Yesterday, we reported the completed and stuck-in-David-Bergstein-hell film “Love Ranch” — directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci — had escaped the clutches of Capitol Films and has now been penciled in for a June release date. We quickly received a comment from an eagle eyed reader (thanks Anne!) who pointed us in the direction of a news story from 2008 (yeah, the film has been sitting around for a while) that revealed that indie-rock tex-mex artists Calexico had worked on the score with composer James Newton Howard.
In an interview with LiveDaily, the band’s Joey Burns said “…but this latest film, “Love Ranch,” we got a call from the director, Taylor Hackford, and it was the film composer, James Newton Howard’s request to get us involved. We came out to Los Angeles and we saw the film and it was really good. After meeting with James and his assistant, Chris Bacon, I really feel like they wanted the involvement of Calexico for all the right reasons. It wasn’t just to have some fanfare or to have a certain aspect of the band. It was more about the core. It was about John’s drumming, his nuances, his subtleties with his brushwork and his playing the marimba, some accordion and my playing upright bass, cello, some acoustic guitars. It was more about us, and it wasn’t about all the layers, which I like, but every now and then it’s nice to do something more minimal. I think it works well with the picture and, so far, it’s been going really great.”
As you might recall, Calexico have lent their sun-baked sound to such films as “Collateral” and “I’m Not There,” and their inclusion in the Nevada-set “Love Ranch” seems to be a solid fit. All that said, given the troubled history of the film, it remains to be seen if Calexico and Howard’s work on the film remains intact (he has no IMDB credit for the film) or if money and production woes forced Hackford to go with a second option.
We’ll find out when the film hits theaters in June.
