On the road with John Williams

For the John Williams blog-a-thon, I wish I did an entire post about my favorite out-of-print Williams work, the amusing Long Goodbye score, which I've briefly mentioned on my blog before. But someone beat me to it. I don't want to write another post about Williams' pivotal role in the Star Wars or Indy franchises, so I'll bring some attention to a great unreleased score that hasn't been covered in the blog-a-thon yet.

Williams isn't my favorite film and TV composer--that would be Ennio Morricone--but from the mid-'70s to the early '80s, the American maestro was on fire and wrote terrific score after terrific score. His first score for Steven Spielberg, the 1974 tragicomedy The Sugarland Express, one of my favorite Spielberg flicks, has very little of the grandeur or bombast Williams later became known for in his collaborations with the filmmaker. The last time I saw the Spielberg road movie was also the first or second time I saw it--letterboxed on AMC in 1992, and that's the only way the film should be watched outside the theater--but after all these years, I've never forgotten Williams' understated music.

The score's primary theme is a simple harmonica melody performed by Toots Thielemans. The piece effectively captures the longing of the Poplins (the not-so-bright but sympathetic Texan fugitive couple played by Goldie Hawn and William Atherton) for their baby without being syrupy. It's especially haunting during ace cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond's glistening end credits images of Michael Sacks' young state trooper standing over the Rio Grande, saddened by the outcome of his experience with the Poplins.

The main theme has been re-recorded a few times, most notably by Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra for Sony Classical's 1991 Spielberg/Williams Collaboration album, but the full Sugarland score has never been officially released (it's been bootlegged though, with album graphic designs that look like the Poplins just discovered Photoshop). I actually don't mind its unreleased status because outside the context of the film, the minimalist and downbeat score isn't the kind of score I'd listen to a few times on disc, like Williams' scores from Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Long Goodbye and Catch Me If You Can. But within the body of the film (and accompanied by Zsigmond's stunning cinematography), it's powerful stuff.

AFOS: "The Android's Dungeon" playlist

Airing next Wednesday at 10am and 3pm on A Fistful of Soundtracks is the Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series episode "The Android's Dungeon" (WEB80) from July 17-23, 2006.

The WEB80 playlist consists of selections from scores to film adaptations of comic books or graphic novels. Several of these films actually aren't from the superhero genre, particularly Ghost World and American Splendor. Even though my print comics writing debut was in a superhero graphic novel, and I was entertained by Iron Man and its sequel (which I've jokingly referred to on Twitter as Iron 2 Man because of its weirdly arranged logo in the TV spots), I'm not really much of a fan of the superhero genre. As Matt Zoller Seitz recently noted in a Salon piece that's a great read despite Seitz's tendency to refer to superhero flicks as "comic book films" (last time I checked, comics aren't just about superheroes anymore), the superhero genre has gotten too clichéd. It's also too white right now. A few days after I posted that fans of DC's short-lived All-New Atom are worried that the company will kill off the series' surprisingly non-stereotypical Asian hero Ryan Choi, what does DC do? They bump him off, of course. Screw DC (the non-Vertigo-and-WildStorm part of the company, that is, because Vertigo and WildStorm are the only DC publishing divisions I give a shit about these days).


1. Danny Elfman, "The Batman Theme," Batman: Original Motion Picture Score, Warner Bros.
2. Shirley Walker, "Main Title," Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Reprise
3. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, "Molossus," Batman Begins, Warner Sunset/Warner Home Video
4. Eytan Mirsky, "American Splendor," Everyone's Having Fun Tonight!, M-Squared
5. David Kitay, "Theme from Ghost World," Ghost World, Shanachie
6. Danny Elfman, "Spider-Man 2 Main Title," Spider-Man 2: Original Motion Picture Score, Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax
7. John Ottman, "Main Titles," Superman Returns, Warner Sunset/Rhino
8. Thomas Newman, "Rock Island, 1931," Road to Perdition, Decca/UMG Soundtracks
9. Marco Beltrami, "Main Title," Hellboy, Varèse Sarabande
10. Robert Rodriguez, "Sin City End Titles," Sin City, Varèse Sarabande
11. Ennio Morricone featuring Christy, "Deep Down" (from Danger: Diabolik), Canto Morricone: The Ennio Morricone Songbook, Vol. 1, Bear Family
12. Dario Marianelli, "The Dominoes Fall," V for Vendetta, Astralwerks/EMI
13. John Ottman, "Suite from X2," X2, Superb/Trauma
14. James Horner, "Rocketeer to the Rescue/End Titles," The Rocketeer, Hollywood

Reruns of AFOS: The Series air Wednesdays at 10am and 3pm. To listen to the station during either of those time slots or right now, press the play icon on the blue widget below the "About me" mini-bio on this blog. I wish I included Oldboy or Akira in that 2006 playlist. Oh well.

Lost, "The End": "I don't believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape"

As someone who's watched every single episode of Lost since the still-amazing pilot and recapped the series' entire fourth season for another blog (and never got paid for writing those recaps--as Chris Rock would say, what kind of gangster shit is that?), I'm still processing the events of Lost's lukewarmly received and sometimes frustrating series finale. I wasn't expecting the finale to answer every remaining question about the series' mysterious goings-on. How could it do so in one episode, even with an extra half-hour? I just wanted a finale that gave proper farewells to the characters and brought the goods action-wise like those eps when Sayid busted out his badass breakdance fighting moves, and "The End" delivered in the character and action sequence departments. But was all that time spent in the sideways universe during the final season worth it? I don't think I'm completely satisfied with the reasoning for the sidewaysverse. That whole business with the giant cork didn't make much sense either. Bullet time:

-My favorite recurring Lost theme was the conflict between a man of science (Jack) and a man of faith (Locke). The final season resolved that conflict beautifully, with Jack finally accepting Locke's beliefs in the specialness of the island and dying the way he wanted to (which was seeing his remaining friends leave the island safely) in a pitch-perfect final image that referenced the pilot's first moment and showed how much of an influence the Watchmen comic had on Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof.

-I'm glad Ken Leung's Miles, the character who provided the above one-liner about duct tape, lived to see another day. Bloggers like angry asian man and DISGRASIAN were disappointed that their favorite pair of Lost characters, the supercouple of Jin and Sun, was offed in "The Candidate" (some have even cried racism over the demises of the Kwons and Sayid), but I think the death of Miles, the show's sole Asian American regular and one of the few APA guys in prime-time who's neither a martial arts expert nor a coonin' buffoon, would have been a bigger letdown. (Speaking of Asian stuff, spoken-word artist Bao Phi wrote a nice post earlier this season about Lost's huge Asian American following.)

-I was also jazzed to see Miles' fellow freightie Lapidus alive after the submarine debacle in "The Candidate" because Jeff Fahey, who was underused on Lost but served as great comic relief whenever he did get screen time, is a master at making something out of nothing, ever since his laconic turn as the eccentric title hero of ABC's short-lived '90s procedural The Marshal. One of the reasons why the Star Wars prequel trilogy was an epic fail was because it lacked a Han Solo-esque figure who would wittily comment on the mystical goings-on and serve as a relatable audience surrogate. I like to think the Lost creators took notice of that flaw in the prequels, so they gave us not just one Han Solo-esque foil, but four: Sawyer, Miles, Lapidus and the not-as-cynical-or-snarky Hurley.

-The sci-fi geek in me who enjoyed all the time-travel material during my favorite Lost seasons, four and five, was disappointed that neither the nuke in "The Incident" nor the island's funky science was the reason for the sidewaysverse. The afterlife angle pretty much shot down my theory that Desmond or some other character with extraordinary powers created the sidewaysverse to hide his friends in there from the homicidal Smokey. On a superficial note, Sidewaysverse Kate looked slammin' in that black miniskirt.

-So Hurley and Ben are basically Mr. Rourke and Tattoo now? I bet the new island protector begins each morning by greeting everyone else with "Smiles, everydude, smiles!"

-Since when is Shannon the love of Sayid's life? I thought he was into Nadia. Whatever, man. I'm sure the Sayid and Shannon shippers got their panties wet that night. God, I hate that term "shippers." Other terms I hate are "squee" and "bromance." All those terms should be taken out back and shot and given a burial like the one Rick Rubin gave to the word "def" when he removed "Def" from the name of his label American Records.

-Yes! Lt. Van Buren is cancer-free! Woops, wrong series finale.

Lost (2004-2010)

After watching the Lost series finale, I thought to myself, "Ooh, I bet Roman from Party Down is not a happy man right now."

I'm sure the finale pissed off viewers who are into "hard sci-fi" like Martin Starr's Roman character. As for myself, I'm still not sure what to make of the finale--so the sideways universe was essentially the Nexus from that lame seventh Star Trek movie?--but one thing's for sure: the post-finale wrap-up show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and scored by special guest bandleader Michael Giacchino was hilarious.

AFOS: "Kiss Kiss Ban Ban" playlist

Airing this Wednesday at 10am and 3pm on A Fistful of Soundtracks is the Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series episode "Kiss Kiss Ban Ban" (WEB73) from February 27-March 5, 2006.

This ep, which focuses on rejected or unused original music from soundtracks to movies like Thunderball, Ocean's Twelve and Hell Up in Harlem, got a nice mention in the RiffTrax forums in 2008. The "Kiss Kiss Ban Ban" title has double meaning. It refers to both Shirley Bassey's bizarre pronunciation of "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" in the rejected Thunderball theme "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and the banishment of these tunes from the final cut.

1. Bernard Herrmann, "Prelude (from Torn Curtain)," Alfred Hitchcock Presents...Signatures in Suspense, Hip-O
2. Los Angeles Philharmonic, "The Killing," Bernard Herrmann: The Film Scores, Sony Classical
3. The National Philharmonic Orchestra, "Main Title," Alex North's 2001, Varèse Sarabande
4. The National Philharmonic Orchestra, "Space Station Docking," Alex North's 2001, Varèse Sarabande
5. James Brown, "The Payback," Dead Presidents, Capitol
6. Shirley Bassey, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," The Best of James Bond: 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, EMI
7. Dionne Warwick, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," The Best of James Bond: 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, EMI
8. Johnny Cash, "Thunderball," The Man in Black: 1963-1969, Bear Family
9. Blondie, "For Your Eyes Only," The Hunter, Chrysalis
10. Jerry Goldsmith, "The Dig," Timeline: Music Inspired by the Film, Varèse Sarabande
11. Lalo Schifrin, "Music from the Unused Trailer," The Exorcist, Warner Home Video
12. John Barry, "Moviola," John Barry: Moviola, Epic Soundtrax
13. Jerry Fielding, "The Water Hole," Music for The Getaway: Jerry Fielding's Original Score, Film Score Monthly
14. Jerry Fielding, "Casing the Joint," Music for The Getaway: Jerry Fielding's Original Score, Film Score Monthly
15. The Smithereens, "A Girl Like You," 11, Capitol

Other than "The Payback," my favorite part of WEB73 is hearing Shirley Bassey's "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" back-to-back with Dionne Warwick's version, as if the double shot is a battle between Bassey and Warwick like that awesome moment in Dave Chappelle's Block Party when the Roots brought Jill Scott and Erykah Badu together onstage for a "Duel of the Divas Who Sang 'You Got Me.'" (Scott wrote the chorus of the 1999 Roots track and was featured on the original recording, but MCA, the Roots' label at the time, wanted a more famous artist to be part of the Things Fall Apart album's first single, so the band replaced Scott with Badu on the released version.) The duel in Block Party ends in a draw--Scott and Badu are both terrific onstage--although I prefer Scott's original "You Got Me" because in 1999, I couldn't understand some of what Badu was singing during the chorus of the Things Fall Apart version. As for which of the two versions of "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is better, it's Bassey FTW, even though like with Badu's "You Got Me," I have no idea what Bassey's singing during the chorus ("Mr. Kiss Kiss Ban Ban's not a foal"?).