Intrada has announced their final three CD releases for 2016, which are now available to order -- the first CD release of concert composer (and musical humorist, as "PDQ Bach") Peter Schickele's beloved score for director Douglas Trumbull's 1972 sci-fi cult classic SILENT RUNNING, featuring the same tracks as the original MCA (and later Varese Sarabande) LP, taken from a vinyl source since the original score tapes remain lost (the LP featured virtually the entire score); the first-ever release of Basil Poledouris' lush sequel score RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON; and the first full release of Bruce Broughton's score for the family comedy ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS, whose previous CD release was a mixture of songs and 15 minutes of Broughton cues.
A week ago La-La Land announced a whopping five new Black Friday releases -- the long-promised, four-disc STAR TREK 50TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION, whose contents include library music from the original series, unreleased cues from the later series, and, most notably, the first-ever release of score cues from the well-regarded animated series from the 1970s; a four-disc set featuring John Williams' complete scores for Steven Spielberg's blockbuster hits JURASSIC PARK and THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK; a two-disc set featuring remastered versions of Don Ellis' scores for THE FRENCH CONNECTION and its sequel (previously released by Film Score Monthly), as well as Brad Fiedel's previously unreleased score for the unsold TV pilot POPEYE DOYLE, in which Ed O'Neill played the role which won Gene Hackman his first Oscar in 1971; and separate, first-ever score CD releases for Harold Faltermeyer's BEVERLY HILLS COP and BEVERLY HILLS COP II.
CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
All I Want for Christmas - Bruce Broughton - Intrada Special Collection
Beverly Hills Cop - Harold Faltermeyer - La-La Land
Beverly Hills Cop II - Harold Faltermeyer - La-La Land
The French Connection Collection - Don Ellis, Brad Fiedel - La-La Land
The John Williams Jurassic Park Collection - John Williams - La-La Land
Nocturnal Animals - Abel Korzeniowski - Silva
Return to the Blue Lagoon - Basil Poledouris - Intrada Special Collection
Silent Running - Peter Schickele - Intrada Special Collection
Star Trek 50th Anniversary Collection - various - La-La Land
IN THEATERS TODAY
Always Shine - Michael Montes
The Comedian - Terence Blanchard
Evan’s Crime - Adam Gorgoni
The Eyes of My Mother - Ariel Loh
Incarnate - Andrew Lockington
Jackie - Mica Levi - Score CD due Dec. 16 on Milan
Man Down - Clint Mansell
Mifune: The Last Samurai - Jeffrey Wood
Pet - Zacarias M. de la Riva
Pocket Listing - Sean Murray
Run the Tide - Tommy Simpson
Sins of Our Youth - Lior Rosner
Siren - Kristopher Carter
Things to Come - Music Supervisor: Raphael Hamburger
COMING SOON
December 9
A Monster Calls (U.S. release) - Fernando Velazquez - Backlot
December 16
Jackie - Mica Levi - Milan
La La Land - Justin Hurwitz - Interscope
Passengers - Thomas Newman - Sony
Penny Dreadful: Seasons 2 and 3 - Abel Korzeniowski - Varese Sarabande
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Michael Giacchino - Disney
Sing - Joby Talbot - Backlot
December 23
Assassin's Creed - Jed Kurzel - Verve
Lion - Dustin O'Halloran, Hauschka - Sony
December 30
Narcos: Season 2 - Pedro Bromfman - Lakeshore
January 13
Hans Zimmer: The Classics - Hans Zimmer - Sony
January 20
Planet Earth II - Hans Zimmer, Jacob Shea, Jasha Klebe - Silva
January 27
Gears of War 4 - Ramin Djawadi - Sumthing Else
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter - Paul Haslinger - Milan
Date Unknown
The Boy and the Lion - Stelvio Cipriani - Kronos
The Brian May Fantasy Film Music Collection - Brian May - Dragon's Domain
Guy Farley Film Music Collection - Guy Farley - Caldera
KM31 - Carles Cases - Kronos
Napoleon (new recording) - Carl Davis - Carl Davis Collection
Travolto Dagli Afffetti Familiari/Il Vizio Di Famiglia - Gianni Ferrio - Digitmovies
THIS WEEK IN FILM MUSIC HISTORY
December 2 - Harry Sukman born (1912)
December 2 - Eddie Sauter born (1914)
December 2 - Milton Delugg born (1918)
December 2 - Artie Butler born (1942)
December 2 - Michael Whalen born (1965)
December 2 - Gerald Fried's score to the Star Trek episode "Shore Leave" is recorded (1966)
December 2 - Richard Markowitz begins recording his music for the three-part Mission: Impossible episode “The Falcon,” his final scores for the series (1969)
December 2 - Francois-Eudes Chanfrault born (1974)
December 2 - John Williams begins recording his score for Midway (1975)
December 2 - Aaron Copland died (1990)
December 3 - Nino Rota born (1911)
December 3 - Christopher Slaski born (1974)
December 3 - Elmer Bernstein begins recording his score to McQ (1973)
December 3 - Hoyt Curtin died (2000)
December 3 - Dee Barton died (2001)
December 3 - Derek Wadsworth died (2008)
December 4 - Alex North born (1910)
December 4 - Richard Robbins born (1940)
December 4 - Leonard Rosenman records his score for the Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode “One of the Family” (1964)
December 4 - Jason Staczek born (1965)
December 4 - Benjamin Britten died (1976)
December 4 - On Golden Pond opens in New York and Los Angeles (1981)
December 4 - Harry Sukman died (1984)
December 4 - Frank Zappa died (1993)
December 4 - Tito Arevalo died (2000)
December 5 - Karl-Ernst Sasse born (1923)
December 5 - Johnny Pate born (1923)
December 5 - John Altman born (1949)
December 5 - Richard Gibbs born (1955)
December 5 - Osvaldo Golijov born (1960)
December 5 - Cliff Eidelman born (1964)
December 5 - Jerry Goldsmith records his score for the Room 222 pilot (1968)
December 5 - Jerry Goldsmith begins recording his score to Coma (1977)
December 5 - Masaru Sato died (1999)
December 5 - Dave Brubeck died (2012)
December 5 - Manuel De Sica died (2014)
December 6 - Mort Glickman born (1898)
December 6 - Lyn Murray born (1909)
December 6 - Dave Brubeck born (1920)
December 6 - Piero Piccioni born (1921)
December 6 - Maury Laws born (1923)
December 6 - Roberto Pregadio born (1928)
December 6 - Willie Hutch born (1944)
December 6 - Joe Hisaishi born (1950)
December 6 - Recording sessions begin for Sol Kaplan’s score for Destination Gobi (1952)
December 6 - Lalo Schifrin begins recording the original soundtrack LP to Bullitt (1968)
December 6 - Hans Zimmer begins recording his score for Broken Arrow (1995)
December 6 - Richard Markowitz died (1994)
December 7 - Ernst Toch born (1887)
December 7 - Tom Waits born (1949)
December 7 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service opens in Los Angeles (1969)
December 7 - Jerry Goldsmith records his score for The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971)
December 7 - Georges Delerue begins recording his score for Les Visiteurs (1979)
December 7 - Basil Poledouris begins recording his score for White Fang (1990)
December 7 - John Addison died (1998)
December 8 - Leo Shuken born (1906)
December 8 - John Rubinstein born (1946)
December 8 - Bruce Kimmel born (1947)
December 8 - Russell Garcia begins recording his score for The Time Machine (1959)
December 8 - Junkie XL born as Tom Holkenberg (1967)
December 8 - Antonio Carlos Jobim died (1994)
December 8 - Richard Thompson begins recording his score for Grizzly Man (2004)
DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?
ROOM - Stephen Rennicks
"A world away from his last feature, the idiosyncratic rock ‘n’ roll comedy 'Frank,' with 'Room,' Abrahamson nonetheless shows further evidence of his ability to draw on familiar genre ingredients while twisting them into unexpected tonal directions. The complicated story is aided in large part by Stephen Rennicks’ layered score, which conveys an ambiguous mood every step of the way; with each new hurdle passed, there’s still a lingering sense that Ma and Jack aren’t quite safe."
Eric Kohn, IndieWire
"This is the point at which you might consider bookmarking this review and coming back after you’ve seen 'Room.' I went into it cold, and would frankly recommend you do the same (this advice holds for nearly any movie, but that’s neither here nor there). Yet what happens at this halfway point is divulged clearly in the ads and trailers -- and is worth talking about because so much of what makes 'Room' great, of why it’s innovative and admirable, is a result of that break. So proceed with caution, etc. The music, the cinematography, the cutting of this sequence is visceral, powerful, and overwhelming, as this five-year-old child summons up all of his courage, all of his power, and makes the escape. He finds the police, and a resourceful cop figures out what’s happened and acts. His mother is safe; they are reunited. (These two extraordinary actors will wreck you pretty much throughout 'Room,' but the things Larson is doing in that reunion scene are, quite simply, astonishing.) And then… well, what then?"
Jason Bailey, Flavorwire
"Stephen Rennicks' ('Frank') doleful score is top notch, but it’s unfortunate how much the conclusion over-swells, mildly undermining all the beautiful work that came before. The final shot is perhaps something more befitting of a Ron Howard film, and it’s little missteps like this that hurt the film bit by bit."
Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist
"Abrahamson works wonders with the actors, getting one of the all-time great child performances from Tremblay, whose vivid voiceover and air of sheltered kookiness can’t have come easy. Equally brilliant is Larson, whose constantly communicating several conflicting emotions at once. If there’s one flaw, it’s an over-reliance on Stephen Rennicks’ score. We don’t need to hear cloying piano chords to perceive Jack’s wonder at the world or feel Joy’s pain, we just need to glimpse the faces of the actors playing them."
Jamie Dunn, The Skinny
"Abrahamson keeps the rapes committed by the man Ma calls 'Old Nick' (Sean Bridgers) offscreen or viewed hazily through cracks in the wardrobe where the boy is sent to sleep. (The only concession her captor accepts is that he won’t see or touch his son.) But we sense the impact of this tyrant in the bruises on Ma; the scarcity of food (he has been unemployed for six months); and acts of pure cruelty, like turning off the power (and heat) for two days after an altercation. Abrahamson knows when to open up the space -- creating a sense of expansiveness -- and when to bring the camera so close that even this most sacred of relationships chafes. The movie’s lone flaw is a score heavy on childlike wonder, meant as a counterpoint to this purgatory but too shimmering and piano-plinky, cuing the audience how to feel."
David Edelstein, New York
"I wish only that the broader film lived up to the performances. I missed some of the novel’s oddness and occasionally daring frankness -- Jack’s notion of bodies and personal space and privacy, so interestingly, honestly addressed in the novel, is largely left out of the film, for example. Certain psychological intricacies of the novel were probably impossible to translate to film, so there’s a particular thinness to the story on screen that there isn’t on the page. A few minor aesthetic things cause problems too, chiefly an intrusive score that telegraphs too much of what we already know; the two central performances tell us almost everything, so there’s no need for an aching, swelling score."
Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
"But this is also where the film struggles a bit, because it remains in Jack's point of view, while wanting to convey what his mother is going through in ways both subtle and not so subtle. That leaves the film sometimes working at cross-purposes, with some elements reflecting Jack's state of mind and some reflecting Ma's. This is particularly true of the far-too-overdramatic score. The final shot of the film is scored to a piece of music that sounds like it should soundtrack Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea, not the conclusion of an intimate character thriller. Larson's performance is so good (and so transformative) that we don't really need the constant cues as to her emotional state."
Todd VanDerWerff, Vox
"Abrahamson (whose previous film was the strangely affecting musical dramedy 'Frank') straddles a similar line between 'subtle' and 'sappy.'” He overuses Stephen Rennicks’ somewhat cloying score, and while 'Room''s reliance on Tremblay’s narration is meant to be true to the novel’s limited perspective, there are times when having a cute child explain his point-of-view seems like excessive emotional manipulation. But at the same time, 'Room' doesn’t shy away from the more complicated and difficult parts of this story: from the challenges that Jack and Joy face in returning to 'normal,' to the way that no one seems to know what to say to them once the initial wave of relief and publicity subsides. Life outside the shed is no paradise. There are financial and health concerns, coupled with Joy’s creeping rage at her family and friends for continuing to have their own little crises and triumphs without her."
Noel Murray, The Onion AV Club
"At times, it seems as if director Lenny Abrahamson didn’t quite realize he was making a delicate movie, something not relying on the sturdy construction of a compelling plot, but rather something situational, moody and evocative. To sustain an audience’s passionate engagement for 90 minutes would have been a challenge, though a goal within reach. Instead Abrahamson paces the movie as though the audience were in the palm of his hand, so that he follows slow scenes with musical interludes in which nothing happens, and he keep this up for 118 long, long minutes. The problem is compounded in that the story stays focused on the child, when the mother is the more interesting person onscreen, both as a character and in terms of the actress, Brie Larson, who really seems incapable of a false moment."
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"By telling its story exclusively from the point of view of a child just beginning to differentiate between his interior world and the world, 'Room' the novel became as much a narrative experiment as a familial drama. 'Room' the movie can’t use the same techniques to bring you inside Jack’s head, but in the film’s first (and best) half, Danny Cohen’s cinematography captures something like the subjective experience of childhood. Seen in low-angled close-ups in just the right shaft of light, the grubby surfaces and worn objects in claustrophobic, 11-by-11-foot, cork-tiled Room start to take on their own luminous beauty—though the effect might have been more transporting without Abrahamson’s frequent overlays of voice-over narration (by Tremblay) and mood-enhancing music (by Stephen Rennicks.)"
Dana Stevens, Slate.com
"In another kidnapping/survival yarn, that would be the end of the story, and a perfectly happy one at that. It’s here, however, that 'Room' becomes altogether richer and more complicated as it delves into the lingering shellshock that afflicts Ma and especially young Jack, who is understandably overwhelmed by his immediate impressions of the outside world. Abrahamson, an Irish independent filmmaker whose very previous movies ('Frank,' 'Garage') struck a nice balance of humanist storytelling and austerely elegant visuals, pulls off some of his most striking effects here through compositional skill alone (which at times makes Stephen Rennicks’ score feel over-insistent by comparison). Cohen’s use of widescreen, an odd but strangely effective choice in terms of capturing Room’s interior, makes the outside world look big, empty and weirdly underpopulated by comparison. Jack’s first exposure to a white-walled hospital room is painfully overlit, like something out of science fiction; an establishing shot of an American suburban neighborhood conveys an inexplicable sense of menace."
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, Arclight, Crest, LACMA, New Beverly, Nuart, Silent Movie Theater and UCLA.
December 2
KAANTE (Lucky Ali, Anand Raj Anand, Vishal, Gregor Narholz) [New Beverly]
RESERVOIR DOGS [New Beverly]
December 3
KAANTE (Lucky Ali, Anand Raj Anand, Vishal, Gregor Narholz) [New Beverly]
MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS (Harry Jackson) [New Beverly]
RESERVOIR DOGS [New Beverly]
A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (Alfred Newman), THREE GIRLS ABOUT TOWN (Morris Stoloff) [UCLA]
December 4
DR. STRANGELOVE (Laurie Johnson), STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES [New Beverly]
MANY WARS AGO (Piero Piccioni), WAR REQUIEM (Benjamin Britten) [UCLA]
MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS (Harry Jackson) [New Beverly]
December 5
DR. STRANGELOVE (Laurie Johnson), STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES [New Beverly]
EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS (Marc Ellis) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]
THE POLAR EXPRESS (Alan Silvestri) [Arclight Santa Monica]
SCROOGED (Danny Elfman) [Arclight Hollywood]
December 6
THE APARTMENT (Adolph Deutsch) [LACMA]
CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (Carl Zittrer), DEATHDREAM (Carl Zittrer) [New Beverly]
ROMEO AND JULIET (Nino Rota) [Cinematheque: Aero]
WHITE CHRISTMAS (Irving Berlin, Joseph J. Lilley) [Arclight Hollywood]
December 7
THE APARTMENT (Adolph Deutsch) [Silent Movie Theater]
BARRY LYNDON (Leonard Rosenman), STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES [New Beverly]
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Dimitri Tiomkin) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]
RACING EXTINCTION (J. Ralph) [Cinematheque: Aero]
December 8
BARRY LYNDON (Leonard Rosenman), STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES [New Beverly]
BIRTH (Alexandre Desplat) [Silent Movie Theater]
December 9
BOUND FOR GLORY (Leonard Rosenman), KILL BILL VOL. 2 (The RZA, Robert Rodriquez), THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS (Louis Sauneders) [New Beverly]
THE ROAD BACK (Dimitri Tiomkin), JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN (Jerry Fielding) [UCLA]
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
December 10
BARRY LYNDON (Leonard Rosenman), STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES [New Beverly]
A CHRISTMAS STORY (Carl Zittrer, Paul Zaza) [New Beverly]
ELF (John Debney) [New Beverly]
OPENING NIGHT (Bo Harwood) [UCLA]
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
December 11
ELF (John Debney) [New Beverly]
THE KILLING (Gerald Fried), LOLITA (Nelson Riddle) [New Beverly]
OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR (Alfred Ralston) [UCLA]
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
THE WIZARD OF OZ (Harold Arlen, Herbert Stothart) [UCLA]
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