Film Score Daily: Film Score Friday 11/16/18

Intrada has announced two new soundtrack releases for this week -- the first CD release of the LP tracks (taken from vinyl sources) from one of John Barry's few Western scores, the lavish 1981 action-adventure THE LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER, directed by ace cinematographer William Fraker (who also teamed with Barry on the Western Monte Walsh); and the first-ever release of Richard Band's score for the Home Alone-ish kids comedy REMOTE.

La-La Land has announced three new releases expected to begin shipping next week -- the latest in their new Universal Pictures Film Music Heritage Collection series, a two-disc set pairing the scores for sequels AIRPORT '77 (John Cacavas) and THE CONCORDE: AIRPORT '79 (Lalo Schifrin); a greatly expanded, three-disc anniversary edition of Michael Kamen's score for the 1988 action classic DIE HARD, including never-before-heard Kamen music as well as the John Scott (Man on Fire) and James Horner (Aliens) cues tracked into the film's final scene; and the soundtrack for the new, Netflix miniseries remake of Shirley Jackson's classic THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, directed by Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Ouija: Origin of Evil) and scored by his usual composers, The Newton Brothers.

IN THEATERS TODAY

Anchor and Hope - Merche Blasco
At Eternity's Gate - Tatiana Lisovkaya
Chef Flynn - Holy Ghost!
The Clovehitch Killer - Matt Veligdan
Family in Transition - Ophir Leibovitch
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - James Newton Howard - Score CD due Nov. 30 on WaterTower
The Farm - Sergei Stern
55 Steps - Annette Focks
Green Book - Kris Bowers - Score CD-R on Milan
Instant Family - Michael Andrews
Jonathan - Brooke Blair, Will Blair
The Last Race - Roger Goula
The Long Dumb Road - Keegan DeWitt
Mobile Homes - Matthew Otto
Ruben Brandt, Collector - Tibor Cari
Speed Kills - Geronimo Mercado
Team Khan - Simon Bass
Texas Cotton - Sam Lipman
Tinker - Steven Albert Kennedy
Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain - Bill Laswell
12 Round Gun - Roger Suen
Welcome Home - Bear McCreary
Widows - Hans Zimmer - Score CD due Dec. 14 on Milan

Gary Garrison, The Playlist

GOAT - Arjan Miranda

"Along with an ending that some will find either enigmatic or unsatisfying, the movie could benefit from some minor re-editing. But there’s still much that works here, from the chillingly droning score to a uniformly strong cast. 'Goat' is a film that will elicit a great deal of interest on college campuses, but there’s plenty for us post-grads to contemplate as well."

Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

"Based on Brad Land’s 2004 memoir of the same name (which I haven’t read), 'Goat' opens with its best scene: A dozen or so young white guys, all stripped to the waist, move silently in slo-mo, their actions accompanied by a dark-ambient score. Some clap hands; others are shouting, their neck tendons strained; many look downward, fixated on something or someone offscreen."

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice

"The opening credits of 'Goat' present an extraordinary sight. We see young white men, naked from the waist up, snarling and clapping in slow motion. Their roaring is silent; all we hear is the thrum of an electronic score. What has ignited them is unclear, but they seem to be goading something on. So elemental is the display that you wonder: Don’t these guys belong in National Geographic?"

Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

"The arresting slow-motion title sequence is a blunt signal of what's to come. Accompanied only by the distorted sounds of Arjan Miranda's ambient music, we see a seething mass of shirtless male students, clustered together in some sort of animalistic ritual, the skin over their muscles tensed to bursting point and their mouths open in angry, contorted howls."

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN - Mike Higham, Matthew Margeson

"That forgettable showdown is the low point of a movie that excites in fits and starts. In its grandest segment, the children set out on a rescue mission by raising a sunken wreck just off their coastline. Making the vessel seaworthy requires a few of the children to put their talents to use, and Burton turns their efforts into something majestic. This thrilling sequence follows them to a seaside amusement park in England, where the kids, Jake among them, must enter battle to save themselves. A pleasingly Burton-esque scene ensues: Skeletons get the Ray Harryhausen treatment so they can do battle set to a lively techno score."

Anthony Salveggi, Paste Magazine

"Now for some of the good: 'Miss Peregrine' has some truly frightening imagery, the kind likely to brand nightmares into the minds of younger viewers. There’s a giant Cthulhu-Slenderman hybrid monster with tentacle-tongues and scythe-like hands. Mute twins wearing identical clown-like costumes. Eyeless corpses, and shelves filled with jarred organs, and a dead boy who, unfortunately, can come to life under certain circumstances. As the good-versus-evil stakes of the film become clearer in the second half, there are more action sequences to inject some much-needed suspense. A climactic battle -- set in a crowded, snow-blanketed theme park, scored to electronic dance music—is a particularly cathartic highlight (one that almost feels pulled from the Swedish black comedy 'Force Majeure')."

Lenika Cruz, The Atlantic

MR. CHURCH - Mark Isham

"'It’s not a remake of "Driving Miss Daisy,"' insisted Daisy director Bruce Bereford in this introduction to his new drama, and he’s right; 'Daisy' was a far smoother and convincing picture than this one. This too-precious tale of a young woman (Britt Robertson) and the family cook (Eddie Murphy) who sees her through young adulthood is clipped badly by its fuzzy conflicts, twinkly score, comically predictable narrative, and endless, telling-not-showing narration. But Eddie Murphy, making his first film appearance in four years and his first dramatic appearance since 'Dreamgirls,' is remarkable. His understated turn as a close-to-the-vest type who sees all and says little is graceful and convincing, and in the flashes where that seal breaks, he reminds us of the force and charisma he holds, often in reserve. It’s a wonderful performance; it’s a shame it’s wasted on such a second-hand film."

Jason Bailey, Flavorwire

"Guided by nostalgic-storybook narration from Charlotte, shot by Beresford through a hazy filter of film grain and enveloping celestial light and smothered by composer Mark Isham in tender, treacly tones, 'Mr. Church' recounts Charlotte’s coming-of-age odyssey alongside Mr. Church as a series of deaths, 'miracles” and instances in which people -- including local drunk Larson (Christian Madsen) and her best friend Poppy (Lucy Fry) -- save, and are saved by, one another. Written by Susan McMartin, the story’s everything-repeats structure is similarly designed to tug on one’s heartstrings. But like devouring a tub of ice cream (or, per Charlotte and Mr. Church’s running joke, a box of Apple Jacks cereal) in one sitting, consuming so much phony, retrograde schmaltz proves a stomach-churning endeavor."

Nick Schager, Variety

MY BLIND BROTHER - Ian Hultquist

"Writer/director Sophie Goodheart, making her debut feature film, attempts to expand upon a previous short, but can’t even get 'My Blind Brother' to ninety minutes. The film plays like a series of incidents stitched together rather than as a cohesive narrative, and with the characters lacking any meaningful depth, it makes the tonal shift to the slightly more dramatic in the final act if not unconvincing, then jarring. And the anonymous twee score by Ian Hultquist -- that’s almost a parody of the kind of music you hear in many Sundance styled indies -- only aids in making 'My Blind Brother' feel slight. None of this would particularly matter if the picture delivered on the kind of laughs one would expect from this ensemble, but 'My Blind Brother' is mirthless, though Kroll and Slate have a delightfully easy charm that occasionally rises above the tedium."

Kevin Jagernauth, The Playlist

NEVER HERE - James Lavino

"In fact, the evocative cinematography from Sebastian Winterø is another of the film's great strengths, as he paints New York in shadowy, Hitchcockian tones that accentuate the gloomy corners and unlit spaces in which the darker aspects of life can play out, seemingly unseen. James Lavino's dreamlike aural soundscape, with its mix of mellow notes and sharp cracks, adds to the hypnotic tone, and the use of layered dialogue, which often loops back on itself, underscores the sense of unease and shifting perspectives that power this intricate, intelligent piece of filmmaking. It all makes for an accomplished, fascinating debut from a filmmaker to watch."

Nikki Baughan, The List

"Thoman's playfully arty touches include highlighting details with red circles on screen, and deploying Jenny Holzer-style neon slogan artworks as visual clues. She repeatedly implicates the viewer as voyeur with mobile camerawork that prowls and jerks and hovers uncomfortably close to characters, mimicking the stop-start motions of a stalker. Visual focus is deliberately blurry in places, amplifying the theme of identity melting and dissolving. James Lavino's score is a patchwork of sonic unease, sprinkled with non-diegetic drones and crackles, another Lynchian touch. Thoman also loops and layers snippets of dialogue, using them almost like musical motifs."

Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter

ONE OF US - T. Griffin

"'One of Us' is a fascinating title. It recalls, among other things, 'Freaks,' the 1932 Tod Browning movie in which a similar phrase is chanted by circus pinheads, fat ladies, and the rest of the circus menagerie when a 'normal' woman marries in. Grady and Ewing use music as scary as in any horror film. They had no interest in making an 'objective documentary,' although I doubt the Hasidim would have made themselves available to two women with a camera and their own hair. In such cases, they usually say, 'If you want to understand us, read the Torah.'"

David Edelstein, Vulture

"Two of the film’s subjects are profiled in the midst of their painful and risky separations, and the third is nearly a decade past his leave-taking but still adjusting. In different ways their stories are harrowing; what might be most surprising to outsiders is the sense of loss that they share, an ambivalent tug of nostalgia for the community that once held and nurtured them, even if it also abused them. Their portraits unfold through sensitive camerawork, with T. Griffin’s expressive score pulsing ominously during especially charged moments and, at others, dropping down to a plaintive, spare piano."

Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter

SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME - John Paesano

"The film gives a strong juxtaposition of why Ron & Debbie and Denver would be unusual as friends, which makes for a sweet spot in the middle when Denver is shown hanging out with them. The scenes are cringeworthy to be sure, like when one of Ron’s peers at a country club calls Denver an 'amigo Negro,' but the shimmer, that value of 'nice' is prominent, as performed by three capable actors. In fact, in many instances, Kinnear, Zellweger and Hounsou make the production seem like it has more soul than the sappy strings, wholesale dialogue and lazy filmmaking would suggest."

Nick Allen, RogerEbert.com

TOM OF FINLAND - Hildur Gudnadottir, Lasse Enersen

"That the dichotomy is drawn perhaps too deliberately here -- emphasizing a divide that shouldn’t, or doesn’t, exist -- does at least serve as an interesting act of provocation. And it undeniably lends the film an emotional dynamism: There’s a contrast of feeling between, say, the tinkling, pro forma piano score that’s used frequently throughout the first hour of 'Tom of Finland' and the euphoric post-disco of Sylvester’s 'Take Me to Heaven,' which plays over the end credits. Karukoski means to liberate his film from convention in much the same way Laaksonen was able to free himself from his sexual anxieties through his art, and as more of the images of sexualized 'Tom’s men' make it off the page and become a part of Laaksonen’s physical life, so, too, does Karukoski open his film to more expressive registers."

Sam C. Mac, Slant Magazine

Screenings of older films, at the following L.A. movie theaters: AMPAS, American Cinematheque: Aero, American Cinematheque: Egyptian, Arclight, Arena Cinelounge, LACMA, Laemmle, New Beverly [reopening in December!], Nuart and UCLA.

November 16
LEAVE NO TRACE (Dickon Hinchliffe), WINTER'S BONE (Dickon Hinchliffe) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
LITTLE DARLINGS (Charles Fox) [UCLA]
WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (J. Peter Robinson) [Nuart]

November 18
THE PIANIST (Wojciech Kilar) [Laemmle Music Hall]
SPY KIDS (John Debney, Danny Elfman, Harry Gregson-Williams, Los Lobos, Robert Rodriguez) [UCLA]
WINGS OF DESIRE (Jurgen Knieper) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]

November 19
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Dimitri Tiomkin) [Arclight Santa Monica]
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (Bruce Broughton) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]

November 20
NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION (Angelo Badalamenti) [Arclight Culver City]
RED DUST [LACMA]
TOKYO GODFATHERS (Keiichi Suzuki) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]

November 21
HOME ALONE (John Williams) [Arclight Hollywood]
PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (Ira Newborn) [Cinematheque: Aero]

November 23
DAWN OF THE DEAD (Goblin) [Cinematheque: Aero]
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Maurice Jarre) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
PERFECT BLUE (Masahiro Ikumi) [Nuart]

November 24
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Maurice Jarre) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (Lennie Hayton) [Cinematheque: Aero]

November 25
MY FAIR LADY (Frederick Loewe, Andre Previn) [Cinematheque: Aero]

THINGS I'VE HEARD, READ, SEEN OR WATCHED LATELY

Searching for something on YouTube recently, I was surprised to come across Andy Williams singing "Love Said Goodbye," which turns out to be the pop song version of Nino Rota's gorgeous theme "The Immigrant" from The Godfather Part II (one can also find Williams' renditions of the songs for King Kong and Papillon on YouTube as well).

Rota won his only Oscar (shared with Carmine Coppola) for his Godfather II score, having had his nomination for the first Godfather rescinded after it was noted that one of its principal themes (which became the pop ballad "Speak Softly Love") was based on a theme from his 1958 score Fortunella, which of course made it even stranger that his Part II score, incorporating that theme and other Godfather I themes, should win Original Score (over an incredible group of fellow nominees -- Bennett, Goldsmith, North and Williams).

The Academy announced earlier this year that they will be reinstating short-lists for the Score and Song categories (I don't know when they're being announced, but I. Can't. Wait.), but given that there are seemingly more sequels -- and sequel scores -- than ever, it would also seem a logical time to reinstate a version of the old Music Adaptation category (presumably with room for the few original song scores that are written by a consistent team, like La La Land and The Greatest Showman). The following scores would presumably all be eligible for Music Adaptation this year, if that award returned:

Ant-Man and the Wasp, Avengers: Infinity War, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Creed II, The Equalizer 2, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Fifty Shades Freed, Halloween, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Incredibles 2, Insidious: The Last Key, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, The Predator, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Sherlock Gnomes and Solo: A Star Wars Story.