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Interview: Creator Nic Pizzolatto on the true grit of TRUE DETECTIVE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 02/16/2014
TRUE DETECTIVE poster | © 2014 HBO

HBO’s TRUE DETECTIVE, Sundays at 9 PM, was created by Nic Pizzolatto to be a standalone eight-hour story. If there is a second season, a la AMERICAN HORROR STORY, the characters, setting and perhaps even era will be different. Season 1 gives us Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as, respectively,  Martin Hart and Rust Cohle, two very different detectives in rural Louisiana who try to find a ritualistic serial killer back in 1995 and then revisit the case seventeen years later. Pizzolatto, who originally hails from Louisiana, is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. His scriptwriting experience prior to […]Read On »


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CD Review: TRUE GRIT original soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/31/2010
TRUE GRIT soundtrack | ©2010 La La Land Records

It’s been a while since The Coen Brothers made a film as conventionally enjoyable as TRUE GRIT, let alone one that would allow their house composer Carter Burwell to engage in a full-blooded, mainstream score for them in the western genre he last trod upon with the modern cowboys of 1998’s THE HI-LO COUNTRY. While there will always be a sly subversion to one of the more engaging directors-musician relationships in modern cinema, fans of original GRIT composer Elmer Bernstein will feel home on the range with the brassily vast scope of Burwell’s work, right from the thundering heroism of […]Read On »


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Movie Review: TRUE GRIT

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 12/22/2010
TRUE GRIT poster | ©2010 Paramount Pictures

Sometimes more of a good thing is just great, which is the case with the Coen Brothers’ (Ethan & Joel) remake of TRUE GRIT. The 1969 original, based on Charles Portis’ novel, won an Oscar for John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed, alcoholic U.S. marshal who reluctantly takes up the quest of tracking down the man who murdered the father of fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby in that version) – with Mattie doggedly accompanying him.


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TV Review: TRUE BLOOD – Season 5 – “Save Yourself” – Season Finale

By RACHEL REITSLEFF 08/27/2012
Stephen Moyer as Bill in TRUE BLOOD " Save Yourself" | (c) 2012 John P. Johnson/HBO

Stars: Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Alexander Skarsgard, Sam Trammell, Ryan Kwanten, Rutina Wesley, Chris Bauer, Nelsan Ellis, Joe Manganiello, Deborah Ann Woll, Michael McMillian, Denis O’Hare, Kristin Bauer van Straten, Todd Lowe, Carrie Preston, Lauren Bowles, Valentina Cervi, Janina Gavankar, Lucy Griffiths, Giles Matthey, Jessica Clark, Robert Patrick, Carolyn Hennesy, Kristina Anapau, Louis Herthum, Dale Dickey, Kelly Overton Writer: Alan Ball, series created by Alan Ball, based on Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels Director: Michael Lehmann Network: HBO, Sundays @ 9 PM Airdate: Aug. 26, 2012 At the end of last week’s “Sunset,” TRUE BLOOD viewers were left wondering how […]Read On »


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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: JOHN WAYNE AT FOX: THE WESTERNS soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 04/12/2014
JOHN WAYNE AT FOX: THE WESTERNS soundtrack | ©2013 Kritzerland Records

The Duke was an icon who meant manliness – and his musical accompaniment was no less rambunctiously muscular, especially when it came to the genre that he made into his own Monument Valley. But while his western scores left no doubt as to The Duke’s vitality, they each did their part to dig out even more unexpected charisma from this drawling hunk of granite, three terrifically entertaining chisels of which are presented on this Kritzerland collection. First up is a score by the composer who proved to be Wayne’s most unlikely saddle mate at strengthening his All-American image, an elfin […]Read On »


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CD Review: THREE AMIGOS! soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 04/10/2013
THREE AMIGOS! soundtrack | ©2013 Perseverance Records

Credit longtime Elmer Bernstein fan (and family friend) John Landis as the guy who thought the composer’s important orchestral style could be applied to hilarious ends by being played straight in ANIMAL HOUSE. It was a film that made Bernstein an inadvertent king of comedy by unwinkingly using his old-school sound for the likes of AIRPLANE! STRIPES and GHOSTBUSTERS. So it was natural that Landis would call on Bernstein to inadvertently spoof the Oscar-nominated western sound of TRUE GRIT and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN for three not-so magnificent silent movie stars fooled into becoming real heroes in 1986’s THREE AMIGOS!  Bernstein’s […]Read On »


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Interview: STRAW DOGS composer Larry Groupe takes aim at the Peckinpah classic

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/17/2011
Composer Larry Groupe | © 2011 Larry Groupe

We might primally root for him to take down a bunch of barbaric English yahoos. Yet as Sam Peckinpah’s violent parable STRAW DOGS more than pointed out in 1972, there’s little glory to be had by a seeming milquetoast in the middle of a home invasion. You could imagine the same reaction of a composer tasked with re-scoring the action that Jerry Fielding so memorably wrote for that iconic picture. But like the broken-spectacled mathematician who proves himself a he-man in the face of impossible odds, Larry Groupé weathers the potential brickbats, boiling oil and bullet to successfully score his […]Read On »


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Blu-Ray Review: BLOOD SIMPLE

By CARL CORTEZ 09/04/2011
BLOOD SIMPLE | ©2011 MGM Home Entertainment

Cast: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, Samm-Art Williams, M. Emmet Walsh Writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Director: Joel Coen Distributor: MGM Home Entertainment Suggested Retail Price: $19.99 As the Coen Brothers have gained popularity over the years with their surprise hits FARGO, OH BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and TRUE GRIT, many forget they had humble beginnings in 1984 with their gem of debut BLOOD SIMPLE. A film noir homage mixed with their familiar dark humor, BLOOD SIMPLE shows the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen already firmly in control of their filmmaking identity. There’s crackling […]Read On »


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Exclusive Interview: Actor Bret Harrison on BREAKING IN, REAPER & V

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 05/17/2011
Bret Harrison in BREAKING IN - Season 1 | ©2011 Fox/David Johnson

Fox’s half-hour comedy BREAKING IN, trying out a Tuesday slot tonight after a run Wednesdays at 9:30 PM (even though it was canceled last week by Fox), concerns a high-tech security firm that is hired by various companies to evaluate weak points by, per the title, breaking in wherever it can be done. Bret Harrison plays Cameron Price, the firm’s newest hire, who has been more or less blackmailed into taking the gig by the firm’s mysterious boss Oz, played by Christian Slater. In some ways, Cameron and his situation don’t appear too far removed from Portland, Oregon native Harrison’s […]Read On »


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