Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Disney

Indy 5 Soundtrack Delay Disney Fails Fans

What?????????????

The soundtrack to “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” will not be released until AUGUST 9????????????? The film opens nationwide on June 30!

This is flabbergasting, for a Lucasfilm juggernaut, especially one that has George Lucas and Steven Spielberg as executive producers. What’s John Williams got to do, anyway, to have his music for a 300 MILLION DOLLAR GUARANTEED BLOCKBUSTER released in a timely fashion?

I was planning this to be the soundtrack of my summer. So much for the custodianship of Walt Disney. I guess Disney can wait to take my money.

Sure, the soundtrack will be available as a digital download and via streaming on the day of the film’s release, but as far as the music’s concerned, it’s doubtful they’ll make as much from blasé streamers as they will from those of us who have been riding with Indy since 1981 (when good film scores were still being written). Give us our physical media, dammit!

It’s not like I’m holding out particularly high hopes for the movie. What I really want is the music. Are the CDs being stockpiled at an undisclosed location, near the Ark of the Covenant? How many Nazis do I have to punch, how many boulders do I have to outrun, in order to savor my hard-won treasure?

Nevermind a museum; it belongs in my CD player!

https://jwfan.com/?p=14814

June 15, 2023
Freaky Friday 1976 Retro Comedy Review

When Roy suggested “Friday the 13th” for Friday the 13th, I reflexively nixed it. I’m not a slasher guy. But when he came back with a counteroffer of “Freaky Friday” (1976), a memorable Disney farce from our childhood, I said sure, why not.

Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster are the whole show, as mother and daughter who, through unexplained supernatural circumstances, swap identities, leading to a day of very, very broad farce (too much detergent in the washing machine, mom on water skis, a burnt turkey, etc., etc.). It’s not exactly Preston Sturges, but it is an undemanding 97 minutes that leaves no lasting damage to the viewer’s psyche, even as it does no favors to the reputation of law enforcement.

In the supporting cast, John Astin (TV’s Gomez Addams) and Marc McClure (Superman’s Jimmy Olsen) are joined by a gallery of familiar comic faces (Dick Van Patten, Kaye Ballard, Ruth Buzzi, Marvin Kaplan) who show up with puzzlingly little to do. Marie Windsor, one of the hottest dames in ‘40s noir, has a memorable, if somewhat dispiriting turn as an aged alcoholic housekeeper. (Oh, the ‘70s.)

Toss some salt over your shoulder and bring your horseshoe to the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc. Roy and I push our luck, as we converse about “Freaky Friday,” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, this Friday the 13th at 7:30 PM EST!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

January 12, 2023
The Black Hole Disney’s Mad Sci-Fi?

What is this I’m watching?

Is it speculative fiction?

A Gothic melodrama?

An all-star disaster flick?

A zombie horror movie?

A retro, 1950s throwback?

A metaphysical mind-trip?

Or just another shameless, post-“Star Wars” cash-grab?

Toss these seemingly disparate elements into Maximilian’s mixer, and you’ll be drinking deep from the craziest smoothie ever!

Join Roy Bjellquist and me tomorrow evening, as once again I will be the guest co-host for “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.” Roy and I will take the plunge into Walt Disney’s WTF intergalactic whirlpool, “The Black Hole” (1979).

“The Black Hole” is a product of Disney’s maddest fever dream ever, a barely sustainable period during which the studio repeatedly girded itself for an icy plunge into relevance, only to get cold feet and yank its creative team back from the brink. This is the same psychotic pattern that yielded such potentially bold gambits as “The Watcher in the Woods,” “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” “Tron,” “The Black Cauldron,” and “The Return to Oz.”

Too violent and scary for kids (to whom the films were marketed), and too compromised for adults, the result is a cabinet of curiosities full of freakish specimens that are neither fish nor fowl. Hard to believe, now that Disney owns the world, but there was actually a precarious decade or more when the studio was more off-the-charts than Hans Reinhardt’s “Cygnus.”

I hope you’ll join us for another lively discussion, in many ways launching off of last week’s autopsy of “Starcrash” (1978). John Barry wrote the music for both.

“Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner” will be live-streamed this Friday at 7 p.m. EDT. For more information, follow the link.

https://www.facebook.com/events/649274212291005/

PLEASE NOTE: On Sunday, Roy’s guest will be Nick Tate, who will return to share more behind-the-scenes stories about his time on the classic TV series “Space: 1999.” Sunday’s show will air at a special time, 4 p.m. EDT.

June 11, 2020
Sorcerer’s Apprentice Halloween Day 1

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN (DAY 1)

For Paul Dukas’ birthday, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”

https://video.disney.com/watch/sorcerer-s-apprentice-fantasia-4ea9ebc01a74ea59a5867853

October 1, 2019
Brazil Song Story From Rio to Disney

The fascinating story behind the song “Brazil,” which I had always assumed was a pastiche written by a North American:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarela_do_Brasil

Sung by Francisco de Morais Alves (1939):

Disney’s take (with a special bonus on the soundtrack of “Tico-Tico”):

José do Patrocinio Oliveira, also known as Zé Carioca, the real-life José Carioca:

Oliveira was part of Carmen Miranda’s circle:

August 6, 2016

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