Dust Brothers Biography

The Dust Brothers were among the preeminent producers of the 1990s, helming records for everyone from Tone-Loc to Beck to Hanson while influencing countless others with their signature cut-and-paste marriage of hip-hop and rock. Not to be confused with the British production duo the Chemical Brothers, who began their career under the same name before receiving a cease-and-desist order, the Los Angeles-based Dust Brothers were Mike Simpson and John King, who met in 1983 while working at the Pomona College radio station. They originally teamed to DJ at parties, and by the end of the decade scored a production deal with the Delicious Vinyl label. In 1989, they scored chart success producing debuts from rappers Tone-Loc (the monster hit "Wild Thing") and Young MC, but their most distinctive early work was on the Beastie Boys' groundbreaking Paul's Boutique, widely acclaimed among the most innovative and influential albums of the period for its pioneering use of digital sampling. In the years to follow, the Dust Brothers emerged among the most sought-after remixers and producers in the industry, working on projects for everyone from White Zombie to Technotronic to Shonen Knife; they also founded their own label, Nickel Bag (later changed to Ideal), and in 1996 helmed Beck's extraordinary Odelay. Branching out even further, in 1997 they produced Hanson's chart-topping "MMMBop," as well as a handful of tracks from the Rolling Stones' Bridges to Babylon LP. Their first full-length solo record was the score for the 1999 film Fight Club.

David Fincher Filmography

Theatrical Films
Alien 3 (1992)
Seven (1995)
The Game (1997)
Fight Club (1999)
Panic Room (2002)
Zodiac (2007)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
The Social Network (2010)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone, Grande Ufficiale OMRI (born November 10, 1928) is an Italian composer and conductor.

He is considered one of the most prolific and influential film composers of his era. Morricone has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and TV productions. He is well-known for his long-term collaborations with international acclaimed directors such as Sergio Leone, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, and Giuseppe Tornatore.

He wrote the characteristic film scores of Leone's Spaghetti Westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). In the 80s, Morricone composed the scores for John Carpenter's horror movie The Thing (1982), Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Roland Joffé's The Mission (1986), Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987) and Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988). His more recent compositions include the scores for Oliver Stone's U Turn (1997), Tornatore's The Legend of 1900 (1998) and Malèna (2000), De Palma's Mission to Mars (2000), Lajos Koltai's Fateless (2005), and Tornatore's Baaria - La porta del vento (2009).

Morricone has won two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, five Anthony Asquith Awards for Film Music by BAFTA in 1979–1992 and the Polar Music Prize in 2010. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Music, Original Score during 1979–2001. He received the Academy Honorary Award in 2007 "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music".

Westerns

The Western is a genre of art that may be found in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 but most are set between the end of the American Civil War (1865) and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. There are also a number of films about Western-type characters in contemporary settings, such as Junior Bonner set in the 1970s and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada in the 21st century.

Westerns often portray how primitive and obsolete ways of life confronted modern technological or social changes. This may be depicted by showing conflict between natives and settlers or U.S. Cavalry or between cattle ranchers and farmers ("sodbusters"), or by showing ranchers being threatened by the onset of the Industrial Revolution. American Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s emphasize the values of honor and sacrifice.[citation needed] Westerns from the 1960s and 1970s often have a more pessimistic view, glorifying a rebellious anti-hero and highlighting the cynicism, brutality and inequality of the American West. Despite being tightly associated with a specific time and place in American history, these themes have allowed Westerns to be produced and enjoyed across the world.

Spaghetti Westerns

Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by Italians. The language in which the movies were originally released was Italian as well.

The typical team was made up of an Italian director, Italo-Spanish[citation needed] technical staff, and a cast of Italian, Spanish, German and American actors, sometimes a fading Hollywood star and sometimes a rising one like the young Clint Eastwood in three of Sergio Leone's films. The films were shot in inexpensive locales resembling the American Southwest, primarily in central and southern Italy, such as the parks of Valle del Treja (between Rome and Viterbo), the area of Camposecco (next to Camerata Nuova), characterized by a karst topography, the hills around Castelluccio, the area around the Gran Sasso mountain or the Tivoli's quarries, but also Sardinia and the Andalusia region of Spain, Almería at three main studios, Texas Hollywood, Mini Hollywood, and Western Leone.

Typical themes in spaghetti westerns include the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits, and the border region shared by Mexico and the United States.