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CD Review: SEE NO EVIL soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/29/2014
SEE NO EVIL soundtrack | ©2014 Intrada Records

Where Henry Mancini got to play blind woman’s bluff with Audrey Hepburn in WAIT UNTIL DARK with creeping restraint, composer Elmer Bernstein got to scare the already-gone sight out of Mia Farrow with way more symphonic lavishness in this 1971 thriller from BOSTON STRANGLER director Richard Fleischer, who opened up the basic girl-in-peril idea from a Manhattan apartment to an English home and its surrounding countryside – where nearly all of the occupants have gone lights out thanks to a cowboy-boot wearing killer. Where Bernstein was best known for intimate Hollywood dramas or period epics, the composer was equally adept […]Read On »


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CD Review: WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/28/2014
WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD soundtrack | ©2014 Lakeshore Records

From “The Doom Generation” to SPLENDOR and KABOOM! Greg Araki’s films are Technicolor, sexed-up acid trips, full of bad behavior that can range from the hilarious to the disturbing – but never without empathy for his misfit characters. Two composers to particularly to get that vibe are Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd, who first teamed to give a beautiful, translucent synth-rock vibe to the surreal UFO imagery that hid two young men’s awful truth behind Araki’s MYSTERIOUS SKIN. Now the filmmaker sends another teen on a hallucinatory vision question to find the WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD, a caged bird […]Read On »


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CD Review: ST. VINCENT soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/27/2014
ST. VINCENT soundtrack | ©2014 Sony Classical Records

MARLEY AND ME composer Theodore Shapiro has always had a thing for the comedic underdog in such scores as DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY and ONCE CHANCE, all while creating clearly distinct musical characters for these seeming losers, whether it be wacky percussion, dream-like melody or operatic triumph. But he’s likely never gotten a true, cantankerous schlub like Bill Murray’s boozing Vietnam vet who seems to be anything but ST. VINCENT. Yet like all of his previous life-losers, Shapiro finds a heart of gold underneath them with his catchy, rhythmic approach. The trick here […]Read On »


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CD Review: 21 and 22 JUMP STREET soundtracks

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/26/2014
22 and 21 JUMP STREET soundtrack | ©2014 La La Land Records

Far from signaling film scoring Devo-lution, ex-cult rocker Mark Mothersbaugh has consistently proven himself as one of Hollywood’s most wackily animated composers, loading his work with hip retro samples, wacky rhythms and knowingly bombastic strings. It’s a child-like glee that’s often having fun with his assignments while satirizing them at the same time, an ironic, adrenalin sense of fun that most recently hit it awesomely big for filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with THE LEGO MOVIE, a road of unabashed energy that began in CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS. But Mothersbaugh’s most hilariously satiric work for the duo […]Read On »


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AUTOMATA composer Zacarias M. de la Riva finds the musical ghost in the machines – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/24/2014
AUTOMATA soundtrack | ©2014 Movie Score Media Records

More than ever in science fiction, humans are being proven to inferior, doomed species in the face of the infinitely more compassionate creations they now want to destroy. It’s a message that science fiction cinema has increasingly hammered in, whether the lab-born synthetics were virtually indistinguishable from us (BLADE RUNNER, A.I., THE MACHINE) or had an artificial appearance that led us to think it was impossible for them to have a soul (“I, Robot”). But now, even the most pathetically abused, humanoid-shaped machines are given the grace of God in AUTOMATA, no more so than in the gorgeous spirituality of […]Read On »


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STARRY EYES star Alex Essoe sells her soul to Hollywood – Exclusive Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/12/2014
Alex Essoe in STARRY EYES | ©2014 MPI Media Group

If you thought being a ballerina in the cutthroat world of dance was enough to drive a young woman mad, just try making it as an actress in the psychopathic town of Hollywood. It’s a place that’s hell itself for the uncountable hopefuls it’s chewed up and out, no more so than for those who’ve debased themselves to climb its ladder. But when that leg up is given by the devil’s minions, selling one’s soul to Hollywood takes on a whole new horrific meaning for one particular hopeful named Sarah, who endures a terrifying series of auditions, and then far […]Read On »


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THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING composer Johann Johannsson gets scientific – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/08/2014
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING soundtrack | ©2014 +180 Records

One could say it’s the cold, volcanic icescape of the earth’s most forbidding land mass that have often infused Johann Johannsson’s music with a beautifully foreboding presence. Like his innovative countrywoman Bjork, Johannsson received art-music acclaim by merging modern classical and alternative music to haunted and mesmerizing effect, creating a series of conceptual albums like “Englaborn” and “Dis” at the same time he began scoring a myriad of shorts, features and documentaries – usually involving brooding, disaffected characters he could apply a psychologically-minded musical style to (even giving ennui to prairie dogs in the process). With his songs playing a […]Read On »


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Composer Kathryn Bostic has some notes for DEAR WHITE PEOPLE – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/27/2014
Dear White People | ©2014 Roadside Attractions

For a country where some people can congratulate themselves for electing a black President, it often seems that America is more behind the times then ever, both in lethally law-enforced terms, and artistic ones where “black” entertainment more often than not engages in minstrel show drama and humor. For an “enlightened” Hollywood that engages in “some of my best friends” lip service, it’s particularly disappointing when the precious few black film composers are kept by The Man in a musical ghetto where only brown color applies. It’s the kind of can’t-we-all-just-get along attitude that would make any self-respecting minority get […]Read On »


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WHIPLASH composers Justin Hurwitz and Tim Simonec keep a mean jazz beat – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/26/2014
WHIPLASH soundtrack | ©2014 Varese Sarabande Records

In a cinema where wannabe musicians have their aspirations lifted through the very mild tribulations of crotchety, yet ultimately humane instructors, filmmaker Damien Chazelle’s WHIPLASH  is FIGHT CLUB as opposed to FAME – the equivalent of a cymbal in the face, or a shower of blood splashed across a drum kit. While young percussion prodigy Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) gets out of the way of the first abuse-bomb, he’ll have plenty of blood, sweat and tears to give in his sadistic servant-master relationship to his instructor Terence Fletcher, a jazz drill sergeant who makes the scream-swear martinet in FULL METAL […]Read On »


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Edgar Ramirez is THE LIBERATOR – Exclusive Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/30/2014
Edgar Ramirez as THE LIBERATOR | ©2014 Cohen Media Group

With few exceptions, Latin American actors have rarely had the chance to play the hero in major Hollywood epics, let alone for historical pictures that explored a time well before the lethal morass of troubles that stand for the sad state south of the border. But over 200 years ago, the entire continent promised to be united as a shining, freedom-respecting star to the world in the tradition of the American and French Revolutions – a dream led by the dashing figure of Simon Bolivar. Born in Venezuela and educated overseas, this one time, aimless member of the upper class […]Read On »


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