Showing posts with label The Thing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Thing. Show all posts

Thursday, 20 October 2011

Occupy anti-Halloween conservatism with A Fistful of Soundtracks' "Buckets of Score"

Cleanup on Aisle 666.
Do you have a conservative neighbor or two who are part of the anti-Halloween camp and are trying to recruit people to their cause? On October 31, show those opponents of Halloween how much you feel about their hatred of fun by paying them a visit and then taking out your phone and blasting A Fistful of Soundtracks' "Buckets of Score" block in their faces.

From 5pm to 11pm on Halloween, AFOS will be streaming for the second Halloween in a row original music written for the horror, thriller and paranormal genres. The playlist--which is full of Goblin tracks, cues from Elmer Bernstein's out-of-print score to Ghostbusters and original music from either non-glittery vampire flicks (The Omega Man, From Dusk Till Dawn) or supernatural genre shows (Buffy, Angel)--will be joined this year by selections from Alan Howarth and Larry Hopkins' new re-recording of the mostly synthesized cues Ennio Morricone and John Carpenter separately composed for the 1982 version of The Thing.

Howarth, who collaborated with the filmmaker/composer on the scores to such classic Carpenter flicks as Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China and They Live, recreated with Hopkins the tracks from the long-out-of-print Thing soundtrack album (with some help from the Digital Orchestra Toolbox) and re-sequenced them so that they're in the chronological order of the 1982 film. The re-recording is being released by the record label wing of BuySoundtrax (a site I once had such a lousy mail-order experience with--and I'm relieved to see I'm not alone--that every time I receive an e-mail from BuySoundtrax, I angrily delete it without reading it).

Julia Roberts in a jolly moment from Eat Pray Love
(Photo source: Alex Pardee)
Also added to "Buckets of Score" this year are selections from Steven Price and Basement Jaxx's terrific, if-Carpenter-were-a-dubstepper score to the recent inner city-vs.-outer space thriller Attack the Block, a film that's now on Blu-ray (I disagree with the opinion that Attack the Block loses much of its entertainment value on the small screen and is a less interesting film if you don't watch it with an amped-up crowd in the theater--I saw Attack the Block in an empty theater and still enjoyed it).

"If you like your beats on the monstrous side, you've come to the right place," wrote Attack the Block writer/director Joe Cornish in the Attack the Block soundtrack liner notes. "We wanted the Attack the Block score to do the things that film scores used to do. To be as exciting and escapist as a John Williams adventure, and as gritty and percussive as the great John Carpenter's electronic scores."

Price and the Jaxx duo's score lives up to Cornish's intentions. As the hoodies in Attack the Block would say, believe it, bruv.

Friday, 4 September 2009

Show me your taglines: My favorite movie poster slogans

Shaun of the Dead poster
In a world where movie taglines are corny or tepid, sometimes there are taglines that are genuinely witty and clever.

Fox just launched an eye-catching "Snakes on a cane" teaser promotion for House--it's as cryptic as ABC's "What did you see?" springtime promos for John Cho's FlashForward--and the IMDb Hit List recently linked to a blog post about the greatest bits of poster or trailer copy. Both items got me thinking about which taglines are good ones (and aren't just reiterations of lines from the movie, like the Dark Knight teaser campaign's "Why so serious?" or the original Dawn of the Dead's "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth").

Michael Aushenker, who e-interviewed me for his Cartoon Flophouse blog, used to be a tagline writer. He came up with Eve's Bayou's tagline: "The secrets that hold us together can also tear us apart."

In no particular order, here are my favorites.

This Is Spinal Tap's Aussie poster
This Is Spinal Tap: "Spinal Tap... does for sex, drugs and rock n' roll what Sound of Music did for hills."

Southern Comfort: "It's the land of hospitality... unless you don't belong there."

Back to the Future: "He was never in time for his classes... He wasn't in time for his dinner... Then one day... he wasn't in his time at all."

Shaun of the Dead: "This September aim for the head."

You're probably wondering why I'm posting the Planet Terror main title shot of Rose McGowan up against the stripper pole instead of the 'You might feel a little prick' advance poster with Marley Shelton. It's because Shelton, with her smeared mascara and a hypodermic needle in hand, looks too heroin chic-y on the poster. Heroin chic: never attractive.
Planet Terror teaser campaign: "You might feel a little prick."

The War of the Roses: "Once in a lifetime comes a motion picture that makes you feel like falling in love all over again. This is not that movie."

Wet Hot American Summer: "It was the last day of summer. It was the first day of the third week in August."

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay's teaser poster
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay teaser campaign: "What would NPH do?"

Alien vs. Predator: "Whoever wins... we lose." A great tagline doesn't always lure me to the movie, especially one with Paul W.S. Anderson's name on it. That's why I still haven't seen AVP.

The Thing (1982): "Man is the warmest place to hide."

'If you're going to hire Machete to kill the bad guy, you'd better make damn sure the bad guy isn't you!'
Here's a bonus favorite tagline, from the fake Machete trailer that precedes Planet Terror: "But they soon realized they just fucked with the wrong Mexican!"

Monday, 29 June 2009

"The Best of Jimmy J. Aquino on Twitter," Part 2

Caddyshack--if James Wong Howe were the cinematographer
My compilation of tweets from my Twitter page that have been replied to (or retweeted) the most continues.

Previously on A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Blog: Part 1.

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I've posted my five favorite closing lines from movies on @LivingSocial. I'll post them in my next several tweets.
4:26 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines from movies: 5. "God damn you all to hell!" (Planet of the Apes)
4:28 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines from movies: 4. "Why don't we just wait here for a little while... see what happens..." (The Thing)
4:30 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines from movies: 3. "Maybe it was Utah." (Raising Arizona)
4:32 AM Apr 21st from web

Fave ending lines: 2. "You bastard!" "Yes, sir. In my case, an accident of birth. But you, sir, you're a self-made man." (The Professionals)
4:35 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines from movies: 1. "Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid!" (Caddyshack)
4:37 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines I didn't post on my @LivingSocial list: "Shut up and deal." (The Apartment)
4:40 AM Apr 21st from web

Other fave ending lines: "Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." (Sunset Blvd.) Another great last line from a Billy Wilder film.
4:42 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "...a warning: that all glory is fleeting." (Patton)
4:44 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite last lines: "Hey Blond! You know what you are? Just a dirty son of a..." (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly)
4:46 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "I think I'll have a drink." (The Untouchables)
4:48 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "I never said, 'Thank you.'" "And you'll never have to." (Batman Begins)
4:50 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "I was cured alright." (A Clockwork Orange)
4:52 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "This life came so close to never happening." (25th Hour)
4:54 AM Apr 21st from web

Last favorite closing line before I go to bed (yeah, I sleep so late): "I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative." (Iron Man)
4:57 AM Apr 21st from web

I know nothing about Twilight. I don't know the characters' names, like the lead guy, whom I assume is Hemo the Emo Vampire.
4:28 PM Apr 22nd from web

From Nov.: A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS: THE BLOG: Film version of '70s cartoon show #StarTrek doesn't look promising: http://tinyurl.com/63eon5
11:55 AM Apr 24th from web

To be continued.