Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Jerry Goldsmith’s 1996 score to City Hall. I remember when we got it in at Varese and my hope with Goldmith is that somehow he’d written another classic score, but I’m afraid after the latter part of the 1980s he was, for me, just coasting, making a ton of money, and none of those scores, again for me, are classic Goldsmith – they tend to be overly bombastic and it only got much worse in the 2000s, where I could barely listen to him anymore. I discovered him first on The Twilight Zone although I doubt I took notice of his name – same with Thriller. But the movie where I first took notice of his name was The List of Adrian Messenger, which I loved. I thought he was a refreshing new voice in film scoring and I was right. I didn’t see Freud, The Spiral Road or Lonely Are the Brave back then – don’t know why, really – but I did love his theme from Dr. Kildare, too. After Adrian Messenger, my next Goldsmith movie was Lilies of the Field, which I liked, but then my next after that is what made him one of my favorites – The Prize. I enjoyed his scores for other movies, but none were great, I thought, that is until A Patch of Blue, a movie I loved, and I played the LP of the soundtrack 100s of times. From then on, he could do little wrong, and I saw mostly every movie he scored. His work was, in that era, breathtaking. And in the 1970s, he got even better, with many classic scores. And up through 1985, I continued to look forward to each new score. And then it began to change, with awful scores like Runaways and Rent-A-Cop and his love for synths ruined many of his scores, I thought. And then came the 1990s, where I thought a few things were okay, but most didn’t do it for me. But that was the era where young people discovered him, so his 1990s and 2000s period are their favorites. For me, they don’t hold a candle to his great work in prior decades. Earlier, I watched two motion pictures – one was Police Story 2 starring and directed by Jackie Chan. These movies don’t really stand the test of time – they’re just mostly silly and exist just for the stunts, which are incredible and mind-boggling. No major US star would be allowed to do what he did – no CGI, no wires, just him being insane and frequently going to the hospital with broken bones. His agility is breathtaking – he seems to defy gravity. Anyway, it’s enjoyable in its loopy way.
Then I watched City Hall, starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, Bridget Fonda, David Paymer, Danny Aiello, Tony Franciosa, and other fine character actors, including a brief turn by Martin Landau. It should be much better than it is – it has some fine scenes and dialogue, but the tone is so inconsistent and it’s never really compelling – the outcome is obvious from the beginning and so we just bide our time while Cusack finds everything out. There are four count them four credited writers, which leads me to believe that the original writer, who’s the one unknown in the bunch must have written a script that was then re-written or polished by three very well-known screenwriters – and all that cutting and pasting results in exactly what you’d expect – inconsistency. It’s directed competently by Harold Becker. Pacino seems to be in his own movie and no director is apparently strong enough to stop him when he veers off into over-the-top land. There’s one scene at a funeral that’s actually and unintentionally amusing for that over-the-top stuff and it makes not a lick of sense for his character. Cusack is an actor I used to like, but by the time of City Hall he was already on his way to mumbling his lines so that you need subtitles. It would get ever so much worse. Bridget Fonda’s role is just weird. I like her but this movie doesn’t give her much to do – very one note. The Goldsmith score is okay in the film, dialed down pretty low throughout. As a listening only experience, it’s repetitious and okay but not great.
Yesterday was a ME day, so that was nice. I got nine hours of sleep, got up at noon o’clock, answered a few e-mails, checked out various and sundried things on the Internet, and then rather than order in (no discounts of Mother’s Day), I just made Wacky Noodles again and they were very good – again. I never even got out of my sleeping attire, I was just a lazy loafer and then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish and watched the movies and then it was pretty much time to write these here notes, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is what I’ve been doing.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven at the latest, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll check with the publisher and see why they still haven’t fixed the Amazon thing for the hardcover, I’ll place the book order, I’ll eat something light but fun, I’ll check with the mail place to see what’s what, and then there’s Sami stuff to do, which I can’t talk about yet, and other stuff to attend to, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same and doing whatever needs doing at any given moment.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven at the latest, do whatever needs doing, check with the publisher, place a book order, eat, check with the mail place, do Sami stuff, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite scores of one Jerry Goldsmith? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to think back on all of the gold in them thar Goldsmith scores from his classic era.