The good folks at The Weinstein Company have been kind enough to provide me with two tickets to the Los Angeles premiere of Quentin Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS on August 10th at Grauman's Chinese Theater. And while I obviously want to give these away to a massive Tarantino fan, I'd like for the attendee (and his/her guest) to be just as crazy about the film music of Ennio Morricone - because BASTERDS is as much a love letter to the Italian maestro as it is to war movies.
So if you're one of the enlightened who worship at the church of Morricone, I want you to shoot me an email (subject: "Morricone") and make a case (in 100 words or less) for what you believe to be the composer's finest score that isn't one of the following:
A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST
DUCK, YOU SUCKER
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA
THE UNTOUCHABLES
THE MISSION
CINEMA PARADISO
Obviously, these are all wonderful works, but the man has written hundreds of scores for dozens of directors in every conceivable genre. And the quality of the movie hardly matters: some of my favorite Morricone cues can be found in films that, um, fall a little short of Leone.
There is no right answer here. Just because you answer back with THE BIG GUNDOWN (to which Eli Roth is now inextricably linked) doesn't mean you're going to win. The key might be introducing me to a Morricone score I've somehow overlooked. I don't know. You've got 100 words to convince me that you live and breathe Morricone. Good luck.
Deadline for entries is Wednesday, August 5th, noon pacific. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS opens commercially August 21st.
