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A good film too, very rarely shown.

Is his "friends" name Mirror Mirror on the Wall?

I'm going to wait until I've seen the movie before giving this another go. Thankfully, that's only twelve hours away.

That's a pretty good attitude to have.

Yes. Séance On A Wet Afternoon is a very creepy film about the kidnap and ransom of a child starring Richard Attenborough. King Rat is a prisoner of War drama also very worth a watch.

The Wrong Box is an oddity with a large cast of British stars and comedians including Peter Sellers, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, I really don't remember it very well. Deadfall is very slow though it is atmospheric and has a great John Barry score, the film also stars John Barry who conducts a performance of his Romance For Guitar and Orchestra inter-cut with scenes of Michael Caine robbing a safe.

Here's the robbery sequence from Deadfall

If only we could sticky comments.

Kirby Shelstad
Composer/Producer Demo Reel

Totally obscure promo. It appears to be mostly made up of original demo pieces. What little that might not be, doesn’t appear to be from anything on his IMDb page. It sounds like near everything is made with a computer. I worried, when I got this, it would all suck. But I think I paid $1.00 for it, so it was a gamble that wasn’t pricey.


EDIT:
I just realized there are is more than a cover printed out, there booklet notes.

"The following 4 montages are excerpted from 'Ernest Scared Stupid'..." "and "Ernest Rides Again'..."

I don't know if he means the first four cues in the Cartoon Montage or the first four montages by types. Vague.


1. Cartoon Montage
Mediocre mickey moussing cartoon demos for what I assume was ”Tiny Toons”, since two or three times I think I heard it riffing off the theme song. Nothing hear that needs to be heard again, except maybe track six, which has a faux uplifting sound with strings, timpani hits, triangle, and a trumpet that lead to a sendoff finish.


7. Epic Strings Montage
Some decent material with strings and brass. Perhaps a 1990’s western TV movie (a western score more in the lines of Barry, mind you – but don’t’ think you’re going to hear Barry here).

Track eight is the best, probably one of the best cues on the promo. An instantly recognizable theme, performed on a trumpet with strings backing. Also some woodwinds on there. There’s replay value here. (2:55)

9. Warm Strings Montage
Track nine is a short cue with strings and a mournful solo cello.

Track ten is also a nice piece with strings and woodwinds, using riffs from Yankee Doodle Dandee. I seriously doubt this was new material, but rather from some film/TV/or documentary project.

Track twelve is also another nice cue with strings (with occasional solo cello passages).

In fact, I think all these cues are from the same project because there is a reoccurring theme. It sounds like a mix of real instruments and synths.

15. Chase Drama Montage (0:11)
Skippable.

Track sixteen, however, about thirty seconds in, has some very nice slow mournful music with organ, strings and a synth church bell. It leads into track seventeen, which features more mournful solo cello work, the church bell, strings, some synths, and a trumpet kind of buzzing.

About forty seconds into track eighteen there’s some decent chase music with repeating lower octave piano, brass, fast snare.

Thirty-nine seconds into track twenty features some moody strings up and down the key strings, with some light brass and synth male vocals. It kind of falls apart into action serio-mickey moussing action material. But I think part of track twenty-one could be edited onto it to properly end the cue.

22. World Music Montage (3:31)
Eh, nothing bad but nothing remarkable. If you enjoy this kind of stuff, it’s for you.
And what kind of stuff is it? Just rhythmic hand percussion pieces, with what sounds like mostly African hand percussion instruments. It’s no Eddie Jobson “Nash Bridges”[/b] work, but it’s done properly.

The notes read:

and


Track twenty-six is probably the best. Kind of a chase piece.

28. Native Lament. (6:52)
Sounds more like a western TV movie with little budget. Reminds me of that one western episode score from ”Time Trax”, though not as interesting.

29. Freedom (4:44)
A song with some light percussion backing. It’s not bad.
Singers: “Freedom!”
Female soloist: “From fear of certain failure.”

30. Synth/Ambient Montage (2:18)
Skippable. So are the rest.

35. Rex Mundi Montage / Progressive Rock
Drum kit and an electric guitar. The horror.

Track thirty-six and thirty-seven: rock songs.


38. Jim PhotoGlo Montage (1:31)
New age-y rock with a sax’. A complete waste of time.

Jim PhotoGlo is a folk/rock musician, so I assume this is work Shelstad did for songs.

39. New Age Montage (1:47)
Professionally terrible.

The other tracks are offensive, but it’s just there, except maybe the orchestration ideas in the final track with what sounds like violins and fiddles. But it fades out (an excerpt?).

More Suzee Water Benjamin works.

43. Space Music Montage (5:35)
I thought I was going to hear science fiction music. It’s processed noise with – not, I’m not kidding – crickets chirping in the background. A solo base flute joins later. I guess you might hear this on the Hearts of Space radio program.




Please Note: Anybody wanting a copy, I can't help. I don't have access to the ability to rip and burn CD-R's any longer.

You're playing all three at the same time? Great ears, man.

I think Horner is the best, just for the pure amount of textures he works into that score.

NP : THE LOST CITY OF Z - Christopher Spelman



Really enjoyable score this, mostly gentle with some gorgeous textures.

Martijn should check out track 2 The Hunt on Spotify, it haz bagpipes

Deep Impact - James Horner. Getting back into Horner lately. Even the scores I didn't like as much I'm looking at in a new light with him gone. I used to think Deep Impact was just a slog to get through and the album is probably too long (like most of Horner's from this period) but a lot of this music is really quite beautiful.

I miss James Horner.

But there are several very good new scores...you're missing out, really.

War for the Planet of the Apes Giacchino

This is just brilliant, been getting a lot of listens from me in the last week. Since the end of last year we've had brilliant scores to this, 'Doctor Strange', 'Rogue One' and 'Spider-man', Giacchino has never been better in my opinion!