2025 September 15 • Monday

Those of you who've been agitated by the lack of Jimmy Buffett content here can breath a little more easily today. The Rancho Deluxe soundtrack album by Mr. Buffett is the 874th Soundtrack of the Week.

Mostly this is a collection of Buffett songs that are presumably in the movie, with occasional snippets of dialogue from the film. I never care for that practice and it seems especially pointless here. I haven't seen the movie and the selections aren't interesting on their own.

There isn't much that sounds like "score" though there are some instrumental tracks like "The Wrangler" that might be source music.

The instrumentals "Gothic Ranch Action", with synth strings and walking electric bass as well as jazzy electric guitar and vibes solos and "Fifteen Gears", with acoustic guitar and features for harmonica and fiddle as well as country-rock electric guitar, are probably used as score.

The Western swing of "Cattle Truckin'", with its steel guitar solo, is probably also used as score rather than source.

The rest of it is Jimmy Buffett songs and I think they're all really good, well written and well performed country songs with great vocal harmonies and excellent playing from all of the musicians, the guitarist in particular.

Maybe this movie is worth seeing. The music is definitely worth listening to.

2025 September 12 • Friday

Apparently people were not screwing around when it came to making home movies in the 1950s. Is there anything today like Peter Gowland's How To Take Better Home Movies (1956)?

Pretty much everything is covered, even underwater photography and on-screen titles.

And just as the cover promises, some real Hollywood heavyweights chime in.

That's a very thoughtful reponse from James Wong Howe, one of the greatest cinematographers of all time!

Hitchcock is less helpful, which isn't particularly surprising.

But this magazine/book has lots of good advice and guidelines and most of it probably translates pretty well to the capabilities of your cell phone. Maybe we'll try some!

2025 September 10 • Wednesday

It's still summer so it's still shark season. (It's always shark season around here.) Here's a documentary about shark movies, aptly titled Sharksploitation.

In the world of sharksploitation there's before Jaws and there's after Jaws. Jaws is celebrating its fiftieth birthday this year and it's still an admirable movie in just about every way, certainly a highlight of Steven Spielberg's career.

In the before-Jaws era, one of the most notorious movies was Samuel Fuller's Shark! a.k.a. Man-Eater. The studio re-cut the movie and Fuller hated what they did enough to ask them to take his name off it, which they refused to do.

In Sharksploitation it's asserted that this movie contains footage of a real shark attacking and killing a stuntman, that this really happened and can be seen in the moviem, the producers deciding to leave it in for ballyhoo value.

This has apparently been debunked as a hoax but it's presented as fact in Sharksploitation, so watch out for that.

Other than that, all the interviewees in the movie, whether writers or filmmakers or marine biologists or horror-film experts, are engaging and knowledgable and a pleasure to listen to.

The terrifying as well as the goofy are covered, from the ridiculous rubber shark in the 1966 Batman to the world of Sharknado and its rather extensive family tree.

When you see footage of the real thing, though, the beauty of the creatures and their environment is just awesome.

It would be interesting to see what Jaws would have been like if the young Spielberg had been able to work with the CGI technology available now, or even Jurassic Park-era. A very different movie, most likely. It's hard to imagine.

2025 September 08 • Monday

The 873rd Soundtrack of the Week is another collection of film theme interpretations. This one is Screen Mood '62 by The Sharps and Flats Orchestra.

It's a fairly dizzying selection of titles, all from the years 1961 or 1962.

That's Suzanne Pleshette on the cover because one of the numbers is "Al Di La" from the movie Lovers Must Learn.

The small screen is represented as well as the large, silver screen, by the themes from Ben Casey and Surfside 6.

No surprise to find "Moon River" or "Tonight" here. Sequencing this record could have been a challenge, I suppose, having to connect El Cid and Blue Hawaii, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Parent Trap.

The arrangements and the sound of the orchestra smooth everything over. The general feel is like Glenn Miller's orchestra playing different material and throwing in a twist once in a while.

2025 September 05 • Friday

Vinegar Syndrome releases keep arriving in the mail. They pile up on the guitar amp next to the rocking chair and I try to get to them. Among the highlights this summer was the Nick Millard Action Collection.

This set contains five low-budget, independent movies from the 1970s and '80s, presented here on two Blu-ray discs. Nick Millard was quite a character, a second-generation exploitation filmmaker whose father could be a bit of a con man at times.

Millard started out in porn and made a couple of horror films before turning his attention toward the action genre. Shooting on location is always a matter of necessity for those working with his constraints but he gets some remarkable places in there, the Millard family vacations always including some time set aside for shooting.

And before you get to the actual features, there's this promising message: "The Action Films of Nick Millard were all stored in extremely sub-standard conditions, resulting in extensive physical damage, including moisture damage. Additionally, due to Nick Millard's frequent re-cutting of his camera originals, all film elements contain extreme amounts of dirt and handling damage. Although extensive image restoration was performed, substantial dirt and damage remain. Furthermore, due to Nick Millard's unorthodox approach to filmmaking, he edited each of these title 'Single Strand,' rather than AB rolling, resulting in visible splice marks on most cuts".

First up is .357 Magnum, a loosely plotted hitman-versus-hitman story.

Assassin John Hightower is tasked with taking down a hired killer named Clay who's been on a killing spree from Angola to Hong Kong. Hightower tries to get his old teacher Steve to come with him on the job but Steve demurs, opting instead to hone Hightower's skills.

Steve changes his mind when he learns who Hightower's target is, as Steve also trained Clay.

There's a bit of a setback after that, as well as an incident that might be a reference to The Man from Laramie but also of course might not.

Certainly this is not a production with a lot of money or seasoned technicians going for it, but it's pretty fun to watch and a movie like this will at least be different from usual fare.

The score is also low-budget and efficient, getting a lot of mileage out of solo piano and also the koto.

This is the only one I've watched so far but I'm looking forward to exploring the other titles in the box!

2025 September 03 • Wednesday

W. K. Stratton's The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film is a thorough, well written and very enjoyable read.

Of course you probably have to be a fan of the movie to enjoy it, or even to pick it up in the first place. I found a remaindered copy at a grocery store in Cape Cod. I stashed it at my parents' place out there and finally read it a few years later.

The book is divided into many short chapters, making it perfect for putting down and picking up again. Generally each person involved in the production gets a chapter that goes over biographical information before covering their role in the film.

They're all really interesting, with cinematographer Lucien Ballard being one of the most so. One of the greatest of all time took a very unusual path to the camera.

It's also fascinating to read about the great Warren Oates and everyone else in the cast. I learned some startling things about William Holden that changed the way I watch him in the movie. (Naturally you have to watch the movie again right after reading this book.)

Lee Marvin is a presence in this book, starting with the author's life-changing experience watching The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and continuing with Marvin's friendship with Peckinpah and original casting choice for Pike.

Stratton also does a great job placing The Wild Bunch in relevant contexts, with the Vietnam War and assassinations creating an atmosphere of violence and fear in the United States and Hollywood itself getting shaken up by the unexpected international success of the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood movies.

I wish there were more books like this, as long as they could be written this well.

The first line is "The butchery occurred in the Quảng Ngãi Province village of Sơn Mỹ on March 16, 1968".

2025 September 01 • Monday

Stewart Copeland is famous but underrated as a composer. His music for Rumble Fish is the 872nd Soundtrack of the Week.

It starts with a song called "Don't Box Me In", which Copeland co-wrote with Stanard Ridgway, who sings the lyrics. It has a nice sort of reggae groove.

Next is "Tulsa Tango", which has a peppy energy, jangly electric guitar and a bass line that's similar to Henry Mancini's classic A Shot in the Dark theme.

"Our Mother Is Alive" starts with a solo piano part but then various other instruments start swooping and whilring in. The tempo is a brisk 3/4 and Copeland plays a cool drum part with the great Buell Neidlinger on bass.

The next cue, "Party at Someone Else's Place" alternates between kind of a slinky reggae-ish groove and a more insistent, straight up and down piano-led figure.

After this comes "Biff Gets Stomped by Rusty James", which has long and ominous synth tones as well as a trumpet feature.

The first side of the record concluces with another kind of reggae number, "Brothers on Wheels", which is really pleasant, with a hypnotic, swirling energy to it.

The second side stasrts with "West Tulsa Story", which is a driving and upbeat number with a great groove and some nice changes. It's immediately restated in a different arrangement for "Tulsa Rags". Neidlinger's bass is crucial for these two.

"Father on the Stairs" is short, sharp, percussive hits with trumpet and some other sounds, creating a spare melody and atmosphere.

A short synth reggae track, "Hostile Bridge to Benny's", follows that, after which we hear a swinging and moody piece, "Your Mother is Not Crazy". This is one of the most satisfying pieces on the record, with Copeland layering different instruments with different time feels.

Then it's back to a cheery reggae thing but again, for "Personal Midget/Cain's Ballroom", which gradually builds in energy before a grounded conclusion. Then the record ends with the sober, trumpet-driven "Motorboy's Fate".