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The pandemic may have cancelled live performances and moviegoing for most of 2020, but for film-music buffs, that just meant more time at home listening to their favorite music, including many releases of music never before heard outside their original cinematic contexts.

“There is still an unquenchable thirst for classic scores, both previously unreleased and reissues of scores that are expanded, re-mastered, or both,” says Matt Verboys, co-owner of L.A. label LA-La Land Records. “As technology keeps advancing, many previous releases can now get a sonic upgrade that makes the music well worth a revisit.”

The business challenges remain unchanged, however, he says: “Who holds the rights to a given score and can those rights be obtained? Do the music elements even exist and if so, can they be rounded up? Once obtained, is the audio good enough to release, or does massive restoration work need to be done?”

Perennial favorite composers Bernard Herrmann,...

Pop superstars McFly have released a special video as a Christmas present for their fans, a cover of the festive classic, ‘Walking In The Air’, available to watch now on YouTube.

‘Walking in the Air’ is a song written by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film ‘The Snowman’, that has become a firm Christmas classic [...]

The post McFly Gift Fans ‘Walking in the Air’ Cover for Christmas appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

Mike Hodges’ Flash Gordon is one of the campest and cheesiest movies ever made, so it isn’t surprising that it quickly caught on as a cult classic, and the 1980 romp retains a dedicated and loyal following to this day. Nobody watches the space opera for three-dimensional characters, an intriguing plot or any sort of substance, but fans continue to lap up the extravagant adventures and thumping soundtrack from Queen and Howard Blake.

There’ve been several attempts at remaking or rebooting Flash Gordon over the years, with Taika Waititi recently signing on to develop an animated version before eventually dropping out, but any fresh spin on the material faces an uphill battle to win over audiences. If a new project takes itself too seriously, then it could end up becoming a figure of fun for veering too far away from the template people know and love, while leaning into...

TV’s 1979 Titanic movie comes to Blu in two versions. We liked it when new but didn’t care for the cut-down theatrical version that hit DVD in 2002. Kino’s disc completes a set of various film versions of the infamous 1912 disaster, and allows us the chance for a Titanic ‘battle of the bands’ — we’ll rate them from several criteria. The filmed-in-England production has a nicely-chosen soap opera cast: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Anna Quayle, David Warner, Susan Saint James, Harry Andrews.

S.O.S. Titanic

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1979 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 102 + 144 min. / Street Date October 13, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Anna Quayle, David Warner, Timothy Spall, Susan Saint James, Harry Andrews, Ed Bishop, Jerry Hauser, Aubrey Morris, Norman Rossington, Catherine Byrne, Warren Clarke, Madge Ryan.

Cinematography: Christopher Challis

Film Editor: Rusty Coppleman

Original Music: Howard Blake

Special effects: Wally Veevers,...

Arrow jumps into the 4K Ultra HD bracket with a knockout 40th anniversary presentation of this campy, music-filled and incredibly colorful Dino De Laurentiis spectacle. The impressive package has an endless catalog of extras, plus a second Blu-ray disc with a full-length feature about the film’s one-hit-wonder star Sam J. Jones. Buyers beware — no backup Blu-ray disc of the feature is included. In every other respect, “Go! Flash! Go!”

Flash Gordon

4K Ultra HD with Hdr

Arrow Video

1980 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date August 18, 2020 / 40.26 (Amazon)

Starring: Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow, Topol, Ornella Muti, Timothy Dalton, Brian Blessed, Peter Wyngarde, Mariangela Melato, Deep Roy.

Cinematography: Gilbert Taylor

Production Designer: Danilo Donati

Film Editor: Malcolm Cooke

Original Music: Howard Blake

Written by Michael Allin & Lorenzo Semple Jr. from characters by Alex Raymond

Produced by Dino De Laurentiis

Directed by Mike Hodges

First things first: a lot...

The fine folks at StudioCanal are releasing the 1980 classic Flash Gordon on 4K later this year in a five-disc collector's edition box set. They have now released a trailer previewing the painstaking restoration coming our way, as well as revealing the contents contained within the set. This is not your standard 4K update, as it is packed with bonus features and was supervised by director Mike Hodges personally.

Flash Gordon has never looked so pristine as it does in this new trailer. The movie was scanned from the original 35mm negative to produce 4K files. The job required over 500 hours of manual restoration that included repairing serious damage. The sound was scanned from the original track negative, which also underwent repair. The movie was color graded for theatrical, home entertainment and 4K Hdr release, using previous digital releases and 35mm prints for reference. Additionally, VFX work was used to remove...

The Changeling

Blu ray

Severin Films

1980/ 1.85:1 / Street Date August 7, 2018

Starring George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas

Cinematography by John Coquillion

Directed by Peter Medak

The success of 70’s shockers like The Devils, The Exorcist and Alien – grindhouse films in big budget drag – opened the door to increasingly explicit studio fare – moviemakers were happy to accommodate and upped the ante in the bargain.

1980 alone saw the release of Sean Cunningham’s seminal slasher Friday the 13th, Ken Russell’s evolutionary freak out Altered States and, infamously, the unvarnished (and x-rated) depredations of Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust.

But it was The Shining, with its rotting ghosts, blood-soaked hallways and promise of never-ending horror that personified Reagan era fright films.

Into this heavy atmosphere ambled Peter Medak’s The Changeling, an unassuming murder mystery disguised as a ghost story. Compared to its over the top contemporaries, Medak’s film seemed...

By Doug Oswald

Two men find peace and friendship as they uncover a mystery in the Yorkshire countryside. “A Month in the Country” is one of those elegant movies about a bygone era in post Victorian England that has become enormously popular in movies such as those produced by Merchant-Ivory and in TV series like the recent “Downton Abbey.” The exploration of class distinctions and gender roles has been a staple in English drama in movies and TV for decades and the audience appears to always be hungry for more. The likes of Austen, Bronte and Dickens and stores of England through WWII have provided fertile ground for countless tales that continue to fascinate and entertain.

“A Month in the Country” features early career performances by Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh. Both actors went on to enormous success and in the case of Branagh, as a successful director, too. Firth...

Reviewed by Chris Wright, MoreHorror.com

Amityville 3-D: The Demon (1983)

Directed By Richard Fleischer

Written By: William Wales

Starring: Tony Roberts (John Baxter), Tess Harper (Nancy Baxter), Robert Joy (Elliot West), Candy Clark (Melanie), John Beal (Harold Caswell), Leora Dana (Emma Caswell), John Harkins (Clifford Sanders), Lori Loughlin (Susan Baxter), Meg Ryan (Lisa), Neill Barry (Jeff)

Amityville 3-D: The Demon has conjured up a mass amount of hate in the years as a massive down step from its two predecessors. I have seen this movie more than once and I cannot figure out why it is frowned upon the way it has from horror fans. Could it the main idea was already burned out? Sure, a concept like this can get old fast but this movie didn’t in any way try to be a cheesy sequel despite being billed in the “3-D boom” in the early 1980s.

Ivan Radford Dec 6, 2019

With the festive season approaching, here's a rundown of 10 all-time classic Christmas movie soundtracks.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, a sure sign that people will soon start ranking, once again, the best Christmas movies of all time--a crazy thing to do, because we all know it’s still Die Hard. But what about film music? From Vaughn Monroe serenading the end of John McClane’s adventure to Danny Elfman’s Nightmare before the big day, soundtracks are a big part of that seasonal feeling.

And so, as December draws in, here are the top 10 Christmas movie soundtracks of all time. (Probably.)

10. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Made in MGM’s heyday, this romantic musical is based on a series of shorts by Sally Benson, but really is a showcase for Judy Garland’s legendary larynx. The Wizard Of Oz star came into her own in the 1944 movie,...

How do you pull off an historical epic film in just over an hour and a half? Ridley Scott did so in his 1977 Cannes-honored The Duellists working from screenwriter Gerald Vaughan-Hughes' adaptation of a Joseph Conrad short that deftly dashes across 58 scenes spanning 6 discreet epochs inside 16 years, all within a 96 minute movie (not counting credits). Call it "The Mini-Epic."

To help the audience keep balanced on its collective time- and location-traveling toes (every 1m45s, on the average), Scott also had the sense to employ Howard Blake for a simple yet highly effective Romantic score that acts as the film's anchor. It returns again and again from opening through closing titles to a flexible main theme varied in each usage to resonate differently with the film's diverse cast of characters and compositions. Impossibly perfect cinematography certainly didn't hurt the film's success, nor did influences from Tarkovsky, Jancso, Kobayashi, Kubrick,...

Disney’s The Princess and the Frog (see Alex’s review here ) heralds a return to the 2D hand drawn animation of yesteryear.

To celebrate the revival of an old art form we’re offering ten of the finest traditional animations for your delectation. This list represents our personal favourites so don’t be upset if your own doesn’t appear or go ahead and be upset, just keep it to yourself.

What are you favourite 2-D animations? Leave us a comment, suggestion, etc.

The Emperor’s New Groove (Mark Dindal, 2000)

A spoilt Emperor plans to bulldoze a village and replace it with a water park. He’s then transformed into a llama and gets to spend some time with the subjects he plans to displace in this neglected gem from 2000. Pixar’s success had put a ball and chain around Disney’s early nineties revival and dropped it down a well.