Film Score Daily: Film Score Friday 10/23/09

Ennio Morricone's concert this Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl has been canceled.

One last reminder: the Golden State Pops Orchestra will help celebrate Stu Phillips' 80th birthday with their Halloween Fright Night 7 concert this Saturday night, October 24th, featuring Mr. Phillips' music as well as a suite from John Ottman's score for the just-released Astro Boy.

Composer Vic Mizzy died on Saturday, October 17th at his home in Bel-Air, California, at the age of 93. Mizzy began his career as a popular songwriter before turning to television scoring in 1960. His many TV works include such classic series themes as The Addams Family and Green Acres, and his feature scores include not only such comedy scores as The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and The Shakiest Gun in the West but also the memorably creepy score for William Castle's thriller The Night Walker. Mizzy is survived by his daughter, his brother and two grandchildren.

The latest release from Kritzerland features two scores previously included on Film Score Monthly's MGM Soundtrack Treasury boxed set -- Richard Rodney Bennett's lively, melodic score for the final Michael Caine/Harry Palmer spy thriller, BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN, and Roy Budd's exciting score for the British hostage thriller THE FINAL OPTION (aka Who Dares Wins), which pitted Special Forces agent Lewis Collins against left-wing American terrorist Judy Davis (yes, two-time Oscar nominee Judy Davis). This disc is limited to 1000 units and begins shipping in a month or so.

Next week, La-La Land will release the scores to writer-director Fred Dekker's cult favorite 1986 horror comedy NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, music by Barry De Vorzon, and the original "Chucky" movie, 1988's CHILD'S PLAY, with a score by Oscar winner Joe Renzetti.

Amelia - Gabriel Yared - Score CD due Nov. 10 on Varese Sarabande
Astro Boy - John Ottman - Score CD on Varese Sarabande
The Canyon - Heitor Pereira
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant - Stephen Trask - Score CD on Varese Sarabande
Motherhood - Joe Henry
Ong Bak 2 - Banana Record
Saw VI - Charlie Clouser - Soundtrack CD on Trustkill
Stan Helsing - Ryan Shore
(Untitled) - David Lang - Score CD on Cantaloupe

COMING SOON

October 27
Child's Play - Joe Renzetti - La-La Land
Night of the Creeps - Barry DeVorzon - La-La land
Pandorum - Michl Britsch - MovieScore Media
November 3
Fantastic Mr. Fox - Alexandre Desplat - Abcko
The Red Canvas - James Peterson - MovieScore Media
A Serious Man - Carter Burwell - Lakeshore
November 10
Amelia - Gabriel Yared - Varese Sarabande
A Christmas Story - Carl Zittrer, Paul Zaza - Rhino
2012 - Harald Kloser, Thomas Wander - RCA
November 17
The Fourth Kind - Atli Orvarsson - Varese Sarabande
November 24
New Moon - Alexandre Desplat - E1
The Princess and the Frog - Randy Newman - Disney
December 8
Avatar - James Horner - Atlantic
Date Unknown
Billion Dollar Brain/The Final Option - Richard Rodney Bennett/Roy Budd - Kritzerland
Morkeleg (Backstabbed) - Alan Howarth - AHI
Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story - Bill Conti - Buysoundtrax

October 23 - Manos Hadjidakis born (1925)
October 23 - Graeme Revell born (1955)
October 25 - Don Banks born (1923)
October 25 - Recording sessions begin for Alex North's score to I'll Cry Tomorrow(1955)
October 25 - Bronislau Kaper begins recording his score to The Brothers Karamazov (1958)
October 25 - Alexander Courage's "Plato's Stepchildren," the last score composed for the original Star Trek series, is recorded (1968)
October 25 - David Shire begins recording his score for Max Dugan Returns (1982)
October 26 - Bob Cobert born (1924)
October 26 - Victor Schertzinger died (1941)
October 27 - Jerry Fielding begins recording his score for The Enforcer (1976)
October 27 - Frank DeVol died (1999)
October 27 - James Newton Howard begins recording his score to Peter Pan (2003)
October 28 - Carl Davis born (1936)
October 28 - Oliver Nelson died (1975)
October 29 - Daniele Amfitheatrof born (1901)
October 29 - Neal Hefti born (1922)
October 29 - George Bassman records his score to Mail Order Bride (1963)
October 29 - David Newman begins recording his score for Throw Momma from the Train (1987)
October 29 - Paul Misraki died (1998)

"The details are perfect, from the particle-board sets to the porn-ready score. (And dig those polyester suits.)"

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

"The movie looks and sounds so much like 1970s blaxploitation that anyone who might find it while cable surfing could be excused for assuming it is one. Technical expertise has been used to meticulously reproduce such details as an oversaturated color scheme, bonus camera moves, smash cuts to closeups on big lines and dramatic camera angles. There's also 'Mickey Mouse music,' so-called because whatever the hero does, the music does it, too. Black Dynamite even has his own theme: three fearsome chords whenever 'Dynamite' needs to be underlined."

"It's good fun (the period details are exquisite), yet it also reminds us of the genre's often unheralded complexity. The blaxploitation hero operated outside and against The Establishment, but he was also quintessentially American, the loner, the rugged individual true to his own code, uncorrupted but surrounded by corruption. By corruption, and by terrible production values. On this score, 'Black Dynamite' is casually ingenious -- great effort was made to find and use film stock to give the movie its grainy, saturated look, and to revive the melodies, lyrics and instrumentation of period music. Even greater effort was made to recreate the fashions of the period without mocking them."

"Fueled by a suspicious, insidious brand of malt liquor called Anaconda, the blaxploitation spoof 'Black Dynamite' knows its genre's weak spots, sore spots and aesthetically challenged delights, from the cruddy overlit early-'70s-era interiors to the 'Shaft'-ed theme song contributed by composer (and editor) Adrian Younge. Director and co-writer Scott Sanders' comedy reveals an eye for visual detail. I'm still puzzled as to why it's not funnier."

"The attention to superficial detail, from lapel width to jittery zooms to wah-wah-heavy score, reveals a fetishist's devotion.

Melissa Anderson, L.A. Weekly

"The director, Scott Sanders, might be making the third featurette of the Tarantino/Rodriguez 'Gridhouse.' He captures not just the tropes of blaxploitation flicks but the feel of them: the grainy film stock and overbright lighting; the wah-wah pedal funk that faded in and out of scenes almost at will; the way that the garish dramas of urban cruelty and violence played out in actual, cheap-wood living rooms, giving the films the atmosphere of porn movies with slightly better acting."

"Cinematographer Shawn Maurer gives the film an appropriately high contrast and supersaturated style that makes it seem vintage. And the tinny brass, quacking guitar and incessant beat of Adrian Younge's music capture the period sound."

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN - Brian Tyler

"The film is smoothly produced, though Brian Tyler's score is too much like an excitable cheerleader."

"That creation, like every other visual flourish and detail in 'Where the Wild Things Are,' is flawless, a meticulously conceived amalgamation of the organic and the surreal that completely captures the austere cross-hatched detail and half-toned color scheme of Sendak's original drawings. Coupled with a hip, lushly emotional score by Carter Burwell and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O, the production design plunges filmgoers into an altogether convincing world of both earthy realism and lyrical escapism."

"The dark colors of nightmares break into golden hues. The music, by Karen O and Carter Burwell, haunts."

"The voice performances, especially from [James] Gandolfini and [Catherine] O'Hara, are pitch-perfect, as is the tribal score from Carter Burwell and Karen O."

"On occasion, Mr. [Spike] Jonze lingers too long on his lovely pictures, particularly on the island, where the film's energy starts to wane, despite the glorious whoops in Carter Burwell and Karen O's score."

"The most daring thing that Jonze and [co-writer Dave] Eggers have done is make a children's film that might not really be for kids. It feels more like an adult comment on a children's film, a sober rumination on the genre that invites the audience to watch the action almost as though it were under glass. The soundtrack, a mix of faux '60s pop and a lonely, echoing acoustic guitar, encourages viewers to step back and watch the story as though it happened long ago, or were emblematic of something. 'Where the Wild Things Are' is audacious in its refusal to be reassuring, which makes it hard to love, but also hard to dismiss."

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

"The production design by K.K. Barrett is both lyrical and gritty, creating exuberantly swooping architecture but building it with sticks and mud. Sendak's designs come to vivid life with the creatures themselves, which boast Henson Creature Shop bodies and seamlessly CG'd faces that display a full range of emotion and expression. And Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs has collaborated with Carter Burwell to create a score that reflects childhood's wonderment, fears and longing."

"If this were a storybook and not a movie, one page might read 'And then they all ran through the forest, hooting and hollering,' followed by another that reads 'And then they all ran to the cliff by the sea, hooting and hollering,' followed by the slightly more exciting 'And then they all threw dirt clods at one another, hooting and hollering.' The hooting and hollering is aided and abetted by rambunctious, raucous little songs by New York's downtown darling Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; the quieter moments get introspective, ghostly melodies by Carter Burwell. But Jonze is too obviously using the music to alternately rev us up and slow us down, instead of letting the movie's images, and its action, set the pace."

"The film at this point feels genuinely dangerous, wired to explode. The score by Karen O of the rock group Yeah Yeah Yeahs is acoustic but off-kilter: It sounds like the 'Juno' soundtrack with teeth."

"A rock-pop score by Karen O and Carter Burwell tries too hard and at too loud a pitch."