Film Score Daily: Film Score Friday 6/1/18

Less than six months after the unexpected release of Damnation Alley, Intrada presents another "Holy Grail" for score collectors, the first-ever release of the full original score for Ray Harryhausen's cult favorite 1969 "dinosaur Western" THE VALLEY OF GWANGI. Based on an idea by Harryhausen's mentor, the stop-motion pioneer Willis O'Brien, Gwangi told the story of cowboys in turn-of-the-century Mexico who discover a hidden valley where dinosaurs have survived. The film benefited both from Harryhausen's typically excellent effects (the sequence where the cowboys attempt to rope an Allosaurus is a particular highlight) and the rousing orchestral score of Jerome Moross. Moross is best remembered for his unforgettable, Oscar-nominated score for the epic 1958 Western The Big Country [not The Big Valley as I originally mistyped] but his oeuvre encompassed a wide variety of works, including Otto Preminger's religious epic The Cardinal, Franklin J. Schaffner's medieval romance The War Lord, several concert pieces, and even an original stage musical The Golden Apple, which Ken Mandelbaum's book Not Since Carrie proclaimed as the finest musical to ever flop on Broadway. Gwangi was one of the last feature scores Moross recorded and one of many first-rate scores that Harryhausen's films inspired, and is a rousing orchestral work which combines the stirring Americana of The Big Country with exciting action material for the dinosaur setpieces. Gwangi's music had previously only been available in selected cues re-recorded as suites and the original score tapes were long rumored to be lost, but Intrada has managed to reassemble the complete score from various sources, including alternates and source cues (by Moross himself).

On Wednesday, June 20th, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present THE SHERMAN BROTHERS: A HOLLYWOOD SONGBOOK, a live event paying tribute to the team that wrote the songs for Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and many others. Special guests that night will include Richard Sherman himself, as well as Michael Giacchino and Lesley Ann Warren.

COMING SOON

June 8
Hereditary - Colin Stetson - Milan
McQueen - Michael Nyman - Nyman (import)
7 Days in Entebbe - Rodrigo Amarante - Lakeshore
Star Trek: Discovery, Chapter 2 - Jeff Russo - Lakeshore
The Yakuza Papers - Tokiashi Tsuishima - Cinema-Kan (import)
June 15
Black Mirror: Hang the DJ - Alex Somers, Sigur Ros - Invada (import)
Call the Midwife - Maurizio Malagnini - Dubois (import)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Michael Giacchino - Backlot
Les Insulaires - Georges Delerue - Rosetta
Otros Mundos - Carlos M. Jara - Rosetta
The Sisters - Thomas Morse - Rosetta
June 22
Under the Silver Lake - Disasterpeace - Milan
June 29
Annihiliation - Ben Salisbury, Geoff Barrow - Lakeshore
Fahrenheit 451 - Matteo Zingales, Antony Partos - Milan
Incredibles 2 - Michael Giacchino - Disney
Sicario: Day of the Soldado - Hildur Gudnadottir - Varese Sarabande
July 6
Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot - Danny Elfman - Sony
July 13
Shock and Awe - Jeff Beal - Varese Sarabande
July 20
1922 - Mike Patton - Ipecac (import)
August 3
Skyscraper - Steve Jablonsky - Milan
Date Unknown
Advise and Consent - Jerry Fielding - Kritzerland
Crisis on Earth-X - Blake Neely, Nathaniel Blume, Daniel Chan, Sherri Chung - La-La Land
Edie - Debbie Wiseman - Silva
Fellini's Casanova - Nino Rota - Music Box
Gungala - Angelo Francesco Lavagnino - Quartet
Keoma/Il Cacciatore di Squali - Guido & Maurizio DeAngelis - CSC
Solamente Nero - Stelvio Cipriani - CSC
Torpedo Bay - Carlo Rustichelli - Quartet

Peter Debruge, Variety

DYING LAUGHING - Edward Shearmur

"At the film’s weakest, the echo effect of overlapping sound bites is merely repetition, not helped by the score’s intrusive jabs. But obvious psychologizing about the need for approval gives way to a nuanced look at a singular form of entertainment. With no music, choreography or scripted role to hide behind, standups can’t help but take it personally when a crowd doesn’t like their routine. The lack of a protective shield can extend from the emotional to the physical: Steve Coogan recalls dodging thrown chairs in his early days; Billy Connelly was once punched in the midst of his set."

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter

THE FITS - Danny Bensi, Saunder Jurriaans

"You have to be in a specific sort of mood, and in a peculiar frame of mind, to fully immerse yourself into a film like 'The Fits' and walk away feeling like you’ve just seen something special. Actually, first-time feature film director Anna Rose Holmer draws a very thin line between 'special' and 'disposable.'With her (undoubtedly unique) approach to the age-old genre of the coming-of-age story, she’s either showing exceptional courage or completely exposing her lack of experience. It’s a bit of both, but by the end of the film, one gets the impression that her way of getting her feet wet was to armstand dive straight into it, which should be admired even by those who aren’t enticed to follow her into the water. There’s vision here, clearly, and through the use of eye-catching frames and a standout score, 'The Fits' works like magic as an experimental performance piece. As an engaging work of well-rounded cinema, however, there are more than a few missteps...Juxtaposing Hightower’s subtly naturalistic performance, are the titular fits themselves. Mysterious spasms, geared by some invisible hysterical contagion, begin to plague the dance team, creating a vibe similar to the invisible disease that plagues the teens in 'It Follows.' This blend of dance, coming-of-age, and psychological horror is what gives 'The Fits' its unique shine. A shine that sparkles like a diamond through the film’s fundamentally fascinating score. Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans‘ psychedelically jazzy work injects a sense of immediacy into the most regular day-to-day events. An early scene that sees Toni skipping rope and contemplating the world around her (her defining characteristic) is exemplary: all of a sudden, the soundtrack becomes possessed with what sounds like a piece of music originally recorded for a 1940s swamp-monster horror film. It’s a deeply creepy score, and incredibly engaging as it transforms into some form of electro-acoustic jazz -- the kind that’s dipped two feet in acid. By far the most intriguing element of Holmer’s vision, the music stands apart from literally everything else in the film. Which is really not that shocking once you consider Bensi and Saunder’s pedigree: they are the composing duo behind atmospheric creepers like 'Enemy' and 'Martha Marcy May Marlene.' What they’ve come up with for 'The Fits' has certified them, to my ears, as two of the most captivating composers in the business.The trouble with 'The Fits,' however, is that there’s not much else to it than that. As an experiment in genre mixing, an art-house curiosity, a new way of handling the grand theme of adolescence, and an example of the inherent powers a film score can possess; yes, it’s really great. But these are esoteric points of interest that will intrigue mostly those who’ve seen too many films in their life and actively seek out strange and opaque takes on familiar subject matter."

Nikola Grozdanovic, IndieWire

"The first sign that something strange may lurk at the root of 'The Fits''s naturalistic acting and precise compositions is Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans’s score, what with its droning synthesizers and atonal woodwind lines. Redolent of the way Gary Yershon’s similar, and similarly disconcerting, compositions for Mike Leigh’s 'Mr. Turner' suggested the depths of J.M.W. Turner’s psychological torments, Bensi and Jurriaans use chromatic musical lines to express the confusions and unspoken desires for acceptance that grip Toni (Royalty Hightower), the film’s pre-pubescent protagonist. By the time a mysterious rash of epileptic seizures and fainting spells -- the 'fits' of the film’s title -- starts to afflict members of a dance troupe, this paranormal turn of events already feels as if it’s been intuitively forecasted."

Kenji Fujishima, Slant Magazine

"It’s probably obvious that 'The Fits' is in no way a traditional 'sports movie' -- there’s no focus on winning the big championship or fostering team spirit through adversity. The sparse dialogue, even sparser exposition, and economical yet stylish cinematography lend it the feeling of an audio-visual tone poem. While Toni’s arc feels triumphant in some ways, it also feels kind of scary. The film’s brilliant score, filled with unsettling, atonal jazz riffs and rhythmic clapping, nails both the dread and exaltation that muddle the tumultuous path to womanhood."

Michelle Devereaux, The Skinny

"Viewers are largely left to determine for themselves what drives Toni away from the boys and toward the girls, given that she doesn't fully fit into either group. The way she hovers outside the Lionesses' practice rooms suggests fascination and desire, but her carefully guarded face doesn't give away whether she's wistful for female friends, hungry for a new challenge, or just bored and curious. And she doesn't explain herself out loud. When she does finally start talking, most of the dialogue is practical and down-to-earth: exchanges of information with her newfound friends Beezy (Alexis Neblett) and Maia (Lauren Gibson), or casual clowning with her brother. One of the most remarkable things about 'The Fits' is how much it invites the audience in by not spelling out the meaning behind each moment. Holmer sometimes goes overboard with a groaning, atonal score, which feels like a garish shout for attention by contrast with all the low-key naturalism. But for the most part, she leaves it to the audience to map their own experiences on to Toni, and answer for themselves whether she's happy in her day-to-day, and what fighting or dancing brings to her."

Tasha Robinson, The Verge

"In a conventional movie, which 'The Fits' most assuredly is not, we'd be in for an uplifting journey into self-awareness. Holmer's not having it. She and her gifted cinematographer Paul Yee simply ask us to watch, to catch their rhythms, to let the film play like a ballad that ranges from lyrical to startling. The girls start having seizures, fits that leave their bodies shaking and convulsing for reasons unknown. The score by Stenfert Charles [sic] ('Last Days in the Desert') provides just the right jangling notes to keep us all on edge. The real world offers lame explanations, everything from contaminated water to sexual hysteria and demonic possession. But this movie won't squeeze itself into easy categories. Watching the girls defy gravity as they whirl into scary, seductive, hallucinatory patterns, you realize 'The Fits' is more than a transporting film experience. It's cinema poetry in motion."

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

"The attention-getting visual and aural style of the film is one of its strengths. Cinematographer Paul Yee films this strange story in a manner appropriate to the form of the narrative. The community center is filmed like an endlessly vast world, the white walls dazzling and disorienting, girls shrieking with joy up the ramps, the boys locked off in their own hermetically-sealed boxing-gym, the girls' empty locker room and bathroom stalls mysterious spaces where voices echo or the sound drops out. A little girl bounces a basketball against the gym wall, dwarfed by the space around her. Toni stands in the middle of the emptied-out swimming pool, staring at the emptiness of her once-familiar world. Toni and a friend try on their sparkly Lioness costumes and cavort through the community center after-hours, giggling and twirling through the darkness like glittering fairies. Any girl who hasn't had 'the fits' yet wonders when her time will come, or why her time hasn't come yet. Girls who have been initiated into 'the fits' compare notes: 'What was yours like? Mine was like this.' The score, by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, adds to the sense of creepy dislocation, time standing still, or at least slowed down."

Sheila O'Malley, RogerEbert.com

"Framed with a rigid sense of space by cinematographer Yee, and backed by the groaning score from veteran composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, 'The Fits' is infused with such dread that it’s not hard to imagine that characters’ muscles and bones could break or shatter at any moment. The film’s most explicit example of may be Toni pulling off a temporary tattoo, but 'The Fits' is firmly a story of metaphysical body horror, an allegory about our greatest fears of physical fragility."

Michael Snydel, Paste Magazine

"It’s hard to say exactly what 'The Fits' is. The film has echoes of eco-horror, which Holmer accentuates via a bleating, atonal soundtrack and by making the 'fits' sequences look surreal and disturbing. There’s also a tinge of social commentary in the suggestion that these kids may have been poisoned by the water in their not-that-affluent Cincinnati neighborhood. But the movie doesn’t hit either of these elements too hard. It’s tempting to call it 'George Washington by way of George Romero,' but honestly the latter comes through more in the way that Holmer shoots Cincinnati (similar to Romero’s Pittsburgh in Martin) than from any creeping terror."

Noel Murray, The Onion AV Club

"It plays like a quiet, well-observed, and stylishly made character study. Then the ground starts to shift beneath Toni, and beneath the film itself. Mid-practice, one of the older girls is stricken by a seizure and collapses to the ground as the ominous ambient music swells on the soundtrack. Another, similar incident follows, and they start to mount even as Toni makes friends. And as the world around her seems to grow more dangerous, Toni becomes more relaxed. She makes friends first with one girl, then another. She learns to transfer the skills that she picked up boxing and apply them to dance. Her life gets better, even as those around her fall to the unexplained events. Sometimes their seizures look like trances. Sometimes they look like spasms. And sometimes they look like dancing."

Keith Phipps, Uproxx

"This is reinforced by the stylistic decision to show Toni quietly observe the happenings around her while reducing dialogue to a minimum, leaving the soundtrack largely to silence and occasional bouts of discordant music. Rolling Stone referred to 'The Fits' as 'the girl power movie of 201', but it is power that yet again falls back on the trope (not to say cliché) of black people as athletes and performers."

Ginette Vincendeau, Sight and Sound

"While only passing reference is made to the boxers and dancers’ sexual interest in each other, 'The Fits' is imbued with an undercurrent of of hormones just beginning to rage, and Toni’s condition eventually comes to feel like one rooted in issues of pubescent maturation. Whether repetitively practicing a routine on a highway overpass, or merely palling around an empty basketball court with her new friend Beezy (Alexis Neblett), Hightower expresses little verbally but conveys a world of interior longing, fear, envy and hope with her large, communicative eyes. It’s a performance of unaffected reticence and burgeoning (self-)acceptance, aided by a sound design of droning noise and atonal woodwinds that accurately reflects the character’s out-of-sync mental and emotional state."

Nick Schager, Variety

"In addition to the graceful sense of composition shown by Holmer and cinematographer Paul Yee, and the mood-enhancing use of unconventional music by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, what the film really has going for it is the director's unimpeachable skill at coaxing unselfconscious performances from a nonprofessional cast. That applies in particular to the gorgeous Royalty Hightower (that name alone is star material), who brings preternatural self-possession and quiet depths to the central role of Toni. 'The Fits' is a lovely character portrait, abstract and yet highly evocative, given an other-worldly feel by deft use of slow-mo, sinuous tracking sequences and music that ranges from ambient drones to discordant strings and the percussive claps, clicks and stomps of the drill routines."

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS - Cristobal Tapia de Veer

"McCarthy consistently defers to stock techniques for creating dread, such as a droning score, a visual palette of sickly greens and yellows, and a shooting style reminiscent of films ranging from 'Saving Private Ryan' to 'Gamer' but without either of those films’ precision or penchant for geometrically conceived stylization. The general lack of visceral panache would be at least partially admissible were 'The Girl with All the Gifts' establishing a dystopia of unique circumstances; instead, the monologues given by Caldwell explicitly spell out only the highlights of this world in ruins."

Clayton Dillard, Slant Magazine

"Director McCarthy does little visually that would generate a sense of fear in any viewer, and there’s nothing that will generate so much as a startled jump. A few curse words together with some zombie gobbles take the film outside the children’s market, making it hard to guess the target audience. The repetitive, droning music is meant to build tension though mostly just calls attention to itself."

Jay Weissberg, Variety

"This setup, based on Carey’s original short story that he later simultaneously expanded into a novel and this screenplay, is promising but already there are some minor issues that foreshadow much bigger problems down the road. Firstly, McCarthy more often seems to apply a generic style to his substance, rather than actually use a stylistic choice to help suggest or demonstrate something about his story and characters. Zooms, shifting focus and a soundscape overflowing with percussion, totemic chants and sound effects don’t automatically ratchet up the tension; an audience’s investment in characters and their predicament needs to be established first for that to work (style only becomes a powerful tool if it is used to expand on feelings and sensations the audience already has)."

Boyd van Hoeij, Hollywood Reporter

LOVESONG - Johann Johannsson

"Director and co-writer So Yong Kim achieves a delicate, naturalistic tone both visually (many scenic outdoor settings involving rain, bodies of water or both) and melodically (a mostly soothing heart-fluttery soundtrack) that is underlined by handheld camera close-ups. For added interest, she splits her drama into halves, each focused on reunions between Keough’s Sarah and Malone’s Mindy that take place three years apart. The entangled thematic thread that connects the two appears to be the institution of marriage as it affects their own not-fully-defined relationship."

Susan Wloszczyna, RogerEbert.com

"Lensers Kat Westergaard and Guy Godfree keep their gently handheld cameras close to the primary actors but occasionally pull back to take in the cool, calming beauty of their natural surroundings. The soundscape balances occasional soft-rock tunes and a mistily subdued score by the multitalented composer Johann Johansson ('Sicario,' 'The Theory of Everything')."

Justin Chang, Variety

ROCK DOG - Rolfe Kent

"The pup prefers zither plucking to guard duty, so his father bans music altogether. (If that aligns him with the Taliban, he's really not such a bad sort.) Employing typical Hollywood logic, director and co-writer Ash Brannon underscores the music ban with a plaintive string section."

Mark Jenkins, NPR

THE SHACK - Aaron Zigman

"We should hope for the best, because 'The Shack,' despite some minor missteps, is what faith-based films aspire to be: a feature with good actors, a structured screenplay, music that's sentimental but not terrible, a focus on the most positive and universal elements of the Gospel and an original hook that keeps it from being more than just a predictable narrative of a gone-wrong protagonist who finds obvious redemption. More orthodox adherents may take issue with some of its theology, but even there, the story offers an out -- the fact that much of it may be a dream or a vision allows for the fact that the divine message had to filter through a human's subconscious, and may have done so in a way that allows him to handle it in the best way possible."

Luke Y. Thompson, Forbes

"There's an important message in the movie about finding forgiveness in oneself for matters beyond one's control. But it's buried under platitudes, sermons and a saccharine score that endlessly plucks at the heart strings. 'The Shack' needed more faith in its audience."

Edward Douglas, New York Daily News

“The Shack’s” musical score and a few key screenplay turns mimic “Field of Dreams” — a film that seems downright subtle by comparison. But many of the problems are with the pacing and tone, and basic technical filmmaking choices.

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle

The movie’s only truly affecting encounter is a brief, direct and visually unadorned exchange between Mack and his older daughter, Kate (Megan Charpentier), who has been at least as wracked by pain and self-reproach over Missy’s death as Mack. Otherwise, from Missy’s precociously discerning questions about God to the constant coaxing of Aaron Zigman’s score to a strained depiction of "closure" between Mack and his abusive father (Derek Hamilton), what should be deeply touching is merely forced. McGraw’s voiceover may assure us that “you’ll have to decide for yourself.” But room for contemplation is nowhere to be found in The Shack.

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter

WARCRAFT - Ramin Djawadi

"The musical score for 'Warcraft' is introduced with bass drums, the occasional horn and lots of growling. Savage battles ensue, involving Brock Lesnar-size Orcs -- with muscles on their muscles and piercings in their fangs. A portal to another dimension opens, a woman gives birth on the battlefield, and hundreds of imprisoned women and children are sacrificed in the name of dark magic. And that’s all before the opening credits."

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle

"A good chunk of the disconnect can be attributed to cinematographer Simon Duggan ('The Great Gatsby'), who makes every location in 'Warcraft' -- from the king’s stately castle to the Orc forests to Medivh’s magical lair -- look fairly artificial. Even if this was an attempt to emulate the online game, the big-screen results offer no visual pleasure. And the generically percussive action score composed by Ramin Djawadi ('Game of Thrones') doesn’t help much either."

Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

Combining primitive textures (hides and sun-bleached bones) with the glowing whoosh of magical elements, Warcraft is a big-screen, 3D game that the viewer enters, to the martial beats of the elegantly ominous score by Ramin Djawadi (composer of the Game of Thrones theme). Its use of multiple cameras to film the motion capture performers in the same take as those playing human characters is one of the ways that it’s new. And then there’s Durotan’s eyes, and Garona’s grit. Dramatically and technically, Warcraft gives the concept of “hybrid” new punch.

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter

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, Laemmle, New Beverly, Nuart and UCLA.

June 1
BAYAYA (Vaclav Trojan), OLD CZECH LEGENDS (Vaclav Trojan) [Cinematheque: Aero]
SPIRITED AWAY (Joe Hisaishi) [Nuart]

June 2
FATAL ATTRACTION (Maurice Jarre), THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE (Graeme Revell), SINGLE WHITE FEMALE (Howard Shore) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (Vaclav Trojan) [Cinematheque: Aero]

June 3
THE GATES OF HELL (Fabio Frizzi), THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (Walter Rizzati) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]

June 4
ALICE ADAMS (Roy Webb) [AMPAS]
ERASERHEAD (Peter Ivers) [Arclight Hollywood]

June 5
HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART 1 (John Morris) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]
HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (Alfred Newman, Cyril Mockridge), GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (Lionel Newman) [Laemmle NoHo]
HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (Alfred Newman, Cyril Mockridge), GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (Lionel Newman) [Laemmle Royal]
THE KID [LACMA]
THE WARRIORS (Barry DeVorzon) [Arclight Santa Monica]

June 7
THE WILD BUNCH (Jerry Fielding) [Laemmle NoHo]

June 8
BULLITT (Lalo Schifrin) [Nuart]
THE RIGHT STUFF (Bill Conti) [Cinematheque: Aero]

June 9
GORILLAS IN THE MIST (Maurice Jarre), INHERIT THE WIND (Ernest Gold) [Cinematheque: Aero]
JANE (Philip Glass) [Cinematheque: Aero]
MONDO HOLLYWOOD [LACMA]
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE [UCLA]