Batman: Mask of the Phantasm score to get expanded reissue from La-La Land

Dammit, soundtrack labels, you need to stop releasing so many terrific score albums. My depleted-by-the-recession savings account can't take it.

I caught the following exciting bit of soundtrack news on the FSM Board:

La La Land will start taking orders on the following CDs next Tuesday, March 24 at 12 noon PST for the following titles:

BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM - score by Shirley Walker. This is the first release in our new line of EXPANDED ARCHIVAL EDITIONS. This cd features the complete score along with a few bonus tracks. It is limited to 3000 units. Retail Price: $19.98

And while we're at it, can we also get a Mask of the Phantasm special edition DVD with a remastered picture and a Batload of extras, like an Alan Burnett/Bruce Timm/Eric Radomski/Andrea Romano commentrak and the 1993 Mask of the Phantasm HBO First Look special that's currently on YouTube? Batman & Robin got better treatment on DVD for crying out loud.

Related posts:
"Batman: The Animated Series soundtrack: A Walker to remember"
"Five favorite expanded score albums or box sets of 2008"

About a Pinoy (Part 2)

Previously: Part 1.

Note: This is the second half of a bio I wrote about myself for my user profile at a Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology creators' wiki on Wetpaint.com. I wrote this list a few weeks before I saw The Dark Knight, which would have wound up on the list had I seen the movie beforehand. Watchmen wouldn't have made the list though. I have mixed feelings about that film.(*)

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5 FAVORITE SCREEN ADAPTATIONS OF SUPERHERO COMICS


1. Batman: The Animated Series

Highlights: The revamped origins for Mr. Freeze and Two-Face, the early conflict between Batman and the police, the spectacular animation and Shirley Walker score during "Feat of Clay, Part 2," the Gray Ghost, "Harley and Ivy," Batman's hatred of It's a Wonderful Life, Kevin Conroy's performances in "Robin's Reckoning, Part 1," "Perchance to Dream" and "I Am the Night," the "death" of Batgirl, the Dark Knight Returns segment (and Joel Schumacher-bashing) in "Legends of the Dark Knight."

Worst moments: "I've Got Batman in My Basement," most of the episodes that were animated by AKOM (the worst of the many overseas studios that collaboed with Warner Bros. on B:TAS), Nightwing's mullet.

2. Batman Begins

Highlights: Wally Pfister's awesome cinematography, the realization during the Iceland-posing-as-Tibet sequences that this Batman wasn't going to be stagebound like the other films, Christian Bale's acting during the "party's over" speech, the excellent supporting cast, Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow's minimal dialogue, the lack of puns, "Do I look like a cop?!"

Worst moments: Why another love interest? Batman/Bruce has fuckbuddies, not soulmates. His one true love is his work.

3. Iron Man

Highlights: Robert Downey Jr.'s ad-libs, the Altman-esque dialogue, the performances by everyone in the cast, the character interplay, the evolution of the armor, Pepper saving Tony rather than the other way around, the final line before the closing credits.

Worst moments: Yinsen is essentially a rehash of the Magic Negro, despite a good performance by Shaun Toub.


4. Justice League Unlimited

Highlights: The Cadmus arc, the sight of Batman trying to buy a cup of joe inside a coffeehouse to stay awake, the Justice Lords, the jabs at Bill O'Reilly, Green Arrow's evolution from skeptical outsider to team booster/conscience, the guest shots by Joss Whedon alumni, the Question's secret love for teenybopper music, the Ultimen, the sight of Wonder Woman tucking the Atom into her cleavage, the Superman/Captain Marvel battle, the writers' clever way of getting Michael Rosenbaum to temporarily play his own character from Smallville.

Worst moments: The Batman Beyond retcon, the mostly forgettable pre-Unlimited first season, the wonky CGI in the opening titles during the pre-Unlimited seasons, the absence of a B:TAS-style full orchestra.

5. Spider-Man 2

Highlights: Ock's hospital massacre, the fact that Peter has a crappy apartment, the J. Jonah Jameson scenes, the "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" montage, the el train sequence, Tobey Maguire doesn't cry too much in this one.

Worst moments: The Ock character was better fleshed out in Michael Chabon's early draft before it was script-doctored.

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(*) During the sequence in which Dan Dreiberg gets a visit from the beans-craving Rorschach in his kitchen, the IMAX theater where I saw Watchmen experienced technical problems, and the projectionist had to stop running the film for about 15 minutes. The audience went apeshit, but they calmed down when the theater staff apologized and announced that they would offer re-admit passes to everyone at the end of the Watchmen screening. Luckily, the 15-minute interruption didn't ruin my enjoyment of the film.

Here are the things I love about Zack Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' anti-superhero comic: the brilliant opening title sequence--the lesbian twist on the "V-J Day in Times Square" photo was the coolest and funniest part--and Jackie Earle Haley's fierce performance as the crazed Rorschach. I also think the film's modified climax works better than the rather screwy psychic squid master plan in the comic.


But the film has pacing problems--it feels rushed, resulting in a film that plays like a two-hour-and-40-minute theatrical cut of a 12-hour network TV miniseries. For instance, you don't get enough of a sense of the impact of Veidt's actions, which Gibbons hauntingly captured in the final chapter of the comic. (Will the extended cut that Snyder has planned for DVD and Blu-ray rectify the pacing problems?) I also don't like the wonky CGI for Veidt's genetically engineered lynx Bubastis and some of the hackneyed music choices, like "Ride of the Valkyries" during Dr. Manhattan's attack on the Vietcong. The lack of Elvis Costello on the film's soundtrack--the comic quoted Costello's "The Comedians"--kind of bums me out.

I like what AICN's Alexandra DuPont says about the Laurie Juspeczyk character. DuPont always thought of Laurie as "Karen Allen feisty--you could see how she was the sort of fiery woman who would attract powerful men despite her '80s-coke-queen exterior." Had Allen been a couple of decades younger, she would have been a better Laurie/Silk Spectre than Malin Akerman, who's too young to be playing a world-weary ex-"costumed adventurer." Also, I would have preferred Heroes' Jack Coleman as Dan/Nite Owl--he's the right age for Dan, plus Hollywood ought to hire Coleman, the best actor on Heroes, more often. But Patrick Wilson did a fine job and was more subtle than I expected as the washed-up, nerdy Dan.

God, I let this footnote go on too long. The end is nigh.

Batman: The Animated Series soundtrack: A Walker to remember

As a fan of Batman: The Animated Series, I've waited 15 years for the score cues from the groundbreaking show to be released on an album. Now the wait is finally over, thanks to La-La Land Records' Batman: The Animated Series score compilation, which the label released as a limited edition two-CD set on Tuesday (a week after Warner Bros. Records double-dipped the Dark Knight soundtrack with additional score cues). I'll be adding some of the music from La-La Land's release to rotation on A Fistful of Soundtracks' "Assorted Fistful" block.

Modeled in tone after Tim Burton's somber-looking, dark-humored Batman films but much more faithful to the comics, Bruce Timm's B:TAS was the first American superhero cartoon show that felt cinematic. B:TAS writer/producer Paul Dini, who scripted the landmark, Emmy-winning Mr. Freeze revamp "Heart of Ice," says in the soundtrack liner notes that the show's crew constructed each episode like a mini-movie.

The B:TAS crew must have heard Peter Bogdanovich's anecdotes about how Samuel Fuller mentored him during the making of the low-budget 1968 thriller Targets ("Never think about limitations! Only think about what you want!") because like Fuller, they clearly didn't let a TV budget stop them from doing what they wanted. They brought a cinematic approach to everything, from the way they paced the dialogue--B:TAS' minimal and terse dialogue was different from other superhero cartoons, especially the '90s Marvel shows, like Saban's X-Men and Marvel Films Animation's Spider-Man, which had nonstop, hurriedly delivered, Speed Racer-ish dialogue--to the original score music. Unlike past superhero cartoons, B:TAS didn't recycle the same four or five score cues or repurpose creaky old library music. Shirley Walker and her team of B:TAS composers, which included Lolita Ritmanis and Michael McCuistion, composed an original score for every ep and used a full orchestra at a time when most other animated action shows relied on chintzy-sounding, cost-saving synthesizer music.

Danny Elfman's B:TAS main title theme, a reworking of his own brooding and dashing-sounding main theme from the Batman movies, set the tone for the show's "dark swashbuckler" sound. Walker, who conducted Elfman's 1989 Batman score and worked for him as an orchestrator, wrote a new eight-note theme for the Batman character that sounds equally thrilling and kickass. It eventually supplanted Elfman's theme in the opening titles when Warner Bros. Animation made B:TAS into a feature film (Batman: Mask of the Phantasm) and then brought the show back to the airwaves under a new title, The Adventures of Batman & Robin.

Walker and her composers crafted a different motif for each villain. Mr. Freeze was accompanied by a mournful waltz (which can be heard during the 14-minute "Gotham City Overture," track 1 on the first disc), Two-Face was represented by an eerie soprano recorder melody ("Harvey's Nightmare/Dent's Soap Box" and "Bruce Wayne's Nightmare/Two-Face Remembers"), and the Penguin received a lumbering brass theme to match his bluster ("Birds of a Feather").

The Joker is such a beloved adversary that Walker gave him not just one but two motifs, a carnival-style melody and a secondary "Fanfare for Rocky"-style crime spree theme that was used only during the "Last Laugh" ep. The liner notes refer to the Joker's "Last Laugh" crime spree theme as "a hip-hop jazz theme," but it doesn't really sound like hip-hop. It's a middle-aged white person's idea of what they think a hip-hop beat sounds like. As an FSM Board poster says, it's more rock/funk than hip-hop. Still, Walker's "Last Laugh" theme is a lot of fun, and like all the other cues, I'm jazzed to finally have it on disc.

After a solid film and TV score career that saw her alternating between the Timmverse and James Wong/Glen Morgan productions (Space: Above and Beyond, Final Destination), Walker died in 2006 and didn't live to see her B:TAS material get the kind of release that La-La Land has devoted to it. Though this release is loaded with over two hours of music, it's missing Walker's memorable Catwoman theme from "The Cat and the Claw, Part I," the first B:TAS ep that ever aired, Carl Johnson's lively score from the excellent "Beware the Gray Ghost" ep with special guest voice Adam West, and McCuistion's Lawrence of Arabia-style epic score from the "Demon's Quest" two-parter, which gives me hope about a Volume 2 from La-La Land.

The final track on the La-La Land album is a fitting tribute to Walker, in which she gets to finally speak, via an archival recording of her explaining her eight-note Batman theme and playing it in different variations on the piano. The subtle differences between each variation--like when Walker alternates between a somberly played second half of the theme and a more uplifting second half--are incredible. They show how much care was put into the music and the show itself.