On February 17, Varese Sarabande will release the soundtrack to THE BOY NEXT DOOR, the new psychological thriller starring Jennifer Lopez and directed by Rob Cohen. The film was scored by Cohen's usual composer Randy Edelman (Dragonheart, XXX) and Nathan Barr (Hostel, True Blood).
BAFTA has announced their latest nominations, including their Film: Original Music category:
BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) - Antonio Sanchez
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL - Alexandre Desplat
INTERSTELLAR - Hans Zimmer
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING - Johann Johannsson
UNDER THE SKIN - Mica Levi
Johann Johannsson won the Golden Globe for his original score to THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. John Legend and Common won for their song "Glory" from SELMA.
CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
At the Devil's Door - Ronen Landa - Phineas Atwood
Fantasia - various - Disney
Laggies - Benjamin Gibbard - Lakeshore
L'Assassino Ha Riservato Nove Poltrone - Carlo Savina - Quartet
The Legend of the Wolf Woman - Lalli Gori - Quartet
Paddington - Nick Urata - Decca
Planet of the Apes [TV] - Lalo Schifrin, Earle Hagen, Richard LaSalle - La-La Land
Reptenance - Mark Kilian - Phineas Atwood
Sharknado 2: The Second One - Chris Ridenhour, Christopher Cano - Phineas Atwood
Theo's House - Pascal Gaigne - Quartet
Walking with the Enemy - Timothy Williams - Phineas Atwood
Wild Tales - Gustavo Santaolalla - Quartet
IN THEATERS TODAY
Appropriate Behavior - Josephine Wiggs
Blackhat - Harry Gregson-Williams, Atticus Ross
Little Accidents - Marcelo Zarvos
Loitering with Intent - Aleks de Carvalho
Match - Stephen Trask
Paddington - Nick Urata - Score CD on Decca
Pretty Rosebud - Dave Volpe
Spare Parts - Andres Levin
Vice - Hybrid
The Wedding Ringer - Christopher Lennertz
Zero Motivation - Ran Bagno
COMING SOON
January 20
The Loft - John Frizzell - Varese Sarabande
Mortdecai - Mark Ronson, Geoff Zanelli - La-La Land
January 27
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis - Frederik Wiedmann - La-La Land
The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power - Geoff Zanelli - La-La Land
Son of a Gun - Jed Kurzel - Milan
February 3
Broadchurch - Olafur Arnaulds - Mercury
John Carpenter's Lost Themes - John Carpenter - Sacred Bones
February 10
Flash Gordon Vol. 3 - Michael Picton - Perseverance
Outlander - Bear McCreary - Madison Gate
Switch - Brian Satterwhite - Phineas Atwood
February 17
The Boy Next Door - Randy Edelman, Nathan Barr - Varese Sarabande
Fifty Shades of Grey - Danny Elfman - Republic
Film Fest Gent - Cliff Martinez - Milan
February 24
My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn - Cliff Martinez - Milan
March 10
Chicago Fire: Season One - Atli Orvarsson - Phineas Atwood
Chicago Fire: Season Two - Atli Orvarsson - Phineas Atwood
Reach Me - Tree Adams - Phineas Atwood
Wolf Hall - Debbie Wiseman - Silva (import)
Date Unknown
Alles Ist Liebe - Annette Focks - Alhambra
Berlin Is in Germany/Das Konto - Florian Appl - Alhambra
Breaking Away - Patrick Williams - Kritzerland
Col Ferro E Col Fuoco - Francesco De Masi - Kronos
Contraband - Fabio Frizzi - Beat
Don Giovanni in Sicilia - Bruno Nicolai - Kronos
Eros E Thanatos: Riflessi Di Luce/The Broken Mirror - John Sposito - Beat
1001 Nights - Gabriel Yared - Music Box
Pest - Ulrich Reuter - Alhambra
Pollyanna - Christopher Gunning - Caldera
Ricky - Philippe Rombi - Music Box
Sangraal La Spada Di Fuoco - Franco Campanino - Kronos
Scacco Internazionale - Carlo Rustichelli - Beat
THIS WEEK IN FILM MUSIC HISTORY
January 16 - John Carpenter born (1948)
January 16 - John Williams begins recording his score to The Fury (1978)
January 17 - Ryuichi Sakamoto born (1952)
January 17 - John Williams begins recording his score to Return of the Jedi (1983)
January 18 - W. Franke Harling born (1887)
January 18 - Cyril J. Mockridge died (1979)
January 18 - Joseph Gershenson died (1988)
January 19 - Bjorn Isfalt died (1997)
January 19 - Gerard Schurmann born (1928)
January 19 - Jerome Moross begins recording his score to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960)
January 19 - John Williams records his score for The Ghostbreaker (1965)
January 19 - Jerry Goldsmith begins recording electronic cues for Logan's Run (1976)
January 19 - David Shire records his score for the Amazing Stories episode "Moving Day" (1987)
January 20 - Emil Newman born (1911)
January 20 - Franz Waxman begins recording his score to Untamed (1955)|
January 20 - Bronislau Kaper begins recording his score to The Prodigal (1955)
January 20 - Gerry Mulligan died (1996)
January 21 - Paul Misraki born (1908)
January 22 - J.J. Johnson born (1924)
January 22 - Al Kasha born (1937)
January 22 - Marc Blitzstein died (1964)
January 22 - Alexander Courage's score to the Star Trek pilot, "The Cage," is recorded (1965)
January 22 - Christopher Palmer died (1995)
DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?
BIG HERO 6 - Henry Jackman
"Hiro's making money but setting himself up for a criminal record and a couple broken limbs. As the film opens, directors Don Hall and Chris Williams swoop us above the shining nighttime metropolis over the sound of suspenseful strings, almost as if they've mistaken this PG cartoon for a Bruce Willis action thriller."
Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly
"But outside the design, the animation and the laudable attempt to meld different storytelling and graphic traditions, the film is on slightly shakier ground. The story morphs from one thing to another rather too often, and a few nice flourishes are marred by reintroduction and lack of subtlety. The first time we hear Gogo say 'woman up!' it’s a fun if obvious nod to female empowerment, but the second time it’s an empty catchphrase. Similarly, a glimpse at a portrait on the wall of Fred’s mansion is a fun easter egg for Marvel fans that is rendered moot by an extended post-credits scene. And we can’t ignore the absolutely godawful specially-commissioned Fall Out Boy track 'Immortal,' which is slathered all over a montage and then wails over the end credits, disrupting the otherwise solid if unmemorable work of Henry Jackman’s score."
Jessica Kiang, The Playlist
"By now, the Disney-Marvel universe is already filled to bursting with big heroes, and it’s reasonable to ask whether the world really needs six more, especially when all but Baymax feel like kids in high-end Halloween costumes. The movie hypes this new sextet’s introduction by blasting Fall Out Boy’s anthemic 'Immortals' on the soundtrack (which employs a stock rock-music score, courtesy of Henry Jackman), but hasn’t entirely convinced us by the end that we need more adventures from these characters. Couldn’t the Mouse House focus on doing that 'Incredibles' sequel first?"
Peter Debruge, Variety
COMET - Daniel Hart
"The two are also self-reflexive at times, with one conversation hinging on the temporal aspects of film, theater, and music. Kimberly finds time in general and durational art in particular deeply dissatisfying, preferring the all-at-once experience of a medium like painting. Just as she wants life to be free of time’s overarching influence, Esmail seeks to unstick 'Comet' from it -- to show Dell and Kimberly’s beginning, middle, and end not sequentially but all at once. Though he’s hardly the first to take such an approach, the poetic care and quiet playfulness he’s put into crafting the movie is striking. Esmail places a seemingly small story on a large canvas, pairing arresting visuals with Daniel Hart’s lush score to create the most sensorily accomplished romance in recent memory."
Michael Nordine, IndieWIRE
"The cosmic themes and timeline sliding give the film an otherworldly scope, a proportion more epic and fantastical than just the scale of a struggling young relationship. The storytelling also gives it the feeling of something other than an immediate reality, a memory, a dream, or even an alternate universe. Each story capsule has a distinct look and feel to the aesthetic: the Paris hotel room cool, sexy and smoky, breakup #2 capturing the grittier, danker sides of L.A. and New York. The score, by 'Ain’t Them Bodies Saints' composer, Daniel Hart, ties all the sections together, but also adds to the soaring, epic, fantastical tale. Is this real? We might not know."
Katie Walsh, The Playlist
"As 'Comet' starts to drift into the mystical, even forcing us to wonder if these images are visions of the future, the past, or some dream state, Esmail loses his hold on the material ever so slightly. And one wishes he had opened up the film a bit more in terms of film structure, as it often feels like it might work better as a two-actor piece on a stage the way it exists now. He also over-uses his score a bit too much, using it often to link the different scenes in a way to keep a cinematic throughline, but it gets a little forceful."
Matt Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
"That said, Esmail does succeed in creating an ambiance of palpable, if sometimes odd, romanticism, by virtue of Dell’s surging need and the story’s concentrated focus, as well as with atmospheric special effects (a meteor shower, double suns and other heightened natural phenomena), deliberately fanciful settings and an eclectic, smartly judged soundtrack featuring music by Daniel Hart. The film accomplishes quite a bit visually and aurally on what was clearly a limited budget."
Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter
DYING OF THE LIGHT - Frederik Wiedmann
"Trimmed within an inch of its life to a frail 94 minutes, however, 'Dying Of The Light' is left with nothing but the faintest echoes of whatever ideas might have inspired its making. It unfolds with the same slapdash senselessness that defined the other two films Cage appeared in this year. But the studio’s interference is most obvious in a garishly standard score that suffocates any unique flavor that might have survived the re-editing process."
David Ehrlich, The Dissolve
"'Dying of the Light' is a shrill and bombastic slog, with an all-over-the-map collection of tones that never cohere into a compelling vision. From its opening credits sequence onward, the film's editing, music and overall tone evoke a hard-R action thriller, or perhaps a bloody TV series in that tradition, such as Fox's '24'; but the movie's hero, Cage's former field agent turned greying, embittered desk jockey Evan Lake, seems a George Smiley type, more an intellectual than physical threat. There's a weird poignancy in the sight of two brutal adversaries, Evan and Banir, both of whom are in physical decline, chasing each other around Romania -- the terrorist is basically the Comanche chief Scar to Lake's long-deskbound Ethan Edwards. But the movie explores their feud in the most clumsily rhetorical terms, via speeches and subtext-as-text dialogue and action scenes that are intriguingly small-scaled (such as a pistol-toting Evan chasing a man through hotel grounds on foot) but over-edited and over-scored. to the point where the movie seems to be trying to force a level of 'awesomeness' that one rather doubts that Schrader aspired to. The inevitable final man-to-man struggle verges on Zucker-Abrams-Zucker style absurdity. It's basically George W. Bush vs. Bin Laden; add a shrieking free-jazz score and you've got yourself a comedy setpiece for the ages."
Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
"By all accounts, Schrader’s departure from the production was motivated by disagreements over the focus of the movie -- namely, the people financing 'Dying Of The Light' felt that the director’s original cut wasn’t the tense thriller they paid for. Neither, incidentally, is this movie; Lake’s search for Banir is a fairly straightforward process of going from point A to point B and finally point C, and no amount of generically exotic music is going to make it seem exciting."
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The Onion AV Club
"As bad as Paul Schrader's worst movies are, they have integrity of personality that's born of authentic obsession. The weirdest and most dispiriting element of 'Dying of the Light,' which Schrader has protested amid claims that Lionsgate took the film from him, is the remarkable effacement of the filmmaker's sensibility, with the exception of the occasional symbolic flourish that plays as inadvertent self-parody. On paper, the film sounds like vintage Schrader, as it's a story of a disenfranchised loner, who, succumbing to a metaphorical ailment, decides to take the law into his own hands to morally ambiguous ends. But the meat of Schrader's cinema is missing, as the long, deliberate, purposefully harsh compositions rich in alienated portent and stifled, deliberate longing have been replaced by the sort of fast cuts, incoherent chases, and irritatingly obvious 'action movie' music that reliably mar most of Nicolas Cage's other cheesy, low-rent ass-kickers."
Chuck Bowen, Slant Magazine
"The sad final reckoning between Lake and Banir has a certain undeniable fascination, even if it ultimately resolves itself with the sort of garishly choreographed violence that erupts throughout the picture at regular intervals, often accompanied by Frederik Wiedmann’s wannabe-pulse-pounding score."
Justin Chang, Variety
FORCE MAJEURE - Ola Flottum
"Writer/director Ruben Östlund is aces with both the human scale and the biblically awesome, making great use of the mountains’ vast, blank snowbanks and vertiginous drops. All is menace. The sound design distorts the everyday to become grotesque -- amplifying a chairlift’s grinding gears, an electric toothbrush’s angry hum -- while the soundtrack puts on heavy play Vivaldi’s thundering 'Summer' concerto. That choice may seem counterintuitive (summer? in this weather?), but it’s devastatingly effective; at some point, I began to flinch whenever it queued up, in the same kind of Pavlov’s (kicked) dog response I had to Wagner in 'Melancholia.'"
Kimberley Jones, Austin Chronicle
"The gentle twang of lift cables adds to the mood, as does the soundtrack’s signature flourish, a snatch of Vivaldi’s 'Summer,' playing rather threateningly on accordion."
Jonathan Romney, Film Comment
"Director Ruben Östlund, making his fourth feature, builds physical and/or emotional suspense with a masterful touch. His unblinking, rarely moving camera captures lengthy scenes with the clinical precision of Michael Haneke, but with a touch more wit. The frequent booms of avalanche cannons and the sound of dueling electric toothbrushes during Tomas and Ebba's evening ablutions are equally unsettling, to say nothing of the score, which erupts in assaultive bursts of strings every so often."
Marc Mohan, The Oregonian
"Every scene, every masterfully composed shot and every disconcerting interruption of Baroque organ music serve to advance both the mood and the story. Some viewers will no doubt respond to 'Force Majeure' as an overly chilly work, but for me Östlund’s intense command of both form and narrative more than made up for it."
Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com
"Tidy, slightly off-symmetrical frames, the resort’s polished mahogany wood, and the soundtrack’s snatches of classical music underline the general harmony. A puckish Swedish, the writer-director Ruben Ostland slips into a tone that makes 'Force Majeure' almost seem like a deadpan -- frozen -- comedy. He maintains those orderly compositions, that classical music. But the tension, the sense of danger, accumulates."
David Edelstein, New York
THE HOMESMAN - Marco Beltrami
"But Jones has a secret weapon in the director's chair, and it's not the Coen Brothers. He's directing himself in his first feature since the excellent 'The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,' and he's made a tough-minded, intelligent western that subverts genre and gender in ways that are subtle beneath the flashes of violence. 'The Homesman' is so stark and haunting to look at and listen to -- cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and composer Marco Beltrami support the story with career-best work -- that it's easy to miss the twists that blow across the screen."
Jeff Baker, The Oregonian
"Before the movie started, I heard other critics in the screening room complaining about sitting through two hours of Western scenery. I didn’t get a chance to interview them afterward, but I would say that cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto’s harsh, horizontal landscapes -- like the haunting, unsettling score by Marco Beltrami -- are anything but picturesque and reassuring, and serve to support a strikingly bleak portrait of life on the 19th-century American frontier."
Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com
JOHN WICK - Tyler Bates, Joel J. Richard
"Who among us wouldn't go on a 90-minute killing spree if someone murdered our adorable beagle pup? Anyone not on board? Okay, what if the beagle pup was a posthumous gift from your beloved wife, your one opportunity to 'grieve unalone' for the woman who rescued you from your life as a soulless killer? Now we're talking. Bearded Keanu Reeves sets out to resurrect the '80s R-rated action film, complete with rip-roaring guitars, multicolored lights, snappy one-liners, and an endless parade of shootable, stabbable, chokable bad guys."
Matthew Lickona, San Diego Reader
"As enjoyable as 'John Wick' is, including some nifty performances by Ian McShane, Adrianne Palicki, Willem Dafoe and, in a role much more animated than his similarly villainous turn in 'Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol,' Michael Nyqvist, there are instances where it stumbles. The direction, by first-timers David Leitch (who has a background in stunt work) and Chad Stahelski, is occasionally quite slack, and it's very clear that they can handle squib-heavy set pieces much better than dialogue-driven scenes. The music, composed by at least three people (including Tyler Bates) is forgettable at its best, and, at its worst, distractingly bad. And for the amount of great performers they were able to cram into a down-and-dirty genre movie like this, you wish that the filmmakers had found more for them to do (is Bridget Moynahan really relegated to dead-wife-in-flashbacks status?)."
Drew Taylor, The Playlist
"The result, photographed in sleek, steady-hand widescreen by Vilmos Zsigmond protege Jonathan Sela, looks more like recent Nicolas Winding Refn pics than relatively sloppy studio fare (right down to its cool, neon-lit shootouts), relying on a mix of heavy metal and electronic music from the likes of Marilyn Manson, Tyler Bates and Kaleida to generate propulsive forward energy."
Peter Debruge, Variety
LAGGIES - Benjamin Gibbard
"Technically, Shelton has improved with each film. Benjamin Gibbard, of Death Cab for Cutie, offers up an evocative score. And with the assistance of cinematographer Benjamin Kalsulke and production designer John Lavin, Shelton crafts a film that feels intimate and to-scale."
Brent Simon, Paste Magazine
"With a bit more bite, 'Laggies' could have been Lynn Shelton’s 'Greenberg,' a sharper and better-observed comedy looking at the inert and dysfunctional. But as it is, 'Laggies' ultimately ends up being a feel-good, crowd-pleasing comedy with little substantive texture (even Judd Apatow comedies go darker than this) that settles down on all the safe and expected places you might imagine it to. And a mostly cloying score by Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie does little to help the movie’s sunny and weightless tone (a shame since his 'Kurt Cobain: About A Son' score was so good)."
Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist
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, Arclight, LACMA, New Beverly, Nuart, Silent Movie Theater and UCLA.
January 16
AKIRA (Shoji Yamashiro) [Nuart]
DOG DAY AFTERNOON, THE DOG (Mark Dancigers, Troy Herion) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
THE GRADUATE (Dave Grusin), CATCH-22 [Cinematheque: Aero]
KLUTE (Michael Small), NETWORK (Elliot Lawrence) [LACMA/AMPAS]
SABOTEUR (Frank Skinner), STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (Dimitri Tiomkin) [New Beverly]
STREET OF SHAME (Toshiro Mayuzumi), UGETSU (Fumio Hayasaka) [UCLA]
WAXWORK (Roger Bellon) [Silent Movie Theater]
January 17
BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (Stu Philips) [New Beverly]
EAST OF EDEN (Leonard Rosenman), THE GODFATHER (Nino Rota) [LACMA/AMPAS]
THE FORTUNE (David Shire), WORKING GIRL (Carly Simon) [Cinematheque: Aero]
OSAKA ELEGY (Koichi Takagi), SISTERS OF GION [UCLA]
SABOTEUR (Frank Skinner), STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (Dimitri Tiomkin) [New Beverly]
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (Paul J. Smith) [New Beverly]
January 18
THE BUCCANEER (George Antheil), REAP THE WILD WIND (Victor Young) [UCLA]
LOVE STREAMS (Bo Harwood), FACES [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
NUNZIO (Lalo Schifrin) [Silent Movie Theater]
PLAY [Silent Movie Theater]
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE (Carly Simon), SILKWOOD (Georges Delerue) [Cinematheque: Aero]
TO SIR, WITH LOVE (Ron Grainer), THE LONG SHIPS (Dusan Radic) [New Beverly]
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (Paul J. Smith) [New Beverly]
January 19
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (Howard Shore) [Arclight Hollywood]
SUNSET BLVD. (Franz Waxman) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]
TO SIR, WITH LOVE (Ron Grainer), THE LONG SHIPS (Dusan Radic) [New Beverly]
January 20
CRADLE WILL ROCK (David Robbins) [Cinematheque: Aero]
OUT OF AFRICA (John Barry) [Arclight Hollywood]
SUPER MAN CHU (Chu Yen Wang), DUEL OF THE IRON FIST (Yung-Yu Chen) [New Beverly]
WEST SIDE STORY (Leonard Bernstein, Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin, Irwin Kostal) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]
THE WOMEN (Edward Ward, David Snell) [LACMA/AMPAS]
January 21
GOOD WILL HUNTING (Danny Elfman) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]
THE NEW CENTURIONS (Quincy Jones), THE LAST RUN (Jerry Goldsmith) [New Beverly]
WALL STREET (Stewart Copeland) [Arclight Hollywood]
January 22
THE BUBBLE (Paul Sawtell, Bert Shefter) [Cinematheque: Aero]
GONE IN 60 SECONDS (Ronald Halicki, Philip Kachaturian), SPEED TRAP [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
THE NEW CENTURIONS (Quincy Jones), THE LAST RUN (Jerry Goldsmith) [New Beverly]
THE TRUMAN SHOW (Burkhard Dallwitz, Philip Glass) [Arclight Hollywood]
January 23
ALL THAT JAZZ (Ralph Burns), PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (Paul Williams, George Aliceson Tipton) [LACMA/AMPAS]
DUEL (Billy Goldenberg), THE CAR (Leonard Rosenman) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
SANSHO THE BAILIFF (Fumio Hayasaka) [UCLA]
THE SHINING (Wendy Carlos, Rachel Elkind)[Nuart]
A STAR IS BORN (Roger Kellaway), NEW YORK NEW YORK (Ralph Burns) [New Beverly]
January 24
BONNIE AND CLYDE (Charles Strouse), THE GODFATHER PART II (Nino Rota, Carmine Coppola) [LACMA/AMPAS]
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (John Barry), THE MAN WTIH THE GOLDEN GUN (John Barry) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
JUST ONE OF THE GUYS (Tom Scott) [Silent Movie Theater]
THE KING OF KINGS [UCLA]
THE LITTLE COLONEL (Cyril J. Mockridge) [New Beverly]
SOYLENT GREEN (Fred Myrow) [New Beverly]
A STAR IS BORN (Roger Kellaway), NEW YORK NEW YORK (Ralph Burns) [New Beverly]
January 25
BIG MAN JAPAN (Towa Tei) [Silent Movie Theater]
THE LITTLE COLONEL (Cyril J. Mockridge) [New Beverly]
MADAM SATAN, DYNAMITE (Herbert Stothart) [UCLA]
RIDE LONESOME (Heinz Roemheld), COMANCHE STATION (Mischa Bakaleinikoff) [New Beverly]
WEST SIDE STORY (Leonard Bernstein, Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin, Irwin Kostal) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
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