Morricone featuring Christy, "Deep Down" (from Danger: Diabolik), Canto Morricone: The Ennio Morricone Songbook, Vol. 1, Bear Family
6. Jerry van Rooyen, "The Great Bank Robbery" (from How Short Is the Time for Love), Free Enterprise, Unforscene Music
7. Vampire Sound Incorporated, "Necronomania," Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party, Motel
8. The Bob Crewe Generation Orchestra, "The Black Queen's Beads," Barbarella, Harkit
9. Gert Wilden & Orchestra, "Girl Faces" (from Schulmädchen Report 1), Schoolgirl Report, Crippled Dick Hot Wax!
10. Gert Wilden & Orchestra, "Follow Me" (from Was Männer nicht für möglich halten), Schoolgirl Report, Crippled Dick Hot Wax!
11. Roy Budd, "Envy, Greed and Gluttony" (from The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins), Return of the Budd, Sequel
12. Roy Budd, "Lust" (from The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins), Return of the Budd, Sequel
13. Burt Bacharach, "Stripping Really Isn't Sexy, Is It?," What's New Pussycat?, Rykodisc
14. Francesco De Masi and Alessandro Alessandroni, "Tema di Londra M.1" (from Colpo Maestro al servizio di sua Maesta Britannica), Beat at Cinecittà Volume 1, Crippled Dick Hot Wax!
15. Armando Trovajoli, "Sessomatto" (from Sessomatto), Easy Tempo Vol. 1: A Cinematic Easy Listening Experience, Right Tempo
16. Armando Trovajoli, "Blazing Magnum" (from Una Magnum Special Per Toni Saitta), Beretta 70: Roaring Themes from Thrilling Italian Police Films 1971-80, Crippled Dick Hot Wax!
17. Dusty Springfield, "The Look of Love," Casino Royale, Varèse Sarabande

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The 1970 "Great Bank Robbery" instrumental is best known as the opening theme from the 1998 indie romcom Free Enterprise, which starred William Shatner as himself in a great pre-Boston Legal comedic turn. On the college radio version of A Fistful of Soundtracks, I interviewed Free Enterprise co-screenwriter Mark A. Altman about the making of the movie at the time of its release. A fan of the original Star Trek and Deep Space Nine (but very vocal about his displeasure with The Next Generation and Voyager), Altman based parts of Free Enterprise on his experiences as an editor of the Larry Flynt-owned Sci Fi Universe magazine. The part of my interview with Altman that I remember the most was when he recalled how during filming, he attempted to ask his idol about the time he worked alongside actress Angelique Pettyjohn, who played one of Kirk's many friends with benefits on Star Trek, and all Shatner could say to Altman was "Who's Angelique Pettyjohn?"

Issue #31 of Geek Monthly (the one with Anna Faris on the cover) arrived in my mailbox the other day, and because van Rooyen's music, which I'll forever associate with Free Enterprise, has been on my mind lately, I was amused to see that in his column in that issue, Altman talked at length about the 10th anniversary of Free Enterprise's release. One of the Free Enterprise anecdotes Altman recalled in his column involves a Cannes party where Shatner re-encountered his Judgment at Nuremberg co-star Maximillian Schell, and all Altman and his Free Enterprise writing partner Robert Meyer Burnett could think while they saw Shatner and Schell embrace was "Oh my God, it's Captain Kirk and Dr. Hans Reinhardt!"

Repeats of A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series air Wednesdays at 10am and 3pm.

Star Trek: Three out of five ain't bad

Throughout this year, I'm posting older material--like non-Blogspot posts from a few years ago, unpublished writing I've kept buried in my computer and transcripts of interviews from A Fistful of Soundtracks' terrestrial radio years.

In the summer of 2007, Cinematical was looking for some new bloggers. One of the posts I submitted to them was a list of things I hoped to see in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek film. Cinematical didn't hire me, and I never posted that Trek wish list--until now.

From 2007, here are "Five things that ought to be in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek flick." It's amusing to see which wishes came true (#4, #5 and #1--I was surprised by how well the movie pulled off #1) and which ones didn't (#2 and #3). I'm posting this never-before-published article word-for-word and without any revisions or changes.

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Batman Begins brought new life to a moribund movie series, as did Casino Royale. Will J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot do the same for a franchise that's been marred by illogical big-screen installments (any Next Generation flick except First Contact) and bland spinoffs (Enterprise)? As we await the Christmas 2008 release date, here's a wish list of things I'd like to see in Abrams' Trek.

1. Uniforms that actually look like uniforms. The Starfleet shirts that William Ware Theiss designed for the male officers on the original series always bugged me because they don't look like uniforms made for a futuristic space Navy. They look more like softball ringer tees. I keep expecting to see Spock run out a bunt.

The advance one-sheet hints that Abrams is retaining the gold/blue/red color scheme of the old uniforms. The Dick Tracy-colored shirts would look better if they were worn under a badass single-breasted jacket, like costumer Robert Fletcher's more cinematic-looking (and fat-friendly) Wrath of Khan uniforms.

As for the sexy miniskirts Theiss created for the female officers, I've always been a leg man, so those can stay.

2. No time travel. Trek's most overused plot gimmick doesn't need another rehashing.

3. Exploration of strange new worlds. When was the last time anybody did some exploring in these movies? Well, First Contact showed the Vulcans discovering Earth, and...that's about it.

4. Genuine chemistry between the new Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Who cares how the Enterprise's nacelles will look, fanboys? I'm more concerned about whether or not Zachary "Sylar" Quinto--the new Spock--and his two not-yet-cast co-stars will be able to sell the friendship between these characters like William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley did.

5. A great balance of action, science and character development. If the film is all action, you wind up with something like Nemesis, which tried to recapture the excitement of the starship battles in Nicholas Meyer's Trek installments but had none of the tension and wit Meyer brought to those sequences. Too much science and Treknobabble and the film turns into the tedious Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Classic Star Trek now remastered with added lens flares

This YouTube video by user "partmor" cracked me up--it's the vintage 1967 trailer for the old-school Star Trek episode "Space Seed," but what if it were filled with the lens flares that cinematographer Daniel Mindel (Enemy of the State, Mission: Impossible III) made heavy use of during J.J. Abrams' Star Trek(*)? Someone was obsessed with Holly Valance's naked "Kiss Kiss" video, All Saints' "Never Ever" video and Jay-Z's "Jigga What, Jigga Who" video while working on the new Star Trek.



[Via Geeks of Doom]

And this concludes today's edition of "Stuff That's Funny Only to Cinematography Geeks."

(*) Abrams' Trek is the best Trek feature film since 1996's First Contact. Michael Giacchino's exciting Trek score is a nice throwback to the epic sounds of '80s Trek film composers Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner after years of yawn-inducing, tinny-sounding musical wallpaper by Rick Berman's stable of composers. Giacchino's "That New Car Smell" cue (track 13 on the Varèse Sarabande score album) is straight out of those '80s Goldsmith/Horner Trek scores.