Film Score Daily: Film Score Friday 7/27/18

Next week, La-La Land will release a two-disc set of music from the 1988 TV revival of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, featuring music from episodes scored by Lalo Schifrin and Ron Jones. The label plans to release Lorne Balfe's score for the just-released sixth feature in the movie franchise, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT, on August 14th.

IN THEATERS TODAY

Dark Money - Miriam Cutler
Far from the Tree - Yo La Tengo, Nico Muhly
Hot Summer Nights - Will Bates
Mission: Impossible - Fallout - Lorne Balfe - Score CD due Aug. 14 on La-La Land
Puzzle - Dustin O'Halloran - Score CD on Sony
The Row - Jared Beckerman
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood - Jane Antonia Cornish
Teen Titans Go! To The Movies - Jared Faber - Score CD due Aug. 10 on WaterTower

August 3
Mission: Impossible 1988 - Lalo Schifrin, Ron Jones - La-La Land
Skyscraper - Steve Jablonsky - Milan
August 10
Desperado Outpost/Westward Desperado - Masaru Sato - Cinema-Kan (import)
Into the Badlands: Season 2 - Trevor Yulie - Varese Sarabande
James Horner: The Classics - James Horner - Sony
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies - Jared Faber - WaterTower
August 17
Mission: Impossible - Fallout - Lorne Balfe - La-La Land
Slender Man - Ramin Djawadi - Sony
August 24
The Darkest Minds - Benjamin Wallfisch - Milan
Hurricane - Nino Rota - Varese Sarabande
Legion: Season 2 - Jeff Russo - Lakeshore
Westworld: Season 2 - Ramin Djawadi - WaterTower
August 31
Kin - Mogwai - Rock Action (import)
Date Unknown
Advise and Consent - Jerry Fielding - Kritzerland
Not Afraid, Not Afraid - Gabriel Yared - Caldera
The Prisoner of Zenda - Henry Mancini - La-La Land

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter

MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES - Jeff Cardoni

"Anyway, if you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve seen what happens next, and most of the jokes. Once they’re on the island, Alice and Tatiana show their true, drunken colors, wreaking far more havoc than their dudebro dates. There’s a bit involving an ATV excursion gone awry that’s excruciatingly lengthy, considering every ad has revealed the punch line (and the whole bit is lifted from 'Meet the Parents' anyway). Kumail Nanjiani is brought in for a sequence so sad, you want him to show the camera his big paycheck when it’s over. Sam Richardson, who has emerged as the comic MVP of 'Veep,' is given precisely no jokes -- though there aren’t many laughs in general, and that’s before they start with the emotional romantic stuff and big deception reveals, complete with this-is-sad-and-touching score. The only thing sadder than an unfunny comedy is an unfunny comedy reaching for phony, clumsy pathos. Apatow movies are harder than they look, huh?"

Jason Bailey, Flavorwire

"Composer Jeff Cardoni oversells every remotely emotional moment with a syrupy score, which becomes grating as Dave and Alice start to lower their guard around each other and share their hopes and fears. 'Mike And Dave' wants to have it both ways, being both appalling and touching, but the filmmakers don’t demonstrate an ability to do either well."

Tim Grierson, Screen Illustrated

SLEIGHT - Charles Scott IV

"Still, 'Sleight' manages to engage despite a fairly simple narrative. It never collapses under the weight of its many genre appendages, assisted by crisp, night-light-streaked cinematography from Edward Wu and a pulsing and propulsive electro guitar score by Charles Scott IV that wouldn’t sound of out place on an early M83 album."

Rodrigo Perez, IndieWire

"Dillard’s script is impressive not only for the way it hybridizes various genre ancestors, but for its efficiency. Rarely do characters spout exposition about their situations or feelings; instead, the filmmaker conveys much about Bo’s emotions, and the dynamics he shares with others, through canny aesthetic choices. His striking compositions impart information through framing and spatial arrangements, and Ed Wu’s sinewy camerawork and rich color palette do much to create a heightened sense of suspense -- as does Charles Scott IV’s brooding electronic score. No matter its low budget, which is also the reason for its thrifty use of special effects, 'Sleight,' progressing with a dreamy rhythm infused with danger, is never less than formally arresting."

Nick Schager, The Daily Beast

"Slight is right. Arguably the biggest letdown of the 2016 Sundance film festival, J.D. Dillard’s feature debut squanders its high concept -- an amateur street magician uses his craft to free himself from the clutches of a maniacal drug dealer -- and serves up a low-rent, Nickelodeon-lite version of that story, blowing his chance with corny acting, paint-by-numbers plotting, and a dippy score."

Peter Debruge, 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, Laemmle, New Beverly, Nuart and UCLA.

July 27
THE BABADOOK (Jed Kurzel) [Nuart]
COUNSELLOR AT LAW [UCLA]
THE MALTESE FALCON (Adolph Deutsch), THE BIG SLEEP (Max Steiner) [Cinematheque: Aero]
THE RED KIMONA [Cinematheque: Egyptian]

July 28
ALL THAT JAZZ (Ralph Burns) [UCLA]
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (Franz Waxman), DARK PASSAGE (Franz Waxman) [Cinematheque: Aero]
WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN? [Cinematheque: Egyptian]

July 29
THE AFRICAN QUEEN (Allan Gray), BEAT THE DEVIL (Franco Mannino) [Cinematheque: Aero]
THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES (Tigran Mansuryan) [LACMA]
KIRIKOU AND THE SORCERESS (Youssou N'Dour) [UCLA]
THE OYSTER PRINCESS, FORBIDDEN PARADISE [UCLA]

July 31
ANASTASIA (David Newman, Stephen Flaherty) [LACMA]

August 2
AMITYVILLE 3D (Howard Blake) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
GOLDFINGER (John Barry) [Laemmle NoHo]
ROMEO AND JULIET (Nino Rota) [Cinematheque: Aero]

August 3
AIRPLANE! (Elmer Bernstein) [Cinematheque: Aero]
DIE, MOMMIE, DIE! (Dennis McCarthy) [UCLA]
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 (Harry Manfredini), FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR (Angel Arteaga) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
GREASE 2 (Louis St. Louis, Michael Gibson) [Nuart]

August 4
AUNTIE MAME (Bronislau Kaper) [Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts]
STARCHASER: THE LEGEND OF ORIN (Andrew Belling) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
TROUBLE IN PARADISE, ANGEL [UCLA]
WANDA (Dave Mullaney) [Cinemathque: Aero]

August 5
THE BIG LEBOWSKI (Carter Burwell) [Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts]
SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (Elmer Bernstein) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Alex North) [Cinematheque: Aero]

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

I know it's never really fair to compare the great films of the past to the current crop of movies -- it's hard to really know what will stand the test of time -- but one older film I saw again this year simply blew me away. I recently saw Brian De Palma's Carrie on the big screen for the first time in years, and it was even better than I'd remembered -- it gets my vote for the best horror film of all time. Much as I've always loved the craftsmanship of the film -- Donaggio's score, Mario Tosi's cinematography, Paul Hirsch's remarkable editing -- one thing that struck me this time is how absolutely perfect the plotting is, like a classical tragedy.

It inspired me to re-read Stephen King's original novel, which I'd read twice before but not for many years. I used to read King's novels religiously -- from The Dead Zone on, I would buy most of them in hardback when they were first published -- but over the years I found myself with much less time for pleasure reading (a day job will do that), and even less patience for King's rambling, editor-free approach (the fact that King, despite his enormous gifts as a novelist, is a truly terrible writer of screenplays and teleplays has colored my opinion of him in general). Overall, I tend to prefer King books with simple, strong premises, like Salem's Lot, The Dead Zone, or Misery, while an epic horror novel like It leaves me cold -- with such an all-powerful supernatural enemy, everything starts to seem a bit random (and don't get me started on King's reaction to criticisms of the group-sex scene from the book It -- not King's finest hour).

Reading Carrie again, I was pleased to discover that nearly everything I loved so much in the film's script came from King's novel. In the pre-prom section, nearly every scene in the film comes more or less from the book and the few additions were first rate. The script by Lawrence D. Cohen (definitely not to be confused with Larry Cohen) gives Mrs. White (the magnificent Piper Laurie) a terrific intro scene, pestering Sue's mother (Priscilla Pointer, Amy Irving's real-life mother) at her home. It does an expert job of helping set up some of the reasons for Carrie's isolation from the community, and is full of wonderful details like the way Pointer addresses Laurie as "Mrs. White" instead of as "Margaret," or the look on Laurie's face when Pointer essentially offers her money to go away.

In King's novel, Carrie agrees to go to the prom with Tommy right away, but in the film she turns him down at first, and the script adds another terrific scene, of Carrie going to the gym teacher (Betty Buckley) for advice, and the teacher giving her some grooming tips, a touching scene which makes the teacher's death during the prom even more shocking and tragic (in the book, the teacher is actually injured early in Carrie's rampage and taken to safety before the gym is burned down)

Great as Laurie is in the film (and the casting is excellent throughout), the film couldn't work without the truly extraordinary performance of Sissy Spacek. Possibly the greatest performance in the history of horror cinema, she would have made even a lesser adaptation of this book a classic. The moment during the finale, where Spacek pleads with Laurie "Just hold me, momma," is especially devastating. (It may have been done for budgetary reasons, but the scaling down of the finale from King's novel -- in which Carrie destroys nearly the entire town -- was the right choice. Having her drag her mother's corpse into the closet and pull the house down around them makes more emotional sense).

And I'd of course be remiss in not highlighting Pino Donaggio's wonderful score. Much as it would be great to imagine what Herrmann would have written for it if he'd lived (though a Herrmann Seven-Per-Cent Solution is the truly tantalizing unwritten score for me), Donaggio did an expert job. The melodies may not be quite as gorgeous overall as Don't Look Now, and the score isn't as slick as Dressed to Kill, but in one of his earliest efforts he managed to find the true musical heart of the film.

Another favorite piece of mid-70s horror for me is the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and I've been very slowly making my way through the complete run (on DVD) of the 2005 reboot Night Stalker, starring Stuart Townsend and Gabrielle Union. For fans of the original Kolchak, I definitely do not recommend this reincarnation. It's not the worst thing ever -- it's just not especially good, or remotely necessary.

Novelist/screenwriter Richard Price once told a story about how when he was writing Sea of Love, the studio kept wanting to make it more like Fatal Attraction, the latest blockbuster smash in the erotic thriller genre. After Sea of Love was released and became a deserved box-office hit, Price ran into Fatal Attraction screenwriter James Dearden, who was writing and directing a remake of Ira Levin's A Kiss Before Dying. Dearden told Price that the studio was pressuring him to make his movie more like Sea of Love.

Chris Carter has acknowledged the original Kolchak: The Night Stalker as a key inspiration for The X-Files, even casting the original Kolchak himself, Darren McGavin, as the FBI agent who originated the X-Files. Since the original X-Files is basically Kolchak done "X-Files-style," it seemed really pointless for the Kolchak re-boot to follow the X-Files template so closely -- both in storytelling and tonal approach -- losing the original show's sense of humor (and the wonderful interplay of McGavin and Simon Oakland) and its imaginative monster-of-the-week structure, instead subsituting a lot of tiresome brooding and a really uninteresting backstory/conspiracy plot, involving murdered women, mysterious scars, and zombie bikers (don't ask). Stuart Townsend is certainly handsome and he broods well, but he bears no relation to the McGavin character that made the original series such a joy even in its weakest episodes. The best thing about the reboot is Gabrielle Union, the only one of the regulars you can truly care about.

That said, there are a handful of decent episodes, and the one I just watched, "Timeless," (the penultimate episode, unaired in its original run) managed to combine elements of The Night Strangler and the original Kolchak episode "The Youth Killer" in a fairly effective story, helped by fine guest performances by Mira Furlan and Kevin Rahm, who gave the story much more emotional weight than it really deserved.

Imperfect and unven as the original Kolchak was, it holds up a lot better than another show from its time I've been rewatching, Space: 1999. I love Barry Gray's theme, the production values, and the impressive roster of guest stars, including Brian Blessed, Peter Cushing, Joan Collins, Roy Dotrice, Julian Glover, Christopher Lee, Margaret Leighton, Leo McKern, Ian McShane and Billie Whitelaw. But apart from the occasional well-plotted episode, like "Voyager's Return," it's a silly and often maddeningly dull show.