Next week La-La Land will release two multi-disc sets of animated TV superhero music -- a four-disc set of SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, with music by Kristopher Carter, Harvey R. Cohen, Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis and Shirley Walker; and a two-disc set of BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, featuring music by Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis and Andy Sturmer.

On February 25, Varese Sarabande will release the score to Liam Neeson's latest action thriller -- NON-STOP, in which Neeson plays an air marshal on an international flight who finds himself taunted by a killer and framed for a hijacking. The film reunites Neeson with several of his Unknown collaborators, including producer Joel Silver, director Jaume Collet-Serra, and composer John Ottman.

Music Box has announced two new releases -- a CD pairing Georges Delerue's scores for LE MYTHOMANE and L'EDUCATION SENTIMENTALE; and music from three Danny Boon vehicles scored by Philippe Rombi, RIEN A DECLARER, LA MAISON DU BONHEUR and BIENVENUE CHEZ LES CHTIS.

MovieScore Media/Kronos will be releasing the score to Russia's submission for the 2013 Foreign Language Oscar -- STALINGRAD, a 3D World War II epic starring Thomas Kretschmann (who just recently played both Dracula in Dario Argento's Dracula 3D and Van Helsing in NBC's weekly Dracula TV series). The score was written by the noted Russian composer Angelo Badalamenti.

CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK

The Buccaneer - Elmer Bernstein - Kritzerland
Falling Down - James Newton Howard - Intrada Special Collection
I, Frankenstein - Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil - Lakeshore
Le Mythomane/L'Education Sentimentale - Georges Delerue - Music Box
Re-Animator - Richard Band - Intrada Special Collection
Rien A Declarer/La Maison Du Bonheur/Bienvenue Chez Les Chtis - Philippe Rombi - Music Box
To Catch a Thief/The Bridges at Toko-Ri - Lyn Murray - Intrada Special Collection

IN THEATERS TODAY

Enemies Closer - Tony Morales
Gimme Shelter - Olafur Arnalds
I, Frankenstein - Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil - Score CD on Lakeshore
If You Build It - Peter Golub
Knights of Badassdom - Bear McCreary
Like Father, Like Son - Takeshi Matsubara, Junichi Matsumoto, Takashi Mori

COMING SOON

January 28
Batman: The Brave and the Bold - Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis, Andy Sturmer - La-La Land
Big Bad Wolves - Frank Ilfman - MovieScore Media/Kronos
Black Sails - Bear McCreary - Sparks & Shadows
El Tiempo Entre Costuras - Cesar Bonito - MovieScore Media/Kronos
Labor Day - Rolfe Kent - Warner Bros.
McCanick - Johann Johannsson - Milan
Person of Interest: Season Two - Ramin Djawadi - Varese Sarabande
Ride Along - Christopher Lennertz - Varese Sarabande
Stalingrad - MovieScore Media/Kronos - Angelo Badalamenti
Superman: The Animated Series - Kristopher Carter, Harvey R. Cohen, Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis, Shirley Walker - La-La Land
That Awkward Moment - David Torn - Varese Sarabande
February 4
The Anonymous Venetian - Stelvio Cipriani - Digitmovies
The Art of Travel/Guilty as Charged - Steve Bartek - Buysoundtras
Atom Age Vampire/Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory - Armando Trovajoli - Digitmovies
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - Patrick Doyle - Varese Sarabande
Komodo - John Debney - Buysoundtrax
The Monuments Men - Alexandre Desplat - Sony
RoboCop - Pedro Bromfman - Sony
February 11
The Lego Movie - Mark Mothersbaugh - Watertower
Pit and the Pendulum - Richard Band - Perseverance
A Winter's Tale - Hans Zimmer, Rupert Gregson-Williams - Watertower
February 18
Tim's Vermeer - Conrad Pope - Milan
February 25
Non-Stop - John Ottman - Varese Sarabande
Pompeii - Clinton Shorter - Milan
March 4
The Grand Budapest Hotel - Alexandre Desplat - ABKCO
300: Rise of an Empire - Junkie XL - Watertower
Date Unknown
An Adventure in Space and Time - Edmund Butt - Silva
Agguato Sul Bosforo - Stelvio Cipriani - GDM
Anton - Daniel Tjernberg, Mikael Tjernberg - Intermezzo
The Best of Silent Hill - Akira Yamaoka - Perseverance
Die Spionin - Nic Raine - MovieScore Media/Kronos
The Doll Squad - Nicholas Carras - Monstrous Movie Music
Firefly: Music for Solo Piano - Greg Edmonson - Buysoundtrax
Gli Ordini Sono Ordini - Fred Bongusto - Saimel
Joseph Andrews - John Addison - Kritzerland
Ladyhawke - Andrew Powell - La-La Land
Last Angel - Stelvio Cipriani - Bea
Le Evasioni Celebri: Benvenuto Cellini/Casanova - Piero Piccioni - Saimel
Legends of Chima - Anthony Lledo - MovieScore Media/Kronos
Omaggio a Donaggio - Pino Donaggio - MovieScore Media/Kronos
Patrick - Pino Donaggio - Quartet
Sherlock: Series Three - David Arnold, Michael Price - Silva
Svezia, Inferno E Paradiso - Piero Umiliani - Beat/Digitmovies
Three Days (of Hamlet) - Jonathan Beard - Buysoundtrax
Una Lucertola Con La Pelle Di Donna - Ennio Morricone - Beat
Una Vita Venduta - Ennio Morricone - GDM

THIS WEEK IN FILM MUSIC HISTORY

January 24 - Muir Mathieson born (1911)
January 24 - Joseph Carl Breil died (1926)
January 24 - Neil Diamond born (1941)
January 24 - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre opens in theaters (1948)
January 24 - Leonard Rosenman begins recording his score for The Phantom of Hollywood (1974)
January 25 - Albert Glasser born (1916)
January 25 - Benny Golson born (1929)
January 25 - Tobe Hooper born (1943)
January 25 - Paul J. Smith died (1985)
January 26 - Stephane Grappelli born (1908)
January 26 - Miklos Rozsa begins recording his score for All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953)
January 26 - George Bassman records his score for Ride the High Country (1962)
January 26 - Ron Jones records his score for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "A Matter of Honor" (1989)
January 27 - David Shire begins recording his score for All the President's Men (1976)
January 28 - Karl Hajos born (1889)
January 29 - Leslie Bricusse born (1931)
January 29 - Alfred Newman begins recording his score to A Man Called Peter (1955)
January 29 - David Robbins born (1955)
January 29 - Rogier Van Otterloo died (1988)
January 30 - Morton Stevens born (1929)
January 30 - Steve Bartek born (1952)
January 30 - George Duning begins recording his score to Toys in the Attic (1963)
January 30 - George Duning begins recording his score for the pilot movie for Then Came Bronson (1969)
January 30 - John Barry died (2011)

DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?

THE BEST OFFER - Ennio Morricone

"The film’s Old World atmospherics -- decaying mansions, elegantly appointed auction rooms, etc. -- help draw us in, to be sure. But it’s Rush’s performance, pitched at the nervous edge between scared uncertainty and romantic possibility, that keeps things emotionally grounded. (It also helps that the film sports a soundtrack by the great Ennio Morricone, whose versatility is in full force here; his lovely score veers between lush romanticism and creeping dread.)"

Bilge Ebiri, Vulture

"If director Giuseppe Tornatore has had an up-and-down time of it since his breakthrough, 1988's almost universally adored, Oscar-winning 'Cinema Paradiso,' it has to be said that his most recent film, 'The Best Offer,' marks a definite low point, even as one of the downs. But that's probably what's going to happen when you take a cast, including Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess and Donald Sutherland, that mostly seems as though they don't belong on the same planet, let alone in the same film, stick them in a pointlessly convoluted plot that's ludicrously unbelievable from start to finish, and drench the whole lot in a hysterically screechy score from Ennio Morricone. The resulting film is such a campy mess that for a while it's possible to see it having some sort of life as a kitsch cultish artifact, like an overplotted TV movie from the '80s. But then it goes on for an interminable 124 minutes, and even that dubious hold on our interest is lost. As the film trundled toward its forehead-slappingly risible conclusion and the strings on the soundtrack swelled to an ever more insistent shrillness, we ceased to even be mildly diverted by how over-the-top bad the whole endeavor is. Strangely old-fashioned in its construction and requiring a Golden Gate-level feat of engineering to achieve the suspension of disbelief necessary to unironically enjoy it, the lunatic excesses of 'The Best Offer' are best approached with severe caution."

Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

"'The Best Offer' is the first all-English feature from Giuseppe Tornatore, the writer-director who won an Academy Award for 'Cinema Paradiso.' The movie, shot in Trieste and Prague, looks great and has a soaring score by Ennio Morricone. It wants badly to be a sophisticated Euro-thriller in the Hitchcock tradition. It ends up as a lame Brian De Palma knockoff, more 'Femme Fatale' than 'Blow Out.' The plot twists are telegraphed from one end of the villa to the other, and if you somehow missed something, Tornatore signals it with portentous dialogue or shows it in a flashback.

Jeff Baker, The Oregonian

"It’s a promising premise, and give writer-director Tornatore credit for laying out plenty of tantalizing, Hitchcockian narrative bread crumbs. There’s a secret vault filled with ill-gotten paintings, an antique automaton that may hold the key to a shadowy secret, even an autistic little person whose seemingly random obsession with numerical patterns might not be so random after all. None of it comes together in any satisfying way, unfortunately, because Tornatore telegraphs every revelation with head-slapping amateurishness. But the fully committed Rush, at least, commands our constant attention, and no movie with a kookier-than-usual Ennio Morricone score (dig those staccato-chanting chorines!) could ever be a total waste of canvas."

Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York

"Tornatore will forever be best known for 1989’s 'Cinema Paradiso,' the luminous romance of old-timey picture houses in postwar Italy. He has been pegged as a forefather of nostalgia cinema, films that come pre-aged and marinate in their audience’s collective memory. In this context, 'The Best Offer' is a departure for him. It feels classical in style, yet it’s deeply cynical of people who devote their lives to valuable relics from the past: Virgil’s surname is a cruel jest, reducing his life and experience to the point of his age and fallibility. The film is a departure of a different sort for legendary composer Ennio Morricone, who lays the strings on heavy for an uncharacteristically bland score."

Andrew Lapin, The Dissolve

"Of roughly the dozen risible similes trotted out by multiple characters, the most unbelievable are 'Living with a woman is like taking part in an auction sale; you never know if yours is going to be the best offer' and 'Emotions are like a work of art. They can be forged so they seem just like the original, but they are forgery.' That second point overstates an idea that runs throughout 'The Best Offer,' as the film, so dependent on gloppy metaphors and its baroque Ennio Morricone score, clumsily takes the form of a didactic cautionary tale about the insidiousness of inauthenticity in life and in art. It's a poor man's 'Vertigo' in the end, attempting to capture an enigmatic aura that surrounds an out-of-reach female beauty, but lacking in the compelling qualities that Hitchcock was able to evoke through poetic rhythms, emotional yearning, and hypnotic atmosphere."

Nick McCarthy, Slant Magazine

"Like a woman who puts on all her makeup at once, the combined weight of Italy’s top technicians makes itself felt in Fabio Zamarion’s smoky cinematography, Maurzio Sabatini’s lavishly refined sets, Maurizio Millenotti’s dapper costumes, Ennio Morricone’s heavily used strings."

Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter

JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT - Patrick Doyle

"Watch 'Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit' with a cynical eye, and you'll glimpse evidence that studio confidence might have waned. Adjusting for inflation, this is the cheapest-looking Ryan movie. The lean 105-minute running time doesn't look voluntary. Like the much-tampered-with but still entertaining 'World War Z,' some recognizable actors are strangely reduced to cameos.But Branagh and the relay team of screenwriters involved with the project set an expert pace. Patrick Doyle's pulse-quickening score is a huge asset, especially when Ryan gets in one of his many think-quick-or-die jams. (If Doyle's score accompanied a guy eating Fritos on the subway, it still might be good for three minutes of harrowing tension.)"

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle

"The writing is strangely uneven. At times it tries to be a contemporary political thriller with something to say about how the CIA handles matters. Mostly it's just clichéd. 'There will be riots and famines and bread lines,' predicts Ryan. But in the next sentence he whines to Harper, 'You sold this as an office job,' and, 'I'm just an analyst. I'm out of my element.' Harper's response: 'You're not just an analyst anymore. You're operational now.' This acknowledgement of his spy status is met with swelling musical strains."

Claudia Puig, USA Today

"Branagh the director has fun with the usual heist-movie conventions, turning a relatively simple feat of burglary and data theft into a briskly edited setpiece that thrums along nicely, if derivatively, to the rhythms of Patrick Doyle’s score."

Justin Chang, Variety

THE NEXT TEN DAYS IN L.A.

Screenings of older films, at the following L.A. movie theaters: AMPAS, American Cinematheque: Aero, American Cinematheque: Egyptian, LACMA, New Beverly, Nuart, Silent Movie Theater and UCLA.

January 24
THE GOLD RUSH (Charlie Chaplin) [Silent Movie Theater]
NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (Dennis Michael Tenney) [Silent Movie Theater]
THE RING, THE MANXMAN [Cinematheque: Aero]
SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (Nigel Godrich) [New Beverly]
SHE-DEVIL (Howard Shore), DEATH BECOMES HER (Alan Silvestri) [New Beverly]
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (John DuPrez) [Nuart]

January 25
THE EXORCIST III (Barry DeVorzon) [New Beverly]
REAR WINDOW (Franz Waxman) [Cinematheque: Aero]
THE ROARING TWENTIES (Leo F. Forbstein) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
SHE-DEVIL (Howard Shore), DEATH BECOMES HER (Alan Silvestri) [New Beverly]
THIS STRANGE PASSION (Luis Hernandez Breton), TWILIGHT (Raul Lavista) [UCLA]

January 26
LAURA (David Raksin) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE (Carly Simon), DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (Michael Gore) [New Beverly]
REBECCA (Franz Waxman), DOWNHILL [Cinematheque: Aero]
RIVERS AND TIDES (Fred Frith) [UCLA]

January 27
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE (Carly Simon), DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (Michael Gore) [New Beverly]

January 28
AFTERNOON DELIGHT (Craig Wedren) [Silent Movie Theater]
SOPHIE'S CHOICE (Marvin Hamlisch) [New Beverly]
TO SIR, WITH LOVE (Ron Grainer) [LACMA]

January 29
SOPHIE'S CHOICE (Marvin Hamlisch) [New Beverly]

January 30
CHAMPAGNE, THE FARMER'S WIFE [Cinematheque: Aero]
THE CIRCUS (Charles Chaplin) [Silent Movie Theater]
COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN [LACMA]
GAME SHOW MODELS (Willie Bobo, Christopher Robin Culver), GOOD LUCK, MISS WYCOFF (Ernest Gold) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
SUSPICION (Franz Waxman), GASLIGHT (Bronislau Kaper) [New Beverly]

January 31
EASY VIRTUE, ROPE (Leo F. Forbstein) [Cinematheque: Aero]
THE GREAT FLAMARION (Alexander Laszlo), THE FURIES (Franz Waxman) [UCLA]
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Maurice Jarre) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
MODERN TIMES (Charles Chaplin) [Silent Movie Theater]
SCAVENGER HUNT (Billy Goldenberg) [Silent Movie Theater]
SUSPICION (Franz Waxman), GASLIGHT (Bronislau Kaper) [New Beverly]

February 1
BARAKA (Michael Stearns), SAMSARA (Michael Stearns, Lisa Gerrard, Marcello De Francisci [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
DR. BROADWAY (Irvin Talbot), TWO O'CLOCK COURAGE (Roy Webb) [UCLA]
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Maurice Jarre) [Cinematheque: Aero]
MODERN TIMES (Charles Chaplin) [Silent Movie Theater]
SUSPICION (Franz Waxman), GASLIGHT (Bronislau Kaper) [New Beverly]

February 2
JEALOUSY (Max Urban), BEAUTIFUL SKY (Max Urban) [UCLA]
THE RULING CLASS (John Cameron) [New Beverly]