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Author	Topic: "L.A. Confidential"

dantoris Oscar® Winner	Saw this movie mentioned in another post. Is this score worth buying? I've only seen the movie once, but can't recall much about the score, other than the fact that is was nominated for an Oscar (and should've won simply for being a Goldsmith score). Would I be disappointed if I picked it up without watching the movie again to hear it? [This message has been edited by dantoris (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 09:22 AM PT (US)

Dan Brecher Oscar® Winner	I love the score, it has a lovely retro 40s quality to it but the actual CD release does not impress me much. You may want to give it a listen in the film before buying. Dan (UK)
posted 03-28-2000 09:41 AM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	Isn't there also an expanded L.A. CONFIDENTIAL boot floating around? Don't know how much MORE music there IS in the score ... It's really not one of Goldsmith's stronger recent efforts, though I quite like that trumpet motif. Whole thing is fairly and appropriately similar to CHINATOWN.
posted 03-28-2000 10:06 AM PT (US)

Dan Brecher Oscar® Winner	Almost certain there is an expanded boot, most likely probably taken from the DVDs isolated score. Dan (again)
posted 03-28-2000 10:22 AM PT (US)

Shaun Rutherford Oscar® Winner	Just for the record, if you really like the theme from L.A. Confidential, NEVER EVER listen to On The Waterfront. Shaun
posted 03-28-2000 10:32 AM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	I've heard that same caveat about CITY HALL as well (a score I like a lot better than L.A. C.)
posted 03-28-2000 10:38 AM PT (US)

dantoris Oscar® Winner	quote: Originally posted by Dan Brecher: Almost certain there is an expanded boot, most likely probably taken from the DVDs isolated score. Dan (again) An ISO score on the DVD? Cool. I had no idea. I'll have to check it out.
posted 03-28-2000 11:55 AM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	I assumed you already knew, or I would certainly have mentioned it ... I understand that the old ISLANDS IN THE STREAM laserdisc had an isolated score. The performance is somewhat sharper than the Intrada rerecording. Is there an ISLANDS DVD, and does it, too, have the isolated score? If I remember right, CHINATOWN's LD had an isolated score as well. There must be a DVD for this one, right? And an isolated score?? Just wondering. The only DVD that I have at present is A BUG'S LIFE, which came with the IMac. Still haven't watched it. I kind of want to buy some DVDs, but watching them on the IMac seems somehow reductive. It's not a TINY screen ... well, I'll have to get used to it, I'm not laying in another outside-the-IMac player for quite some time. NP: SEVEN SAMURAI (Fumio Hayasaka) [This message has been edited by H Rocco (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 12:00 PM PT (US)

Shaun Rutherford Oscar® Winner	No Islands In The Stream DVD, and no Chinatown isolated score. Bummer, man. Bummer. "The Meet" from City Hall is almost Horner-quality rip-offs of On The Waterfront. It's ghastly! It ****es me off so much that I never listen to the score anymore. Shaun NP--City Hall
posted 03-28-2000 12:27 PM PT (US)

Andre Lux unregistered	"LA Confidential" is among Goldsmith's finests scores! The first track "Bloody Christmas" is worth the entire Cd! Works better if you watch the movie and liked it - something that isn't so dificult since the movie is almost perfect...
posted 03-28-2000 12:29 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	NP City Hall indeed ... Shaun, I genuinely laughed out loud ... Are there any good versions of ON THE WATERFRONT available? I bet I could find SOME versions at the library (if I can take it out free, then I will do so, especially if I don't quite yet know what it is) NP: CASTLE OF THE SPIDER'S WEB (Masaru Sato -- sort of atonal, but the more I listen to it the more I realize it has a lot in common with a slightly older score of his, ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN -- marvelously menacing string writing ... it's probably a bolder score than SNOWMAN, but Sato himself thought SNOWMAN was one of his first interesting scores -- he tended to underrate the slightly earlier GODZILLA'S COUNTERATTACK, but I can see why he was then so terrified of following Ifukube) I wrote this while Andre wrote and filed his. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL is a pretty great film in my estimation, but someone (wasn't it Dex?) said on another thread that it sucked. This, I cannot fathom. To each their own ... [This message has been edited by H Rocco (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 12:32 PM PT (US)

mlw Oscar® Winner	LA CONFIDENTIAL-- It's really tight and dramatically potent. Maybe too tight for soundtrack fans but then it wasn't done for them. Brings out dimension and the unspoken feelings broiling inside, without unbalancing the soundmix. Some fanboyish critiques bitch about the difference between Chinatown's intricate posttonal modernisms vs LA Confidential's howitzer percussion hits, but both approaches accomplish the same thing in ways appropriate to the films differences: CHinatown was intricate filligree subtleties, LA Confidential is brutal whupass. The sophistication of idea and application is there. White's little schizoid string figure is terrifying-- what other composer would capture that exact feel of rage and concomitant inwardness? The Victor shares a similar key structure with L. Bernstein's Waterfront piece exhuming that perfect 1950s male aggro texture that clinches the time and place in a tight gesture in keeping with the postmod retro tack of the whole film. You want to argue about it? What's so special about Bernstein's Waterfront theme to begin with, especially considering it's not an unusual stack of chords in American music? Just one more white guy appropriating the blues. Goldsmith's take is notated differently and is a sleek way of keying into a specific archetype of Americana, exactly what that movie demanded, and anyway shares structural similarities with half the "big themes" he wrote last decade. Check Mulan. [This message has been edited by mlw (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 12:54 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	Characteristically well put, Ware-daimyo.
posted 03-28-2000 01:02 PM PT (US)

Jeron Oscar® Winner	I have a copy of the original recording from Islands in the Stream. The sound is slightly muffled (takes the edge off of it, makes it sound very soft, though the volume is not affected). This of course only makes for a more nostalgic listen. If anyone is interested, e-mail me. Jeron
posted 03-28-2000 01:23 PM PT (US)

joan hue Oscar® Winner	Don't cha just love the way mlw writes? Sometimes I have to throw out my Webster's Dictionary and dig up my "Applepated Dictionary" just to figure out what he is saying, but I love it. (Now if he'd just TYPE a little more slowly, I'm sure I'd comprehend on the first read. ) Best parts of L.A. Confidential besides the score? R. Crowe's muscular, young John Wayneish body language and the light/life slowly diminishing from Spacey's eyes when he dies.
posted 03-28-2000 02:37 PM PT (US)

MWRuger Oscar® Winner	Joan, you are dead on about Kevin Spacy! (Padron the pun) That was the one moment that surprised me even though I have read James Ellroy's novels and knew that Dudley was no damn good. But I also enjoyed White's over the top response to the rape. That bit with the chair...(Gulp) don't ever want to get that guy mad at me!
posted 03-28-2000 06:26 PM PT (US)

Shaun Rutherford Oscar® Winner	The REALLY scary thing about the chair bit is that Crowe was just "improvising". The actor in the chair "didn't look right", Crowe later said in a court transcript. Kidding, of course. He has a violent temper in real life, too. mlw, not to argue with you, but the first SIX notes of "The Victor" are the same six notes from On The Waterfront. Jerry goes off in another direction, of course (good, but WHY SYNTH DRUMS at the end?!?!?!?!?), but the first six notes are identical. Shaun NP---Aliens (what an original score! You guys should check this Horner guy out! He's the most talented guy out there!)
posted 03-28-2000 07:36 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	Shaun ... who is James Horner? Is he any good and does he have an agent? (I'm looking for work, you see.) Joan and co ... the three moments that'll always stick with me from L.A. CONFIDENTIAL: "That IS Lana Turner" -- followed by the guys' helpless chuckles in the car outside (Lana was played by the lovely and underregarded Brenda Bakke); and then James Cromwell's last words to Danny DeVito: "Hush hush ... " Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ... Russell Crowe's bottled-up-rottweiler performance was a knockout ... it really WAS scary to consider what was going to happen once he found out ... well, you know (there's even more of the same in the novel). NP: MAJIN STRIKES AGAIN (not to be confused with MAJIN ENRAGED) (Akira Ifukube) (directed by Kazuo Mori) (he made a Kurosawa script you know, it was called 300 MILES BEHIND ENEMY LINES -- filmed decades after Kurosawa actually finished and submitted the thing) (now that I think of it, Mori directed TWO Kurosawa scripts, but I can't remember the other title right now -- but he is the only director other than Kurosawa himself to film more than ONE Kurosawa screenplay.) [This message has been edited by H Rocco (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 07:57 PM PT (US)

Scott Oscar® Winner	I'm really not into Jazz and Blues, but LA Confidential is an awesome score. Bloody Christmas is pure power and emotion. Scott
posted 03-28-2000 08:11 PM PT (US)

Shaun Rutherford Oscar® Winner	Yeah, this Horner chap is really great, and the cool thing about him is that he hasn't been influenced by Goldsmith because he's never heard anything by him! That's a first in the filmmusic world! Rocco, I'm glad you mentioned Brenda Bakke. I was just staring at her on the bakke of the Hot Shots! Part Deux video box. I used to call her Annette II. Anyway.... ....about to put in this score called Capricorn One. Can't wait to hear it! I'm still on a big Aliens high (this was SCREWED at the Oscars in '86!), but I'll give this one a listen. Hope it's good. Shaun
posted 03-28-2000 08:16 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Oscar® Winner	God, I hope so too, pal. Look forward to meeting you in Detroit ... is this Goldsmith fellow any good? I'm only going to the June concert because everybody else is and I don't want to feel left out like I always did on the playground ... none of them even HEARD of Shinichiro Ikebe, Jose Nieto or EVEN Francesco DeMasi ... what'm I gonna talk about, the Mets? (Actually I was quite the Mets fan in my youth, but have switched to the Yankees -- just a better team. I was just as happy it WASN'T a Mets-Yankees showdown last season, I wouldn't have known who to root for.) NP: EARTH DESTRUCTION DIRECTIVE: GODZILLA VS. GIGAN (Akira Ifukube) (just popped it in for no reason, it was near the top of the pile ... I'm in no particular mood tonight. It's all stock music anyway. So why'd I buy it? For the stuff from BOSS OF THE UNDERWORLD, mainly.)
posted 03-28-2000 08:25 PM PT (US)

Shaun Rutherford Oscar® Winner	Rocco, Not a huge baseball fan anymore (too much politics), but I DID know who you were referring to. Hey, and why don't you have an email address? Shaun
posted 03-28-2000 08:51 PM PT (US)

SBD Oscar® Winner	The music is good but, in all honesty, "The Victor" is worth the price of the CD. NP - The Abyss ("The Psuedopod" ends, onto "The Fight")
posted 03-29-2000 06:15 AM PT (US)

PeterK FishChip	http://www.moviemusic.com/comments.asp?id=laconfidential-score Is this guy MISS THE POINT? Chinatown motifs? I wish people could hear.
posted 04-03-2002 11:55 AM PT (US)

HAL 2000 Oscar® Winner	Yea, a review by anonymous. What kind of name is anonymous?
posted 04-03-2002 12:48 PM PT (US)

Shaun Rutherford Oscar® Winner	Well, he does re-use some Chinatown stuff, as well as On The Waterfront. The album isn't the best presentation of the original moments in the score. Damn composers and their odd use of unoriginal boring cues in their otherwise excellent scores. Shaun
posted 04-03-2002 03:29 PM PT (US)

SCimmerian Oscar® Winner	Rocco the best version of On the Waterfront is the 1962 NY Philharmonic recording conducted by Lenny Bernstein, its on Sony with The Dances from West Side Story and the Candide Overture.
posted 04-03-2002 06:14 PM PT (US)

Norman McCay Oscar® Winner	Speaking of "On the Waterfront," is there a complete score floating somewhere? I have been dying for it ever since I heard the piece that plays when Terry and Edie finally find Charley dead in the alley. Now that was some GOOD stuff.
posted 04-04-2002 06:38 PM PT (US)

jonathan_little Oscar® Winner	I can't say I'm in love with this movie or score, but it's worth more than 1/2 a star at least. This guy probably feels every Hans Zimmer and Jimmy Horner composition is a masterpiece. Oh well, we all MISS THE POINT (some more than others) at one point or another in our lives.
posted 04-05-2002 06:23 PM PT (US)

HadrianD Oscar® Winner	quote: Originally posted by jonathan_little: I can't say I'm in love with this movie or score, but it's worth more than 1/2 a star at least. This guy probably feels every Hans Zimmer and Jimmy Horner composition is a masterpiece. Oh well, we all MISS THE POINT (some more than others) at one point or another in our lives. Hey! I take offense to that. I happen to be a big Zimmer fan, (not Jimmy fan) but I do think L.A. Confidential, though very good on it's own, doesn't bode well when compared to his previous classic. Also, there weren't that much score in the movie anyway. The Varese album gave us pretty much the best that the score has to offer, if not everything Goldsmith wrote.
posted 04-05-2002 08:06 PM PT (US)

Graham Watt Oscar® Winner	dantoris, if you get L.A. CONFIDENTIAL let us know what you think. I got it a while back, and, coincidentaly, watched ON THE WATERFRONT on telly the same day. I was quite amazed at the similarities, and don't believe it's just because it's two white boys doing blues. But I don't mind the borrowings, and here they're minimal anyway. But I was very disappointed in general. Goldsmith certainly goes for the jugular with all those energetic percussion hits and frenzied strings, however I feel that it's pretty unimaginative on the whole, and not very interesting under the surface. And there's a bum note at 1:28 into Track 4! It's REALLY noticeable, and wonder why on earth they didn't record it again.
posted 04-07-2002 01:57 PM PT (US)

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