Film Score Daily: Film Score Friday 5/26/17

Varese Sarabande has announced three new CDs in their Limited Edition series of contemporary scores -- the new period spy thriller THE EXCEPTION, starring Lily James, Jai Courtney and Christopher Plummer, with music by Ilan Eshkeri (The Young Victoria, Shaun the Sheep Movie); PASSAGE TO DAWN, a romantic drama from Spain scored by Diego Navarro; and FILM MUSIC FESTIVAL KRAKOW - 2017, a compilation featuring original cues and re-recordings by a variety of composers, including the first commercial release of a cue from Abel Korzeniowski's Escape from Tomorrow.

Yesterday was the 38th anniversary of the release of the original ALIEN, for which Jerry Goldsmith wrote one of his most striking and downright scariest scores. Director Ridley Scott (apparently encouraged by editor Terry Rawlings) notoriously reworked much of Goldsmith's music, substituting other music such as Howard Hanson's "Romantic" Symphony (used as the film's end title) and cues from Goldsmith's first Oscar-nominated score, for 1962's Freud (for the dripping-acid and Dallas-in-the-air-vent scenes). Goldsmith had an even more disappointing experience with his next project with Scott, the lavish fantasy Legend, as Goldsmith's score was replaced in U.S prints with a new score by Tangerine Dream, and even the European release featured some tracked-in music. Fortunately, the later DVD release of Legend featured multiple cuts of the film with multiple scores, and over the years Scott seems to be slowly learning to appreciate Goldsmith's music. His underrated 2005 historical epic Kingdom of Heaven (which must be seen in the longer Director's Cut to be truly appreciated) featured a score by Harry Gregson-Williams but also contained tracked-in cues including a piece from Goldsmith's The 13th Warrior. Scott's 2012 Alien prequel Prometheus featured Goldsmith's Alien theme in one scene (otherwise the score was composed by Marc Streitenfeld with memorable additional material by Gregson-Williams), and the just-released ALIEN: COVENANT, with score credited to Jed Kurzel, features Goldsmith's music, faithfully adapted, in several prominent places as well as multiple uses of Gregson-Williams' Prometheus themes, making it the first in the Alien series with a true sequel score.

The one major change to the Film Score Friday format in recent years was the addition of the THE NEXT TEN DAYS IN L.A. section at the end of the colum, which lists screenings of older films at revival theaters around the Los Angeles area. This section began in 2010, after I mentioned on the site that I'd seen a 35mm print of the wonderfully bad but still somehow wonderful Damnation Alley (with its thrilling and largely unreleased score by Goldsmith) at L.A.'s Silent Movie Theater, and a reader complained that I should have let people know the film would be screening in the area (after all, the score is deservedly popular among many film score fans, and I'm not the only one for whom a complete Damnation Alley CD is one of our last film music holy grails). Thus "The Next Ten Days In L.A." was born, so I should make extra effort to point out that Damnation Alley is returning to L.A. for one night next month.

The New Beverly's just-announced June schedule features an emphasis on science-fiction (as well as an emphasis on, conversely, the films of director Jerry Schatzberg), with the line-up including The Road Warrior/Mad Max: Fury Road (June 2-3), A Boy and His Dog (June 3, midnight), Star Trek -- The Motion Picture/The Black Hole (June 9-10), The Omega Man (June 10, midnight), First Spaceship on Venus/Mars Needs Women (June 13), RoboCop/Starship Troopers (June 16-17), X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes/The Man with Two Brains (June 23-24), Flash Gordon (June 24-25), Barbarella (June 24, midnight), Message from Space/Starcrash (June 27), 2010/Interstellar (June 30-July 1), and for one night only, on June 20, a "Grindhouse" double feature of Damnation Alley and Battle Beyond the Stars (featuring one of the earliest scores by James Horner). To quote the great George Peppard from Damnation Alley, "This whole town is infested with killer cockroaches. I repeat: KILLER COCKROACHES!"

COMING SOON

June 2
I Sette Gladiatori - Marcello Giombini - Digitmovies
The Lovers - Mandy Hoffman - Milan
Max & Me - Mark McKenzie - Sony (import)
My Cousin Rachel - Rael Jones - Sony
Polizziotto Sprint - Stelvio Cipriani - Digitmovies
Wonder Woman - Rupert Gregson-Williams - WaterTower
June 9
I Don't Feel at Home In This World Anymore - Brooke Blair, Will Blair - Lakeshore
The Promise - Gabriel Yared - Lakeshore
June 16
Cars 3 - Randy Newman - Disney
June 30
The Big Sick - Michael Andrews - Varese Sarabande
...Continuavano A Chiamario Trinita - Guido & Maurizio De Angelis - Digitmovies
Dawn of War III - Paul Leonard-Morgan - Sumthing Else
Generation Iron 2 - Jeff Rona - Milan
The Handmaid's Tale - Adam Taylor - Lakeshore
House of Cards: Season 5 - Jeff Beal - Varese Sarabande
Il Sesso Della Strega - Daniele Patucchi - Digitmovies
It Comes at Night - Brian McOmber - Milan
Rabbit & Rogue (ballet score) - Danny Elfman - Sony
War Machine - Nick Cave, Warren Ellis - Lakeshore
July 7
A Ghost Story - Daniel Hart - Milan
John Williams: Themes and Transcriptions for Piano - John Williams - Varese Sarabande
Spider-Man: Homecoming - Michael Giacchino - Sony
July 21
American Gods - Brian Reitzell - Milan
August 4
Free Fire - Geoff Barrow, Ben Salibury - Lakeshore
Wind River - Nick Cave, Warren Ellis - Lakeshore
September 8
Twin Peaks: The Event Series - Angelo Badalamenti - Rhino
Date Unknown
Il Relitto - Angelo Francesco Lavagnino - Alhambra
Monster from Green Hell - Albert Glasser - Kritzerland
Ode to Billy Joe - Michel Legrand - Kritzerland
Puppet on a Chain - Piero Piccioni - Silva
Scott of the Antarctic (re-recording) - Ralph Vaughn Williams - Dutton

Rodrigo Perez, IndieWire

EVERY THING WILL BE FINE - Alexandre Desplat

"The diffuseness of this approach, which largely springs from Bjorn Olaf Johannessen‘s sadly one-note script, accounts for the film’s lack of urgency, but a patient viewer could consider Wenders’ craft and the solid if muted performances worth the price of admission, though not if there’s a 3D surcharge. The idea of shooting an intimate human drama in 3D is interesting but ends up adding nothing, bar making Benoit Debie‘s photography feel muddier and dimmer in a film already rendered in a low-contrast palette of browns and greys. But the music does help things along, as Alexandre’s Desplat’s largely orchestral, strings-led score often brings notes of almost Hermann[sic]-esque intrigue and mystery to scenes that otherwise lie there flatly."

Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

"So perhaps 'Every Thing Will Be Fine' is supposed to be the director’s back-to-basics movie, putting him in the mode of the ’50s Hollywood dramas (see: Alexandre Desplat’s throwback score) that haunted his early German films like dreams -- and maybe Wenders has just depleted whatever basics he could go back to. There are exactly two interesting things about 'Every Thing Will Be Fine.' The first is the use of 3-D as a stand-in for the rapturous use of color in classic melodramas; it works for the first 10 or so minutes, which are set in the dead of winter. Then the viewer realizes that all of the ideas Wenders has cooked up for 3-D involve falling snow, and that the rest of the movie is set in the spring, summer, and fall seasons of an 11-year period, and mostly consists of awkwardly staged conversations with a 2-to-1 ratio of heavy pauses to actual dialogue, occasionally spruced up with a reflection or a barely motivated 'Vertigo'-style dolly-zoom."

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The Onion AV Club

"There’s something amiss in the opening moments of 'Every Thing Will Be Fine.' Set to a mildly spooky strings-and-piano piece by Alexandre Desplat, the sequence suggests an old-fashioned murder mystery to such a degree that when the film’s title finally fades in, it feels like a false promise."

Michael Pattison, IndieWire

"Wenders has long been a master of the meander, having distinguished himself with leisurely plotted road movies like' Paris, Texas.' His first dramatic film in seven years happens to arrive shortly after the five-hour director's cut of his 1991 future-shock epic 'Until the End of the World,' recently released for the first time in the U.S. That's unfortunate timing, because the 24-year-old film is truly remarkable: a grand vision that knows how to take its time, elevating aimlessness to apocalyptic heights. But you need a particular alchemy of mood and character to make so much nothing feel so urgent, an alchemy missing from 'Every Thing.' It creaks along the years with little to show for all that time -- except an Alexandre Desplat score that repeats the same 13 notes ad nauseum, thereby fitting the film a little too well."

Andrew Lapin, NPR

"[Benoit] Debie, best known for his work with Gaspar Noe and Harmony Korine, contributes solemnly handsome, thoughtfully composed lensing, though perhaps the 3D application is partially responsible for his uncharacteristically taupe-dominated palette. Other tech credits are as skilled as one would expect from a Wenders production, if not always tonally sympathetic to the film around them: A busy orchestral score by the ubiquitous Alexandre Desplat swirls with symphonic fury around most scenes, as if feverishly searching for some action to score."

Guy Lodge, Variety

"Adding to the uncertainty of the location is the strange, bookish English everyone speaks. The language used is very distancing and flattens out the characters, making them seem even more peripheral to the fancy camerawork around them, and raising the question of whether 3D is appropriate for such a closed-door drama after all. It certainly holds the attention in a way much 3D work does not and never disappears into the background. Cinematographer Benoit Debie conveys many layers and many moods with his special lenses and moving camera. Ultimately the deep-focus background seems to become a kind of mental landscape belonging to the characters. Emmanuel Frechette's set design is rich in color and texture -- and rich in general with light pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows of expensive dream houses built on lakes and rivers. Alexandre Desplat's score, neatly blending the cosmic with thriller themes, affords beautiful company throughout."

Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter

LIFE - Owen Pallett

"Meanwhile, Dennis [Robert Pattinson] is under pressure from his ex-wife (Stella Schnabel) to come back to New York and be a father to their seven-year-old son (Jack Fulton). He has seized on the Dean assignment as his first real shot at serious work, and seems determined that this undisciplined, awkward young actor can be positioned as the symbol of an exciting new movement. Composer Owen Pallett channels that spirit of cultural ferment in a score of beatnik-flavored jazz, with lots of lazy drums and smoky horns, a musical device used to similar effect in another DeHaan film set a decade earlier, 'Kill Your Darlings.'"

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

MACBETH - Jed Kurzel

"Scenes that are only described in speeches in the stage play -- including the initial pitched battle scene and, later, the gruesome deaths of Macduff’s wife and children -- are shown in the film. And it succeeds in matching the raw, ropy power of Shakespeare’s wonderful language with striking, often brutal cinematography by Adam Arkapaw ('Lore'). 'Macbeth' is a gorgeous film, filled with fog, fire and rocky cliffs. The score (by the director’s brother, Jed Kurzel) is appropriately spare and stirring, using silence as a counterpoint to the sound and fury of the film’s tumultuous action. At times, all we hear is the click of pebbles, or the crackle of dying embers."

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

"This new 'Macbeth' has a strong opening minute and little else, but it does have that. We see Macbeth (Michael Fassbender), a thane of Scotland, and Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard) at the burial of their son, a toddler of about 3. This wordless scene doesn’t take place in Shakespeare’s play, but the filmmakers infer it from the fact that the Macbeths have no children, and yet Lady Macbeth mentions having breast-fed a child. This opening introduces the Macbeths as people who feel cheated by life, who have suffered a blow to the soul that can never fully heal.This is an interesting take, perhaps insightful. But 'Macbeth' soon locks into a style that it can’t escape from. From the beginning, cellos and mournful-sounding synthesizers underscore everything, creating a dreamy, distanced quality. And all the dialogue is spoken quietly, as though people were thinking out loud or afraid to be overheard. Probably fewer than 100 words are spoken by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in anything like a normal tone of voice."

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

"Kurzel and cinematographer Adam Arkapaw’s vision is one of pummeling beauty. You could drop out the sound and be content with their red- and blue-bathed sceneries of mayhem, the white fog that obscures a blighted land. (An addendum: The score -- all war drums and thick, sinister strings, by Kurzel’s brother, Jed -- is essential.) The trouble comes, and not just for Fassbender, when it’s time to tackle the actual text. The toil of it is exhaustingly felt. The lines are spoken, but their weight sometimes is as vaporous as that Scottish fog."

Kimberley Jones, The Austin Chronicle

"'Macbeth' is one of Shakespeare’s greatest and most gruesome tragedies, and tackling it onscreen is no small feat. For this new adaptation, director Justin Kurzel has taken the play and -- with help from a trio of screenwriters and an insanely talented cast -- given it a brilliant and brutal adaptation for the 21st century. Its thudding score, rolling Scottish brogues, and relentlessly foggy moors might leave you exhausted and perhaps close to madness yourself by the time the blood red credits roll, but it’s not like this cursed play has ever been easy to access. Jed Kurzel, who also scored 'Slow West,' 'The Babadook,' and brother Justin Kurzel’s 'Snowtown,' accentuates the madness perfectly."

Jenni Miller, Uproxx

"The score from the director’s brother, Jed Kurzel, adds to the pervasive feeling of unease; string-heavy and rather rustic, it enhances the eeriness of both the prophecies of the witches and the lingering of the dead. In this regard, Paddy Considine is especially well-cast as the doomed Banquo, Macbeth’s longtime friend who comes to an unsavory end."

Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

"But if there is one reservation to express about the film, it is that the portentous mood remains consistently the same from the very beginning through to the (stunning) final shot. The play inherently has an odd dramatic structure, but Kurzel has adapted it in such a layered way (often speeches are cross cut with the future events they describe, which is an efficient way to cover more ground) that it feels like he wants to invest every moment we are left with with equal, massive significance. And so the film never undergoes any dramatic crescendos or diminuendos, instead each scene, each new exchange, feels saturated to overflow with importance, with no higher or lower register to kick into. It’s an impression enhanced by Jed Kurzel‘s score, which uses washes of strings and monotone drones throughout but rarely dallies with melody, and by the slight overreliance on extreme slow motion, especially in the battle scenes, that concertinas out quick moments into long ones and invests glances with the weight and power of gazes. 'Macbeth' is a tremendous bellow of a film, but it could do with drawing breath now and again."

Jessica Kiang, IndieWire

"Anyone who endured a high-school lit class knows the plot as Macbeth's ambition consumes him and the weird sisters predict his doom. There's the murder of King Duncan (David Thewlis) that begins the slaughter needed to take and keep the throne. And the guilt kicking in for Lady Macbeth as she watches the execution of Macduff's wife (Elizabeth Debicki) and her children. Kurzel doesn't spare us the gore or the bleak psychology of the piece. And the score by Jed Kurzel (the director's brother) intensifies our sense of a world off its axis."

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

"In interior shots Kurzel and his cinematographer Adam Arkapaw often place the actors mid-frame, backed by natural light, so that we squint to read their faces. Sometimes this is visually effective; other times, merely aggravating. The mournful drone of composer Jed Kurzel's original score flattens the action rather than heightening it. For all the on-screen splurches of gore, the key banquet scene -- where Macbeth, now the big cheese, sees Banquo's ghost -- carries not an inkling of true terror. However skillful, Fassbender and Cotillard perform as if nervous about being one of those ham actors who 'struts and frets his hour upon the stage.' Or two hours on the screen. For now, Akira Kurosawa's 'Throne of Blood' remains the reigning 'Macbeth.' It's also the least faithful to Shakespeare, proving that in stage-to-film adaptations, fidelity often ends up signifying nothing."

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

"The verse is mostly spoken in whiskery whisper, sometimes in drifty Malickian voiceover, over the slabbed droning of Jed Kurzel’s tense score. (He’s the director’s brother.) The witches murmur; Macduff (Sean Harris) growls out the news of his unconventional womb-ripping as if it’s something he’d prefer to keep quiet; Macbeth and his Lady get each other off as they plot, their hands busy under their shifts, but they still keep it quiet. At almost all moments, as they consult and consort, we see a candle lit in the shadows beneath them. We might not catch all the words, but there’s no mistaking what that light means -- or that the darkness will overwhelm it."

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

"Kurzel ('The Snowtown Murders') keeps things moving at a propulsive pace as he mixes elements of reality, hyper-reality and the supernatural to stirring effect. Superb support by cinematographer Adam Arkapaw ('Animal Kingdom;' 'McFarland, USA'), editor Chris Dickens ('Slumdog Millionaire,' 2012's 'Les Misérables'), costume designer Jacqueline Durran ('Atonement,' 'Mr. Turner') and composer Jed Kurzel (the director's brother), plus other fine tech contributors, make the film a feast for the eyes and ears."

Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

"A carnal battle cry finally breaks the silence; the armies of Macbeth and the traitorous Macdonwald charge and collide in silvery slow-motion, while composer Jed Kurzel (the director’s brother) amplifies the tribal percussion to nerve-fraying extremes. (As in 'Snowtown,' the sound design is set at a needlingly low, industrial hum throughout.) It’s a technique seemingly made redundant by Zack Snyder’s '300' and its legion of imitators, yet Kurzel plays it more as brutal shadow theater, connoting the dehumanizing effects of mass slaughter without disregarding the collective cost of death. In visualizing trauma usually left offstage, Kurzel builds vital psychological context for the future King of Scotland’s bloody path to glory and dishonor."

Guy Lodge, 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, LACMA, New Beverly, Nuart, Silent Movie Theater and UCLA.

May 26
FARGO (Carter Burwell) [Cinematheque: Aero]
GRINDHOUSE: DEATH PROOF [New Beverly]
MIGHTY MORPHIN' POWER RANGERS: THE MOVIE (Graeme Revell) [Nuart]
PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (Danny Elfman), ED WOOD (Howard Shore) [New Beverly]
SEVEN SAMURAI (Fumio Hayasaka) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
SWEPT AWAY (Piero Piccioni) [Silent Movie Theater]
TALES FROM THE HOOD (Christopher Young) [Silent Movie Theater]

May 27
PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (Danny Elfman), ED WOOD (Howard Shore) [New Beverly]
ROAR (Terrence P. Minogue), NUKIE (Nic Pickard), R.O.T.O.R (David Adam Newman), CONGO (Jerry Goldsmith), THINGS (Michael Barrow, Robert Barrow, Jay Woelfel), MATILDA (Jerrold Immel) [Cinematheque: Aero]
STOP MAKING SENSE (David Byrne) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
SWEPT AWAY (Piero Piccioni) [Silent Movie Theater]
THE WICKER MAN (Angelo Badalamenti) [New Beverly]

May 28
ISHTAR (Dave Grusin), A NEW LEAF [New Beverly]
JURASSIC PARK (John Wiliams), THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (John Williams), JURASSIC PARK III (Don Davis) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Maurice Jarre) [Cinematheque: Aero]
PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (Danny Elfman) [New Beverly]
SEVEN BEAUTIES (Enzo Jannacci) [New Beverly]

May 29
ALL ABOUT EVE (Alfred Newman), MILDRED PIERCE (Max Steiner), THE STAR (Victor Young), POSSESSED (Franz Waxman) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
BACK TO THE FUTURE (Alan Silvestri) [Arclight Hollywood]
ISHTAR (Dave Grusin), A NEW LEAF [New Beverly]

May 30
THE FUGITIVE (Richard Hageman) [LACMA]
MORTUARY (John Cacavas), NIGHT WARNING (Bruce Langhorne) [New Beverly]

May 31
I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND, USED CARS (Patrick Williams) [New Beverly]

June 1
I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND, USED CARS (Patrick Williams) [New Beverly]
LOVE & ANARCHY (Nino Rota, Carlo Savina) [Silent Movie Theater]

June 2
AKIRA (Shoji Yamashiro) [Nuart]
THE FLY (Howard Shore), POSSESSION (Andrzej Korzynski) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (Graeme Revell) [New Beverly]
THE ROAD WARRIOR (Brian May), MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (Tom Holkenborg) [New Beverly]
THE SORROW AND THE PITY [Cinematheque: Aero]

June 3
A BOY AND HIS DOG (Tim McIntire, Jaime Mendoza-Nava) [New Beverly]
THE CAPTIVE [Silent Movie Theater]
FLASH GORDON: ROCKET SHIP [New Beverly]
THE IRON GIANT (Michael Kamen) [Cinematheque: Aero]
LOLA MONTES (Georges Auric), LIEBELEI (Theo Mackeben) [Cinematheque: Aero]
THE ROAD WARRIOR (Brian May), MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (Tom Holkenborg) [New Beverly]
THE SEDUCTION OF MIMI (Piero Piccioni) [Silent Movie Theater]
WILD AT HEART (Angelo Badalamenti) [Silent Movie Theater]

June 4
ALL SCREWED UP (Piero Piccioni) [Silent Movie Theater]
CARNIVAL OF SOULS (Gene Moore) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
FLASH GORDON: ROCKET SHIP [New Beverly]
HOTEL TERMINUS [AMPAS]
JACKASS THE MOVIE [Silent Movie Theater]
JACKASS NUMBER TWO [Silent Movie Theater]
MASK, LIFEGUARD (Dale Menten) [Cinematheque: Aero]
THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK, SCARECROW (Fred Myrow) [New Beverly]