Intrada plans to release one new soundtrack CD next week.
The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has announced the latest Creative Emmy winners, including the following music categories:
OUTSTANDING MUSIC COMPOSITION FOR A LIMITED SERIES, MOVIE OR SPECIAL (ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE)
SUCCESSION - Nicholas Britell
OUTSTANDING MUSIC SUPERVISION
THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL: We're Going to the Catskills! - Robin Urdang, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino
CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
Downton Abbey [the movie] - John Lunn - Decca
The Flying Ghost Ship - Kosuke Onozaki - Cinema-Kan (import)
Les B.O. Introuvables vol. 2 - Jean Bouchety, Christian Chevalier, Jean Morlier, Pierre Porte, Didier Vasseur, Roland Vincent - Music Box
Samurai Marathon - Philip Glass - Orange Mountain
UFO - Barry Gray - Silva
IN THEATERS TODAY
Ad Astra - Max Richter; additional music by Lorne Balfe
Ambition - Wlad Marhulets
American Dreamer - Bryan Senti
Auggie - Ward Hake
Britt-Marie Was Here - Ginge Anvik
Corporate Animals - Michael Yezerski
Cracked Up - David Robbins
Downton Abbey - John Lunn - Score CD on Decca
Imprisoned - Robert Rospide
Rambo: Last Blood - Brian Tyler
Running with the Devil - Reinhold Heil
7 Days to Vegas - Bret Mazur
The Wedding Year - Raney Shockne
Zeroville - Johnny Jewel
COMING SOON
September 27
Les Hirondelles de Kaboul - Alexis Rault - Milan (import)
Monos - Mica Levi - Lakeshore
October 4
Stranger Things 3 - Kyle Dixon, Michael Stein - Lakeshore
October 11
Solis - David Stone Hamilton - Perseverance
October 18
La Fameuse Invasion des Ours en Sicile - Rene Aubry - Milan (import)
The Lighthouse - Mark Korven - Milan
October 25
Dracula/The Curse of Frankenstein [re-recordings] - James Bernard - Tadlow
Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds - Masao Yagi - Cinema-Kan (import)
November 1
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark - Marco Beltrami, Anna Drubich - eOne
November 8
Encounter - Penka Kouneva - Notefornote
Go Fish - George Streicher - Notefornote
Date Unknown
Bastardos y Diablos - Louis Febre - Dragon's Domain
Bride of Frankenstein - Franz Waxman - La-La Land
The Dan Redfield Collection vol. 1 - Dan Redfield - Dragon's Domain
Deep Water - Toydrum - Silva
Goldsnake Anonima Killers - Carlo Savina - Digitmovies
Henry King at Fox - Alfred Newman - Kritzerland
The John Morgan Collection vol. 1 - John Morgan - Dragon's Domain
Lavender Braid - Eugene - Kronos
Lost and Love - Zbigniew Preisner - Caldera
Marco Beltrami: Music for Film - Marco Beltrami - Silva
Metralleta Stein - Luis Bacalov, Stelvio Cipriani, Mario Molino, Daniele Patucchi, Dusan Radici, Carlo Rustichelli - CSC
Music for Dinosaurs - David Spear - Dragon's Domain
Non Faccia La Guerra, Faccio L'Amore - Riz Ortolani - Digitmovies
Quando La Coppia Scoppia - Piero Umiliani - Beat
Rory's Way - Frank Ilfman - Kronos
Rwanda - Davide Caprelli - Kronos
Second Spring - Stelvio Cipriani - Kronos
Trois Jours et Une Vie - Rob - Music Box
Tutti Possono Arricchire Tranni I Povere - Franco Bixio, Fabio Frizzi, Vince Tempera - Beat
What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Dennis McCarthy, Kevin Kiner - Dragon's Domain
THIS WEEK IN FILM MUSIC HISTORY
September 20 - Frank DeVol born (1911)
September 20 - Frank Comstock born (1922)
September 20 - James Bernard born (1925)
September 20 - John Dankworth born (1927)
September 20 - Mychael Danna born (1958)
September 20 - Fred Steiner's scores to the Star Trek episodes "The Corbomite Maneuver," "Balance of Terror," and "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" are recorded (1966)
September 20 - Sidney Cutner died (1971)
September 20 - Jack Marshall died (1973)
September 20 - Laurence Rosenthal wins his second consecutive Emmy, for Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna; Joel Rosenbaum wins his first Emmy, for the Knots Landing episode “Cement the Relationship” (1987)
September 21 - Chico Hamilton born (1921)
September 21 - Herbert Stothart begins recording his score for Son of Lassie (1944)
September 21 - Mason Daring born (1949)
September 21 - Herman Stein records his score for the Lost in Space episode "There Were Giants in the Earth" (1965)
September 21 - Walter Scharf records his score for the Mission: Impossible episode “Old Man Out” (1966)
September 21 - Laurence Rosenthal wins the first of three consecutive Emmys, for Peter the Great; Arthur B. Rubinstein wins the Emmy for his Scarecrow and Mrs. King episode score “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (1986)
September 21 - Geoffrey Burgon died (2010)
September 21 - Roman Vlad died (2013)
September 22 - Robert Mellin born (1902)
September 22 - Nick Cave born (1957)
September 22 - Harry Geller’s score for The Wild Wild West episode “The Night of the Bottomless Pit” is recorded (1966)
September 22 - Samuel Matlovsky's score for the Star Trek episode "I, Mudd" is recorded (1967)
September 22 - Tuomas Kantelinen born (1969)
September 22 - Charles Previn died (1973)
September 22 - John Addison wins his only Emmy, for the Murder, She Wrote episode “The Murder of Sherlock Holmes;” Allyn Ferguson wins his only Emmy, for Camille (1985)
September 22 - Pat Metheny records his score for the Amazing Stories episode "Grandpa's Ghost" (1985)
September 22 - J.A.C. Redford records his score for the Twilight Zone episode “What Are Friends For?” (1986)
September 22 - John Williams begins recording his score for Home Alone (1990)
September 22 - Konrad Elfers died (1996)
September 23 - Clifford Vaughan born (1893)
September 23 - Gino Paoli born (1934)
September 23 - Lionel Newman begins recording his score for North to Alaska (1960)
September 23 - Bernard Herrmann records his score for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode “The Life Work of Juan Diaz” (1964)
September 23 - Jerry Fielding records his score for the Mission: Impossible episode “The Cardinal” (1968)
September 23 - Richard Hazard records his first Mission: Impossible score, for “Commandante” (1969)
September 23 - Dave Grusin begins recording his score to The Yakuza (1974)
September 23 - Craig Safan records his score for the Amazing Stories episode "The Main Attraction" (1985)
September 23 - Dennis McCarthy records his score for the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Shockwave, Part II” (2004)
September 23 - Malcolm Arnold died (2006)
September 24 - Leonard Salzedo born (1921)
September 24 - Douglas Gamley born (1924)
September 24 - Michael Tavera born (1961)
September 24 - Richard Markowitz records his score for The Wild Wild West episode “The Night of Sudden Death” (1965)
September 24 - Walter Scharf records his score for the Mission: Impossible episode “The Survivors” (1967)
September 24 - Richard Shores records his score for The Wild Wild West episode “The Night of the Kraken” (1968)
September 24 - Billy Goldenberg records his score for the Amazing Stories episode "What If...?" (1986)
September 25 - Dmitri Shostakovich born (1906)
September 25 - Eric Rogers born (1921)
September 25 - Michael Gibbs born (1937)
September 25 - Richard Harvey born (1953)
September 25 - Randy Kerber born (1958)
September 25 - Danny Elfman and Steve Bartek's score for the Amazing Stories episode "Mummy Daddy" is recorded (1985)
September 25 - Ron Jones records his score for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Where No One Has Gone Before" (1987)
September 25 - Alan Silvestri begins recording his score for The Bodyguard (1992)
September 25 - Jay Chattaway records his score for the Enterprise episode “Fight or Flight” (2001)
September 26 - George Gershwin born (1898)
September 26 - Simon Brint born (1950)
September 26 - Maureen McElheron born (1950)
September 26 - Joseph Mullendore records his score for the Lost in Space episode "The Haunted Lighthouse" (1967)
September 26 - Henry Mancini begins recording his replacement score for The Molly Maguires (1969)
September 26 - Edward Ward died (1971)
September 26 - Robert Emmett Dolan died (1972)
September 26 - Les Baxter records his score for the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode “Vegas in Space” (1979)
September 26 - Shelly Manne died (1984)
September 26 - Jay Chattaway records his score for the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “The Search - Part 2” (1994)
DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?
AQUARELA - Eicca Toppinen
"'Aquarela''s soundtrack shifts from ambient post-rock to gnarly speed-metal to widescreen strings. The effect is a serenely apocalyptic warning: Climate change is a killer, with water as its indiscriminately lethal weapon."
Brad Wheeler, The Globe and Mail
"This is a purely sensationalistic cinematic experience that paradoxically encourages reflection and contemplation. Although the use of some (admittedly pretty good) heavy metal music on the soundtrack feels like a bit of overreaching. The guitar riffs rhyme with the growth of a tidal wave to such an extent you’re almost waiting for a gravelly bass voice to announce 'EXTREEEEEEEEME WEATHERRRRR!!!!' The genuine awesome on display here doesn’t need that cheese injection."
Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com
"Playing more akin to the work of Godfrey Reggio (the 'Qatsi' Trilogy) or Ron Fricke ('Baraka' and 'Samsara'), but replacing those directors penchant for orchestral scores with heavy metal music, Kossakovsky’s documentary is visually stunning, hypnotic, and, in the end, a powerful reminder of water’s immense power and human’s inability to control it. In short, 'Aquarela' is truly astonishing and should be seen on the biggest screen possible."
Christian Gallichio, The Playlist
"'Aquarela' is ostensibly a movie about humanity’s relationship with water, though Kossakovsky never explains that as such. There are no on-screen titles or talking head interviews to clarify what the audience is seeing, and though there are a few human characters scattered throughout the film, they rarely talk and they’re never identified. Instead, the soundtrack mostly consists of ambient sounds of ice cracking and water flowing, enhanced by occasional ear-splitting blasts of music from the hybrid classical/metal band Apocalyptica."
Noel Murray, The Onion AV Club
"From a sequence of a sailboat operated by a single woman battling a fierce storm to shots in which giant chunks of ice that have fallen off a glacier bob up and down in the water like gigantic breaching whales, 'Aquarela' doesn’t lack for simultaneously awesome and terrifying images. There’s a ferociousness and churning volatility to the film’s view of nature -- a point heavily underlined by Eicca Toppinen’s heavy metal-inflected score. Though not quite as abrasive as Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel’s 'Leviathan,' which utilized an arsenal of GoPro cameras to create a turbulent, viscerally unsettling document of a commercial fishing trawler’s voyage at sea, 'Aquarela' evinces a similar desire to overwhelm and discombobulate its audience. Kossakovsky employs a deeply immersive sound design that emphasizes the rough swoosh of waves and the shattering cracks of thawing glaciers."
Keith Watson, Slant Magazine
"The film thaws in more ways than one from that point, examining water in steadily more mobile, elusive forms. In Greenland, Kossakovsky serenely surveys icebergs and floes glinting in sunlight, slicing through the ocean like regal modern sculpture. The pace abruptly shifts for a tumultuous trans-Atlantic voyage aboard a buffeted yacht, perspective shifting between a sea-level view of furiously churning, spraying waves and aerial shots that make man’s attempts to navigate the big blue look all the more puny and vulnerable. The overegged intrusions of rock music from Finnish 'cello-metal' band Apocalyptica in this sequence represents the film’s one clanging misstep -- all the more glaring given the evocative precision of sound designer Aleksandr Dudarev’s contributions throughout."
Guy Lodge, Variety
"Even though there’s no narration or commentary of any sort and the images are accompanied mostly just by crisply recorded source sound (there are occasional, somewhat tacky intrusions of heavy metal music as well as more inconspicuous atonal compositions), it’s easy to infer an ecological message here. Clearly, the film is extolling respect for the natural world’s majesty, immense power and gob-smacking beauty, leaving viewers to fill in the gaps themselves with statistics about climate change. Premiering out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, which also showcased Kossakovsky’s globe-trotting panorama ¡Vivan las antipodas! in 2011, this compelling work has a better chance of travel than most non-narrative films now, especially since audiences have gotten hooked on the kind of 'cinema of attractions' offered by 3D Imax theaters and ultra-high-def systems. At the very least, it’s got a promising future as demonstration fodder in big-box stores for the latest home entertainment kit. Indeed, it’s worth noting that for all the emphasis on these massive waterscapes, real people appear throughout, particularly in the opening sequence where the death of a motorist, spotted plunging into Lake Baikal, is caught accidentally on camera, like a winter version of the famous Bruegel painting 'Landcape With the Fall of Icarus.' Elsewhere, we watch experienced sailors Hayat Mokhenache and Peter Madej maneuver a yacht through a tempest, their faces grim with concentration and intercut with quasi-aerial shots taken by a camera lashed to the top of a mast. Snatches of dialogue are heard, and translated by subtitles, but no one is interviewed as such. Instead, the strongest voice, supervised by regular Kossakovsky collaborator Alexander Dudarev, throughout is that of the water itself, especially when heard as raging waves or crackling ice pinging and tinkling or crashing angrily as icebergs crack off glaciers. What a shame that the use of cello and electric guitar-dominated instrumental tunes by Finnish metal band Apocalyptica is deployed with inane literalness for some of the ocean sequences. Some viewers might feel silence would have been much more effective, but one could always mute the sound if watching at home."
Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter
BEFORE YOU KNOW IT - Ryan Tullock
"Though character is what elevates this offbeat family story from typical Sundance fare to something truly special, it’s got many other winning elements. Jeunet-esque cinematography and production design (from Jon Keng and Katie Hickman, respectively) coalesce into niches as quirky as the characters that inhabit them. Ryan Tullock offers a simplistically charming score. But perhaps the film’s greatest boon is triple-threat Hannah Pearl Utt, who is a force of nature in the role of Rachel alone. It takes a lot of balls to cast yourself against Mandy Patinkin and Judith Light, but Utt goes toe-to-toe with these dramatic greats with admirable gusto. Equal parts winsome and buttoned-up, Rachel (thus, Utt) is impossible not to root for. You’ll feel your eyes itching when she cries and your heart swelling with the same fond exasperation she shows all her family members."
Lena Wilson, The Playlist
"Aside from some off-putting musical scoring that feels overly sappy and disconnected from the story, 'Before You Know It' is a strong debut that pushes the boundaries of what movies made from the female gaze can mean to audiences of all kinds."
Beandrea July, The Hollywood Reporter
BENNETT'S WAR - Jamie Christopherson
'Marshall has been working as a mechanic for his old friend Cyrus (Ali Afshar, whose role as producer probably made it hard to argue there might be better actors for the part). Cyrus' motor-sports shop is a gathering spot for racers, and, one afternoon, ominous music cues signal the arrival of a racing crew that might as well be wearing Cobra Kai gear. Up-and-coming riders Chris and Kurt Walker (Hunter Clowdus and Brando Eaton) are the stars of a team sponsored by Tony Panterra, a cocky old dude with a dyed-black fauxhawk. (Panterra is a real-life racer who, at least where Google's concerned, is vastly more famous for fathering a woman who twerks on the internet.)"
John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
GOOK - Roger Suen
"With clear nods to 'Clerks' and 'Do the Right Thing,' Chon’s film is imbued with a strong sense of the slack experienced by bored storekeepers as well as the ways in which a neighborhood’s racial tensions can escalate in a mere heartbeat. The film’s storyline has some rough edges that might benefit from more detail, but Chon shows a definite talent for drawing out strong performances from his actors, as well as marshaling expressive imagery that’s enhanced by Roger Suen’s lyrical music score. The ugliness of the film’s pejorative title is belied by 'Gook''s focused sensitivity."
Marjorie Baumgarten, The Austin Chronicle
THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD - Atli Orvarsson
"Or at least that’s what it’s like whenever The Hitman’s Bodyguard isn’t pulling out another breathlessly uninvolving action sequence. Again and again, the stars’ stunt doubles rip vehicular mayhem through what direct-to-video action buffs will undoubtedly recognize as the forests of western Bulgaria. Hughes really can’t visualize fast, coordinated action in distinct images (his style is 'coverage of stunts from different angles'), and it mixes poorly with the film’s crappy special effects. There’s a shockingly gruesome fight between Bryce and a Dukhovich goon in a Dutch hardware store that’s composited to look like a single take, but instead of something like the grisly long take in David Leitch’s recent 'Atomic Blonde,' it comes out as a series of choppy close-ups that have been impatiently glued together. Studio-backed productions have less variety than ever, so it’s not uncommon to watch a movie where almost everyone involved seems like they wish they were working on something else. That’s all too true here -- from Jules O’Loughlin’s overcompensating, thickly diffused cinematography to Atli Örvarsson’s busy, spy-movie score. Hughes shows a surprising ease with visual gags and punchlines, especially in the movie’s more clearly organized first act; perhaps he’s wasting his time as an action journeyman. In fact, the only ones who seem to be truly enjoying themselves are Jackson and Reynolds -- even during the boring parts where they have to talk about their feelings."
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The Onion AV Club
"Even with the relative novelty of Dutch settings (which allow for a boat-cars-motorcycle chase sequence in Amsterdam), the picture feels far more generic than its A-list cast would suggest. A couple of scenes that ironically employ soft-rock standards suggest that the filmmakers were shooting for a more smart-ass tone, but Atli Örvarsson's overheated score works strenuously against that effect, as does Hughes' pedestrian direction. 'The Hitman's Bodyguard' offers more than enough shoot-'em-up to keep multiplex auds munching their popcorn, but sharper talents behind the camera might have made it considerably more enjoyable."
John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
LEMON - Heather Christian
"Guided by an original score by Heather Christian that seems to be preparing us for a small apocalypse, 'Lemon' opens in the home of Isaac (Gelman) and his longtime girlfriend Ramona (Judy Greer), who also happens to be blind. When the camera turns on them, they’re almost undetectable at first, their earth-toned bathrobes camouflaged against the sofa that they’re beached on in impossibly uncomfortable sleeping positions. Somehow, we get the impression that this is hardly an abnormal morning for these young lovers. Their modest Los Angeles apartment is an energy sinkhole so lethal it later appears to kill small animals."
Emily Yoshida, Vulture
"The rest of 'Lemon' struggles under the weight of its imposed tone, which is mannered, flat-affect, deadpan, ultimately oppressive, punctuated by ranks of eccentric characters, and all accompanied in heavy-handed fashion in almost every scene by a score from Heather Christian. How would the film would play without the over-reliance on the music?"
Sheila O'Malley, RogerEbert.com
"Isaac’s trashy identity -- including how the little world he lives in is punctuated by overwhelming choral music -- is like all the annoying sad-white-dude-in-an-indie tropes rolled into one absurd character. That’s a good thing. Bravo, whose previous work includes the lauded short film 'Gregory Go Boom' and an episode of FX’s 'Atlanta,' has crafted a film with a particular vocabulary that’s built using the language of small films about sad white men (think 'Garden State') but with a syntax that upends them. The film is at times, gloriously, viciously satirical, effortlessly able to paint the hollowness of performative emotions."
Kyle Turner, The Wrap
"A comedy of embarrassment, discomfort and anxiety that just keeps getting funnier as it goes along, 'Lemon' is a one-of-a-kind treat that, by ending almost too soon, follows the old showbiz principle of leaving ‘em wanting more. A stylized and very stylish piece that becomes an acquired taste after about 20 minutes, Janicza Bravo’s debut feature occasionally recalls the work of the great Jacques Tati in its precision physicality. But the film forges a completely distinctive personality of its own through its characters’ perverse behavior and neuroses, exacting framing and editing, wildly imaginative use of unanticipated music and its unusual ethnic blending, from Jamaican L.A. culture to strife-ridden Jewish family ritual. The film’s opening minutes are downright weird, and not entirely inviting, both because the characters behave in very arch, rude and non-naturalistic ways, but because the aggressive style -- the bold compositions, the musical assaults -- feels potentially like attention-getting for its own sake...Once it becomes clear Isaac is an impossible mess of tangled anxieties who should have been treated years ago, the film begins to settle in as it charts his descent. It takes a while as well to get accustomed to, and then embrace, Bravo’s arresting sense of composition, timing and humor. Some shots are held to the point that they create real discomfort, others connect with one another to startling effect and many others simply reveal an original eye, a wonderfully fresh approach to images. The same goes for the almost unimaginably eclectic musical score."
Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter
LOGAN LUCKY - David Holmes
"Performances do their part, too, while Soderbergh builds his mousetrap of interlocking, elegantly assembled parts rhythmically scored to David Holmes’ rootsy-funky grooves. Tatum is good in his agreeably charming way, but he’s almost pushed aside by the southern-fried eccentrics in his orbit. Driver manages to make a drawling deadpan seem almost showy, while Craig fuses panther-ish intensity and jittery looniness into something that can only be called the anti-Bond; it’s as if he’s auditioning to be a Coen brothers regular. Keough, on the other hand, foregoes quirk for magnetically steely determination -- her fierce-eyed, white-booted Mellie always looks ready to run her own crew someday."
Robert Abele, The Wrap
"Both literally and figuratively, 'Logan Lucky' is the brightest film that Soderbergh has made since 'Erin Brockovich.' The director shoots his exteriors with an unfussy vibrancy, lingering in particular on the wild colors and sartorial tastes of Mellie (Riley Keough), Jimmy’s hairdresser sister and a human Waze with a savant-like awareness of traffic patterns, and Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes), Jimmy’s ex-wife and the mother to his aspiring-beauty-queen daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie). (The men, comparably monochrome and sooty, are distinguished by their tattoos; in a terrific running gag, Soderbergh places his camera judiciously in order to keep revealing new ones throughout the film.) A few interiors, including, oddly, a high school gym, exude 'Ocean’s Eleven''s trademark tungsten glow, and 'Logan Lucky' broadly unfolds in that film’s unflappable spirit. This time out, a selection of John Denver and Creedence Clearwater Revival tracks sub in for Sinatra to complement another slick, sparsely deployed funk score by Cliff Martinez [sic]."
Christopher Gray, Slant Magazine
THE ONLY LIVING BOY IN NEW YORK - Rob Simonsen
"All the major characters in 'The Only Living Boy in New York' feel fatally familiar -- including the angsty 20ish protagonist (Callum Turner), his whisky-slurping, wisdom-spouting mentor (Jeff Bridges) and a damaged femme fatale (Kate Beckinsale) -- as do the tone, setting, plot, dialogue, voiceover and perky score. That's not to accuse the film, or its makers, of ineptitude. Webb directed '500 Days of Summer,' a Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Zooey Deschanel rom-com that was aggressively quirky but toyed with the genre's conventions in fresh and charming ways. Even his less gratifying efforts -- a passable, if underwhelming, pair of 'Spider-Man' films and last year's by-the-book weepie 'Gifted' -- were crafted with polish and professionalism. But while 'The Only Living Boy in New York' looks nice (it was shot on film by veteran DP Stuart Dryburgh), it's an unabashed fake -- glib and movie-ish in a grating way, with lots of prefab "soulfulness" and none of the texture or rough edges of life (or the winking self-awareness of this summer's other, much more fun pastiche with a title lifted from Simon & Garfunkel: 'Baby Driver')."
Jon Frosch, The Hollywood Reporter
"The cinematography is beautiful, relying heavily on the natural landscape of it’s on-set location shooting in the West Coast of Ireland, as the forests and rivers surrounding the monks is both a hindrance to their success but also allows the film to get by with a small budget. There are moments where it was if Muldowney and co., drove out to the nearest forest with a camera and just began shooting, barely off a beaten walking path for hikers. It grants the film a sense of urgency, especially in those fight sequences which capture the feeling of claustrophobic dizziness of battle but also leaves it all feeling rather bare. The closer to the coast we get the greater the film looks, giving it a larger and more grandiose feel, capturing the monks connection to God and the world around them. The imagery along with the musical composition by Stephen McKeon bring a much needed weight to the proceedings."
Ally Johnson, The Playlist
"The film’s aesthetic is driven by a grim color palette and a heavy reliance on handheld close-ups and medium shots, all mirroring the solemn piousness of the monks. But like its soundtrack full of Gregorian chants, Pilgrimage drones on rather monotonously. Once Muldowney establishes the relationships that dominate the film, there’s little intrigue that plays out between the characers, who quickly ossify into caricatures of rapacious authoritarianism or solemn, unwavering piousness. Broken up by fight scenes that are impactful only because of their grotesqueries, the film remains too uncompromisingly black and white as a character study and a story of the conflicts of faith."
Derek Smith, Slant Magazine
"Director Brendan Muldowney strains hard to create a suitably somber medieval atmosphere, such as so rigorously draining the film of color that one struggles to remember that Ireland is known for being green. The relentlessly monochromatic palette quickly proves wearisome, as does the stilted language, the unsubtle characterizations and the musical score depending heavily on Gregorian chants. (What, you were expecting Coldplay?)"
Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
"Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’s haunting musical score is starkly evocative, intensifying a lean, compelling and deeply-felt crime thriller that illuminates even as it chills."
Claudia Puig, The Wrap
"The film’s score, another collaboration between Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, awkwardly juxtaposes ghostly choral moans and trippy industrial soundscapes. Sheridan’s subtle, uniformly terrific supporting cast does a lot to temper these laborious tactics, but the film succumbs to Lambert’s didacticism: His perceived humility masks a smug, Manichean worldview."
Christopher Gray, Slant Magazine
"Driven by another of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ murmuring folk soundtracks, 'Wind River' turns out to be the weakest of Sheridan’s loose trilogy -- the one with the thinnest characterizations and the toughest time disguising its subtext as plainspoken townsfolk rapport. But the filmmaker’s gift for procedural and environmental detail still shines brightly through the pulpy crime fiction, this time indebted a little less to Cormac McCarthy’s existential brand of the stuff. If 'Sicario' was Sheridan’s searingly bleak spin on the cartel thriller and 'Hell Or High Water' his modern outlaw oater, 'Wind River' finds the writer and now director trying his hand at snowbound noir."
A.A. Dowd, The Onion AV Club
"For much of its running time, 'Wind River' is a quiet, meditative crime drama, and a wonderfully effective one, aided by haunting music by Warren Ellis and Nick Cave."
Steve Pond, The Wrap
"That said, as with the previous two films in this de facto Sheridan trilogy, there’s something a bit off-putting about 'Wind River.' The score is distracting -- at one point employing a male vocalist during a scene that would have been better served with the starkness of silence -- but you can get used to it after a while."
Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
THE NEXT TEN DAYS IN L.A.
Screenings of older films, at the following L.A. movie theaters: AMPAS, Alamo Drafthouse, American Cinematheque: Aero, American Cinematheque: Egyptian, Arclight, Arena Cinelounge, Laemmle, New Beverly, Nuart, UCLA and Vista.
September 20
A DIRTY SHAME (George S. Clinton) [Nuart]
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (Alan Menken, Miles Goodman) [Vista]
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS [Arena CineLounge]
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (Richard Robbins) [Cinematheque: Aero]
SHE SHOULDA SAID 'NO!' (Raoul Kraushaar), NARCOTIC, MARIJUANA: WEED WITH ROOTS IN HELL [UCLA]
September 21
THE BAND WAGON (Arthur Schwartz, Adolph Deutsch) [Vista]
DAYS OF HEAVEN (Ennio Morricone) [Vista]
HEY THERE, IT'S YOGI BEAR (Marty Paich) [New Beverly]
MOM AND DAD, TEST TUBE BABIES [UCLA]
JACKIE BROWN [New Beverly]
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS [Arena CineLounge]
REBECCA (Franz Waxman), THE FALLEN IDOL (William Alwyn) [Cinematheque: Aero]
September 22
CHILD BRIDE, SEX MADNESS [UCLA]
FIRST BLOOD (Jerry Goldsmith), RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (Jerry Goldsmith), RAMBO III (Jerry Goldsmith), RAMBO (Brian Tyler) [Alamo Drafthouse]
GRAND PRIX (Maurice Jarre) [Arclight Hollywood]
HEY THERE, IT'S YOGI BEAR (Marty Paich) [New Beverly]
RUGGLES OF RED GAP, BY CANDLELIGHT (W. Franke Harling) [Cinematheque: Aero]
SANJURO (Masaru Sato) [Vista]
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (Thomas Newman) [Laemmle Ahyra Fine Arts]
September 23
BEVERLY HILLS COP (Harold Faltermeyer) [Arclight Hollywood]
EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITORS (Michael Demer, Librado Pastor) [Alamo Drafthouse]
MULHOLLAND DRIVE (Angelo Badalamenti) [New Beverly]
SAY AMEN, SOMEBODY [Laemmle Royal]
WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN (Bernardo Bonezzi) [Alamo Drafthouse]
September 24
ALICE ADAMS (Roy Webb) [Cinematheque: Aero]
BLOODY BIRTHDAY (Arlon Ober) [Alamo Drafthouse]
EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITORS (Michael Demer, Librado Pastor) [Alamo Drafthouse]
STEEL MAGNOLIAS (Georges Delerue) [Alamo Drafthouse]
September 25
CRISS CROSS (Miklos Rozsa) [New Beverly]
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (Adam Burke, Darius Holbert, Russ Howard III) [Alamo Drafthouse]
September 26
MILLENNIUM ACTRESS (Susumu Hirasawa) [Alamo Drafthouse]
TALK TO HER (Alberto Iglesias) [Alamo Drafthouse]
September 27
HIGH AND LOW (Masaru Sato) [Vista]
KILLER CROCODILE (Riz Ortolani) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
PAGANINI HORROR (Vince Tempera) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
VAMPIRE HUNTER D (Tetsuya Komuyo) [Nuart]
September 28
BARTON FINK (Carter Burwell) [Vista]
DOUBLE INDENMNITY (Miklos Rozsa) [Laemmle Ahyra Fine Arts]
LAURA (David Raksin) [Laemmle Ahyra Fine Arts]
OLD BOYFRIENDS (David Shire) [Cinematheque: Aero]
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS (Gene De Paul, Adolph Deutsch, Saul Chaplin) [Vista]
THAT DARN CAT! (Bob Brunner) [New Beverly]
September 29
DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (William Lava) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
EASY RIDER [Cinematheque: Aero]
IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (Ernest Gold) [Arclight Hollywood]
JENNIFER'S BODY (Theodore Shapiro, Stephen Barton) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
THE LONG GOODBYE (John Williams) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
MOROCCO, SHANGHAI EXPRESS [Cinematheque: Aero]
SHAUN OF THE DEAD (Daniel Mudford, Pete Woodhead) [Alamo Drafthouse]
SNOOPY COME HOME (Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman, Don Ralke) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]
THAT DARN CAT! (Bob Brunner) [New Beverly]
THINGS I'VE HEARD, READ, SEEN OR WATCHED LATELY
Heard: The White Dawn (Mancini), Jackie (Levi), Air (Van Breeman), Night of the LIving Dead 3D (Brandt), Spider-Man: Homecoming (Giacchino), The Mentalist (Neely), What Have You Done to Solange? (Morricone), The Panic in Needle Park (Rorem), Star Trek: The City on the Edge of Forever/library music (Steiner et al), My Life without Me (de Villalonga)
Read: The first half of Victories, by George V. Higgins
Seen: The Goldfinch; Freaks [2019]; Monos; Hustlers; Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am; Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice; Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
Watched: The Casino Murder Case; The Canary Murder Case; Maniac ("The Chosen One!")
Movies I'm Most Looking Forward to For the Rest of 2019 (in order of must-see): Marriage Story, Parasite, Knives Out, Ad Astra, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Joker, Uncut Gems, The Irishman, The Laundromat
I was just reading a review of Rob Zombie's latest horror film, 3 from Hell (a sequel to The Devil's Rejects), and, having already seen five of the films he directed, I have no intention of seeing his usual assortment of "white trash" caricatures screaming profanities at each other for 90 minutes, so I'll skip this newest masterpiece.
Reading the review (a pan) reminded me of a memorable sight from my moviegoing life -- seeing The Devil's Rejects at Beverly Hills' now defunt Beverly Center Cineplex, I was rather surprised to see the audience included a young couple who had brought along their very young daughters, both girls holding large stuffed animals. I don't like to think about what those kids made of scenes like the one where our "heroes" abduct a pair of couples, kill a husband and make the wife dance while wearing her husband's skinned face.
Thinking about this incident made me start recalling some memories from my moviegoing life:
1967: My parents take me to a double-feature of The Shaggy Dog and The Absent-Minded Professor. I would have been five or six at the time. I get so freaked out by The Shaggy Dog that I have to leave the theater, and don't end up seeing Absent-Minded Professor until a decade later.
1972: Age 10. My brother takes me to a triple feature of Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger. I am now a Bond geek for life.
1972: Age 11. I am a very squeamish tween. I go to see The Poseidon Adventure by myself. I get so freaked out by the shock-cut to a burned corpse in the overturned ship's kitchen that I stand in the lobby for a while before finally leaving the theater completely. I don't catch up with the film again until years later, and in the decades since it's become a beloved favorite.
1973: Following the Posidon Adventure incident, I am still extremely squeamish, especially regarding scenes featuring fire and burned bodies. I go to a double feature of Gumshoe and Shamus. I arrive late to Gumshoe, and am in a tense and uncomfortable mood (I was also a very neurotic and high-strung tween and teen), so I leave the theater and wander around to kill time until Shamus starts. I arrive in time, and Shamus begins with a couple in bed. Suddenly a figure appears through the skylight above them, breaks the glass, and torches them with a flamethrower. I am out of that theater in no time at all.
1974. Age 12. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad at the Rafael Theater turns me into a Harryhausen and Rozsa geek for life (though I am still too squeamish to watch the scene where the Vizier takes off his mask).
1976: Age 14. Visiting the house of my mother's best friend, I find a book called Focus on Hitchcock and end up reading it. Soon after I see a double feature of Family Plot and Murder on the Orient Express and love them both. I return to the theater a week later to see Family Plot with a new second feature, Sleuth, which I also love, but during Sleuth I look out at the rest of the auditorium and notice that I am the only one left in the theater. Within that week I have developed life-long loves of John Addison, Richard Rodney Bennett and, especially, Alfred Hitchcock and John Williams
1976: Age 15. My first Brian De Palma movie, Obsession. I remember being shocked when I learned of the existence of this posthumous Herrmann score; since his final film, Taxi Driver, had already reached theaters, I didn't know he had yet another score completed before his passing (Obsession apparently went through a long and difficult post-production period, after a difficult development period where writer Paul Schrader's original years-later third act was lopped off completely). It turns me into a DePalma fan, and a Vilmos Zsigmond fan.
1977: My high school drama teacher has a connection with George Lucas (probably because they filmed the dance scene from American Graffiti in our high school gym), so our class is invited to a preview screening of Star Wars at the Northpoint theater in San Francisco. This was apparently the screening that convinced the filmmakers they had a hit on their hands. I really enjoyed the film, especially the Williams score (I still preferred Family Plot), but I can't say it was life-changing in the way it was for so many of my generation.
1977: I risk the wrath of my temperamental drama teacher by missing a rehearsal of As You Like It (featuring future Captain Kirk son Merrit Butrick as Adam) to catch a special advance screening of Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, with Harryhausen and Charles H. Schneer in person. It is well worth it.
1977: I see Close Encounters of the Third Kind for the first time. Unlike my first viewing of Star Wars, it is a near-religious experience.
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