Miramax, the independent production studio that was founded in 1979 by the mercurial Bob and Harvey Weinstein, has officially gone out of business. Under their guidance, the company enjoyed financial and critical success, having backed off-beat films that most major studios would have ignored. The brothers sold the company to Disney in 1993 but they continued to exert an astonishing amount of autonomy in running Miramax. However, after clashing with Michael Eisner, the Weinsteins left Miramax and Disney to form The Weinstein Company in 2005. Miramax died a slow death in the ensuing years and Disney finally officially closed the company today. For full details click here
Zelda Rubinstein, who played the eccentric psychic in Poltergeist, has died at age 76. For more click here. For more details about her life and career, check out Kasey Dickerson's tribute here.
Cinema Retro contributor Matthew Bradley has started his own film blog to occasionally opine on classic films. Matthew is an expert on all things relating to Richard Matheson and has a penchant for Matt Helm movies. (Who can blame him?)Â Click here to read his new blog, Bradley on Film. Click here to read his archived blog on the literary and cinematic Matt Helm.Â
Kritzerland Records has released a very limited edition (1,000 copies) CD of Ernest Gold's classic soundtrack for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The CD is a remastering of the original vinyl album along with bonus tracks never released before. This will sell out quickly! To order click here
Clint Eastwood’s son Kyle, a well-respected jazz musician in
his own right, has collaborated with Michael Stevens to produce a terrific
score for Invictus. However, ‘Dad’
lends a hand, and the opening song ‘9,000 Day’s was written by Eastwood Sr
along with Stevens and even has lyrics by Dina Eastwood (Clint’s wife) – talk
about keeping it in the family! The result is a highly impressive CD soundtrack
release. This is a magnificent score, and unlike Eastwood’s previous forays on Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Changeling and Gran Torino - which were dramatic, dark and moody - this music,
like the film itself, is really uplifting. There are several songs in the film,
all performed by Overtone a South African acapella band that was discovered by
Dina Eastwood, who saw them in a show in Cape Town while her husband was
filming Invictus. The soundtrack is a
blend of traditional South African music mixed with an almost tribal chant/drum
beat sound and orchestral overtures. It’s powerful stuff, with vocalist
Yollandi Nortjie sounding very much (on ‘9,000 Days’) like Jamie Cullum’s song
for Gran Torino , with  similar jazzy, bluesy vibes. As in previous
films, Clint Eastwood delivers one of his simplistic piano-based themes but
this time (in ‘Invictus Theme’) it is accompanied by a wonderful trumpet
underscore which, for this writer, is so reminiscent of the legendary Chet
Baker, and is a joy to hear. Kyle Eastwood and composer Michael Stevens have,
once again, produced a great sounding score – this time one that perfectly blends
a beautiful haunting cinematic theme with that of South African traditional
music. Highly recommended – and one of my favourite Eastwood scores to date.