As expected, Intrada is releasing a CD of Alan Silvestri's score for Robert Zemeckis' WELCOME TO MARWEN, starring Steve Carell, Leslie Mann and Janelle Monae, which tells the same true story as the acclaimed 2010 documentary Marwencol.
For the first time since the 1979 Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced shortlists for nominations in their music categories:
ORIGINAL SCORE
Annihilation [Geoff Burrow, Ben Salisbury]
Avengers: Infinity War [Alan Silvestri]
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs [Carter Burwell]
Black Panther [Ludwig Goransson]
BlacKkKlansman [Terence Blanchard]
Crazy Rich Asians [Brian Tyler]
The Death of Stalin [Christopher Willis]
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald [James Newton Howard]
First Man [Justin Hurwitz]
If Beale Street Could Talk [Nicholas Britell]
Isle of Dogs [Alexandre Desplat]
Mary Poppins Returns [Marc Shaiman]
A Quiet Place [Marco Beltrami]
Ready Player One [Alan Silvestri]
Vice [Nicholas Britell]
ORIGINAL SONG
"All the Stars" - Black Panther
"The Big Unknown' - Widows
"Girl in the Movies" - Dumplin'
"I'll Fight" - RBG
"Keep Reachin'" - Quincy
"OYAHYTT" - Sorry to Bother You
"A Place Called Slaughter Race" - Ralph Breaks the Internet
"The Place Where Lost Things Go" - Mary Poppins Returns
"Revelation" - Boy Erased
"Shallow" - A Star Is Born
"Suspirium" - Suspiria
"Treasure" - Beautiful Boy
"Trip a Little Light Fantastic" - Mary Poppins Returns
"We Won't Move" - The Hate U Give
"When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The score list has its share of surprises. Because the list had to be finished before the end of the calendar year, I was worried that the Music Branch voters would go for the obvious film-and-composer choices, but perhaps because such perennial nominees as Randy Newman, Thomas Newman and John Williams had no new scores this year, they went for a more eclectic group. Only two of the fifteen listed scores were composed by past winners (Alexandre Desplat and Justin Hurwitz) and five of the fifteen were scored by composers who have never been nominated. The most unexpected inclusions were Annihilation and The Death of Stalin, and it's reassuring that the shortlist voters would show their support for such relatively obscure composers as Christopher Willis and the Burrow/Salisbury team, especially with heavy hitters like Giacchino and Zimmer not making the cut.
The Recording Academy has announced this year’s Grammy nominations, including the following film music-related categories:
BEST SCORE SOUNDTRACK FOR VISUAL MEDIA
Black Panther – Ludwig Goransson
Blade Runner 2049 – Benjamin Wallfisch, Hans Zimmer
Coco – Michael Giacchino
The Shape of Water – Alexandre Desplat
Star Wars: The Last Jedi – John Williams
BEST SONG WRITEN FOR VISUAL MEDIA
“All the Stars” – Black Panther – Kendrick Duckworth, Solana Rowe, Alexander William Schuckburgh, Mark Anthony Spears, Anthony Tiffith
“Mystery of Love” – Call Me By Your Name – Sufjan Stevens
“Remember Me” – Coco - Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez
“Shallow” – A Star Is Born – Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, Andrew Wyatt
“This Is Me” – The Greatest Showman – Benj Pasek, Justin Paul
BEST COMPILATION SOUNDTRACK FOR VISUAL MEDIA
Call Me By Your Name
Deadpool 2
The Greatest Showman
Lady Bird
Stranger Things
Nominations for Best Instrumental Composition include film pieces by Terence Blanchard (“Blut und Bloden [Blood and Soil]” from BlacKkKlansman), Alexandre Desplat (“The Shape of Water”), John Powell & John Williams (“Mine Mission” from Solo: A Star Wars Story) and Alan Silvestri (“Infinity War” from Avengers: Infinity War). Nominations for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or a Cappella include Alexandre Desplat for The Shape of Water’s title cue and John Powell for Ferdinand’s “Madrid Finale.” The album John Wiliams at the Movies was nominated for Best Classical Compendium (so film music is “Classical” music now?). Mason Bates, who scored Gus Van Sant’s The Sea of Times, was nominated for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.
Along with the nomination for his Black Panther score, Ludwig Goransson received three additional nominations, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year, for his collaboration with Donald Glover (“Childish Gambino”), while Kendrick Lamarr’s contribution to Black Panther earned three additional nominations. Lisa Gerrard was nominated for Best New Age Album for Hiraeth, while A Star Is Born’s “Shallow” earned three nominations including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
Au Bout Des Doigts - Harry Allouche - Milan (import)
The Big Country - Jerome Moross - Quartet
The Bride Wore Black [re-recording] - Bernard Herrmann - Quartet
Cinema Paradiso - Ennio Morricone - Quartet
Clash of Futures - Laurent Eyquem - Quartet
Devil's Tree: Rooted Evil - Chad Cannon - Quartet
8 1/2 - Nino Rota - Quartet
El Hombre y la Tierra - Anton Garcia Abril - Quartet
Feral - Elia Cmiral - Quartet
Holmes & Watson - Mark Mothersbaugh - Sony (import)
Mia and the White Lion - Armand Amar - Universal (import)
Remi Sans Famille - Romaric Laurence - Milan (import)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - Daniel Pemberton - Sony (import)
WarGames - Arthur B. Rubinstein - Quartet
Welcome to Marwen - Alan Silvestri - Intrada
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - Bernardo Bonezzi - Quartet
IN THEATERS TODAY
All Is True - Patrick Doyle
American Renegades - Eric Serra
Aquaman - Rupert Gregson-Williams - Score CD due Dec. 28 on WaterTower
Between Worlds - Jason Solowsky
Bumblebee - Dario Marianelli
Cold War - Music and song arrangements: Marcin Masecki
Second Act - Michael Andrews
COMING SOON
December 28
Aquaman - Rupert Gregson-Williams - WaterTower
January 4
Bernie the Dolphin - Joshua Mosley - Lakeshore
The Box of Delights - Roger Limb - Silva (import)
The Sisters Brothers - Alexandre Desplat - Lakeshore (U.S. release)
January 11
Escape Room - Brian Tyler, John Carey - Sony (import)
January 18
Valley of the Boom - Kyle Dixon, Michael Stein - Sony (import)
The West Wing [one-disc] - W.G. Snuffy Walden - Varese Sarabande
January 25
Capernaum - Khaled Manzour - Decca (import)
A Dog's Way Home - Mychael Danna - Sony (import)
Serenity - Benjamin Wallfisch - Milan
February 8
We the Animals - Nick Zammuto - Temporary Residence
February 15
Alita: Battle Angel - Tom Holkenborg - Milan
Date Unknown
Calypso/Italia '61 in Circarama - Angelo Francesco Lavagnino - Alhambra
The Cisco Kid in The Gay Amigo - Albert Glasser - Kritzerland
Doctor Who: Series 11 - Segun Akinola - Silva
Delitto Quasi Perfetto - Carlo Rustichelli - Digitmovies
Don Camillo - Pino Donaggio - Digitmovies
Fumo di Londra - Piero Piccioni - Beat
I Familiari Delle Vittime Non Saranno Avvertiti - Francesco De Masi - Beat
Mad Macbeth - Susan Dibona, Salvatore Sangiovanni - Kronos
A Man Called Peter - Alfred Newman - Kritzerland
Non Lasciamoci Piu - Fabio Frizzi - Kronos
Oma Maa - Pessi Levando - Kronos
Once Upon a Time in the West - Ennio Morricone - Beat
Valley of Shadows - Zbigniew Preisner - Caldera
THIS WEEK IN FILM MUSIC HISTORY
December 21 - Derek Scott born (1921)
December 21 - Franco Micalizzi born (1939)
December 21 - Frank Zappa born (1940)
December 21 - David Michael Frank born (1948)
December 21 - Matthieu Chabrol born (1956)
December 21 - Eric Coates died (1957)
December 21 - Thunderball opens in New York (1965)
December 21 - Barry DeVorzon begins recording his score for The Warriors (1978)
December 21 - Waldemar Kazanecki died (1991)
December 21 - Dominic Frontiere died (2017)
December 22 - Alfi Kabiljo born (1935)
December 22 - Guido De Angelis born (1944)
December 22 - Fred Steiner's scores for the Star Trek episodes "By Any Other Name" and "The Omega Glory" are recorded (1967)
December 22 - Gordon Zahler died (1975)
December 22 - James Horner begins recording his score for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1988)
December 22 - Joe Strummer died (2002)
December 23 - Georg Haentzschel born (1907)
December 23 - Ross Edwards born (1943)
December 23 - Daniele Amfitheatrof begins recording his score for Devil's Doorway (1949)
December 23 - Elmer Bernstein begins recording his replacement score to Saddle the Wind (1957)
December 23 - The 7th Voyage of Sinbad opens in New York (1958)
December 23 - Corey Allen Jackson born (1968)
December 23 - Walter Greene died (1983)
December 23 - Jeff Alexander died (1989)
December 24 - Franz Waxman born (1906)
December 24 - Carlo Rustichelli born (1916)
December 24 - Mike Curb born (1944)
December 24 - Recording sessions begin for Hugo Friedhofer’s score for Bride of Vengeance (1948)
December 24 - Ray Colcord born (1949)
December 24 - Bernard Herrmann begins recording his score for It’s Alive (1973)
December 24 - Bernard Herrmann died (1975)
December 24 - Richard Rodney Bennett died (2012)
December 25 - Nathaniel Shilkret born (1895)
December 25 - Pete Rugolo born (1915)
December 25 - Christian Henson born (1971)
December 25 - Charles Chaplin died (1977)
December 25 - James Brown died (2006)
December 26 - Albert Sendrey born (1911)
December 26 - Ira Newborn born (1949)
December 26 - Bernard Herrmann begins recording his score for 5 Fingers (1951)
December 26 - Stephen Graziano born (1954)
December 26 - Curtis Mayfield died (1999)
December 27 - Oscar Levant born (1906)
December 27 - Benedetto Ghiglia born (1921)
December 27 - Kenneth Wannberg records his score for the Twilight Zone episode “Still Life” (1985)
December 27 - Buxton Orr died (1997)
December 27 - Isaak Shvarts died (2009)
DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?
BECKS - Steve Salett, Alyssa Robbins
"With 'Becks,' directors Elizabeth Rohrbaugh and Daniel Powell have crafted an understated musical that really works, thanks to Alyssa Robbins’s heartfelt music and standout performances from the cast. Brooklyn singer-songwriter Becks (Lena Hall) has everything she wants: a moderately successful music career, a cute girlfriend, and a move to Los Angeles on the horizon. But after a brutal betrayal, she loses everything and moves back into her mom’s house in St. Louis, where her room remains unchanged from her teen years."
Tatiana Craine, The Village Voice
"A not-yet-successful musician who parties too hard, horndogs too much and seeks gainful employment too little, Becks (née Rebecca) might be a staple in any gay scene. Still, she remains a stubborn outsider in the hometown she’s been forced back to in Elizabeth Rohrbaugh and Daniel Powell’s narrative feature debut. What happens during her stay there is not particularly surprising or original, but this rumpled dramedy has insinuating degrees of authenticity and charm. It also has very appealing songs made even more so by Hall’s singing, making this a quasi-musical with better music than other such fictional tributes to singer-songwriterdom of late, arguably including the John Carney oeuvre ('Once,' 'Sing Street'). Hall (who among numerous other stage credits won a 2014 Tony for 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch,' and has recorded with her own rock band) makes Becks a memorable figure. She’s someone you can easily imagine being the kind of long-term friend who frequently requires forgiveness, and as ex-friend to myriad less forgiving mutual ones. If the very good songs Hall sings with terrific style seem quite credibly written by her character, they more or less were -- the movie is loosely inspired by incidents in the life of Alyssa Robbins, a singer-songwriter who collaborated with instrumental score composer Steve Salett on most of the original songs performed here."
Dennis Harvey, Variety
BEING 17 - Alexis Rault
"The film’s scenario ('freely adapted,' according to the credits, from a 2008 French TV movie titled 'New Wave,' written and directed by Gael Morel, a former protégé of Téchiné’s) is not free of cliché; the second act trauma (while I normally hesitate to divide movies up into acts, because cinema isn’t theater, this movie invites the practice by explicitly dividing the action between three discrete school terms) is relatively predictable given the positions of the players. But by the same token it doesn’t resolve predictably. The movie saunters along with a kind of stoic naturalism that makes even the catastrophic events that befall the characters things to be coped with and worked through rather than world-enders. The assured cinematography of Julien Hirsch, using a lot of handheld camerawork but always maintaining firm control of a particular, unobtrusive point of view, contributes to the easy feel. The original score by Alexis Rault strikes moodily appropriate, lyrical and elegiac notes with discretion, and a repeated song by the late Burkinabé musician Victor Démé is beautiful and haunting."
Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com
CHRISTINE - Danny Bensi, Saunder Jurriaans
"Antonio Campos ('Afterschool,' 'Simon Killer') takes a more traditional, narrative approach to the life of Christine Chubbuck than that of accidental documentary counterpart 'Kate Plays Christine,' though this isn’t exactly a conventional account, either; set during the last few months of Chubbuck’s life, Christine observes, methodically, a slow and seemingly inevitable breakdown. Rebecca Hall is searing as Chubbuck, her dour line readings and awkward physicality seeming at first to manifest a perfectionism and dissatisfaction, slowly revealing her barely suppressed depression. As those feelings come to consume her, Campos traps her into this world with candy-colored sets, optimistic pop songs blasting from radios, claustrophobic close-ups, and a driving, relentless score; we know where this story is going, and he knows we know. It suffers a bit in comparison to the somewhat more daring 'Kate,' but nonetheless, it’s a forceful piece of work, and Hall is next-level great."
Jason Bailey, Flavorwire
"Campos and Shilowich, however, refuse to cast any easy judgments on Chubbuck, neither condemning her for her personality flaws or excusing her because of her history of depression, the latter of which may have fed into her inability to form close relationships with anyone, romantically or otherwise. Instead, they seem to view their central figure with the detachment of psychologists observing a case study. That makes 'Christine' sound like a chilly, skin-crawling experience -- and in light of Campos’s previous features, 'Afterschool' and 'Simon Killer,' such a judgment could be expected, with both films as studies of similarly unsettled characters which exuded a Stanley Kubrick-like distance in their unnervingly poised compositions, immaculate sound design and behind-the-shoulder tracking shots. Unexpectedly, though, the subject seems to have loosened Campos up a bit stylistically: 'Christine' feels at times positively jaunty compared to his earlier efforts, with the director indulging in exuberant rapid-fire montages during behind-the-scenes news-broadcast sequences and, perhaps most notably, allowing Danny Bensi and Saunder Juriaans’ score, as well as a few upbeat period tunes, to infuse the action with a light touch. It’s an ironic mode of address that suggests the kind of surface togetherness Christine struggled to maintain even as she was falling apart inside."
Kenji Fujishima, Paste Magazine
"Campos employs dazzling aural manipulation to convey Chubbuck’s gradual sinking into her own psyche: Coll Anderson’s dense sound design swarms and recedes with her moods, as do the metronomic rhythms of Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans’ score. An exactingly selected soundtrack of 1970s radio staples, meanwhile, alternates between diegetic and loudly non-diegetic applications; sentimental song lyrics appear to fill her head as approximations of regular human feeling. 'Christine' makes a subtextual virtue throughout of its gaudy period detail: Scott Kuzio’s dust-speckled production design and Emma Potter’s spot-on costumes follow the orange-and-oatmeal style mandate of the era, while the blacks and greens of Chubbock’s deeper-hued wardrobe jar with the surrounding palette as the mood takes her."
Guy Lodge, Variety
"While Campos' tone and storytelling are not always the smoothest, and some of his choices are perplexing (that distracting tick-tock music, for instance), he slowly builds a detailed mosaic of his central character and the environment she's so determined to conquer. The fact that it's so cheap and unglamorous (production designer Scott Kuzio's recreation of '70s decor and color schemes is just right) makes Chubbuck's story all the more plaintive."
David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
HAVE A NICE DAY - Shanghai Restoration Project
"The sparse score by the New York-based Shanghai Restoration Project adds a mid-Nineties crime cool, and Liu is undoubtedly aiming for the era's classic creators (the Coens, Beat Takeshi, Tarantino). But his beats are so slow, and the backing story so slight, that the narrative diversions and long-winded, semi-philosophical anecdotes swamp any forward motion. It wants so hard to be 'Pulp Fiction,' but it ends up '8 Heads in a Duffel Bag.'"
Richard Whittaker, The Austin Chronicle
"Liu even opens with a bleakly insightful quote from Tolstoy’s 'Resurrection' that describes a man-ravaged world where, nevertheless, 'spring was spring.' Over an ominously shuffling piano-drum theme, Jian deals out a selection of milieus depicting a small southern Chinese town of tatty storefronts, forgotten streets, and general urban blight mixed with busy development. There’s a halting flatness to the animation, but the detail work is painterly in its attention to chipped walls, beat-up roads, and trashed passageways."
Robert Abele, The Wrap
"Jian Liu’s 'Have a Nice Day' begins with a montage that’s illustrative of this animated noir’s laconic flow. Set to 'Dark Horse' by the Shanghai Restoration Project -- an electronic duo from Brooklyn with a fondness for interpreting Chinese folk and jazz traditions -- the sequence homes in, staccato-like, on the run-down dimensions of a city in southern China and immerses us in everyday human life (at one point, the flashing of a neon sign appears to groove to the beats of the song). Throughout, the viewer is effectively synchronized to the essential rhythm that bespeaks the determination of the various hoods, gangsters, and eccentrics who inhabit this locale."
Wes Greene, Slant Magazine
IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE - Jeff Grace
"As is the case with West’s other films, 'In a Valley of Violence' is wonderfully shot, dishing out one picturesque frame after another, all of which ooze with devotion to the genre. Cinematographer Eric Robbins also deserves a great deal of credit for capturing a succession of visuals that quickly establish the geography of the town, something that’s essential for the final shootout. The movie also features a fantastic score from Jeff Grace that seamlessly shifts from supporting the humor to building suspense."
Perri Nemiroff, Collider
"Some of the acting in 'In a Valley of Violence' is so anachronistic you can practically see the actors' iPhones in their costume pockets. It gives the appearance that Hawke is acting everyone off the screen, but eventually it became part of the loopy rhythm of the film. The opening sequence is played pretty straight and so there is a jarring tone-shift once the plot really jerks into gear. The film relaxes when Travolta enters, and that's a bit late in the game for a film to settle in. The opening credits -- audacious and brash, with enormous blood-red lettering and surreal graphics—is the initial clue that the film isn't meant to be taken too seriously, and the bombastic original score by Jeff Grace helps as well. (It's nice to see a film use an old-fashioned score, as opposed to lazily peppering the action with extant songs.)"
Sheila O'Malley, RogerEbert.com
"From its cinematography (in 2-perf 35mm, Sergio Leone’s preferred format) to its Ennio Morricone-aping musical motifs, 'In A Valley Of Violence' is as studious an exercise in homage as writer-director Ti West’s breakthrough, 'The House Of The Devil.' Frankly, there’s nothing unusual about a horror director trying their hand at a Western. The two genres have a history of interchange, be it the influence of classic Westerns on the films of John Carpenter (who even penned two obscure Westerns, 'El Diablo' and 'Blood River)' and George A. Romero or the parallel development of the giallo and the spaghetti Western in Italy. There are plenty of hybrids, too, though they usually lean more into one genre than the other, with 'Bone Tomahawk' and the under-appreciated 'Survival Of The Dead' being the rare examples to have an almost equal footing in both."
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The Onion AV Club
"It’s frustrating that West often scores with his few modest attempts to stamp his own imprint on the genre, as those flashes of fun hint at what this movie could have been. Buried beneath Jeff Grace’s stampeding Western score are a handful of less familiar inflections, including a couple of solid jump-scares, the occasional dose of contemporary humor, and an ill-fated duel for the ages. As a eulogy for genre, 'In a Valley of Violence' has little to say, but as an exorcism it shows some real spirit. Oh, and the dog is real cute."
David Ehrlich, IndieWire
"The water is for Paul’s dog, who’s so adorable that you know he won’t make it to the end credits. The dog also brings to mind a famous scene in 'Yojimbo,' and Jeff Grace’s alternatingly cheeky and terrifying score (a combination that encapsulates the film’s tonal divide) suggests Ennio Morricone’s work on the 'Dollars' trilogy. But 'In a Valley of Violence' isn’t weighed down with in-jokes. It’s mostly a 'straight' western, in which West inflates a standard subplot of the genre -- the bar fight an outsider has with a local loudmouth -- to the status of center-ring narrative. As with all of West’s prior films, one could write the entire plot on the head of a pin, which leaves the filmmaker and his cast room to fill in each scene with mood and texture. Per his wont, West fetishizes build-up over payoff, which, in this stylized, hermetic western setting, is reminiscent of the recent films of Quentin Tarantino, though West values an economy that Tarantino has long and regretfully abandoned. West builds a major set piece out of Paul lingering outside a bathroom as Grace’s music swells, waiting to kill a foe who’s relaxing in a tub of hot, soapy water. The killing itself is fleetly, brutally staged, but nearly beside the point. It’s the waiting outside the door that puts us mentally and emotionally in the situation, inviting our empathy and giving us time to consider the gravity of murder, rather than mindlessly regarding dozens of simulated killings as a matter of course."
Chuck Bowen, Slant Magazine
"If 'In a Valley of Violence' ends up being largely enjoyable all the same, a good deal of credit ought to go to composer Jeff Grace, whose Morricone-indebted score hits all the right notes and helps keep the picture tonally on track."
Andrew Barker, Variety
LIKE ME - Giona Ostinelli
"That unconventionality isn’t immediately apparent, as the action opens with a masked girl in a hoodie arriving at a drive-through convenience store. Barging inside, she uses her cell phone to record the increasingly agitated employee (Jeremy Gardner) -- then pulls a gun on him, causing him to wet himself. Escaping in her car, the assailant, Kiya (Addison Timlin), returns home. And then, out of nowhere, the action bursts into a bewildering spasm of montage: Kiya’s head shaking blearily; her mouth chewing candy and pizza; a hand on a TV broadcasting static; spinning shots around her as she does push-ups on the floor. The shots freeze, stutter and meld together to Giona Ostinelli’s fuzzy, thudding, looping electro-classical soundtrack of feedback noise."
Nick Schager, Variety
PERMANENT - Craig Wedren, Joe Wong
"Apart from casting (which is just OK here, as Wilson resorts a bit too much to shtick, while Arquette reaches for sincerity), regionally- and period-specific details are the ingredient that make otherwise-interchangeable stories like this appealing. While 'Permanent' doesn’t come anywhere near Greta Gerwig’s 'Lady Bird' (or last year’s comparably charming 'The Edge of Seventeen') in revealing all that is specific and universal in the process by which a young woman comes into her own, it’s not without its charms; they just tend to be suffocated by bad wig jokes, distracting wardrobe choices and Craig Wedren’s invasively cutesy score. Burson (best known for co-creating the HBO series 'Hung') is still finding her voice, but it’s one with clear potential. Give it a decade, and she’ll look back on 'Permanent' with the same cringe-inducing embarrassment she now feels toward the era it depicts, but by then, her storytelling may well have found the perspective this film so desperately lacks."
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, Arena Cinelounge, LACMA, Laemmle, New Beverly [now re-opened!], Nuart and UCLA.
December 21
DIE HARD (Michael Kamen) [Nuart]
DIE HARD (Michael Kamen), TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD (Nathan Scott) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
ELF (John Debney) [Cinematheque: Aero]
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Dimitri Tiomkin), A CHRISTMAS STORY (Carl Zittrer, Paul Zaza) [New Beverly]
RESERVOIR DOGS [New Beverly]
December 22
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Dimitri Tiomkin) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Dimitri Tiomkin), A CHRISTMAS STORY (Carl Zittrer, Paul Zaza) [New Beverly]
JINGLE ALL THE WAY (David Newman) [New Beverly]
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (Ralph Blaine, Hugh Martin, George Stoll) [Cinematheque: Aero]
SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 (Michael Armstrong) [New Beverly]
VIRTUAL ASSASSIN (George Blondheim), HOLOGRAM MAN (John Gonzalez) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
December 23
DIE HARD (Michael Kamen), THE SILENT PARTNER (Oscar Peterson, Ken Wannberg) [New Beverly]
THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (Christopher Young), THE ORACLE (Michael Litovsky, Walter E. Sear) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Dimitri Tiomkin) [Cinematheque: Aero]
JINGLE ALL THE WAY (David Newman) [New Beverly]
December 24
DIE HARD (Michael Kamen), THE SILENT PARTNER (Oscar Peterson, Ken Wannberg) [New Beverly]
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Jerry Bock, John Williams) [Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts]
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Jerry Bock, John Williams) [Laemmle Monica]
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Jerry Bock, John Williams) [Laemmle Playhouse]
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Jerry Bock, John Williams) [Laemmle Royal]
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Jerry Bock, John Williams) [Laemmle Town Center]
December 25
THE HATEFUL EIGHT (Ennio Morricone) [New Beverly]
MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS (Harry Jackson), HORSE FEATHERS [New Beverly]
December 26
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (Henry Mancini), WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT FEELING GOOD? (Frank DeVol) [New Beverly]
December 27
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (Henry Mancini), WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT FEELING GOOD? (Frank DeVol) [New Beverly]
THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (Werner R. Heymann), CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (Frederick Hollander) [Cinematheque: Aero]
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
YENTL (Michel Legrand) [Laemmle Ahyra Fine Arts]
December 28
THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS (Carol Hall, Patrick Wiliams) [Nuart]
IT'S A GIFT, NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK (Frank Skinner) [Cinematheque: Aero]
THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (John Williams), BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (Jerry Fielding) [New Beverly]
RESERVOIR DOGS [New Beverly]
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
December 29
GREMLINS (Jerry Goldsmith) [New Beverly]
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, MIDNIGHT (Frederick Hollander) [Cinematheque: Aero]
NEW YEAR'S EVIL (W. Michael Lewis, Laurin Rinder) [New Beverly]
THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (John Williams), BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (Jerry Fielding) [New Beverly]
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
December 30
THE GODFATHER (Nino Rota), THE VALACHI PAPERS (Riz Ortolani) [New Beverly]
GREMLINS (Jerry Goldsmith) [New Beverly]
THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (Leo Shuken, Charles W. Bradshaw), HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO (Werner R. Heymann) [Cinematheque: Aero]
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
THINGS I'VE HEARD, READ, SEEN OR WATCHED LATELY
Now that the New Beverly has re-opened (I've already seen three double features there this month, and hope to catch another by the time this column goes on-line), I'd like to take a moment to think fondly back on the remarkably random group of movies that I've actually managed to see twice there over the last decade or two -- The Awful Truth, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, Dracula [1979], Family Plot, Fantastic Voyage, Fear Is the Key, The Four Musketeers, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Guns of Navarone, How I Won the War, Man in the Wilderness, Rolling Thunder, See No Evil, Shoot Out, Straw Dogs, Summer of '42, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Three Musketeers, Ulzana's Raid and Westworld.
The rest of the Oscar shortlists announced this week:
VISUAL EFFECTS
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
Christopher Robin
First Man
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Mary Poppins Returns
Ready Player One
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Welcome to Marwen
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
Border
Mary Queen of Scots
Stan & Ollie
Suspiria
Vice
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE
Ayka
Birds of Passage
Burning
Capernaum
Cold War
The Guilty
Never Look Away
Roma
Shoplifters
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Charm City
Communion
Crime + Punishment
Dark Money
The Distant Barking of Dogs
Free Solo
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Minding the Gap
Of Fathers and Sons
On Her Shoulders
RGB
Shirkers
The Silence of Others
Three Identical Strangers
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Black Sheep
End Game
Lifeboat
Los Commandos
My Dead Dad's Porno Tapes
A Night at the Garden
Period. End of Sentence.
63 Boycott
Women of the Gulag
Zion
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Age of Sail
Animal Behaviour
Bao
Bilby
Bird Karma
Late Afternoon
Lost & Found
One Small Step
Pepe le Morse
Weekends
LIVE ACTION SHORT SUBJECT
Caroline
Chuchotage
Detainment
Fauve
Icare
Marguerite
May Day
Mother
Skin
Wale
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