Noise In Briefs: swashbuckler332

swashbuckler332

Jul 13, 2008 10:45

POINTS BY POINT:

SAIDAGIVE!?!
My family and I are going to see a matinée of Young Frankenstein this afternoon! I'm quite excited as we had a very good time at Spamalot, and Young Frankenstein is another favorite that we can all quote the entirety of. I have not heard the cast recording, I only hope that Mel Brooks preserved John Morris' beautiful theme from the film, even if only for a quote somewhere in the score.

LASERS SOUND BETTER ON LASER
ehowton is awesome!!! On Thursday I received the package from him consisting of the CLV edition of the of the original Star Wars trilogy. I already have the '93 release of the trilogy in CAV, which requires a side change every half hour or so (CAV had a limit of 30 minutes a side, but would allow for more functionality such as freeze frame and variable speed motion on earlier and lower-end players).

No, they don't look anywhere near as good as the DVDs, but I prefer the pre-97 versions of the films anyway, and the sound mix on these sets is much superior to any subsequent mix. The full bandwidth of linear PCM gives the sound power that Dolby Digital can only dream of; the dimensionality may be somewhat less discrete, but in Pro-Logic II it rivals a 5.1 track. Given how central John Williams' music is to my enjoyment of a Star Wars movie, the compromise in image is acceptable. And now I don't have to switch out so many discs.

THE SCARLETT PUMPERNICKEL LETTER
While finishing up the master for Gotham Avenger has meant I haven't had the chance to listen to the bulk of my Varèse Club releases (which came the same day as ehowton's package of Star Wars lasers). I did, however, listen The Scarlett Letter on Friday, and I was blown away by it. The flavor of this score is very different from most of Bernstein's work, and the use of voices is very haunting. It would actually make a very good companion piece to another score from a Roland Joffé movie, Ennio Morricone's The Mission.

Morricone also wrote a score for The Scarlett Letter that wasn't used, leading me to believe the Joffé wasn't sure what he wanted for the music. As pleasant as the score John Barry eventually contributed to the film was (I featured a cue from it on my Redwoods compilation), it is very lightweight compared to Bernstein's take, and I'm pretty sure Morricone's score would have been dramatically heavy as well. It would appear as though the serious tone of the first two scores were just too much for this movie. I'd say it was a shame, but I think that Bernstein's score is best served as far away from the film it was written for as it can get.

ROCKETEER TO THE RESCUE
I am extremely pleased that wardlejew is enjoying my compilation Excelsior!. This one seems to be shaping up into one of my more popular compilations, and it is pretty cool to see something that I put together to be inspirational actually being so to so many people.