recent additions

The effect of the CSS is "chibi" spines. I amuse myself. Still doesn't work in Opera.

Jerry Goldsmith et alThe Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Trevor JonesRichard III
Joel McNeelyStar Wars: Shadow of the Empire
Miklos RozsaThe Seventh Sin
Danny ElfmanRed Dragon

FSM-Style Spines

I finally got around to making spines for my CDs (my spines are easy to read and have only the needed info and their design happens to be copied from the Filmscoremonthly CDs) and so represent recent-ish purchases in an approximate way. My formatting is accomplished by crude CSS. You have to imagine them away from my narrow column formatting and instead spread across all 5.125 inches of CD jewel case spine.

Jerry GoldsmithThe Sum of All Fears
Seamus EaganThe Brothers McMullen
Danny ElfmanDick Tracy
Randy EdelmanDaylight
Danny ElfmanA Simple Plan
Bruce BroughtonFor Love or Money
Mason DaringMen with Guns
John WilliamsHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
John BarryEnigma
Isaac HayesShaft
Trevor JonesDesperate Measures
Michael NymanRavenous
Richard RobbinsRemains of the Day
Howard ShoreThe Game
James VenableThe City of Soundsville
John WilliamsA.I.
John WilliamsMinority Report
David ArnoldThe World Is Not Enough
Hugo FriedhoferThe Young Lions / This Earth is Mine
Jerry GoldsmithNemesis
John WilliamsThe Fury

Want List

Probably not complete:

Waxman - Rebecca (re-recorded)
Goldsmith - Papillon (remastered)
Williams - The Fury (remastered)
(I think I spot a trend)
Bernstein - The Story On Page One / The Reward
Goldsmith - Sand Pebbles (remastered)
Deutsch - The Maltese Falcon
Mizzy - The Night Walker
Vaughan-Williams - Scott of the Antarctic
Ottman - Trapped
Howard - Panic Room
Waxman - Sunset Boulevard

FSM Produces CDs faster Than I Can Listen

New CDs from FSM arrived today. The Prodigal and I Spy.

Mmmm. Free CD.

Thanks to Warren for The Musketeer!

Fly II

Nice and dire.

Remains of the Day?

But it's not on the shelf - and I can't recall what the CD sounds like ... maybe Ginny owns it. Ditto Howard's End.
update 20021003 It was mis-filed. Insanity not really averted at all, though. Nice to know that I wasn't crazy after all and only went mad trying to figure out where it was.

I May Have Ordered a CD; We'll See

Honestly, what are some people thinking? This "system," which is suitable for a warehouse operation in Bizarro world, has resulted in a failure rate of about 14%. Eesh. The following is my response to Amazon, which really should vet these third party policies more closely.

Hello -

The forwarded message that follows was sent as part of a transaction with a Marketplace seller. Although I may be sympathetic to their obvious shortcomings, I can't help but feel that I should worry about the safety of my order.

The inventory system described is amateurish at best. If I had been in control of the ordering of this pre-order, it's very doubtful that I would have chosen to do business with them, based on the feedback in their record.

Almost all of the negative feedback can be traced directly to their inventory practices. And isn't the Amazon name all about effective inventory management? Should Amazon be associated with a seller with this kind of haphazard system?

If I can't be assured that an item I have paid for is actually available, I don't want the non-seller to benefit (even in the form of a cancelled order) from my inconvenience. If a means to prevent this kind of seller from gaining my business without my explicit approval cannot be put in place, I will have to decline to use the pre-order system at all.

Best regards,
Kyle Beatty

------ start forwarded message ------
From: "Music Recyclery"
To: recycle@musicrecyclery.com
Subject: Thank you for your Marketplace order
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 17:22:45 -0500

Save Money - Shop at The Music Recyclery
Hello and thank you from The Music Recyclery!

This message is to confirm an order placed through Amazon.Com's Marketplace. In order to provide you with the widest selection of used CD's and more on the web, we upload the inventory from all of our ten stores 3 times a week. When you place an order, we start tracking down the items at the stores they're located at.
**Shipping usually happens the day after an order is pulled. We ship by US Media Mail. Usually this takes 4-14 business days, but sometimes can take up to 21 business days. We are sorry but we cannot guarantee an exact time of arrival.

Sometimes, because of the way this system works, an item will not be available. It could have been sold or misfiled or in transit from our distribution center, and we were unable to remove the listing in time. We will attempt to locate the missing item until the next day, when we will issue an immediate refund through Amazon payments. Please remember that this message is only a confirmation that your order has been received by us and it is being processed. This does not mean that the order has been canceled in any way. Thank you for your understanding!

We hope you are happy with what you found and would love for you to visit our zShop Storefronts at . If nothing shows up at one storefront, try the other. We move back and forth to keep our inventory constantly available while updating it as frequently as possible. You can find a huge searchable bank of thousands of titles. We deal in used CD’s, video games from all systems, VHS tapes, DVD's, and laser discs, all at incredibly low prices and with a 100% guarantee. Please stop by and check us out.
Once again, thank you very much for your order. We hope to be hearing from you again soon.

------ end forwarded message ------

Ordered a CD

Amazon pre-order actually worked! Found a cheap copy of Fly II (But see here.)

CDs Returned

I seem to be suffering from some kind of John Williams centered curse. American Journey showed up scratched and had to be returned and Williams on Williams: Classic Spielberg went missing in the mail. And then I listened to the last track of A.I. Which, if there was a God, would have gone missing or been scratched.

Found a Database That Doesn't Suck

OrangeCD catalogs CDs well. Hooray! This is about the fourth program of its type I've tried and it's the only one that didn't make me want to tear out my computer's heart with a spoon.

CDs Purchased Used

Found Sum of All Fears (Goldsmith) and Minority Report (Williams) used already. I like both scores. The premise of SoaF actually pisses me off. Perhaps it comes off as being in better taste when viewed. Terror pornography. Ick.

Impulse Purchase!

Ridiculous impulse purchase. O, buyer's regret!

Dark City (Jones)
Ravenous (Nyman)
The Powerpuff Girls: The City of Soundsville
American Journey - Winter Olympics 2002 (Williams)

Desperate Measures Already Forgotten

Brief note on Desperate Measures by Trevor Jones. I cannot remember a solitary thing about it except there was an annoying song at one point. It was mostly pretty dreary drones in the suspense style. No doubt functional. I'll listen again to see if I just failed to pick up on the point.

Neither Love Or Money Satisfactory

a brief note on Love or Money - This was a frustrating listen. The main body of the music is taken up with a trivial tune noodled on sax in the smooth "lite radio" idiom.Only a few hints of interesting orchestration kept me from taking it out of the CD player immediately. The frustration lies in that there are scattered throughout the score many isolated examples of Broughton's talent for melody. The overall effect is what might result if Bruce Broughton was hired to score your cousin's wedding reception.

CDs Purchased

Bought used:

Lover's Prayer (Joel McNeely)
Men With Guns (Mason Daring)
The Portrait of a Lady (Wojcieck Kilar)
The World Is Not Enough (David Arnold)
For Love or Money (Bruce Broughton)
Desperate Measures (Trevor Jones)

Spines Printed

Made spines for those pesky uninformative and/or illegible CDs:

Ginny Brings Back Spoils from the Hunt!

A garage sale find:
Remains of the Day (Richard Robbins)

CDs Arrive

Dogma (Howard Shore) and Gormenghast (Richard Rodney Bennett) arrived today.

Whither the Fly II?

My on-again off-again search for the Fly II (Young) was on again last night. I think it might be off again for a little while. (update But see here.)

Reordered The Game (out of stock!)

Had to re-order The Game (Shore). Also ordered, at long last, A.I.** (Williams).
* received 20020610 ** received 20020614

CD Arrives

Impulse purchase of White Man's Burden (Howard Shore) arrived today. Some merely OK songs but mostly drivel. Howard kindasorta owes me one.

CD Purchased

Picked up a used copy of Elfman's Planet of the Apes.

CDs Ordered. Madness!

The madness continues. Gormenghast* (Richard Rodney Bennett) (ordered from the UK - how exciting), The Classical Film Music of Victor Young conducted by Bill Stromberg, Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2** Meredith Willson. In the offing: John Williams - Winter Olympics, Michael Nyman - Ravenous, and Christopher Young - Hellraiser II. These are all damnably indulgent and I feel terribly guilty ordering them.
* received 20020605 ** received 20020604

CD Ordered.

The best thing about the various message boards is that I can get recommendations from people whose taste I can trust, or at least depend on not to be commonplace, thoughtless or trivial. Today, a board member at moviemusic.com suggested Doyle's Needful Things.* This movie was the Mathias Rust to my Soviet radar defenses. I don't recall ever hearing anything about this, even though I'm a reasonably enthusiastic fan of Patrick Doyle.
* received 20000531

Ginny Scores a Score at Goodwill.

I almost forgot a CD that Ginny found at Goodwill: a sealed copy of Moulin Rouge by Craig Armstrong. Who was interviewed in the recent issue of FSM.

CD Ordered

Some CD shopping blowthrough: Iron Giant - Kamen.*
* received 20000531

2002 Through May

moviemusic.com sells used disks. More weakness of wallet:*

• ExistenZ - Shore


• The Matrix - Davis


• Powaqqatsi - Glass


• X-Men - Kamen


• Field of Dreams - Horner

* received 20020528 and 20020603
I'll probably regret Field of Dreams. Horner!

An earlier order from mm was subjected to a casual winnowing poll:

"Oooh! The ways of Thunderdome are hard. Atlantis almost made it out but was cut down at the last moment. Shanghai Noon Pagemaster didn't have a chance and were just thrown in to get the crowd's blood lust started. Deep Impact and Field of Dreams ran afoul of an unfortunate prejudice of mine and were tapped in the middle of play. Grand Canyon went farther than any of the losers but just couldn't make it - maybe because of its dated sound. Sorry, you old geezer!
I present to you the newst champions of CD Buying Thunderdome!!"

• Dinosaur. Cine vouched for this which amounts to a shoo in.


• Event Horizon. Flawed but interesting.


• Mission to Mars. I have a Mars thing. Totally unfair that it beat out Atlantis, but there you go. Mars thing beats Atlantis thing minus Disney thing.


• Unbreakable. We'll see.


• Whisperers. Not the lowest underdog, but the most deserving.

And from various Amazon sellers so far in 2002:

• The Scarlet Letter - Barry


• Lake Placid - Ottman


• Incognito- Ottman


• The Greatest Story Ever Told - Newman


• Babylon 5: In The Beginning - Franke


• Hans Salter & Frank Skinner: Classic Scores of Mystery and Horror


• Dragonheart: A New Beginning - McKenzie

and of course, 2002's FSM CD's to date:

• Demetrius and the Gladiators - Waxman


• Farewell, My Lovely/Monkey Shines - Shire


• Logan's Run - Goldsmith


• Lust for Life - Rozsa


• Joy in the Morning - Herrmann


• The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing - Williams, Legrand


• The Traveling Executioner - Goldsmith


• 36 Hours - Tiomkin

Ordered CDs

Massive failure to control my buying impulse.* The lucky recipient of my desperately hard-earned dollars? Varese Sarabande.

• Die Hard - Kamen


• Joe vs the Volcano - Delerue


• Ballad of Cable Hogue - Goldsmith


• Cast a Giant Shadow - Bernstein


• The Virgin Queen - Waxman

* received 20020528

Anniversary

Bought this day 2000:

Demolition Man (Goldenthal)