Right on Cue: Recent Episodes
The Spool
Film and TV critic Clint Worthington (The Spool) talks to a new composer every week about the origins, challenges, and joys of their latest musical scores.
When last we spoke to composer Jay Wadley, he'd just finished scoring the mercurial Charlie Kaufman film I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Four years and a million projects later, the Charles Ives Award-winning composer (and co-founder of music production house Found Objects, with previous guest Trevor Gureckis) has been keeping busy, from films like Fire Island, Swan Song and the upcoming We Grown Now to shows like Apple TV+'s Franklin. Set in the eight years Benjamin Franklin spent in France drumming up monetary and logistical support for the Revolutionary War, Franklin stars Michael Douglas as the Founding Father himself, who must navigate dueling alliances and a host of stakeholders on both sides of the pond. What's more, he and his grandson Temple (played by Noah Jupe) find themselves at the head of a cultural clash between the French aristocracy and their budding republic that will change both their lives forever. Wadley built the lush sound of Franklin with the help of an enormous orchestra and his background in classical composition, melding traditional instrumentation with modern orchestration and a decidedly Americana flair to Franklin's upsetting of the French social order. Now, he joins me on the podcast to discuss the musical journey of Franklin. Franklin streams weekly on Apple TV+, and you can listen to Wadley's score on your preferred streamer courtesy of Apple.
This week, I talk to legendary TV composer Mike Post about everything from the Law and Order dun-dun to his original album of musical suites. If you've had a TV turned to a network station anytime in the last forty years, you've heard Mike Post's music. A stalwart in the TV scoring game, he is the voice of so many police and law procedurals, from The Rockford Files to LA Law to his Emmy-winning theme for Murder One. But most know him best as the voice of the long-running Law & Order franchise, having scored almost all of its varying spinoffs since the Dick Wolf flagship series premiered in the late 1980s. But outside of his stuff TV schedule, Post is also incredibly busy as a solo composer, having just released his first standalone album in thirty years. Message from the Mountains & Echoes of the Delta is a two-part series of suites inspired by the blues and bluegrass music of his youth, lending an orchestral heft to the American musical traditions that have inspired his iconic career. It's a stellar series of tracks, ones that feel like an already-accomplished musical artist spreading his wings and revisiting the music that made him who he is today. Message from the Mountains and Echoes of the Delta is currently available on your preferred music streamer, courtesy of Sony Music Masterworks.
This week's guest is RTS winning and BAFTA-nominated composer Vince Pope, a London-based composer who cut his teeth on scores ranging from Misfits to episodes of Black Mirror. But his most exciting collaborations of late have been those with filmmaker Issa Lopez, starting with her 2017 magical-realist horror film Tigers Are Not Afraid. Now, the pair reteam to put a supernatural spin on HBO's seminal crime thriller series True Detective. Inherited from Nic Pizzolatto's three-season anthology series, Lopez's new season, subtitled Night Country, follows a precarious period of darkness in a small Alaskan town as the town sheriff (Jodie Foster) and her ex-partner (Kali Reis) investigate the mysterious deaths of the members of a corporate research station on the outskirts of town. The case may well be tied to the unsolved murder of a Native woman that tore their partnership asunder years prior, and sends the pair down an ominous road filled with tough moral choices and events that lie beyond their understanding. Pope's score blends elements of horror and murder-mystery atmosphere with a deep swell of psychospiritual torment, to say nothing of the addition of Native American elements like throat singers and collaborator Tanya Tagaq to incorporate the show's exploration of those cultures. Now, Pope joins me on the podcast to talk about True Detective: Night Country. You can find Vince Pope at his official website here. You can stream the entire season of True Detective: Night Country on Max, and listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of WaterTower Music.
Grammy- and two-time Emmy-winning composer Carlos Rafael Rivera has spent the last decade building moody, complex musical worlds around complicated characters. His earliest prominent work was with regular collaborator Scott Frank on films like A Walk Among the Tombstones, and the Netflix miniseries Godless. But it was his mercurial work on Frank's miniseries The Queen's Gambit that earned Rivera breakout status. Since then, he's worked on a host of films and series both with Frank and elsewhere: Apple's Lessons in Chemistry, HBO's Hacks. But his two most recent scores, and some of his best, have him dealing with different ends of the prestige-crime-drama ecosystem. Take Netflix's Griselda, in which an unrecognizable Sofia Vergara climbs her way to the top of Miami's drug trade as the real-life Cocaine Godmother; scored like an opera, Rivera's sound is full of harpsichord, lone voices, big breathy melodramatic moments. On the other side of the Atlantic lies AMC's stellar miniseries Monsieur Spade, in which Clive Owen plays an older Sam Spade solving a mystery while spending his retirement in rural France after World War II. There, the usual noir trappings are leavened by a distinct sense of melancholy, lonely guitar strains underlining the postwar fragility of its French setting. This week, I'm thrilled to have Rivera on to talk about these shows and so much more, from his musical journey with the guitar to his philosophies on which perspective to score from. It's a brilliant chat (maybe one of the best this podcast has ever enjoyed), and I hope you enjoy. You can find Carlos Rafael Rivera at his official website here. Griselda is currently streaming on Netflix, and Monsieur Spade runs weekly on AMC and AMC+. You can also stream each soundtrack at your music service of choice.
This week, we're catching up with one of the Oscar-shortlisted Best Score nominees -- Anthony Willis' score to Emerald Fennell's lavish, mysterious thriller Saltburn. Fennell's second directorial feature, after Promising Young Woman, is a kind of Brideshead Revisited by way of Tom Ripley and mid-2000s party culture: A mysterious young bloke named Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) follows his irrepressible attraction to fellow Oxford pretty-boy Felix (Jacob Elordi) all the way to Felix's palatial mansion, Saltburn. There, he immerses himself in the hedonistic lifestyles of the ultra-rich, all the while hoping to catch a glimmer of Felix's attention -- or does he? Reuniting with Fennell for his second score with her, composer Anthony Willis crafts a suitably Gothic sound for her idiosyncratic class thriller. Opening with romantic strings, transitioning into classical choir, then electric pianos and additional layers and textures, Willis draws the listener in like one of Oliver's obsessions, before disrupting the film's jagged classicism with rough modern electronic textures and a sense of sweeping orchestral doom. Today, we talk to Willis about all of that and more, including his longtime collaboration with Fennell and his early life as a chorister at Windsor Castle. You can find Anthony Willis at his official website. Saltburn is currently available for rental or streaming on Prime Video. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Milan Records.
For nearly fifteen years, composer Dave Porter has been the musical voice of the Breaking Bad universe -- having scored every season of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and the film El Camino for good measure. Now, he plies his penchant for atmospheric, guitar-driven thrills to the MCU, with the new Disney+ series, Echo. A spinoff of Hawkeye, Echo hearkens back to the grittier, more violent climes of the Netflix Marvel shows, centering on deaf Choctaw assassin Maya, played by Alacqua Cox. Last seen betraying and shooting her boss and father figure, Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin, at the tail end of Hawkeye, Maya rides home to her small town in Oklahoma to reconnect with her roots and finish the war against Wilson Fisk that she started back in New York City. To score Maya's blood-soaked journey across Echo's five episodes, Porter made use of his signature mixture of guitar and synths to build a suitably neo-Western noir feel to the series. On top of that, the show incorporates many aspects of Native music and instrumentation, literally giving voice to the legacy of Native women Maya finds herself connecting to throughout her journey. Dave Porter joins us on the podcast to talk about the rigors of scoring for television, the role of music in a show about a Deaf protagonist, and the careful treatment of Native musical elements in his music for Echo. You can find Dave Porter on his official website. All episodes of Echo are currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Marvel Music.
This podcast has had a long and fruitful relationship with composer Paul Leonard-Morgan, the man behind the scores of films like Dredd and Limitless, among countless others. But two commonalities have permeated the scores he's discussed with me: Errol Morris and Philip Glass. For the former, he teamed up to score Amazon's Tales from the Loop; for the latter, he's scored A Psychedelic Love Story among many other Morris docs, many of them alongside Glass. Now, both have teamed up for yet another of Morris' deep probes into an intriguing figure, this time famed novelist John le Carre, the author of books like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Framed as the prototypical days-long sitdown between Morris and his subject, The Pigeon Tunnel takes us through le Carre's childhood and early days with his abusive father, to his time in the spy service, to the ways those experiences informed his legendary novels. In so doing, Glass and Leonard-Morgan had to build a whopping eighty minutes of score, a propulsive effort that keeps the spy-thriller momentum of the doc going with cimbaloms and other features of the '60s espionage caper. And this week, we've got Paul back on the podcast to talk about his collabs with Morris and Glass, and building a score for the most mysterious man in the world. You can find Paul Leonard-Morgan at his official website here. The Pigeon Tunnel is currently streaming on Apple TV+, and you can listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Platoon.
This week, we're joined by Ivor Novello and BIFA-nominated composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, a Paris-born artist who has made quite the name for herself in the last few years. Getting her start building scores for friends in film school who needed music for their short films, Emilie quickly cut her teeth on films like 2018's Only You and 2019's Rocks, before breaking out big in 2021 with her devilish score to Prano Bailey-Bond's British horror film Censor, and 2022's Living, for which she won a Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Score in an Independent Film. Now, she turns those two instincts for exploring death and longing to the latest film from Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers, in which a gay man approaching middle age (Andrew Scott) finds himself with the opportunity to spend time with his long-lost parents, who died in a car crash when he was little. Still as young as the day they died, Adam clings to this newfound chance to spend time with his parents, as he navigates an uncertain new relationship with a boy in his apartment building (played by Paul Mescal). Leviennaise-Farrouch's work here is stripped down, bare, as spectral as the ghosts who make up at least half of the film's cast. She combines electronic with acoustic instruments, flitting between analog synths and deep, warm strings to sell Scott's alienation from the world around him and the deep loneliness he feels. Now, Emilie joins me on the podcast to talk about the process behind scoring All of Us Strangers. You can find Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch at her official website. All of Us Strangers is currently playing in theaters. You can also listen to the score on your preferred service courtesy of 20th Century Studios. Support us on Patreon Follow us on Twitter/X at @rightoncuepod
As we've seen this year, and my interview with the songwriters behind Dicks: The Musical some weeks back, 2023 has been a surprisingly solid year for original musicals. But as the year draws to a close, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite films I saw this year, all the way back at Sundance: Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman's Theater Camp. Set in a struggling theater camp in upstate New York called AdirondACTS, Theater Camp takes the form of a mockumentary that follows the camp's kids, counselors, and owners as they try to get through another season of shows with their sanity and friendships intact. It's a shot straight across the bow for a lot of theater kids' experiences, from the competing egos to the petty jealousies, to the moment you set all of those conflicts aside to, as one character puts it, turn cardboard into gold. To do that, Gordon and Lieberman enlisted the help of Emmy and Drama Desk-nominated writer Mark Sonnenblick, who's written songs for Spirited, Lyle Lyle Crocodile, and others. Composer James McAlister, who has enjoyed collaborations with everyone from Sufjan Stevens to the National, came in to help with the songs and provide the charming series of acoustic and vocal sounds that serve as the film's underscore. Together with the writing/directing duo and writers/stars Ben Platt and Noah Galvin, the songwriting team built the camp's showstopping original musical that closes the film -- Joan, Still. You can find Mark Sonnenblick on his official website and James McAlister on his Bandcamp page. Theater Camp is currently streaming on Hulu. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Interscope Records. Support us on Patreon Follow us on Twitter/X at @rightoncuepod
This week, we talk to composer Mac Quayle, who burst onto the scene in 2015 with his Emmy-winning score to Sam Esmail's mysterious, genre-bending series Mr. Robot. Since then, he's enjoyed healthy collaborations with Esmail and fellow showrunner Ryan Murphy, for whom he's scored everything from American Horror Story and Pose to 9-1-1. For his latest score, Quayle reunites with Esmail for a film this time -- Netflix's eerie adaptation of Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel Leave the World Behind. Following a well-off couple (Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke) on a vacation to a remote Airbnb with their two children, the film takes a bizarre turn when the home's owner, G.H. (Mahershala Ali), and his daughter (Myha'la) return and insist on staying there. Meanwhile, the power goes out, deer start behaving strangely, and one gets the sense the world is coming to an end. That sense is borne out in Quayle's approach, constructed from a custom library of sounds he built specifically for the movie. And now, Quayle talks to us about building a score to suit the end of the world. You can find Mac Quayle at his official website. Leave the World Behind is currently streaming on Netflix, and you can hear the score on your preferred streamer courtesy of Netflix Music. Support us on Patreon Follow us on Twitter/X at @rightoncuepod
This week, I'm thrilled to talk to English musician and nascent film score composer Jerskin Fendrix about his score to the wacky, surreal, oddly poignant new film from Yorgos Lanthimos: Poor Things. Starring Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, the creation of Frankenstein-ian scientist Godwin Baxter (played by Willem Dafoe), the film delves into her ongoing quest to explore her humanity, sexuality, and the absurd social structures of a world careening into modernity. Lanthimos' films always push the boundaries between the vulgar and sublime, and this one's no different -- a Victorian-era fantasia complete with bright, presentational production design and wild costuming that fits the strangeness of Bella's world. And this strangeness bears out in Fendrix's score, his first after spending years in the London DIY pop scene. The score is punctuated by minimal voices, spare instruments, dissonant, bended notes that seem to lumber awkwardly like Bella taking her first furtive steps out into the world. Fendrix speaks with me about stepping into Yorgos' world, giving voice to a creature that evolves over the course of the score, and what it's like for such an autobiographical artist to surrender himself to a more collaborative medium like film. You can find Jerskin Fendrix's work on his official Bandcamp page. Poor Things is currently playing in theaters. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Milan Records.
This week's guest is an Emmy winner, a Grammy winner, and a nine-time Oscar nominee, whose scores have graced the big and small screens since the 1980s. James Newton Howard is the voice of many of your favorite scores, from co-scoring the Dark Knight Trilogy with Hans Zimmer to his Oscar-nominated score for Paul Greengrass' News of the World. Now, he's back with several new projects, some of which hearken back to music he has written in the past. Howard's latest solo album, Night After Night, is a beautiful look back at his eight-film partnership with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, recontextualizing some of his most intriguing melodies from that longtime collaboration into piano-driven suites performed by virtuoso musicians, including concert pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. On the small screen, Howard recently completed a lush, yearning score for Netflix's new miniseries All the Light We Cannot See, based on the acclaimed novel by Anthony Doerr and directed by Shawn Levy. Plus, after nearly a decade away from Panem, Howard resumes his collaboration with director Francis Lawrence for the Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Now, Howard is here on the pod to talk about all of these projects and more. You can find James Newton Howard at his official website here. Night After Night is currently available on vinyl or your preferred streaming service, courtesy of Sony Masterworks. Same with All the Light You Cannot See, courtesy of Netflix Music, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, care of Sony Music.
Sometimes, the dumbest things are the most delightful -- and that's certainly the case with A24's riotous new musical, Dicks: The Musical. A tongue-in-cheek (and other places) song-and-dance comedy, Dicks: The Musical started out as an hourlong show at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City, written by and starring Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson who play two definitely identical twins who find each other and decide to get their estranged parents back together, Parent Trap-style. Problem is, their parents are even crazier than they are, leading to a cavalcade of numbers about incest, sociopathy, not having a pussy, and spit-feeding ham to two tiny animatronic freaks called the Sewer Boys.
The duo responsible for such disgusting earworms are songwriters Karl Saint Lucy (who wrote for the original UCB show) and Grammy-winning music producer Marius de Vries of La La Land and Moulin Rouge! fame. Together, they expanded songs from the musical, made new ones out of whole cloth, and leveraged a bevy of musical influences to build the sprightly, surprising songbook featured in the film. And this week, we speak to the pair about their collaboration, the long road to release, and finding the funny in the filthy.
You can find Marius de Vries and Karl Saint Lucy at their respective official websites.
Dicks: The Musical is currently in theaters. You can also listen to the soundtrack on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of A24 Music.
This week, we speak to composer Yair Elazar Glotman about his score for the latest prestige thriller from Netflix, Reptile, a stylish neo-noir starring Benicio Del Toro as a mercurial detective looking into the murder of a real estate agent. Everyone's a suspect, from the victim's boyfriend (Justin Timberlake) to the creepy guy down the street (played by Michael Pitt), even to some of Del Toro's fellow officers (incluidng Ato Essandoh, Domenick Lombardozzi and Eric Bogosian). It's the directorial debut of music video director Grant Singer, who fills each corner of the frame with cold, calculating and precise compositions, painting an isolated, alien world of hidden motivations and untold terrors hiding within the mundane. Singer's work in Reptile closely mirrors the work of David Fincher, and it's an intriguing experience to behold -- not least because of Glotman's dissonant, visceral, textural score. Building eerie combinations of altered string compositions and textured syths, Glotman's work fills in the empty spaces left by Reptile's sparse, opaque script, echoing through the vast voids of understanding the central mystery leaves its viewers. Now, I'm pleased to have Glotman on the podcast to talk about how he got started in music and composing, his work with Singer on Reptile, and his fascination with pulling apart the sound of things to see what he can find. You can find Yair Elazar Glotman at his official website here. Reptile is currently streaming on Netflix. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Netflix Music.
Historical biopics of famous leaders are a very familiar genre at this point: Great Men (or in this case, Women) of history navigating war or struggle or controversy with the stiff-upper-lip resolve history has granted to them. Guy Nattiv's Golda is certainly no exception, though it innovates not just with its presentation, but with its subject: Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, played under heavy prosthetics by Helen Mirren. More than that, it's not a tale of victory, but of defeat -- a Pyrrhic victory that nonetheless shakes the public's confidence in the film's chain-smoking leader, and damns her to the annals of infamy. The film covers the three-week period of the Yom Kippur War, in which Egyptian and Syrian forces, among others, launched a concerted attack on Israel during the holy day of Yom Kippur. The attack led to tremendous losses, and kicked off a standoff that would rope in both the US and the Soviet Union before it was done. Nattiv's approach to the material is stark and haunting, keeping close to Mirren's wearied, resolved take on Meir through claustrophobic, smoke-filled rooms. And aiding that sense of mystique is Golda's score, courtesy of Russian composer Dascha Dauenhauer, utilizing discordant violins and detuned cowbells to build a bleak, atmospheric sound for Golda's race against time. We're thrilled to have Dauenhauer on the podcast to talk about her early days as a composer, her boundless sense of experimentation, and the many themes and unusual sounds of her score for Golda. You can find Dascha Dauenhauer at her official website here. Golda is currently playing in select theaters. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of MNRK Music Group.
Composer John Powell has been composing film scores since 1997; whether it's How to Train Your Dragon, The Bourne Identity, or Solo: A Star Wars Story, you've likely heard and loved at least one of his scores. He earned an Academy Award nomination in 2010 for the epic, uplifting sweep of How to Train Your Dragon, and has three Grammy nominations for his scores to Happy Feet, Ferdinand, and Solo. But now, the veteran composer has an Emmy nomination under his belt, for a decidedly different project than he's used to: Documentary. For Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, Davis Guggenheim's Apple TV+ original exploring the actor's rise to Hollywood fame and subsequent struggle with Parkinson's, Powell spent a whopping five months working on a score that balanced Fox's unique struggles while emphasizing the joy and energy that animates the actor's decades-long career. Powell was also kind enough to join us to talk for a bit about the arduous process of building the score, how scoring for documentary requires an entirely different musical vocabulary, and how Guggenheim pulled him through his toughest moments as a composer. You can find John Powell at his official website here. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie is currently streaming on Apple TV+. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
Ever since his 2018 feature debut Sorry to Bother You, Oakland-based musician Boots Riley (of The Coup) has built a reputation as one of our most imaginative, socially-minded filmmakers, combining abject surrealism with biting commentary on the complex interweavings of race and capitalism in American life. (With a healthy dose of absurd comedy, of course.) His followup is the seven-episode Amazon series I'm a Virgo, starring Jharrel Jerome as a 13-foot-tall Black man named Cootie, hidden away since birth by his overprotective parents in Oakland. But when he escapes and finally sees the real world for what it is, he's both amazed and aghast at the joys and horrors it contains. Sure, he finally gets to try fast-food burgers, and falls in love with a charming woman named Flora (Olivia Washington) who has her own sort of superpower. But he also faces the increased commodification of his size and self by a world that views him as an object... or, in the case of real-life superhero The Hero (Walton Goggins), a "thug" that needs to be taken out. Aiding Riley's beautifully maximalist project is indie duo Tune-Yards, aka Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner, who adapt their signature frenetic hooks, and limber vocalizations to a soundscape as riveting as it is unconventional. And now, Garbus and Brenner join me on the show to talk about working with Boots' exacting creative vision, adapting to the world of composing, and what it's like for musicians out there in a world where unionization is on the minds of everyone in the wake of the SAG and WGA strikes. You can find Tune-Yards at their official website here. I'm a Virgo is currently streaming on Prime Video. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
Much like the zombies that infest its world, the Walking Dead franchise simply refuses to die. With Dead City, the shambling hordes make their way to the island of Manhattan, an urban hellscape now infested with the remnants of a dead civilization. And in the middle, two of the original Walking Dead's main characters, Maggie (Lauren Cohen) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), on a rescue mission that'll test their fractious relationship with each other. While Bear McCreary's more mournful, orchestral sound personified the original series, composer Ian Hultquist sought a newer, more electronic sound, one more reminiscent of John Carpenter's work on Escape from New York (another thriller about characters trying to survive in a walled-off Manhattan). In addition to those ominous synths, Hultquist also made use of a suite of organic sounds of unique provenance, including recruiting friends to travel to the Maine wilderness to collect all manner of sounds. Together, we talk about that sense of sonic experimentation, how Hultquist wanted to move the franchise's sound forward, and the importance of building a sonic palette to work from when composing electronic scores. You can find Ian Hultquist at his official website. The Walking Dead: Dead City is currently airing on AMC and AMC+. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Milan Records.
Veteran composer Jongnic "JB" Bontemps took a long and winding road to film scoring. Despite showing an early passion for scoring (and studying music at Yale), he didn't immediately enter that world. Instead, he sought a tech career, becoming a software developer and entrepreneur. But music came calling again, and JB found himself studying film scoring and building a career as one of the industry's top composers. After years of building his bona fides working under various A-list composers and scoring video games like Redfall and shows like Godfather of Harlem, he's found himself with his highest-profile work yet: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Building off his childhood love for the robots in disguise and the groundwork that composer Steve Jablonsky had laid for him in the Michael Bay films before that, JB worked with Rise of the Beasts director (and longtime collaborator) Steven Caple Jr. to assemble a suitably robust, muscular, and era-appropriate score for the '90s-set throwback blockbusters. Together, JB and I talk about all of this -- his winding path to film composing, the value of building a team and working with valued collaborators, and using music to mark Rise of the Beasts' distinct globe-trotting adventure and '90s aesthetics. You can find Jongnic Bontemps at his official website.* Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is currently playing in theaters, and you can listen to the score on your preferred platform courtesy of Milan Records.*
In a relatively grim year for superhero movies, both critically and at the box office, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is blissfully bucking that trend. Building off the dizzying, kaleidoscopic animation style and storytelling of Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse manages to elevate what worked about the previous film and roll it into an even more exciting, heartfelt second chapter in Miles Morales' uncertain journey toward becoming a hero. As with the first, though, a fundamental component for keeping the film's multiversal craziness in line is the score by Oscar-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton (who returns to the pod after talking with us about Being the Ricardos). Together, we talk about finding the sound for this film, discovering the right punk sound for Gwen Stacy (whose journey runs parallel to Miles'), and juggling familiar motifs while layering new sonic textures to allow the different universes to invade each other. What's more, we also chat about his intensely personal working style, the value of doing just about everything yourself, and how rare that is in a film music landscape where most big composers hire huge teams to get the work done. You can find Daniel Pemberton at his official website. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is currently playing in select theaters. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Sony Music.
How do you write the score to someone else's self-mythology? That's the challenge this week's guest, composer Ronen Landa, faced for one of the year's most idiosyncratic, difficult-to-describe shows, Peacock's Paul T. Goldman. A strange mix of documentary comedy and wish fulfillment, the show follows the titular man, a nebbishy middle-aged guy who turned his hellish marriage to his second ex-wife into a grand quest for justice in the form of a bestselling self-published novel (and subsequent script adaptation). These, with the help of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm director Jason Woliner, take the form of compellingly straight-laced reenactments of Paul's life as he saw them, with the man playing himself, surrounded by professional actors at once bewildered and fascinated by his presence. It's a wild, weird mix of true-crime and true-crime satire, a needle that Landa was very careful to thread. In fact, he constructed his score much like a concept album, bringing in an intimate ensemble with strings and piano to record a lend Paul's own search for truth -- as blinkered as it may or may not be -- a sense of grand, personal tragedy. Then there's its ominous main title theme, with harsh, lurching low piano chords surrounded by mysterious strings and building brass. Together, Landa and I speak about building the score for Paul T. Goldman without seeing much of the finished product, folding the theme on top of that, and embracing the enigma of its strange, compelling central figure. And Ronen also talks us through two of the show's biggest cues, including its mysterious title theme. Plus, we end up chatting about his own upcoming musical dip into the world of Star Trek. You can find Ronen Landa at his official website. Paul T. Goldman is currently streaming on Peacock. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lionsgate Entertainment.
When last we spoke to composer and multi-instrumentalist Ariel Marx, we broke down her haunting, curious score to Hulu's miniseries Candy. But she's been as busy as ever since, bringing her signature sense of experimental sparseness to projects on both the big and small screens.
Most recently, she's lent her unique musical voice to two intriguing projects about women asserting their strength and power in unconventional circumstances. The first is the National Geographic miniseries A Small Light, following Dutch secretary Miep Gies (Bel Powley) in her efforts to keep Anne Frank and her family safe during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam. Breaking away from typical symphonic approaches you'd expect from period dramas, Marx's score is intimate and sparse, juggling the 1930s jazz vibe of Amsterdam in its prime with the looming spectre of the Third Reich, and the many sacrifices its characters will endure.
On the other side of the coin, Marx lent her talents to NEON's sizzling, kinky dark comedy Sanctuary, starring Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott as two people playing out their own dangerous game of domination and submission. Marx's score is glossy when it needs to play up the perverse romance of their situation, brittle when the delicate balance of the pair's play begins to fray.
Ariel Marx comes onto the podcast to discuss both of these scores, her love of sparse ensembles, and other methods to her musical madness.
You can find Ariel Marx at her official website.
A Small Light is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+, and Sanctuary is currently playing in select theaters. You can also listen to the score for A Small Light on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Hollywood Records.
The third season of Star Trek: Picard had a lot on its shoulders: It was the final season of its show, as well as a bombastic, blockbuster-level bow for the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. For its first two seasons, Patrick Stewart and the showrunners shied away from Starfleet uniforms and shiny utopias, and Jeff Russo's score reflected that (as we've discussed with him on this very show). But showrunner Terry Matalas had a different vision in mind for Season 3: Celebrate the crew whose adventures captured generations of fans, with a big, brassy sendoff meant to give them the finale they finally deserved. And that they did, thanks to the tireless work of composers Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann. Together, they handled hours of big orchestral sounds, crafting new themes for ships and characters like the Titan and Jack Crusher. At the same time, there was decades' worth of callbacks to Star Trek's musical legacy that needed acknowledgment, from Jerry Goldsmith's TNG theme to the movie-esque sweep of James Horner and Dennis McCarthy. Through plenty of blood, sweat, and tears, they pulled it off, crafting an immense body of work that fit snugly within the legacy of Star Trek while incorporating musical Easter eggs big and small into its superstructure. This week on the podcast, Barton and Wiedmann join me for a nice long chat about the hectic production process, the many Trekkian cues they had to blend together, and the value of having creative collaborators (like Matalas) who know exactly what they want. You can find Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann at their official websites. The entirety of Picard Season 3 is available for streaming on Paramount+. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
In the 1990s, Nickelodeon was a bastion of surprisingly sophisticated children's animation, and few shows demonstrated that freewheeling sense of absurdity than Rocko's Modern Life. The tale of a beleaguered wallaby surviving the wildest adventures with little more than a smile on his face and his close-knit group of friends, it was a generation-defining show thanks to its surprisingly adult jokes and unhinged tone. But a huge component of the show's success comes courtesy of its frenetic, genre-hopping score, courtesy of New Wave legend Pat Irwin. When he first came to the show in the '90s, he was primarily known as a member of the B-52s, and had played with bands like 8-Eyed Spy and the Raybeats. But here, he gave Rocko's antics vivid life with an unstoppable earworm of a score, flitting between lounge jazz, surf rock, and a host of other influences and touchpoints depending on what shenanigans the wallaby found himself in next. Now, Nickelodeon Records has finally released an album comprising highlights from the first two seasons of the show. Irwin joins us on the podcast to talk about his early days in the "no wave" New York music scene, assembling a master team of musicians to record the score, and his current projects (including his ambient country project, SUSS). You can find Pat Irwin at his official website. Rocko's Modern Life is currently streaming on Paramount+. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Nickelodeon Records.
It's morphin' time! Thirty years after Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers hit the airwaves and thrilled '90s latchkey kids the world over, the franchise has stayed strong through 29 seasons, dozens of incarnations, and more Zords than you can shake a Power Sword at.
But one of the elements that made it such a mainstay was its shredding, hard-rock theme song, with its heavy power chords, driving rhythms, and catchy battle cry of "Go, go, Power Rangers!" It, and the Power Rangers sound as a whole, was the soundtrack to a generation, fueled primarily by the show's composer, Ron Wasserman (who also supplied other catchy licks to other millennial catnip like the '90s X-Men cartoon and Dragon Ball Z).
Now, Wasserman is back for the first time in decades to score new Power Rangers -- this time, for Netflix's 30th-anniversary reunion special, Once & Always. Bringing back four of the old-school '90s Rangers, including original Rangers Zack (Walter Emanuel Jones) and Billy (David Yost), the special lets these middle-aged superheroes get one last crack at classic villain Rita Repulsa, with all the spandex-clad karate that entails. Not only that, the special's a hotbed of Easter eggs for new and old fans alike, and the nostalgia trip wouldn't be complete without Wasserman's involvement.
We're thrilled to have Wasserman on the show to talk about Power Rangers' grip on a certain segment of pop culture, how the sound of the show evolved, and how he's updated it for this latest trip back to the Morphin' Grid.
You can find Ron Wasserman at his official website.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always is currently streaming on Netflix.
When last we left composer Trevor Gureckis, he was just beginning his eerie, unsettling work on M. Night Shyamalan's acclaimed Apple TV+ series Servant. But in the intervening years, he's lent his uniquely experimental grasp of both classical and electronic instruments to films like The Goldfinch, Bloodline, and Old. But his most recent project sees him dipping not just into the world of video games, but the existing soundscape of a previous composer: EA's high-def remake of the space horror classic Dead Space. Building from Jason Graves' dissonant, screeching-metal score to the original game, Gureckis' role is to flesh out the expanded adventures of Isaac Clarke, the unlucky engineer who finds himself amid a monstrous infestation of alien creatures aboard the USG Ishimura. That includes giving voice to new areas of the game, as well as new narrative sections that lend Isaac greater narrative weight than in the original game. Now, Trevor joins us on the show once again to catch up with his work since Servant began, his first foray into video game scoring, and the challenge of composing new material that matches the existing voice of another composer's work. You can find Trevor Gureckis at his official website here. Dead Space is currently available for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. You can also listen to his score for the remastered Dead Space on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of EA Music.
The 2023 Grammys have come and gone, and the first Grammy for Best Video Game Score has already been awarded (congratulations, Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Stephanie Economou!). But one of her fellow nominees in that category is video game music royalty in his own right -- Austin Wintory, whose score for the acclaimed indie game Journey netted him a Grammy nomination for a video game score years before it became its own category. This time, he was nominated for his score for Aliens: Fireteam Elite, a third-person shooter based on the iconic Alien franchise.
Following a team of Colonial Marines shooting their way through alien-infested space stations and planets, Fireteam Elite calls for a much greater action focus than Journey or other games Wintory has scored. But in so doing, he manages to craft a bombastic, atmospheric score that both pays homage to the soundscapes of previous Alien composers like Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner, but also injects lots of low brass and flute solos courtesy of Sara Andon, creating a noir-like sound to fit the story's mysterious tone.
Together, Austin and I talk about the score itself, how to weave those influences into the demands of gameplay, and grander chats about the broader composer community and his role in highlighting those voices (thanks to Wintory's robust YouTube channel, which features score recommendations, BTS stuff, and interviews with other composers and voice actors). And if you want even more insight into his process for the Fireteam Elite score, you can find a track-by-track video breakdown of the score, complete with text commentary, here.
You can find Austin Wintory at his official website here.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is currently available to play on PS5, PC, XONE, PS4, and XS. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
The Star Trek universe is a franchise with decades of musical legacy, from the original Alexander Courage fanfare to Jerry Goldsmith's nautical bombast for The Motion Picture, all the way to Michael Giacchino's sweeping work on the J.J. Abrams films. But Paramount+'s animated comedy Star Trek: Lower Decks, which follows the bottom-rung officers on the support ship the USS Cerritos, doesn't stray from that formula to go for the laughs. Instead, composer Chris Westlake chose to lean into Trek's innate musical majesty, crafting a score that's just as big -- if not bigger -- than some of the other entries in the franchise's canon. It's new Trek, constantly referencing the old Trek, but taking the exploits of the Cerritos as seriously as those of the USS Enterprise. Westlake has worked for decades on films like Before We Go, also offering additional music for trailers for Star Wars and films like Gravity. And for Lower Decks, he and showrunner (and close friend) Mike McMahan knew they needed to build a suitably Trekkian soundscape for the show, rather than pointing out the gags innate to the series' irreverence to the final frontier. Together, we talk about boosting the laughs by taking Trek music seriously, his own history with the franchise's musical soundscapes, and figuring out exactly what Klingon death metal sounds like. (Plus, you'll get exclusive commentary from Westlake on how his iconic theme for the show came together.) You can find Chris Westlake at his official website here. All three seasons to date of Star Trek: Lower Decks are currently streaming on Paramount+. You can also listen to the score on vinyl or your preferred music streaming service, courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
Today, we're talking about the latest film from director Brandon Cronenberg, Infinity Pool, another in a series of cinematic provocations from the son of acclaimed body-horror maestro David Cronenberg. While his works travel along similar roads -- the alienation of the self from the human body, how class intersects with violence -- the younger Cronenberg twists the visceral knife even further in parts, trafficking further in extremity and seeing how that further warps his film's reflections of humanity. In Infinity Pool, that takes the form of a blood-soaked bacchanal on a mysterious island nation frequented by rich tourists, who can afford to literally get away with murder (by having a clone made of themselves to be executed in their stead). With the threat of consequence no longer looming over them, the characters of Infinity Pool sink into a (sometimes literal) orgy of depravity, as disorienting as it is compelling to watch. Aiding in that dizzying psychedelia is the score by acclaimed experimental musician and producer Tim Hecker, who crafts a suitably disorienting, doomed sound constructed from crunchy samples and unexpected analog elements. He's a deeply thoughtful musician and theorist, as you'll hear, as we talk about building a "music ecology" for Infinity Pool's constructed setting, exploring the limits of the film's sonic nihilism, and more. You can find Tim Hecker at his official website here. Infinity Pool is currently playing in theaters. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Milan Records.
Earlier this month, the 2022 Grammys ran its first-ever category for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media -- a long-overdue recognition of the value of video game scores as a legitimate method of expression, and a source of some incredible music. And among an initial crop of stellar composers offering intriguing sounds to all manner of video games big and small, it was a DLC, of all things, that took home the prize: the Dawn of Ragnarok DLC for Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. While the base game put you in the shoes of a Viking descendant of the Norse god Odin, Dawn of Ragnarok puts you right in Odin's shoes, telling a mournful, mythological tale of revenge that required a huge, bombastic sound suffused with Nordic muscle. Stephanie Economou, fresh off previous Valhalla DLC The Siege of Paris, took to that assignment with her signature gusto: She recruited black metal band Wilderun to contribute tracks and give her an education on the genre itself, her frequent collaborator Ari Mason to contribute vocals, and the show-stopping title theme saw her collaborating with Assassin's Creed musical titan Einar Selvik. It's a pulse-pounding, immersive score that's as big as its game, and Economou sat down to talk with us the week before the Grammys to discuss the building of that score, how it dovetailed into her growth as a composer, and how it feels to be the first female Grammy nominee for Best Original Video Game Score. You can find Stephanie Economou at her official website here. Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok is currently available to play on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
It's safe to say that Eywa has smiled on James Cameron's long-awaited sequel to his 2009 epic Avatar; a mere two months into its run, Avatar: The Way of Water has grossed more than $2 billion, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing movie of all time as of publication (and the third-highest international box office success). For Cameron, it was a work more than a decade in the making -- and composer Simon Franglen was along for the ride for most of that journey. The London-born Franglen began his musical career as a producer and arranger, contributing to film scores as far back as Dances with Wolves. He was an important collaborator with composer and close friend James Horner for both Titanic and Avatar, and when Horner tragically passed in 2015, the baton passed to him to continue Horner's work building the vibrant, eclectic sounds of the alien planet of Pandora. Building on the first film's musical palette, which blended standard orchestral flourish with a bevy of world-music sounds, Franglen expands on that work with a much more thematic score, one rooted in the sequel's focus on the Sully family and the new areas of Pandora they would explore in their fight against the colonial forces of Earth. This included everything from Maori instruments and vocal stylings to signpost the new water tribe we meet, the Metkayina, as well as research into whale sounds for the majestic Tulkun creatures we meet along the way. It's a score as brassy and eclectic as it is voluminous -- Franglen composed nearly three hours of music for the film, ranging from traditional orchestra to unique instruments to vocal work with both choirs and star Zoe Saldana, who provides vocals for the in-universe "Songcord," a vital part of the Na'vi's cultural tapestry. Together, we talk about Franglen's work on The Way of Water, the challenges inherent in building Pandora's musical palette, and what it was like touring with Barbra Streisand on her comeback tour in the '90s. (Also, Simon talks us through a couple of tracks from the Avatar score in exclusive track commentaries.) You can find Simon Franglen at his official website here. Avatar: The Way of Water is currently playing in theaters. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
For Texan-born composer Chanda Dancy, 2022 feels like a breakthrough year. She's worked in the film and television composing business for eighteen years, an alumnus of the USC Film Scoring Program and the Sundance Composers Lab, as well as projects like Netflix's The Defeated and Everything Before Us. But she's struck gold with several major projects this year... including one that has her on the shortlist for an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. If so, she'd be the first Black woman in the history of the Oscars to receive such long-overdue recognition.
That project, of course, is J.D. Dillard's moving, effective Korean War epic Devotion, starring Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell (in his second go-round in the cockpit this year after Top Gun: Maverick) as real-life fighter pilots -- and eventual best friends -- Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner. Charting the course of their friendship over sorties and scuffles within a very racially-stratified US Navy, Dillard's work is understated in its power, anchored by Majors and Powell's wounded, vulnerable performances. And thrumming underneath their interpersonal tensions and the roar of gunfire is Dancy's churning, propulsive score, one that pits steady synths and percussion with whirling high strings to contrast the powerful machines on display with the very human men who fly them.
That's not the only iconic project Dancy worked on this year: she also provided the incidental score for Kasi Lemmons' biopic of Whitney Houston, I Wanna Dance with Somebody. Together (just a few hours before her Oscar shortlist inclusion was announced, mind you), Dancy and I talked about the long road she took to get to this place in her career, the classical influences that have shaped her work, and what it meant to her and her orchestras to get the chance to highlight the biggest moments of The Voice's life and songs.
You can find Chanda Dancy at her official website here.
Devotion is currently streaming on Paramount+, and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody is currently playing in theaters. You can also listen to the score for Devotion on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
It's hard to think of another songbook in Disney's oeuvre that has put a dent in pop culture quite like Encanto, the latest from Walt Disney Animation Studios. "We Don't Talk About Bruno," "The Family Madrigal," "Surface Pressure," all songs that have topped Billboard charts and dominated TikTok for more than a year now, courtesy of Hamilton scribe Lin-Manuel Miranda. But an equally vital part of Encanto's inviting world, an enchanted casita in which the vibrant members of the Madrigal family live and dream, is the orchestral score courtesy of Germaine Franco. It's the score that made Franco an Oscar nominee, only the sixth woman in Oscar history to be nominated for Best Original Score (and the first Latina). And now, that same score is up for a Grammy for Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, alongside many of the same big names she competed against for the Academy Award earlier this year: Hans Zimmer, Jonny Greenwood, and Nicholas Britell. Germaine's score for Encanto is inviting and magical, making expert use of a variety of Latinx instruments and musical styles to fill in the many corners of the Madrigal family tree. Colombian rhythms mix with samba and cumbia, alongside more vital, traditional orchestral instrumentation. It's a melting pot of influences that nonetheless span vast corners of the Latinx umbrella, making for a sound as narratively diverse as it is thematically appropriate. Now, we welcome Germaine Franco to the show to discuss her score for Encanto and more. You can find Germaine Franco at her official website here. Encanto is currently streaming on Disney+. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Walt Disney Records.
William Gibson is the father of cyberpunk, that most evocative of sci-fi genres -- where technology meets flesh in the neon-soaked worlds of the corporate-run near future. But explicit adaptations of his work have been few and far between: the closest I can think of is the wishy-washy Keanu Reeves vehicle Johnny Mnemonic. The latest, and most sprawling, attempt comes from Prime Video's The Peripheral, based on the 2014 novel of the same name about two siblings in a near-future rural dystopia (played by Chloe Grace Moretz and Jack Reynor) who become unwitting pawns in a game of wits and warfare decades further in the future, across differing timelines. Westworld showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy port over that show's sense of dour retro-futurism into The Peripheral's sleek, minimalist designs and big ideas about the destiny of humanity. But alongside that sits a tightly-plotted and darkly funny slice of rural-tech thriller, somewhere between Ozark and, well, Westworld, with plenty of portentous omens about the destruction of the world and the dissolution of identity along the way. It certainly helps matters that the show is scored by this week's guest, Genie and Gemini Award-winning composer Mark Korven. A staple of Canadian horror and sci-fi film and TV, Korven cut his teeth with Peripheral director and EP Vincenzo Natali on films like Cube. But his best-known work is easily his score for 2015's The Witch, for which he helped invent the innovative new instrument, The Apprehension Engine. His works are crackling, atmospheric pieces that revel in their own discordance, banging and clanging odd instruments together. That approach dovetails nicely with The Peripheral's brutalist sci-fi minimalism, with a hefty drone of synth to soak in the proceedings alongside his homespun methods. On the pod, we talk about the Apprehension Engine, and how he approached his score to The Peripheral. You can find Mark Korven at his official website here. The entire first season of The Peripheral is now streaming on Prime Video. You can also stream the soundtrack on your preferred streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
Welcome to Right on Cue, the podcast where we interview film, TV, and video game composers about the origins and nuances of their latest works. It's hard to think of a more overt lens through which to satirize the divisions of class more than through food: Fast food vs. haute cuisine, Michelin stars over star-shaped chicken nuggets. Mark Mylod's The Menu is a sizzling satire of the snootiness of fine dining, and the class conflicts it unfurls. Set on a remote island that's home to one of the most exclusive restaurants in the world, The Menu treats us to a multi-course prix fixe of mayhem centered around high-profile chef Julian Slowik (a beautifully ostentatious Ralph Fiennes). But as the eclectic group of well-off diners sample one conceptually-minded meal after another, it becomes clear there's more than meets the eye for Chef Slowick's menu. Accompanying each course of the menu Mylod, his cast, and screenwriters Seth Reiss and Will Tracy have set out for us is a cheekily propulsive score courtesy of Hereditary composer Colin Stetson. He lays out ornate soundscapes and unusual instruments (glasses played with chopsticks, pans as percussion) with the same perverse mirth as Fiennes' devilish chef, granting each course, and each sick joke on Chef Slowik's guests, a unique voice. And all throughout lays an arch counterpoint to the kind of chamber-music regalness we aesthetically associate with fine dining. It's a pleasure to welcome Colin Stetson to the podcast to talk about all these ideas and more. You can find Colin Stetson at his official website here. The Menu is currently playing in theaters. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Milan Records.
Imagine a world where pain and pleasure are one and the same, where hellish delights await those who crave the extremities of sensation. That's the philosophical underpinning behind Clive Barker's Hellraiser series, one of horror's most long-running and iconic franchises, centering around the poor unfortunate souls who come across the Lamarchand Box, a mysterious puzzle box which -- when opened -- unleashes the Cenobites, a cabal of deformed hedonists riding the razor's edge of sadomasochistic experience. It's a series that's run across eleven films over thirty-plus years, the latest being a radical reimagining courtesy of The Night House and Relative director David Bruckner. This time, series icon Pinhead is reimagined as a "dark priest" played by Sense8's Jamie Clayton, who soon haunts a recovering addict named Riley (Odessa A'zion), who crosses paths with the Lamarchand Box after her brother goes missing. It's a film filled with grim delights and no small amount of squicky body horror, as our characters learn firsthand what happens when otherworldly forces conspire to tear your soul apart. Just as the Cenobites explore the curious intersections between blood and beauty, so does Bruckner's regular composer, Ben Lovett, experiment with different configurations of his musical puzzle box. In addition to his distinctive use of electronic elements and discordant, warped instrumentation, he finds ways to weave in Christopher Young's classic theme from the 1991 original, tying it to Hellraisers of the past while cementing Bruckner's version as its own unique beast. Now, Ben and I talk about his score to Hellraiser, his collaboration with David Bruckner, and much more (alongside commentary tracks from the score). You can find Ben Lovett at his official website here. Hellraiser is currently streaming on Hulu. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
When Outer Wilds was released in 2019, it felt like a casual revolution of not just adventure games as a genre but video game music as a whole. The game is a sprawling yet intimate time-loop adventure in which you play an archaeologist/astronaut in a distant system, solving the mystery of why your sun keeps exploding twenty-some minutes after you wake up. And through its elegant, cozy presentation and the banjo-forward music of BAFTA-nominated composer Andrew Prahlow, it also explored ideas of our own significance in the grand scheme of the universe. The success of both game and soundtrack led Prahlow back to Outer Wilds for its expansion, Echoes of the Eye, giving him a chance to go back to the camping-out-in-space feel of the original while exploring new, alien territory to match the new ring world your character encounters in the DLC. What's more, he followed up the expansion's soundtrack with "The Lost Reels," which add six extended musical suites that help express some of the complex, post-rock ideas explored in the score -- from the orchestral expansiveness of "Older Than the Universe" to the playful string-quartet drive of "The Spirit of Water." On today's podcast, I sat down with Prahlow to discuss the big, heady ideas Outer Wilds expresses in both game and music form, his own response to the score's breakaway success, and how it feels to be in consideration for the GRAMMY's first award for video game music composition. (He also takes us through a few tracks from The Lost Reels with some exclusive commentaries.) You can find Andrew Prahlow at his official website here. Outer Wilds is currently available on Xbox, Steam, and PlayStation. You can also listen to The Lost Reels on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Andrew Prahlow.
Much has been said and written about just the sheer size and scale (and cost) of Prime Video's new flagship series, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. And for good reason: Amazon's spent nearly a billion dollars on a series adapting arguably the most acclaimed and well-regarded fantasy series of all time, notably opting to tell a story set hundreds of years before Frodo's journey to destroy the One Ring. Instead, Rings of Power is content to slowly build a years-long tale in the Second Age, back when Galadriel was a brash young warrior, the Hobbits were called Harfoots, and Sauron was just a shadow. A story this sprawling and expensive-looking requires a similarly robust score, one that evokes the sweep of the iconic Howard Shore scores for the Peter Jackson films and sets it apart as its own thing. While Shore composed a haunting title theme, the rest of the score goes to acclaimed composer (and previous guest) Bear McCreary, whose expertise with big-budget television and love of world music sounds adds a welcome variety to the show's sound. But with the sheer amount of score required for the series, sometimes composers need a little help, and that's where orchestrators Tutti Music Partners come in. Longtime collaborators with Bear since 2009, Jonathan Beard, Ed Trybek, and Henri Wilkinson are the ones who help put Bear's music to paper, interpret where possible, and help produce the score itself. I was lucky enough to sit down with Jonathan, Ed, and Henri to talk about their working relationship with Bear, what an orchestrator does, and how their role was uniquely suited to bringing Rings of Power's music to life. You can find Tutti Music Partners at their official website here. Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is currently streaming on Prime Video. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Amazon.
Welcome to Right on Cue, the podcast where we interview film, TV, and video game composers about origins and nuances of their latest works, as well as select commentaries from some of the score's most important tracks. This far into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's an undeniable challenge to find new musical avenues to tread, as some of our previous episodes talking to Marvel composers can attest. But just as the Disney+ Marvel series are dabbling in new genres, so too is She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, which is less a superhero action show than an Ally McBeal-styled legal dramedy about Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) and her attempts to balance her high-paying legal career with life as a single woman. (And, of course, the fact she can turn into an invincible green giantess at will.) As such, She-Hulk demands a milder, more contemplative musical palate than you might expect from the smash and crash of a lot of Marvel works. That's where Irish composer and orchestrator Amie Doherty comes in, underscoring the series with a sprightly, nimble score matching the quick-witted chicanery of Jen's antics with the bold, brassy fanfare of a superhero series. And this week, she joins me on the show to talk about her beginnings as a Sundance Composer Fellow, working within the Marvel ecosystem, and taking diverse musical swings at the many different cases and chases we see every week (with some exclusive track commentaries along the way). You can find Amie Doherty at her official website here. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is currently streaming on Disney+, and you can listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Marvel Music.
Of all the actors to get a John Wick-ian action vehicle, Allison Janney might just be the last one on your list. And yet, here we are with Anna Foerster's Lou, the straight-to-Netflix action thriller starring the West Wing legend, now transformed into a former CIA fixer who's given up the life for an isolated existence on a remote coastal island. But her skills are needed once more when her neighbor (Jurnee Smollett) comes to her in the middle of a rainstorm for help: Her daughter's been kidnapped, and her dangerous ex-husband (Logan Marshall-Green) is the culprit. Together, the two must track them through the mud-soaked forest, Lou calling on her particular set of skills to do one last bit of good. It's a dark, grimy, psychologically complex thriller, with its crackling corners illuminated by Nima Fakhrara's richly textured score. The Iranian-born composer has worked on everything from video games like Detroit: Become Human to ad campaigns for Balenciaga. His work is characterized by his incredible use of synths and staggered, rhythmic vocals. His score for 2019's Becky, another action thriller involving a transformed character actor (Kevin James), is a muscular, primal scream of a score. Lou follows in a quieter permutation of that tradition. Clacking percussion, halting vocals, and tape-scratch elements from 1980s cassette recordings all culminate in a haunting sound that feels like the lost memories of an aging warrior. And today, we've got Nima Fakhrara on the podcast to talk about his musical history, his experiences on Lou, and the innovative techniques he used to bring the score to life. (We'll also hear a few exclusive track commentaries from the score.) You can find Nima Fakhrara at his official website here. Lou is currently streaming on Netflix You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Netflix Music.
Of all the actors to get a John Wick-ian action vehicle, Allison Janney might just be the last one on your list. And yet, here we are with Anna Foerster's Lou, the straight-to-Netflix action thriller starring the West Wing legend, now transformed into a former CIA fixer who's given up the life for an isolated existence on a remote coastal island. But her skills are needed once more when her neighbor (Jurnee Smollett) comes to her in the middle of a rainstorm for help: Her daughter's been kidnapped, and her dangerous ex-husband (Logan Marshall-Green) is the culprit. Together, the two must track them through the mud-soaked forest, Lou calling on her particular set of skills to do one last bit of good. It's a dark, grimy, psychologically complex thriller, with its crackling corners illuminated by Nima Fakhrara's richly textured score. The Iranian-born composer has worked on everything from video games like Detroit: Become Human to ad campaigns for Balenciaga. His work is characterized by his incredible use of synths and staggered, rhythmic vocals. His score for 2019's Becky, another action thriller involving a transformed character actor (Kevin James), is a muscular, primal scream of a score. Lou follows in a quieter permutation of that tradition. Clacking percussion, halting vocals, and tape-scratch elements from 1980s cassette recordings all culminate in a haunting sound that feels like the lost memories of an aging warrior. And today, we've got Nima Fakhrara on the podcast to talk about his musical history, his experiences on Lou, and the innovative techniques he used to bring the score to life. (We'll also hear a few exclusive track commentaries from the score.) You can find Nima Fakhrara at his official website here. Lou is currently streaming on Netflix You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Netflix Music.
We finally get to talk about a video game score for the first time in the podcast's history! And yet, we're still intimately connected to the realm of moviemaking considering the subject material: Immortality, the new game from Sam Barlow, who made Her Story and Telling Lies. Keeping with the interactive-movie brief of those previous games, Immortality is a time/genre-spanning mystery that tasks you with poring over the raw footage of three films starring a young actress named Marissa Marcel, who disappeared without a trace. By jumping from clip to clip between these films -- late-'60s erotic religious thriller Ambrosio, 1970s detective film Minsky, and 1999 showbiz tragedy Two of Everything -- you peel back the layers of Marissa's fate, and explore the very nature of media as a means to achieve eternal life. For this project, Barlow enlisted the aid of twice-Emmy-nominated composer Nainita Desai, who also scored Telling Lies, to build the musical world of Immortality. Rather than scoring to genre specificity, Desai built three major themes exploring unique ideas spread among the three films: religion, life, and art. And, of course, she finds ways to subvert and play with those ideas, giving her lush, suspenseful orchestrations a feeling of cohesion while guiding the player through the emotional journey we share with Marissa. I was delighted to have Nainita on the show to talk about her journey, her influences, her unique working relationship with Barlow, and the cinematic influences she drew from as she stitched these three celluloid worlds together. (Plus, stay tuned for track commentaries breaking down these motifs in greater depth.) You can find Nainita Desai on her official website here. Immortality is available to play on Steam, Netflix Games, and Xbox (free on Day One if you have Game Pass) You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
We finally get to talk about a video game score for the first time in the podcast's history! And yet, we're still intimately connected to the realm of moviemaking considering the subject material: Immortality, the new game from Sam Barlow, who made Her Story and Telling Lies. Keeping with the interactive-movie brief of those previous games, Immortality is a time/genre-spanning mystery that tasks you with poring over the raw footage of three films starring a young actress named Marissa Marcel, who disappeared without a trace. By jumping from clip to clip between these films -- late-'60s erotic religious thriller Ambrosio, 1970s detective film Minsky, and 1999 showbiz tragedy Two of Everything -- you peel back the layers of Marissa's fate, and explore the very nature of media as a means to achieve eternal life. For this project, Barlow enlisted the aid of twice-Emmy-nominated composer Nainita Desai, who also scored Telling Lies, to build the musical world of Immortality. Rather than scoring to genre specificity, Desai built three major themes exploring unique ideas spread among the three films: religion, life, and art. And, of course, she finds ways to subvert and play with those ideas, giving her lush, suspenseful orchestrations a feeling of cohesion while guiding the player through the emotional journey we share with Marissa. I was delighted to have Nainita on the show to talk about her journey, her influences, her unique working relationship with Barlow, and the cinematic influences she drew from as she stitched these three celluloid worlds together. (Plus, stay tuned for track commentaries breaking down these motifs in greater depth.) You can find Nainita Desai on her official website here. Immortality is available to play on Steam, Netflix Games, and Xbox (free on Day One if you have Game Pass) You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
As the Emmys swerve just around the corner, I wanted to take a look at one of the year's best shows -- Showtime's Yellowjackets, which is currently up for three Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series. The witty, darkly comic series tracks the trials and traumas of a high school girls' soccer team stranded in the mountains by a plane crash, and the ways their situation ripples through into the future of the survivors decades later.
It's a (literally) killer showcase for its cast, including Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, and Juliette Lewis as adult versions of the crash's few remaining survivors. And the story is filled with amputations, poisonings, blood sacrifices, and explosions -- and that's only in one-half of the show's time-hopping tragedy. With its heady mix of Lost and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's easy to see why it's getting so much praise.
One hardly-undersung element, ironically enough, is the score courtesy of Craig Wedren and this week's guest, Anna Waronker. A veteran of the LA alternative/indie scene, Waronker made her bones as frontwoman of alt-rock band that dog, she soon moved into film and TV composing with films like Josie and the Pussycats and, most recently, shows like Hulu's Shrill. Those grungy alt-rock roots are in full force in her and Wedren's work on the Yellowjackets, personified in its earworm of an opening title track, "No Return."
This week, I'm here with Anna to talk about coming up as a composer, how her riot-grrl sensibilities translated to film and TV scoring, and the subversive approaches she and Wedren took to Yellowjackets (as well as her solo work for fellow Showtime comedy I Love This For You.
Both Yellowjackets and I Love This For You are currently streamable on Showtime. You can also listen to the score for the first season of Yellowjackets on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
As the Emmys swerve just around the corner, I wanted to take a look at one of the year's best shows -- Showtime's Yellowjackets, which is currently up for three Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series. The witty, darkly comic series tracks the trials and traumas of a high school girls' soccer team stranded in the mountains by a plane crash, and the ways their situation ripples through into the future of the survivors decades later.
It's a (literally) killer showcase for its cast, including Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, and Juliette Lewis as adult versions of the crash's few remaining survivors. And the story is filled with amputations, poisonings, blood sacrifices, and explosions -- and that's only in one-half of the show's time-hopping tragedy. With its heady mix of Lost and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's easy to see why it's getting so much praise.
One hardly-undersung element, ironically enough, is the score courtesy of Craig Wedren and this week's guest, Anna Waronker. A veteran of the LA alternative/indie scene, Waronker made her bones as frontwoman of alt-rock band that dog, she soon moved into film and TV composing with films like Josie and the Pussycats and, most recently, shows like Hulu's Shrill. Those grungy alt-rock roots are in full force in her and Wedren's work on the Yellowjackets, personified in its earworm of an opening title track, "No Return."
This week, I'm here with Anna to talk about coming up as a composer, how her riot-grrl sensibilities translated to film and TV scoring, and the subversive approaches she and Wedren took to Yellowjackets (as well as her solo work for fellow Showtime comedy I Love This For You.
Both Yellowjackets and I Love This For You are currently streamable on Showtime. You can also listen to the score for the first season of Yellowjackets on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
While Apple TV+ is home to some of the biggest shows on TV -- your Teds Lasso, your Severances -- some of its best, most beguiling shows and miniseries don't get talked about nearly as often. Among those hidden gems is The Essex Serpent, the six-part adaptation of the novel by Sarah Perry, starring Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston. Set in turn-of-the-century England, The Essex Serpent follows Cora Seaborne (Danes), a recently widowed Londoner, who sees her newfound freedom as the perfect excuse to pursue her love of science. That pursuit takes her to the Essex countryside, where a small town has been besieged by what's been reported to be a massive serpent. Some, including the town pastor (played by Hiddleston), doubt its veracity, but the town itself is convinced, and Cora's arrival just puts more fuel on the fire. It's a scintillating, romantic, deeply textured series about the thin lines between science and mysticism, and the reasons we might believe in one or the other. Aiding the show's foggy atmosphere is its beguiling score courtesy of Oscar-nominated composer Dustin O'Halloran and Icelandic composer Herdis Stefánsdóttir -- a heady mix of string combos and acoustics, blended with textured sounds that evoke the rush of sea air and the twist of rope. There are shades of O'Halloran's score for Ammonite, which we've spoken to him on the pod about before, mixed with a tinge of the fantastic as airy instrumentals give way to darker, moodier modes. I sat down with Dustin and Herdis to talk about all these elements and more. You can find Dustin O'Halloran and Herdis Stefansdottir at their official websites. The Essex Serpent is streaming in its entirety on Apple TV+. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Apple Music.
Welcome to Right on Cue, the podcast where we interview film, TV, and video game composers about the origins and nuances of their latest works and select commentaries from some of the score's most important tracks. What do you get when you throw Brad Pitt onto a fast-moving train with a bunch of eclectic assassins, an army of yakuza, and an arch sense of humor? Turns out you get Bullet Train, the latest high-concept action thriller from John Wick co-director David Leitch. Simply put, it's a gonzo mishmash of action influences, from anime to Jackie Chan to, well, John Wick, with a storytelling style as anarchic and tonally playful as that descriptor sounds. Leitch and the cast aim for capital-r Ridiculous with every intricate fight scene, from a brawl in the train's 'quiet car' to extended riffs on Thomas the Tank Engine. Rather than feebly attempt to wrangle that insanity into a sedate, consistent score, composer Dominic Lewis revels in the chaos, crafting what he calls a "concept album" of tracks that bob and weave amongst the rogue's gallery of colorful hitmen that comprise the film's cast. The results are as muscular and propulsive as they are archly funny, Lewis hopping and skipping from hard rock to traditional Russian and Japanese musical modes to covers of the West Ham football team's official anthem. Whatever you feel about Bullet Train's very specific wavelength, the score is a joy to listen to and holds your hand through each zany jump in time, tone, and temperament. We were lucky enough to sit down with Lewis for a good long while to break down his score for Bullet Train -- how a long scoring process aided in his sense of experimentation, the pinballing influences behind each of the characters, and how his own history of musical mentors helped prep him for opportunities like this one. (Plus, he helps us break down several of the score's craziest tracks.) Bullet Train is currently playing in theaters, and you can listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Sony Music.
Welcome to Right on Cue, the podcast where we interview film, TV, and video game composers about the origins and nuances of their latest works and select commentaries from some of the score's most important tracks. Today, we're talking about Spiderhead, the Netflix Original Movie that premiered last month, starring Chris Hemsworth and Miles Teller, directed by Joseph Kosinski (who's already flying high this year with the whirlwind success of Top Gun: Maverick). But where Maverick is all massive, big-screen spectacle and Tom Cruise at the literal height -- or, rather, altitude -- of his powers, Spiderhead feels more akin to the kinds of thinky, patient sci-fi spectacle Kosinski is known for. It's an eerie, unsettling film, with a suitably quirky score to match, courtesy of Kosinski stalwart Joseph Trapanese. The composer is no stranger to this show, having discussed his score for Netflix's fantasy series Shadow and Bone with us, and he's been busy since, taking over for season 2 of Netflix's The Witcher, Prisoners of the Ghostland, Project Power, and more. Now he's returned to the show to discuss the delicate balance of haunting vocals and electronic elements that make up his minimalist score for Spiderhead and how they weave throughout the film's yacht-rock-heavy soundtrack. After the interview, Joe talks us through some track commentaries from the score. You can find Joseph Trapanese at his official website here. Spiderhead is currently streaming on Netflix, and you can listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Maisie Music Publishing.
While Netflix is firmly in the grips of Stranger Things fever, another, more quietly affecting horror series made waves through the back half of 2021 -- Mike Flanagan's haunting, meditative horror-drama Midnight Mass, about a small, deeply religious seaside town beset by a series of miracles. First, a new, charismatic pastor (Hamish Linklater) takes over the local church; then, a young girl paralyzed all her life suddenly gains the power to walk again. But before long, we learn the deep, dark secrets of Father Paul, as well as the mysterious creature who came with him, and the perverse lengths the town will turn just to get a whiff of its ungodly gifts. Like so many of Flanagan's projects, it's a riveting tale that uses the aesthetics of horror to tell deeply personal, psychological stories. Midnight Mass ruminates on, among other things, the heady mix of grief and faith, the power of religious fervor, and the lengths to which we'll go to stave off the unrelenting specter of death. It's maybe his most personal project -- it's a story he's waited decades to tell -- which makes it fitting that his longtime composers, Andy Grush and Taylor Newton Stewart (otherwise known as The Newton Brothers), came along for the ride, having worked with him on nearly every project since 2013's Oculus. The score is steeped in the show's Catholic milieu, comprised primarily of repurposed hymns, lovingly recreated and accentuated by the Brothers' understanding of Flanagan's mission. And together, we chat about their longstanding relationship with Flanagan, Andy's deep relationship to Catholicism, and how those dynamics informed their approach to crafting a score as significant for its moments of quiet awe as its sense of atmospheric horror. You can find The Newton Brothers at their official website here. Midnight Mass is currently streaming on Netflix. You can also listen to the score for Midnight Mass on your preferred music streaming service (or vinyl!) courtesy of Waxwork Records.
On Friday the 13th, 1980, humble housewife Candy Montgomery killed her friend Betty Gore with an axe, slashing her 41 times in her friend's home. The resulting case was a lurid tale of infidelity, suburban malaise, and bizarre self-defense claims (which actually got Candy acquitted). It's the framework for Hulu's latest limited series based on a true crime sensation, Candy, a five-part miniseries that ran earlier this month starring Jessica Biel as Candy and Melanie Lynskey as Betty.
Conceived by showrunner Robin Veith, Candy plants us firmly in the low-key terror and isolation of suburban housewifedom, with both Biel and Lynskey's characters bristling against the deadening monotony of the middle-class American Dream, especially for women who've been told to aspire to that existence their whole lives.
Jabbing at the viewer's subconscious throughout all five episodes is the tense, discomforting score courtesy of composer and instrumentalist Ariel Marx. A quickly rising star thanks to tense scores in works like HBO's The Tale and the 2021 cringe comedy classic Shiva Baby, Marx's scores are punctuated with atonal, textured strings and woodwinds, constantly clawing at the carpeted edges of the subconscious to see what lies beneath. For Candy, Marx's killer command of unease is in full force, from the helter-skelter back and forth between piano and string in the eerie title sequence to the droning synths and electronic elements that spike through the veneer of normalcy Candy has set up for herself.
Marx sat down with me the week of Candy's airing to discuss her history as an instrumentalist and her love of strings. But most importantly, we break down the fundamental components of the "oppressive sameness" of Candy's spine-tingling score.
You can find Ariel Marx at her official website here.
You can watch all five episodes of Candy on Hulu. You can also listen to the score for Candy on your preferred music streaming service.
Films about sex are rare, films about porn even rarer. And when they do arrive, more often than not they're one-handed, moralistic tales of the subjugation and exploitation women experience in the porn industry. Ninja Thyberg's Pleasure, which we reviewed out of Sundance 2021 and is hitting wide release in America today, is more nuanced and complicated than that. Following a newly-arrived transplant from Sweden named Jessica (Sofia Kappel), who's landed in LA to break into porn, Pleasure refreshes by viewing this star-is-born narrative through the female gaze, and a surprising frankness about the need for consent and the complex power dynamics that happen for women in porn. Yes, there are the leering, predatory men for whom Thyberg's camera acts as their eye, gazing upon Jessica (who enters the industry under the nom de plume Bella Cherry) with all the ravenous hunger of the Big Bad Wolf. But as she learns more about her boundaries (and which ones she'll have to break to make it), Thyberg allows Bella to find a sense of power and assertiveness from time to time. Rather than vilifying or valorizing the adult film industry, Pleasure simply becomes a frank, dreamlike character study of how one woman navigates it, and finds her own avenues for pleasure and confidence even as it threatens to consume her.
Aiding that is the idiosyncratic score from Swedish composer Karl Frid, one half of the fraternal duo Frid & Frid with his brother Par. An experienced hand at Swedish film and television, Frid takes to this score with remarkable grace and inventiveness, charting Bella's voice between the twin poles of sacred opera and head-banging hip hop -- two contrasting sounds that operate as distinct expressions of Bella's own voice and confidence, intertwining in some of the film's most eye-opening moments. Centering female voices in the score, whether through soprano Caroline Gentele's operatic tones, or rapper-singer Mapei's aggressive, empowering lyrics, helps craft a musical universe within Bella's psyche, as well as the complex, morally grey universe of Pleasure. Frid sat down with me to talk about how he was introduced to the project, finding that balance between the film's complex, contrasting tones, and locking down the spiritual narration of Bella's journey through the twin voices of the music. You can find Frid & Frid at their official website here. Pleasure comes to theaters May 13th. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Frid & Frid and Sony Music.
One of the most heartening things about Disney+'s run of Marvel TV shows is that they seem to be an interesting staging ground for new ideas, the exploration of new communities, and -- most importantly for our interests -- new artists to reach broader audiences. That's certainly the case with Marvel's latest series in the MCU, Moon Knight, which sees Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector/Steven Grant, a pair of dissociative identities sharing the same body, which also happens to be able to summon the spirit of the Egyptian god Khonsu and turn them into the avenging superhero Moon Knight. The series itself is a brisk, fun Indiana Jones-type adventure, wafting between breezy action sequences and more sobering explorations of the trauma of mental illness, child abuse, and more. But given its Egyptian setting, it's heartening that the vast majority of the talent both in front of and behind the camera are Egyptian, from its director Mohamed Diab to composer Hesham Nazih, a veteran film and TV composer with reams of accolades and more than twenty years of experience in Egyptian media. For Moon Knight (his first English-language score), Nazih crafts a score that is both indebted to the gee-whiz adventure influences of the show itself and the cultural markers and musical identity of Egypt itself, combining the two into a unique musical synthesis that echoes the balancing scales Marc and Steven have to achieve in order to make themselves whole. Egyptian instruments combing with Arabic-language choir and the bombastic, brass-heavy sweep we expect of superhero blockbusters to create something that feels wholly new, while avoiding the cliches of most Western scores set in the Middle East and North Africa. For the podcast, Hesham was lovely enough to sit down with me (on the first day of Eid al-Fitr!) to talk about transitioning his robust skill set to Marvel, weaving his own influences within the score while avoiding stereotype, and how his score fits in with the show's use of mahgraganat (a budding genre of exciting, fist-pumping protest music making waves in Cairo the last few years) in the musical fabric of the show. The entire first (and only?) season of Moon Knight is currently streaming on Disney+. You can also listen to the score for Moon Knight on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Marvel Music.
How do you put music to the multiverse? Especially when the multiverse includes sights as strange as rocks with googly eyes, people with hot dog fingers, and heads exploding into glitter? That's the challenge experimental band Son Lux faced when composing the whirlwind, two-hour score for Daniels' latest film, Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Building on the devil-may-care absurdity of their previous works, like the music video for "Turn Down for What?" and 2016's farting-corpse buddy movie Swiss Army Man, Daniels starts their newest work simply -- a middle-aged Chinese immigrant (Michelle Yeoh) stresses about losing her laundromat and pleasing her visiting father. But before long, her distant husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) informs her that he's from a different universe, and she's the only person who's able to stop a chaotic force of destruction from destroying the multiverse as we know it. Kung fu fights, slapstick, and drama-filled confessions follow, spanning a million different genres, modes, and senses of humor.
Keeping up with such whirlwind intensity in the score is no small feat, but it's one that LA-based experimental trio Son Lux leaned into with aplomb in their first feature film score as a collective. Comprised of founder Ryan Lott and collaborators Ian Chang and Rafiq Bhatia, Lux's sound to date feels airy, ambient and cosmic, albums like their Tomorrows trilogy already capturing some of the kaleidoscopic grandeur Everything Everywhere needs. And indeed, the score itself matches that dynamism, as zany and nostalgic as it needs to be in the needs of the moment while still maintaining a cohesive throughline.
Now that the film's been out for a few weeks, I sat down with Son Lux member Rafiq Bhatia to talk about the film's soundtrack, Daniels' unusual collaborative processes, and the challenges of building a house around a single chair... metaphorically, of course.
You can find Son Lux at their official website here.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is currently playing in theaters everywhere. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of A24 Music.
In a world where so many people have learned to start working from home the last couple of years(and many still do), the phrase "don't take your work home with you" has become ever more dubious. But what if you could really leave it all at the office -- not just your work, but your memories of doing that work?
That's the eerie premise of Apple TV+'s latest series, Severance, a Ben Stiller-directed corporate satire that imagines a company that allows its employees to undergo an experimental procedure to cleave their memories in twain. One of you, the "Innie," only remembers the time you spent in the office; the other, the "Outie," gets to live their off-work hours blissfully unaware of the stressors or responsibilities of the job.
It sounds nice in practice, but for the Innies who actually work for the Lumon Corporation, it's a special kind of existentialist hell, where all they know are the four white, antiseptic walls of their office. And it's a place that Mark (Adam Scott) and the other three members of his department will have to navigate, as they work to figure out what their real lives are like and discern what they're actually doing for Lumon. Severance is easily one of the best shows of the year thus far, flitting effortlessly in tone between horror and workplace comedy and haunting character drama thanks to Stiller's stylish, unpredictable direction. Aiding the feeling of banal claustrophobia the show engenders is the score by Emmy-nominated composer Theodore Shapiro, who's scored just about every comedy you ever loved in the 2000s (13 Going on 30, Dodgeball, Jennifer's Body). But his versatility really shines through in his work with Stiller, especially here, where the existential emptiness of Lumon, and the Innies' lives in it, is personified by ominous descending piano melodies and mind-mending instrumental distortions. I was lucky enough to sit down with Teddy to talk about Severance, the challenges of TV scoring, stepping out of the comedy wheelhouse, and finding the right, restrained sound for such a complicated show. You can find Ted Shapiro at his official website here. Severance is currently streaming on Apple TV+. You can also listen to the score for Severance on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Endeavor Content. qcLMwdMXGXnrdWZvMjqB
It's safe to say that the world of film music, especially modern film music, owes a lot to Portishead's Geoff Barrow. In a large way, that's due to the instrumentalist and musician's founding of indie label Invada Records in 2001, which placed an early focus on hip hop and experimental acts before pinning down a unique emphasis on releasing film scores.
But he's a prolific film and TV composer in his own right, as he paired with composer Ben Salisbury in the early 2010s for an abortive score to the 2012 film Dredd, which they later released as DROKK. From there, they sailed into an easy partnership with filmmaker Alex Garland, for whom they've scored all of his works since, from Ex Machina to Annihilation to Devs -- sneaky, unsettling scores that use found sounds and minimal instrumentation to convey the alienness of Garland's worlds.
It's an approach that works nicely for one of Netflix's newest shows (now a one-season wonder thanks to the recent news of its abrupt cancellation), the supernatural head-scratcher Archive 81, about an archivist (Mamoudou Athie) tasked with restoring a cache of mysterious documentary footage from a burned-down New York apartment building known as the Visser. From there, he finds himself lured into the viewpoint of deceased filmmaker Melody (Dina Shihabi) and the secrets she unearthed during her investigation. Timelines merge, prophecies are unraveled, and the true nature of the Visser's fate comes into sharp relief. For the podcast, Ben and Geoff were kind enough to talk to me about the origins of their years-long partnership, Geoff's work with Invada Records, and the painstaking but rewarding process for carving out the analog atmosphere of Archive 81. You can find Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow at their official websites. Archive 81 is currently streaming on Netflix. You can also listen to the score for Archive 81 on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Invada Records and Lakeshore Records.
What would you do if you could go back in time and talk to your 12-year-old self? What if you could also see a dead loved one again? For all the whiz-bang action-adventure stuffed into Ryan Reynolds' latest film, The Adam Project, composer Rob Simonsen's score never strays far from those sentimental questions. The next collaboration between Reynolds and director Shawn Levy after last year's Free Guy, The Adam Project follows a time-traveling fighter pilot who flees his dystopian past to crash-land in 2022. And who should he meet but his younger, 12-year-old self, played by newcomer Walker Scobell, who tags along with him on an adventure not just to shake off bad guys from the future who are set to chase him down, but to reconnect with his long-dead father (Mark Ruffalo) and stop time travel altogether. It's a film steeped in the nostalgia-friendly Amblin vibes of the 1980s, evoking everything from Flight of the Navigator to E.T., and that's a throughline Simonsen threads expertly. His is a deceptively simple score, pairing crackling, electronic synths for the high-tech action sequences with the tranquil piano and orchestra of its primary theme -- keeping the CG spectacle grounded in the achingly personal. Easy work for Simonsen, who's proven himself a versatile composer since he came up in the early 2010s with indies like The Spectacular Now and Fast Color. And earlier this year, he primed the pump for the nostalgia well with his score for Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Now, he speaks to me on the podcast today about his early work as a composer, what lessons he learned from mentor Mychael Danna, and the myriad ways COVID complicated the process of scoring this film. You can find Rob Simonsen at his official website here. The Adam Project is currently streaming on Netflix. You can also listen to the score for The Adam Project on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Sony Soundtracks.
Months after he came on the show last (for the COVID documentary In the Same Breath), composer Nathan Halpern has been extremely busy. Just a few weeks ago, he scored three films that premiered at this year's Sundance film festival: the nail-biting thrillers Watcher and Emily the Criminal, as well as the documentary short The Martha Mitchell Effect. But this week, we're talking about a film that premiered at last year's Tribeca Film Festival, one of the best, most under-discussed films of 2021: Josef Wladyka's Catch the Fair One. A pulse-pounding thriller with an activist heart, the film follows a Native American ex-boxer named Kaylee (played by real-life welterweight champion Kali Reis, in an icily intense performance), who pours every inch of herself into trying to track down the people responsible for her younger sister's disappearance. The issue of Native erasure is nothing new, and one that Wladyka and Reis (who collaborated with him on the story) took extremely seriously. Catch the Fair One works like gangbusters as a cold, uncompromising action thriller, to be sure, but it also carries the dehumanizing weight of the past -- a woman sacrificing everything human about her to right a wrong that further Others people like her. Gliding effortlessly along Wladyka's anguished brutality is Nathan Halpern's score, bringing his signature love of drones and tones to the film's atmosphere. Like the ice-blue cinematography and underplayed intensity of its lead, Halpern's work immerses us in the cruelty of Kaylee's world through haunting, hollow electronic sounds and lonely solo brass. Rumbling bass and screeching static punctuate the moments when Kaylee is most put through her paces, leavening only to remind us of the bleak tragedy of her journey. Joining us again on the pod, Nathan talks about how he maintains such a prolific workflow, honoring the Native cultural markers of the story, and worming his way into the psychology of a protagonist that has nothing to lose. You can find Nathan Halpern at his official website here. Catch the Fair One is currently playing in select theaters and on VOD. You can also listen to the score for Catch the Fair One on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
Today we're talking to Hollywood Music in Media Awards-winning composer Dara Taylor, best known for her collaborations with composer Christopher Lennertz on a variety of projects, from the Netflix series Lost in Space to the cult 2020 comedy Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar. But her latest solo project is the biggest yet for the young composer - the George Clooney-directed drama The Tender Bar.
Based on the memoir by J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar is a coming-of-age story about a young writer (Daniel Ranieri as a child, Tye Sheridan as a young man) growing up in 1970s Long Island. With an absentee father and little to do, he spends much of his childhood at the bar his Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck) owns, absorbing the man's homespun wisdom through the cigarette haze of the past. It's a sleepy tale soaked in hazy nostalgia, leading Dara Taylor down a stripped-down approach sufficed with plaintive guitars and pleasant piano. Her sound accentuates the film's ever-present '70s soundtrack, weaving through needledrops from Jackson Browne and Steely Dan without clashing with it. I spoke to Dara about the incredible opportunity this prestige awards-season drama presented her, the challenges of working within an assignment so heavy on source music, and the long, challenging road it takes for a composer to get to this level. You can find Dara Taylor at her official website here. The Tender Bar is currently streaming on Prime Video.
For the next few weeks, we'll be highlighting some of the scores and composers we really liked out of the 2022 Sundance International Film Festival. First up is Something in the Dirt, the latest from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who've made a cottage industry out of scintillating low-budget sci-fi and supernatural horror. Along with the ride for most of their endeavors has been longtime composer and friend Jimmy LaValle, for whom this is his fourth collaboration with the pair. Something in the Dirt follows John and Levi (played by Benson and Moorhead), two strangers who meet after one moves into the other's Laurel Canyon apartment complex. They're both loners, drifters, folks with mysterious pasts who have their own unique relationship to the city of Los Angeles. But they're thrown together by circumstance one day when the two start witnessing some supernatural occurrences in Levi's apartment; thrown together by opportunity and boredom, they start documenting their findings. What follows tosses them down a conspiratorial rabbit hole that includes wormholes, alternate dimensions, and gravitic anomalies, while the lines between narrative and documentary become increasingly blurred. In keeping with his house style for the pair, LaValle (an LA-based musician who also performs with his band The Album Leaf) keeps to isolated, eerie synths and unsettling pulses to convey the unsettling nature of what John and Levi are discovering. But he also expands his palate with woodwinds and organs to convey the clashing nature of John and Levi's polarizing personalities. Plus, the COVID-era circumstances led to an especially innovative process for the DIY filmmakers, which LaVelle was along for the entire ride. On this week's podcast, Jimmy talks to us about his long-time collaboration with Benson and Moorhead, how COVID aided and abetted this particular project, and the ways he flexed his own musical muscles for Something in the Dirt. Plus, LaValle offers commentaries for three tracks from the score: "Math Teacher," "The Symbol," and "No Light Source." You can find Jimmy LaValle and The Album Leaf at their official website here.
When one thinks of most modern film scoring, we're in an interesting realm of experimentation and innovation -- one less defined by the traditional symphonic orchestras of John Williams and James Horner and more by the electronic and textured influences of Hans Zimmer and his coterie. Normally, Oscar-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton operates in the latter realm, thinking outside the box on scores ranging from Ridley Scott's The Counselor to Into the Spider-Verse and beyond. But for Being the Ricardos, his fourth collaboration with acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (third with Sorkin as director), Pemberton goes back to basics for a much more classical score than we're used to hearing from him. Following a particularly tumultuous week in the life and career of Lucille Ball (played by Nicole Kidman), Being the Ricardos sees the I Love Lucy star navigating a series of controversies, from a particularly stubborn comedy bit on her hit sitcom to the tensions between her and husband/co-star Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), to media rumors that she's a registered member of the Communist Party. To fit the sweeping nostalgia (and bittersweet flaws) of its 1950s Hollywood setting, Pemberton's crafted a score replete with an overarching main theme that encapsulates the sadness and struggles of Ball's attempts to carve out a place for herself in a male-dominated Hollywood. Coupled with percussion-heavy cues that sell the fast-talking, fast-moving pace of Sorkin's dialogue, it's a score that's refreshing in its old-fashionedness. Today, Pemberton calls in from London over Zoom to talk to us about creating the score to Being the Ricardos, working with Sorkin, and the restrictions and opportunities that come with traditional scoring. You can find Daniel Pemberton at his official website here. Being the Ricardos is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video. You can also listen to the score for Being the Ricardos on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thespool
This week, we're looking at Netflix's latest awards contender, The Lost Daughter, the directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Jessie Buckley, and Ed Harris. Based on the 2006 novella of the same name by Elena Ferrante, the film follows a middle-aged literature professor named Leda (Colman) as she attempts to spend a relaxing summer holiday on a Greek island. But her stay is interrupted by anxieties from both the present and past, as her connection with a young mother also on vacation (Johnson) brings back bad memories of her own past as a parent.
It's a scintillatingly hazy character study, aided by Gyllenhaal's deliberately disorienting direction and career-best performances from Colman and Buckley (as a younger version of Leda). But in keeping with that sense of airy time, composer Dickon Hinchliffe (Leave No Trace, Winter's Bone) called upon a '60s, '70s pop sound that plays with and contrasts with Leda's brittle, brutal honesty. Starting from a lush, Motown-esque title theme for its main character and crawling through moments of unnerving tension with double bass and strained strings, it's a perfectly appropriate score for a film about a woman trying (and failing) to escape her own emotional chaos. A multi-instrumentalist and founding member of the British band Tindersticks, Hinchliffe started his composing career when Claire Denis tapped the band to score her film Vendredi Soir. From there, he's scored nearly 40 films and episodes of television, bringing a deeply textured, mysterious sound to each project. Together, we talk about his transition from pop to film composing, the vintage '60s instruments he used for his latest score, and finding the true sound for The Lost Daughter's mercurial protagonist. You can find Dickon Hinchliffe at his official website here. The Lost Daughter is currently streaming on Netflix. You can also listen to the score for The Lost Daughter on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Maisie Music Publishing.
This week, we're talking to David Newman, son of acclaimed composer Alfred Newman and a proud member of a film music family that includes brother Thomas Newman and cousin Randy Newman. He's a prolific and legendary composer and conductor who's scored more than 100 feature films and television shows. You may know his work from films like Serenity, the live-action Scooby-Doo films, and most notably, his iconic score to Galaxy Quest.
But his latest project isn't to compose a new original score, but to play musical steward for Steven Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner's adaptation of one of the most celebrated musicals of all time -- Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. Rather than reinterpret Bernstein's timeless score for Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner's new adaptation of the film, Newman used his lifelong experience with the musical (and familiarity with the Bernstein estate) to craft something that fit Spielberg and Kushner's updates to the script, choreography, and story, while keeping the essential spirit of those classic tunes alive. Today, Newman joins me to talk about his relationship to West Side Story, what they changed (and didn't change) in his new arrangement, and more. You can find David Newman at their official website here. West Side Story is currently playing in theaters; if you're vaxxed, boosted, masked, and feel comfortable going, please go for it. You can also listen to the soundtrack on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of 20th Century Music.
Refugee narratives are a common one in documentary, but Jonas Poher Rasmussen's Flee is something unique. Telling the story of one of Jonas' childhood friends, a gay Afghan refugee named Amin, Flee charts its subject's childhood in Afghanistan, the circumstances by which he had to leave. Fleeing to Denmark without the rest of his family, he was left all alone to figure himself out -- not just his sexuality, but his identity as well.
Told in striking, minimalist animation, both depicting interview segments with Amin and dramatized tales of his past, Flee feels like a hazy recollection of a traumatic history, both of the Middle East and its protagonist. But for all its applicability to real-world politics, its scope remains deeply personal -- how seismic global events rippled throughout Amin's life, and looking wistfully at how they made him the man he is today. Equally evocative as the animation is the score, courtesy of prolific Swedish composer and multi-instrumentalist Uno Helmersson. Experimental and unobtrusive, yet completely in line with its subject's interiority, Uno's dense, layered cues float around the film's periphery to lend voice to things Amin leaves unsaid -- about himself, about his love life, and so much more. And now, Helmersson joins us in the studio to talk about Flee and his lifetime of work in film and television music. You can find Uno Helmersson at his official website here. Flee is currently available in theaters. You can also listen to the score for Flee on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Milan Records.
This week, we talk to composer Siddhartha Khosla about his twisting, mercurial score for Hulu's Only Murders in the Building, co-created by John Hoffman and Steve Martin.
It's a charming, unassuming murder-mystery-comedy series buoyed by career-best work from Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selen Gomez, and as many twists and cosmopolitan affectations as the podcasts on which it's styled. And underneath it all is Khosla's score, a plinky, minimalist affair that makes sneaky use of circular motifs and chamber-music strings to weave its characters around the show's upper-crust New York environs.
Singer/songwriter for the band Goldspot, Khosla is also a three-time Emmy-nominated composer for his work on NBC's This Is Us, and has also scored Looking for Alaska and films like Queenpins. And now, he joins us on the podcast to talk about Only Murders in the Building.
Only Murders in the Building is currently streaming on Hulu. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
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The latest film from director Edgar Wright, Last Night in Soho, is a time-twisting psychological thriller about a young woman named Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) who moves to London to enter fashion school. Once there, though, the sheltered Ellie finds herself haunted by dreams in which she's transported into 1960s Soho, viewing the young life of an aspiring singer (Anya Taylor-Joy) and the impending doom she may be hurtling towards. It's a film as informed by 1960s British gangster movies and kitchen sink dramas as it is by Italian giallo pictures and psychological horror, which fits Wright's innately cinephiliac style. References to the films of Ken Loach and Michael Powell abound, alongside the swinging '60s soundtrack with tracks from Cilla Black to Dusty Springfield. But alongside those groovy crate pulls is an atmospheric score courtesy of today's guest, Oscar and BAFTA-winning composer (and regular Wright collaborator) Steven Price. He's scored works from Joe Cornish's Attack the Block to Wright's own The World's End and Baby Driver. His most famous work is likely Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, for which he won an Academy Award and cemented himself as an idiosyncratic composer whose works blur the line between incidental score and sound design. Now, he joins me to talk about the eerie, time-warping score for Soho. You can find Steven Price at his official website here. Last Night in Soho is currently playing in theaters. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Back Lot Music.
Throw a rock at an LA-based thriller, and you can hit any number of stylistic signposts: neon lights, fancy cars, pumping dance clubs, androgynous threats in the night. But in Netflix's Night Teeth, the LA thriller gets some fresh blood - literally! - in the form of a sprightly, energetic vampire flick that still beats with the oddly warm heart of a John Hughes film. Night Teeth follows a young college student (Jorge Lengeborg Jr.) suddenly saddled with the responsibility of chauffeuring around two young women (Lucy Fry and Debby Ryan) for a night of debauchery. But naturally, it turns out they're vampires, and he's caught in the middle of a coup amongst the city's blood-sucking factions. To keep up with director Adam Randall's pulse-pounding style, Night Teeth makes great use of electronic, synth, and hip-hop music, anchored by an endearingly droning score from composer partners Drum & Lace and Ian Hultquist. Together, the pair have scored works like Apple TV+'s Dickinson and NBC's Good Girls. Now, they bring their significant experience with textured, layered synths and hypnotic beats to Night Teeth's neon-soaked menagerie of mayhem. Together, the composers sat down to talk to me about their long road to getting the gig at Night Teeth, the complicated process of working around temp tracks, and treating their score like a mixtape for the characters' wild, supernatural night in LA. You can find Drum & Lace and Ian Hultquist at their official websites. Night Teeth is currently streaming on Netflix. You can also listen to the score on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Milan Records.
Grammy and Golden Globe-nominated composer Harry Gregson-Williams is no stranger to director Ridley Scott: First working with his brother, the late Tony Scott, on films like Enemy of the State and Spy Game, Gregson-Williams began working with Ridley on Kingdom of Heaven, and has scored several other films with him since (including his sprawling score for The Martian).
But his latest score -- one of two with Ridley this year; he'll be providing the music for House of Gucci in a couple months' time -- takes them from the Red Planet to 14th-century France in The Last Duel, which is currently in theaters this weekend. Telling the story of the last true royally-sanctioned duel in medieval French history, Scott's latest is a Rashomon-like fable that flits between the perspectives of the three people involved: brutish knight Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), libertine squire Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), and Jean's wife Marguerite (Jodie Comer), whose alleged rape by Le Gris brings the two former friends to blows.
While the score taps into the big, spectacular motions we'd expect from the director of Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, Gregson-Williams' approach plays with perspective in much the same way the film does. Themes overlap and warp depending on who's telling the story at any given moment, and certain scenes are scored in vastly different ways as we see them through new eyes. The medieval musical trappings are there, from countertenor voices to Gregorian chant evocative of the Catholic Church, whose reach informs much of the film's drama. But they also shake things up with guitar, taiko drum, and a host of other unconventional instruments that hone in on The Last Duel's intriguing streak of modernity -- a sharp reminder that the shame and pressure Marguerite experiences as a result of her speaking out against her rapist is hardly the stuff of history.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Gregson-Williams to talk about the unconventional modes of The Last Duel's score, his long working relationship with Ridley Scott, and what we might be able to look forward to in House of Gucci.
The Last Duel is currently playing in theaters, and Harry Gregson-Williams' soundtrack is available on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
Film scores don't often chart, but when they do, it's for good reason. In 2011, that happened to the piercing, airy, enigmatic score for Nicholas Winding Refn's neo-noir Drive, starring Ryan Gosling as a nameless Hollywood stunt driver turned getaway driver. It was a minimalist throwback to the car-based crime films of the '70s and '80s, fueled by Refn's own arthouse aesthetic and Gosling's stoic performance.
But even more than Gosling's scorpion jacket, it's the music of Drive that endures in the pop culture consciousness a decade on. When the score came out, it reached #4 on the iTunes charts and reached the Billboard 200. Much of that is due to the classic synthwave tracks by Kavinsky feat. Lovefoxxx ("Nightcall") and College feat. Electric Youth ("A Real Hero"), to be sure, but it's also down to Cliff Martinez's moody, atmospheric scoring.
Martinez, a Grammy-nominated composer (and former member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) who's worked most notably on the scores of Steven Soderbergh, pulled out some of his eeriest, most interesting work for Drive. Analog synths dance with a mysterious instrument called the Cristal Baschet to help sell the '80s-tinged mood.
For the film's tenth anniversary (and on the eve of the soundtrack's rerelease on vinyl courtesy of Lakeshore Records), I sat down with Martinez to talk about his early days as a composer, how it feels to have a film score actually make the charts, and what exactly a Cristal Baschet is anyway. (Also, listen for a very surprising cameo from an out-of-breath Nicholas Winding Refn. I kid you not.)
You can pick up the Drive Original Motion Picture Soundtrack 10th Anniversary Edition vinyl courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
Given the sprawling nature of the decade-old Marvel Cinematic Universe, it makes sense that Phase Four would be dedicated to breaking apart the house they've built and changing around the pieces to see what happens. We've had alternate realities with WandaVision and Loki, of course, but Disney+'s latest, the animated What If...?, is a pure alternate-universe thought exercise. Overseen by Uatu the Watcher (Jeffrey Wright), What If...? escorts us through an anthology of stories that plays merry hob with the Marvel universe as we know it, placing old heroes in new contexts and giving us a side of these superheroes we haven't seen before.
What if Peggy Carter took the super-soldier serum? What if Thor grew up an only child? What if Black Panther villain Killmonger saved Tony Stark's life? These are the settings for What If...?'s nine episodes, often telling alternate versions of the stories we already know or plopping familiar characters in all-new settings.
Such scope, married to the need to touch base with Marvel's existing musical catalog, needs the deft hand of someone like veteran composer Laura Karpman. A five-time Emmy winner (and Grammy winner for the album Ask Your Mana), Karpman has written scores for film, TV, video games, documentaries, and more since the '90s -- a major feat given that female film composers were even rarer now than they were today.
In order to advance the cause of gender parity in film composing, Karpman co-founded the Alliance for Women Film Composers and is currently the first female governor of the music break of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Most recently, she (along with co-composer Raphael Saadiq) was nominated for an Emmy for their work on HBO's Lovecraft Country.
On this week's podcast, Karpman talks to me about her early days breaking into the world of film composing, the creative freedom working with Marvel's open hand and resources provides, and the unique challenges of forging your own musical mosaic from the shattered glass of the Marvel Universe.
You can find Laura Karpman at her official website here.
What If..." is currently streaming on Disney+; you can listen to episodic soundtracks from the series on your music streaming service of choice, courtesy of Marvel Music.
What lengths would you traverse to let go of your traumas? That's one of many premises swimming around in the hazy ether of Hulu's new series Nine Perfect Strangers. Created by David E. Kelley and based on the book by Liane Moriarty, the series follows nine people drawn for one reason or another to a mysterious wellness center called Tranquillum, led by an equally mercurial resort director plated by Nicole Kidman.
Some of them are reeling from the suicide of a family member, like the Marconis, including Michael Shannon's Napoleon; others, like Samara Weaving and Melvin Gregg's wealthy influencer couple, bristle against marital problems neither of them can articulate. But as they all gravitate toward one another at this private retreat, they learn to surrender themselves to the ministrations of Tranquillum's all-too-perfect staff... even as they become lab rats in an experiment they can't possibly see coming.
Swirling around the show's star-studded cast, which also includes Melissa McCarthy, Bobby Cannavale, Luke Evans, and more, is the score by Oscar-nominated composer Marco Beltrami (3:10 to Yuma, The Hurt Locker), alongside Emmy-nominated composer Miles Hankins (Being Serena). The two have worked together on several projects over the years, among them several projects by Nine Perfect Strangers director Jonathan Levine.
Together, we chat about the origins of their collaboration, what draws them to working with Levine and trying to find the sound of the mysterious Tranquillum and the diverse characters that inhabit it.
You can find Marco Beltrami and Miles Hankins at their official websites.
Nine Perfect Strangers is currently streaming new episodes Wednesdays on Hulu. You can also listen to the score for Nine Perfect Strangers on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Endeavor Content.
In the wake of Avengers: Endgame, the MCU has been taking bigger chances in Phase Four with smaller, lesser-known heroes, especially ones from communities not often represented in Hollywood. With Marvel's latest, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, we get the live-action film adaptation of '70s Marvel's answer to Bruce Lee, a superhero-flavored martial arts picture teeming with Asian and Asian-American representation. It's one of the more clearly-staged action films in the MCU, courtesy of Asian-American filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton, most known for quieter indie flicks like Short Term 12 and Just Mercy. The fights are inspired as much by Ang Lee as they are by Stephen Chow and Jackie Chan, with stars Simu Liu, Tony Leung, and others holding their own in impressive, frenetic action scenes. And at its heart is a tale of familial obligation, grief, and the need to forge your own path while also recognizing what came before you. To juggle this melange of tones and cultural touchstones, Cretton brought on his house composer Joel P. West, who crafts one of his biggest scores to date. In prior works like Short Term 12 and Mercy, West's work is small and intimate; here, he brings out all the big-money orchestral work Marvel cash can muster, tinged with just enough Asian influence in style and instrumentation to feel specific without exoticizing the setting (any more than a story about magical dragons and mystical arm bracelets can be, at any rate). West joins us to talk about the strange road to Shang-Chi, treading those cultural lines carefully, and what it feels like to score something this bombastic. You can find Joel P. West at his official website here. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is currently playing in theaters. You can also listen to the score for Shang-Chi on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Marvel Music.
Central to the horror-film feel of Nanfu Wang's new COVID-19 documentary, In the Same Breath, is the eerie, evocative score courtesy of Emmy-nominated composer Nathan Halpern. A prolific scorer of feature films, documentaries, and limited series alike, Halpern has brought his idiosyncratic approach to films as diverse as Chloe Zhao's The Rider, Swallow, and Minding the Gap. His upcoming scores include the Darren Aronofsky-produced thriller Catch the Fair One, and now, he joins us to talk about In the Same Breath, the differences in documentary and narrative film scoring, and more.
You can find Nathan Halpern's official website here.
In the Same Breath is currently streaming on HBO and HBO Max.
In the Grand Theft Auto-like world of Free City, Free Guy's Guy (Ryan Reynolds) gets to while away the days as an NPC in his hyper-violent video game world with a host of licensed music, courtesy of Mariah Carey, Digital Underground, Frankie Valli, and more. But the incidental score to Shawn Levy's surprisingly charming adventure film comes courtesy of this week's guest, frequent Levy collaborator Christophe Beck.
The Emmy-winning composer of Ant-Man, Frozen, and more, Beck worked with Levy to flesh out the more emotional character beats of Free Guy, while the licensed music did the work of building the game's sonic world. The results are sprightly and charming, Beck's full orchestral sound blending Guy's more innocent, hapless joie de vivre with the hard-hitting action that comes when he finally breaks free of his shackles and joins the game's world.
For the podcast, Beck sits down with us to talk about the unique joys and processes of composing Free Guy's score, how he blended the real and video game worlds, and the challenges of trying to record orchestra sessions in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Free Guy is in theaters now.
You can find Christophe Beck at his official website.
Free Guy's original score is currently available on Spotify and other music streaming services.
David Lowery's The Green Knight is a brilliant, mesmerizing take on the 14th-century Welsh poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, starring Dev Patel as a flawed, headstrong variant on the archetypal Knight of the Round Table. It's steeped in the ancient Arthurian traditions of chivalric romance, but muddied and tarred with the grit, fatalism, and pagan supernaturalism of the time in which it was created.
It's a perfect assignment for Lowery, whose films, while diverse, are deeply thoughtful and steeped in an acute sense of the past. In both look and sound, The Green Knight straddles the line between the kind of brittle, supernatural dramas around which A24 has practically built their brand. (Also, considering its long delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent re-edits Lowery sent the film through in the interim, it also feels like the kind of film that was refined until it exactly matched the director's vision.)
Part and parcel of that approach is Lowery's involvement of regular collaborator Daniel Hart, who brought him into the world of composition with his early shorts and his debut feature Ain't Them Bodies Saints. Since then, he's worked on numerous TV shows including The Exorcist and The Society, and composed music for This American Life and the podcast S Town. (And, of course, all of Lowery's films to date, including his mesmerizing score for The Green Knight.)
His work here matches the curious, mournful approach Lowery takes to the material, mixing ancient rhyme with moody, groaning instrumentation to convey a world in which civilization clashes against the supernatural. It's as expansive in scope as it is intimately connected to Gawain's personal journey as a knight and hero. Hart talks to us on the podcast about the long, sometimes arduous process of developing the score for The Green Knight, the medieval delicacy of its instrumentation, and the "Apprehension Engine" he borrowed to make it.
You can visit Daniel Hart's official website here.
The Green Knight's official soundtrack is out July 30th courtesy of Milan Records. You can listen to it on Spotify or your music streaming service of choice.
One of the best, most undersung action shows on television is Cinemax's Warrior, a stylish period piece based largely on concepts developed by the late Bruce Lee for a show that would eventually (and unfortunately) become Kung Fu.
Charting the conflicts between Chinese gangs and the American police in San Francisco's Chinatown in the 19th century, it's a show that combines some of the best, clearest action on TV (thanks to Andrew Koji, Joe Taslim, and a roster of incredible martial artists and choreographers) with a tale of America's own reckoning with its racial animus.
Adding to the cool factor is the show's jaunty, stylistically agile score, co-written by Reza Safinia alongside creative partner H. Scott Salinas. A multi-instrumentalist composer who's worked on shows like Snatch, P-Valley, and the Nicolas Cage film The Trust, Safinia scores with a decidedly meditative, deliberate approach -- no doubt aided by his years of connection to creative meditation, Daoist philosophies, and the like.
On top of his scoring for Warrior (which just received a surprise renewal thanks to HBO Max), Safinia has also been hard at work on a set of dual concept albums, Yin and Yang, which explore the flowing musical conversation between classical and electronic music.
Together, Safinia and I talked about those albums, the relationship between meditation and music, and crafting the hard-hitting score to Warrior.
You can find Reza Safinia's official site here.
Warrior is currently streaming on HBO Max, with a third season on the way. You can listen to the soundtracks for seasons 1 and 2, as well as Reza's albums Yin and Yang, on Spotify and other music streaming services.
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe expands its reach into TV, so too does its musical palate expand in turn. And so it goes with Loki, the latest Disney+ series, which will see its season finale next week. It's been a wild ride, following Loki (Tom Hiddleston) through his misadventures with the Time Variance Authority, his unlikely friendship with TVA agent Mobius (Owen Wilson), and the ongoing quest to discover exactly who's behind the TVA's implicitly sinister plans -- with the aid of a female version of Loki named Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), to boot.
It's a strange, twisty show that befits its always-evasive main character, one as indebted to its comic book origins as it is shows like Doctor Who That requires an equally enigmatic score courtesy of award-winning composer Natalie Holt -- she's a multi-instrumentalist who throws plenty of woozy '50s sci-fi flavor into the Mad Men-meets-Brazil environs of the TVA. She received an Emmy nomination for PBS' Victoria, as well as a Royal Television Society Craft and Design Awards for BBC's Three Girls. She's also scored films like Phyllida Lloyd's Herself, and TV shows like Wallander and The Honourable Woman.
Holt joins us on the podcast from Los Angeles to talk about the eerie sounds of Loki, talk Wagner's influence on the score, and provide some select track commentaries for some of the series' most interesting cues.
You can find Natalie Holt's official website here.
Loki is currently streaming on Disney+, and you can find the first volume of the soundtrack (covering episodes 1-3) on Spotify and other music streaming services.
When Ronald D. Moore's reimagined Battlestar Galactica premiered on The Sci-Fi Channel in 2003, it was a watershed moment for the genre. A gritty, moody, morally complicated redo of the cheesy '70s Glen Larson series, Moore's take on the show -- a space opera about a fleet of ships carrying the remnants of humanity to a mysterious planet called Earth, with a robotic enemy called the Cylons giving chase -- crystallized so many of America's post-9/11 fears about terrorism, splinter cells, and the tenuous lines between freedom and security.
But more than that, it had some of the best cast, most intriguing characters, and incredible production design and special effects that were possible for cable television. And the cherry on top is the critically-lauded score courtesy of then-unknown composer Bear McCreary, whose success on the show has catapulted him to a career as one of the most prolific composers working in media today. Since Galactica, he's scored everything from The Walking Dead to Colossal to Godzilla: King of the Monsters, as well as Ron Moore's current show Outlander and video games like God of War.
With all of that, though, his work still stems from his innovative work on Galactica, a highly unconventional suite of music that eschews big, bombastic Williams-ian brass for starker, more minimalist cues drawn from everything from world music to rock 'n roll. And now, the soundtracks for all four seasons of the show have been remastered and are available on music streaming services, as well as a new album of live concert renditions of some of the show's most iconic tracks, So Say We All.
I've been a huge fan of his music since BSG, so it was a treat to bend Bear's ear for a solid forty minutes, talking about everything from his humble beginnings on the project to a breakdown of some of my favorite cues and the stories behind them.
You can visit Bear McCreary's official website here.
All four seasons of Battlestar Galactica's original soundtrack are available on music streaming services, and you can listen to So Say We All on Spotify here.
During his all-too-brief stint on this Earth, John Belushi was one of comedy's greatest voices. A blustering buffoon one minute, a deeply intelligent trickster the next, Belushi's work on SNL, The Blues Brothers, and Animal House made him a household name in the blink of an eye -- before his life was tragically cut short by the very lifestyle that success gave him.
RJ Cutler's documentary Belushi is a stylish, straightforward chronicling of the man's life -- what drove him, the good and the bad others saw in him -- fueled chiefly by archival commentary from Belushi's widow. Another major driver, though, is the blues and funk-heavy score by Tree Adams, a BMI-Award winning composer who's scored a host of TV shows from Californication and NCIS: New Orleans to The 100.
Before he was a composer, he plied his trade as a touring musician (and still does) and brings a lot of that rock and roll energy to Belushi's score. There are the obvious Blues Brothers-fueled jams, to be sure, but the score as a whole seeks to capture Belushi's own musical background, as well as honors his funky highs and mournful lows.
I spoke with Tree about his long composing history, the connections between Belushi's score and his own blues background, the graphic novel he's got cooking, and a whole lot more.
You can find Tree Adams at his official website here.
Belushi is currently streaming on Showtime, and you can stream the original soundtrack score (released by Passion Pictures Ltd.) to the documentary on Spotify and other streaming services.
When the first Saw premiered in 2003, it rattled the foundations of the horror genre -- not just for its pioneering of gruesome, high-concept gory horror of a type that would come to be known as 'torture porn', but for its perversely iconic musical soundscapes. "Hello Zepp," with its grungy buildup and cacophonous, rising strings, quickly became a staple of the long-running Saw series, which is now in its ninth installment with 2021's Spiral: From the Book of Saw.
Central to those disturbing melodies is composer Charlie Clouser, who got his start in the world of industrial music, working with the likes of Rob Zombie and Nine Inch Nails. He's scored every film in the Saw series since, one of the few creatives to stick around for every installment of Jigsaw's brutal, moralistic mindgames.
With Spiral, though, it's a whole new ball game, with a new bag of tricks to set it apart from the grungier takes of Saws past. A soft continuation of the series, the Chris Rock-starring sequel takes a hard left into crime thriller territory, as a beleaguered beat cop (Rock) tracks down the culprit of a series of copycat murders one hot summer weekend.
Clouser keeps the screeching metal more confined to the tongue-ripping "trap" scenes in favor of a warmer, more noir-tinged palate to suit the '70s-esque cop thriller direction in which the film dabbles. And yet, when he needs to, he plays the hits -- particularly a new version of "Hello Zepp," which sounds familiar but, in keeping with the series, has its own musical twists.
For the podcast, I sit down with Clouser to chat about his loyalty to the series, the history of "Hello Zepp," and the ways in which Spiral changes the game.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw is currently in theaters, and you can listen to the soundtrack on Spotify and other streaming services, courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
In the wake of Game of Thrones' ending, virtually every streaming service has tried its hand at vying for prestige-fantasy drama supremacy, adapting book series filled with sprawling worlds and dense mythologies. The latest of these, Shadow and Bone, based on the Grishaverse novels by Leigh Bardugo, is one of the lushest and most intriguing in a good long while -- set in a war-torn steampunk world split by various warring nations. The largest of these, Ravka, is split by a mysterious black fog called the Shadow Fold, which proves dangerous crossing due to all manner of horrifying creatures that lie in the darkness.
The only hope of destroying the Fold lies with a young girl named Alina, a cartographer who suddenly discovers mysterious powers that thrust her to the forefront of a battle for the very soul of the planet.
Such expansive genre fare requires a deft musical hand to manifest, and Shadow and Bone has that in the form of Joseph Trapanese, who burst onto the scene in 2010 with his collaboration with Daft Punk for the iconic score to Tron Legacy. Since then, he's worked with Legacy director Joseph Kosinski on Oblivion and Only the Brave and scoring other works like Straight Outta Compton, Tron: Uprising, and The Greatest Showman (alongside John Debney).
With Shadow and Bone, Trapanese offers up a muscular, global-sounding score that steps up to the mighty challenge of sketching out the varying worlds and colorful characters of the Netflix series. He combines electronic elements with traditional orchestration to sell the fantastical sweep of Alina's journeys, while also incorporating Slavic voice and instruments like gamelans and balalaikas to flesh out the Russia-inspired climes in much of the series' first season is set.
I sat down with Trapanese for a lengthy chat about the challenges of scoring an entire series of such grand scope, the creative inspirations he took from the books, and the interconnecting, interweaving musical motifs of the major characters. In a first for the podcast, Trapanese also provides commentaries explaining his process for the cues "Erase the Past" and "Royal Archives Heist."
Shadow and Bone is currently streaming on Netflix, and you can stream the entire soundtrack for series 1 courtesy of Maisie Music Publishing.
When last we spoke to Henry Jackman (for Joe and Anthony Russo's creaky but sonically-fulfilling Cherry), he relished in the sense of freewheeling experimentation he got to enjoy on such a devil-may-care project. Now, he's back in the Marvel saddle with Disney+'s six-part limited series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which follows the titular Captain America sidekicks (played by Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan) as they adjust to life after the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan "retires" after Avengers: Endgame.
Sam Wilson, aka Falcon, rejects the mantle of Cap because he doesn't feel he can handle the responsibility of representing a nation that doesn't represent him; Bucky Barnes, meanwhile, is still working through some culture shock after his deprogramming as the Winter Soldier.
But the two will have to join forces, mismatched-buddy-cop style, to upend the plans of a mysterious group called the Flagsmashers, and contend with rogue elements like Baron Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) and a new government-appointed Captain America played by Wyatt Russell.
Returning to score these characters for the first time since Captain America: Civil War, Jackman brings his usual fanfare and frenetic action scoring to the table, expanding themes he originated in his previous work to a much larger, longer palette. Sam's theme, formerly a three-note quick motif between action beats, gets its own blues-tinged variation to pay homage to his Louisiana roots; Bucky, meanwhile, gets a softer, more melodic version of the Winter Soldier theme to contrast with the cacophonous shriek that heralded him in his debut feature. And the Captain America theme gets its own complications, now that the man holding the shield is a little less trustworthy than he used to be.
Together, Jackman (now a new dad!) and I talk about all this and more, including the behind-the-scenes challenges (and opportunities) of rescheduling the show in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the show's approach to issues of Blackness in America, and expanding the often-underestimated Marvel musical canvas.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is currently streaming on Disney+, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Vol. 1 (Episodes 1-3) is available on digital courtesy of Marvel Music, Inc.
Corinna Faith's chilling supernatural horror film The Power charts one horrifying night in a dank, dreary hospital in 1974 London for Val (Rose Williams), a nurse in training whose idealism and naivete brushes up against the insular, competitive world of the hospital she's been assigned, one with its own morbid history of ghosts and the violence of the past.
Stuck in the dark with little but her own fears, the animus of her colleagues, and the terrifying specter of a mysterious presence that haunts the hospital, Val's in for a bone-chilling night that will touch on not just her own personal traumas, but the collective trauma of abused and disbelieved women throughout history.
Underpinning all of Faith's bone-chilling terror is The Power's score, courtesy of English avant-garde musician Elizabeth Bernholz, also known as Gazelle Twin, collaborating with composer Max de Wardener. Gazelle Twin's music (which you can hear in brilliant albums like Unflesh and Pastoral) is harsh, brittle, and confrontational, experimental works that jab a finger at the English patriarchy and advocate for the spirits of the dispossessed -- fitting thematic links to The Power's feminist fury.
Together with de Wardener, himself an experienced composer with similar predilections towards deconstruction (see: Music for Detuned Pianos), the pair seamlessly meld droning '80s synths with eerie, delayed vocals and scratches that blur the line between scoring and sound design.
It's harsh, disquieting work that absolutely nails Faith's sense of atmosphere, and chills to the bone even before you get to Gazelle Twin's distorted, ominous single that closes the film, "The Well."
I had the pleasure of talking to Bernholz and de Wardener about their collaboration on The Power, how the film's themes and settings match their respective works outside the scoring world, and collecting the roster of rattles, scratches, and shatters in the score from the very same hospital in which The Power was filmed.
The Power's original soundtrack is currently available digitally courtesy of Invada Records, with a vinyl release to follow.
From 1963 to 1976, famed French serial killer Charles Sobhraj traveled the so-called Hippie Trail, the path counterculture enthusiasts took through Southeast Asia in the 1970s to escape the conformity of Western life and seek transcendence and culture in the Far East.
There, he killed at least twelve people, gaining their trust with his good looks and charm before drugging them and eventually killing them after taking their valuables -- often with the help of accomplice Ajay Choudhury and lover/partner Marie-Andrée Leclerc.
Sobhraj's story has been dramatized in many forms, the most recent being the Netflix/BBC co-production The Serpent, starring The Mauritanian's Tahar Rahim as Sobhraj and Doctor Who veteran Jenna Coleman as Leclerc. There, directors Tom Shankland and Hans Herbots chart Sobhraj's crime spree in sumptuous period detail, right down to the wide-collared costumes and groovy '70s needle drops.
The show's got its flaws -- it's structured in an admittedly frustrating series of fragmented timelines that jump back and forth so often it's hard for its characters to cohere, and Coleman's performance is as affecting as her French accent is muddled. But one element that grips is Dominik Scherrer's eerie, period-warping score. The Swiss-born British composer is a regular collaborator with Shankland (he scored previous Shankland series Ripper Street and The Missing), and his score for The Serpent slithers appropriately between period grooviness and nail-biting suspense.
Not only that, it's a score steeped in the Southeast Asian locations in which the show is set; he composed much of the score while shooting in Bangkok, and recorded a good portion of it in Thailand with Thai instruments and performers, leading to a sound that blends the slick '70s cool that Sobhraj exudes with the exotic locales in which he does his dirty deeds.
For the podcast, I sat down with Scherrer to discuss the unique challenges of the project, that line between being period-appropriate and too on-the-nose, and working with some of the most interesting instruments and period synthesizers of the day to craft the haunting, tension-laden score for The Serpent. (He also talks -- and plays -- us through the winding tension of the series' title theme.)
John Williams' score for the Star Wars films numbers among the most iconic, well-recognized soundtracks in pop culture history. But as the universe expands from the films into spinoffs, animated series, live-action shows, and a host of other media, other composers have had to take up the baton and translate the bombastic space opera sounds Williams developed for other corners of a galaxy far, far away.
No one's done it longer (or more voluminously) than Kevin Kiner, who's spent nearly fifteen years scoring the myriad CG animated series set in the Star Wars universe. He's scored The Clone Wars from its original theatrical film all the way to 2018's The Final Season, for which he's currently nominated for an Annie for Outstanding Achievement for Music in an Animated Television/Media Production. He also scored all four seasons of Star Wars Rebels and is currently working on the first season of Clone Wars spinoff The Bad Batch.
A thirty-plus-year veteran of film and TV scoring, Kiner's a chameleon who can work with the themes and motifs set by other composers and spin them into broader, more dynamic cues demanded by the rigors of television storytelling. That's borne out in his work for Star Wars, especially, where at this point he's written more music for the universe than John Williams himself -- while he finds moments to work in familiar motifs and themes, Kiner also carves out room for experimentation, which you can hear in the more synth-heavy scoring for Clone Wars: The Final Season.
The Spool sat down with Kiner for a nice, long chat about his long composing career, the challenges of finding creative new ways to spin the most familiar film music in history, and the joys of composing with his sons Dean and Sean Kiner.
Decades before Black Panther, Eddie Murphy gave us the first real glimpse of a fictional pan-African paradise with the country of Zamunda in John Landis' 1988 classic Coming to America, in which Murphy played the naive Prince Akeem finding love and playing fish out of water in the concrete jungle of Queens. More than thirty years later, Dolemite Is My Name director Craig Brewer brings us back to Zamunda with Coming 2 America, as now-King Akeem tries to figure out the future of Zamunda with the arrival of an illegitimate son from America (played by Jermaine Fowler).
Unlike the first, which mostly took place in the fish out of water antics of Akeem in America, Coming 2 America lets us swim in the lush, vibrant world of Zamunda for much of its runtime, especially Ruth E. Carter's incredible costumes and Jefferson Sage's production design. Also playing a vital part is the score by Jermaine Stegall, who mixes traditional comedy scoring with a pan-African sound that evokes, but differentiates itself from, the theatrical bombast of the sound of Black Panther. Not only that, he spent weeks on set working with the choreographers and artists like Gladys Knight to help stage some of the dances and song performances that flesh out Zamunda's cultural fabric.
I sat down with Stegall for a long, invigorating chat about searching for the sound of Zamunda, Stegall's reflections on the long mentorships with legendary composers that led to this moment, and the need for more opportunities for Black composers in the industry.
"White lesbian films set in the past" is a budding subgenre in the last few years, stretching from The Favourite to Portrait of a Lady on Fire to last year's Ammonite (which we've covered on this very same show). But there's something intriguing about the latest entry in this rapidly-expanding field, Mona Fastvold's The World to Come, a 19th-century queer drama set on a quiet homestead in the rural areas of upstate New York. Abigail (Katherine Waterston), a pensive woman in a frigid marriage with her overworked farmer husband (Casey Affleck), finds an enticing escape from the doldrums and rhythms of farm life in the flirtations of Tallie (Vanessa Kirby), who herself needs a respite from her abusive husband played by Christopher Abbott.
The World to Come styles itself as a tome of poetic yearning, from its muted, distanced presentation to the lyrical voiceover of Waterston reciting her florid journals she writes to pass the days and chronicle her feelings. Together, the two find freedom and joy, however, fleeting, amongst the grief and isolation of their circumstances, and the results are as gorgeous as they are tragic.
Befitting the moodiness of the presentation is a similarly idiosyncratic score courtesy of musician and visual artist Daniel Blumberg, who makes his feature-film composing debut. An alumnus of London's free-jazz and experimental venue Cafe Oto, Blumberg leverages his love for improvisation and atmosphere into a fragile soundtrack that's foreboding and romantic in equal measure. Clarinets and strings fill the foggy New York air and the loaded silences between Abigail and Tallie, aided capably by fellow musicians like saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and vocalist Josephine Foster. We sat down with Blumberg to talk about how he came to score The World to Come, working with many of his experimental contemporaries, and the extent to which his work as a visual artist overlaps with his composing work.
In a post-Endgame world, it's no surprise that brothers Joe and Anthony Russo are taking a step back from multi-billion-dollar superhero tentpoles into slightly smaller, grittier territory. Their latest, Cherry, based on the semiautobiographical novel by Nico Walker, certainly achieves that, though with no small amount of style. As the latest component of Tom Holland's post-Spidey career pivot to a Serious Adult Actor, Cherry casts him in the titular role of Cherry, a cynical Army vet who comes home from the hells of the Iraq war to succumb to opioid addiction (along with his waifish wife Emily, played by Ciara Bravo), turning to bank-robbing to fund their habit. Along the way, the Russos treat us to a jaundiced, blackly-comic version of Cherry's worldview, from his idiot friends to the myopic military leaders and soldiers he meets in his time in the service. And at the core of it all is Holland, leveraging some of that quirky Peter Parker energy to the role of a manic kid with nothing to lose. Undergirding the Russos' jaundiced style here, hitting somewhere between Stanley Kubrick and Harmony Korine, is the off-kilter, experimental score courtesy of Henry Jackman. He's spent the last decade or so scoring one blockbuster after another, an acolyte of Hans Zimmer's school who's scored everything from X-Men First Class to Captain Americas 2 and 3, where he first worked with the Russos. Cherry gives him the chance to try out a bunch of new, weird toys, including some whose provenance is unknown even to him, as you'll hear. The results are fascinatingly disorienting and tongue-in-cheek, which perfectly fits the overwhelming disconnect of Cherry's worldview. I sat down with Jackman to talk about working with the Russos as they transition out of superhero work, and the vast array of musical techniques and instruments he employed in his freewheeling experimentations with Cherry's score.
One of the most talked-about films of last year is Lee Isaac Chung's Minari, a scintillating, layered tale of a Korean-American family trying to chase the American Dream that's racking up awards nominations all over the place -- though admittedly, strangely in Best Foreign Film categories even though the film features American characters in an American setting.
It's a highly personal film for writer/director Chung, who based a lot of it on his own upbringing growing up in rural America to Korean-American immigrant parents, and the strange liminal state he experienced there. In the film itself, that's borne out in not just Chung's direction, but its pitch-perfect cast, including Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri, and Youn Yuh-jung.
But one of the film's most unexpected pleasures is its delicate, airy score, courtesy of composer (and friend of the show) Emile Mosseri. Ever since his breakout a couple of years back with The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Mosseri has forged a mighty body of introspective scores that crackle at the edges of his film's gentle psychologies.
The last time we spoke, we talked to Mosseri about hopping onto the second season of Amazon's podcast adaptation Homecoming to play off the first season's paranoia-film needledrops. Here, he's in much gentler mode, sotto voce vocals pairing with gentle pianos and woodwinds to dance around Minari's struggling family unit with all the curiosity of a childhood memory.
I got the chance to talk to Mosseri about the score and the film itself, both of which dropped on Friday. Plus, keep an ear out for an exclusive performance of a cue from the film's soundtrack, "Jacob's Prayer."
At its heart, Ben Hozie's tingly, complicated Internet drama PVT CHAT (read our review here) is about connection or our lack thereof -- even as it's disguised as a lurid De Palma-esque thriller about a lonely young man named Jack (Peter Vack) who finds himself enamored with his favorite online dominatrix, Scarlet (Julia Fox, keeping up her New York bona fides after her big breakout in the Safdie Brothers' Uncut Gems). He's an insecure, pathological liar convinced that all human interactions are transactional; she's a cam girl who traffics in those very same transactions but occasionally lets her guard down when it comes to Jack. The two need each other in some ineffable way, even as the intricacies of their relationship aren't quite like the typical love story.
And indeed, there's something of the Safdies' loose, improvisational energy in PVT CHAT, NYC musician and filmmaker Hozie taking a fly-by-night documentary approach to Jack and Scarlet's deeply unconventional romance, one which gets them in as much trouble as it flirts with the struggle to find personal fulfillment.
Anchoring Hozie's curious mix of screwball romantic comedy and post-modern 21st century Internet age treatise is the minimalist, experimental score by music producer (and friend of Hozie) Austin Brown of Parquet Courts. The score is sparsely threaded throughout the film's modest 88-minute run time, but where it lands it has an impact: yearning guitars layer over Scarlet and Jack's more intimate moments, while Carpenter-esque synths punctuate the moments where their dynamic most threatens to crack.
This week, I sit down with Austin about crafting the sparse score for the film, the times when the first-time composer wanted to go big, and the family affair of NYC's indie music scene coming together to create a feature film.
Listen to our podcast interview with Austin, and listen to the PVT CHAT soundtrack on Austin's Bandcamp page here.
Spend any amount of time in Film Twitter circles anytime in the last six months, and someone's bound to bring up one of the most resplendent musical moments in the hell-year that was 2020: ten minutes in Steve McQueen's groovy tone poem Lovers Rock. Two-thirds of the way through the film, the packed floor of a London house party in the 1980s slow dances to Janey Kay's delicate, flirtatious "Silly Games". They're so lost in the rhythms and gyrations that, even after the song fades out, the collective erupts with Kay's sumptuous lyrics, everyone singing together to keep the song going just a little bit longer.
Those moments and more are some of the most vital components to the success of Small Axe, McQueen's five-film anthology about the lives of West Indian immigrant communities in England through the '60s, '70s, and '80s, humming and swaying with the reggae, disco, and rocksteady music that so infused themselves in those disparate neighborhoods. Whether it's the sweet sounds of the titular genre in the nearly-wordless Lovers Rock, or the Brixton-set underground protest music that feeds Alex Wheatle, or the top-40 R&B hits playing at the titular Mangrove Inn in Mangrove, Small Axe is little without the soundtrack that underpins all of its period authenticity and riveting snapshots of Black joy and solidarity in the face of racism and systemic oppression.
Key to that process was music supervisor Ed Bailie, who sat down with me for the podcast to talk about the challenges of scoring for five different movies, finding the balance between crate-digging for obscure tracks and playing the hits, and working with collaborators to find just the right sound for McQueen's disparate stories. And along the way, we also touch on being cognizant of one's role as a white creative among Black collaborators telling Black stories.
Even before the pandemic, before we couldn't leave our homes anymore, nature docs were my happy place. But luckily, the Sir David Attenborough Industrial Complex continues apace with BBC One's A Perfect Planet, which just started airing on Discovery Channel's new streaming service, Discovery+. This five-part series explores the planet on which we live, the natural forces that maintain our fragile ecosystems, and the life that lives on it: volcanoes, oceans, sunlight, and so on.
If you've seen these kinds of shows, you know not just Attenborough's reedy, authoritative narration, but the big, bombastic scores that tend to accompany it. But for Ilan Eshkeri, for whom Perfect Planet is his fourth round at scoring an Attenborough-narrated nature doc series, he wanted it to sound a bit different. And that he does; the bigness and sweep are still there, but tempered by more muted, atmospheric orchestrations and the introduction of pop elements like guitars and drums. And the title track, "A Perfect Planet," makes wonderful use of several children's choirs to illustrate the fragility and innocence of the Earth, and the generations we'll be leaving the planet to after we're gone -- an even greater reminder of the need to take direct action on climate change.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Eshkeri, who's scored everything from Stardust to Ghosts of Tsushima, to talk about his motivations behind the project, how his own environmentalism fuels his scoring, and more.
Awards season is upon us, which means all the studios and streaming services are breaking out their big guns. Luckily, one of the best films of the year comes to Netflix this weekend. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, based on the play by August Wilson and starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman in his final role. A fictionalized snapshot in the life of the Mother of the Blues, Ma Rainey, George C. Wolfe's film imagines her in a sweaty, muggy Chicago recording studio in the 1920s, trying to record her most popular singles for white Northern audiences, far from her comfortable Black Southern crowds. Of course, tensions rise over everything from artistic freedom, racial animus, and Coca-Cola. And all the while, Ma's trumpeter Levee, played by Boseman, tries to take advantage of their opportunity to stake his own ambitious claim in the music world. It's a vibrant adaptation of a riveting play, filled with staggering performances from Davis, Boseman, Colman Domingo, and the rest of the ensemble. And it tells a story about Black culture's impact on popular culture, and those artists' attempts to secure their own legacy in the face of a white world that wants to repackage it for their own consumption. The blues thrums at the heart of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, so it makes sense that Wolfe would tap jazz legend Branford Marsalis to pen the score. Not only does he punctuate vital moments with a burst of vivid jazz orchestration to throw us into Chicago in the Roaring '20s, he was also responsible for arranging every song you see and hear on screen. Luckily, I got the chance to talk to Marsalis, who's spent decades as one of the genre's foremost saxophonists and bandleaders. He spent three years as the head of the Tonight Show band for Jay Leno, and he's got plenty of stories to share both in and out of the story of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.
Sometimes, less is more -- where some composers might look at Francis Lee's sumptuous queer romance Ammonite, with its period detail and bodies crashing against each other like waves against the rocky shores of England, and go for maximalism, Dustin O'Halloran and Volker Bertelmann (who also plays under the moniker Hauschka) are kings of restraint. That's an important quality to have, especially in something as transcendently dreamlike and wordless as Lee's latest film.
Throughout Lee's delicate, brittle exploration of class, history, and queerness, the composer duo leans hard on simple, sparse counterpoints, pianos, and strings threatening to burst into the foreground but always holding back. It's a work of remarkable minimalism, existing in conversation with Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan's beautifully layered performances.
It's not the first time the two have worked together, having met to build the score for 2016's Lion and working on several projects since. Together, they've built a clear sense of collaboration which bears out in Ammonite's intimate, complicated scoring -- which echoes the growing intimacy between Winslet and Ronan as, respectively, 19th-century paleontologist Mary Anning and a young woman she's tasked to care for.
In the wake of Ammonite's arrival on VOD and select theaters, both O'Halloran and Hauschka stop by the podcast to talk about the way their collaboration has developed, the way their own sense of minimalism dovetails with Lee's, and the importance of score as a means to build texture and sound design.
What happened to Timothy Leary? One minute, he was an anti-establishment rebel, spending ten years in prison after advocating for the "turn on, tune in, drop out" drug liberation culture of the '70s; the next, he was a government narc, informing on the same people he hooked in. One possible explanation lies in his exciting, deeply idiosyncratic relationship with Swiss-born Joanna Harcourt-Smith, the subject of Errol Morris' latest documentary My Psychedelic Love Story (which hits Showtime this weekend).
Centered entirely on Harcourt-Smith's side of the story, Morris' latest doc is playful and intriguing in all the ways you'd expect of his interrogative, interview-centric approach to documentary filmmaking. It certainly helps, of course, that frequent collaborator Paul Leonard-Morgan is along for the ride, painting between the lines of Harcourt-Smith's lively, charming investigation of her own past, as much a mystery to her as it is to the audience. Was she really a CIA spy, a Mata Hari figure meant to take down one of the government's greatest counterculture nuisances? Or was she a lost, naive girl looking for the ride of a lifetime?
Leonard-Morgan (no stranger to this podcast; we talked to him earlier this year about Amazon's Tales from the Loop) weaves an intricate blend of synths, driving strings, and percussion through Morris' kaleidoscopic, montage-heavy approach to Harcourt-Smith's story. Luckily, we managed to catch him in the final weeks of preparing the score to talk to us about working with Morris, the engaging mysteries of the film's subject, and the logistical complexities about recording live music during a global pandemic.
Listen to our interview with Paul Leonard-Morgan, as well as an exclusive piano rendition of the film's main theme.
The Nest, which marks filmmaker Sean Durkin's second feature film, his first since 2011's Martha Marcy May Marlene, sees him operating in the same sophisticated, glitteringly fragile mode as his debut. Charting the deterioration of a family in the 1980s after their fast-talking patriarch (a rivetingly brittle Jude Law) moves them to London to chase opportunity, The Nest soaks its characters -- particularly Carrie Coon as Law's anxious, suffocated wife -- in the ominous atmosphere of the cavernous Surrey estate Law buys for them to live in. It's far too big for the family of four, and its looming spaces threaten to swallow them whole.
For Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry, it's his first feature film score to date. But he and Durkin collaborate on an airy, lounge-y sound that fills the corners of that huge, empty house and the status-saving parties our characters soak themselves in. Double bass collides with dissonant strings, crashing piano chords, and cymbals to create a sound that's not unlike the feeling of losing yourself in a fancy party you realize far too late you weren't invited to.
For the podcast, The Spool sits down with both Durkin and Parry to chronicle the beginning of their collaboration, finding the scratchy little nooks and crannies of The Nest's world, and trying to encapsulate the anxieties of its central characters through music. (Plus, you'll hear a snippet from the film's score.)
How do you put the urgency of the climate crisis to music? For Nathan Grossman's documentary I Am Greta (now available on Hulu), an intimate look at teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, composers Rebekka Karijord and Jon Ekstrand were inspired to take some less-than-traditional routes. Rather than creating something melodic and passionate, the two drew on their own backgrounds with experimental compositions and sound design.
As a result, they crafted a driving, atmospheric score that not only cuts to the looming specter of climate change, but to the specificity and focus of Greta's unique mind. String arpeggios loop around the action like the thoughts swimming around Greta's head, while Karijord's 'voice organ' (an instrument she crafted herself from the sampled voices of dozens of male, female, and non-binary singers from around the globe) connects her struggle to the natural world she's trying to protect for herself and her generation.
There's a sense of melancholy tinged with noble purpose in the score, bured in the mix of echoing synths and pizzacatto strings, layered throughout with the almost percussive 'oohs' and 'ahhs' of the voice organ. It feels like we're thrown into the always-racing mind of Thunberg, while also feeling the ticking time bomb of our environment quickly running out. It's effective, evocative scoring, which elevates the film beyond the perfunctory auspices of a lot of issue docs of its type.
Listen to hear our interview with Karijord and Ekstrand on crafting the unique sound of I Am Greta, from the unique instruments they used to the way their collaboration has grown over several projects together. We also dig into one of the film's most important cues, "Fridays for Future," and how it became one of the most important tracks for locking down the ethereal, atmospheric tone of the score.
(Note: this interview was recorded during that tetchy, uncertain week of the presidential election in nearly November, so keep that in mind when that subject comes up.)
One of the best, strangest shows of the last few years was Lodge 49, a curious, sleepy, fascinating show that ran for two seasons on AMC until it was canceled in 2019. Created by author Jim Gavin, it followed a down on his luck Californian named Dud (played by Wyatt Russell) who mourns the death of his father and ends up finding a new sense of purpose in the membership of a fraternal organization called the Order of the Lynx. There, he finds all manner of colorful characters, all of whom are trying to find their way in a world of philosophical and financial uncertainty.
It's a deeply strange show, that's frankly almost impossible to describe accurately -- think of it as a mix between Cheers and a Thomas Pynchon novel. There's a lightness and a melancholy to it, aided of course by the show's soundtrack, a groovy yet introspective mix of psychedelic and surf rock befitting the show's Long Beach setting. In between tracks curated by music supervisor and longtime music journalist Tom Patterson, the score (including its dreamlike theme) was crafted by LA-based musician Andrew Carroll of The Lonely Wild. He's a folk/country-rock guy in a similar stripe to Patterson's '60s-tinged soundtrack; his cues accompany these tracks wonderfully and lend the show a feeling of unexpected intimacy and grandeur.
While it's been almost two years since Lodge 49's cancellation, it still lingers in the blood, and Carroll used that inspiration to craft a new EP out today, called You Are Here. A three-track blend of psychedelic rock and modern influences, it's a curiously fitting match to the times we're living in, from the isolation of "Vitamin C" to the dreamlike instrumentals of "Hackers in Love".
To commemorate the EP's release, I sat down with Carroll to talk about the EP, collaborating with saxophone maestro Sam Gendel, and get some insight into his short-lived, but indelible work on Lodge 49. And in the process, I got him to break down one of the tracks he composed for the show, as well as offer us exclusive acoustic versions of the Lodge 49 theme and the song "Here/Now" from You Are Here.
You can also purchase the EP from Carroll directly through his Bandcamp page here.
For up-and-coming NY-based composer Jay Wadley, landing the composer gig for the latest from Charlie Kaufman, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, was a dream come true. It's the latest in a string of darlings he's lent his delicate, idiosyncratic work to in the last couple of years, from the plaintive piano of Andrew Ahn's thoughtful Driveways to award-winning Sundance darling I Carry You With Me.
But decoding Kaufman's adaptation of Iain Reid's novel, a twisty, meditative tale on loss, memory, and the strangeness of relationships centered around a young woman (Jessie Buckley), her blinkered boyfriend (Jesse Plemons), and his batty parents (David Thewlis and Toni Collette), was no easy task. It required Wadley to put on many different stylistic hats, from crafting a Dairy Queen-like jingle that makes for one of the film's most macabre earworms, to scoring a seven-minute "dream ballet" that puts the music front and center.
It's work that neatly slides into Kaufman's navel-gazing sensibilities, as chameleonic as it is deeply literary. Much like its characters, Wadley's score evokes familiar rhythms just enough to make you grasp for where you recognize it, flitting between genre and mood with the same kind of nightmare logic in which Kaufman's script revels.
We spoke to Wadley about the challenge of scoring such a head-scratcher of a film, as well as the hard-scrabble work of making your own opportunities in the composing world (he, along with previous guest Trevor Gureckis, run the NY-based composing and sound production firm Found Objects). Plus, hear an exclusive performance of a cue from the film's score!
Brooklyn-born artist Tamar-kali is relatively new to the composer scene -- her first feature-length score was her sparse, chamber-infused work on 2017's Mudbound -- but she's spent years before that as a vocalist, Afropunk musician, and composer for projects like the Psychochamber Ensemble and her own five-piece alt-rock group. Her sounds are ambitious, startling, and unexpected, leaning into the sparseness of voice and piano and string in ways that seem to creep into the psyches of her lonely, isolated characters.
Josephine Decker's Shirley is no exception; a fictionalized snapshot of the life of American horror writer Shirley Jackson (a fuming, righteously angry Elisabeth Moss), Decker's film peers into her struggles with mental illness, agoraphobia, and the tricky tightrope of female genius in a male-dominated world that both celebrates and patronizes her. Tamar-kali's score is a perfect accompaniment to Decker's camera, yearning vocals brushing against pizzicato strings and lilting piano. It's beautiful and haunting at the same time, and traps you in Jackson's mind just as Jackson traps herself in her home.
Shirley received a very positive notice from us at Sundance, and now that the film is available in virtual theaters and on Hulu, we sat down with Tamar-kali to talk about the film, working with Josephine Decker, her long-standing collaboration with Dee Rees, and her other ambitious projects on the horizon.
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You'll hardly meet a more ebullient man than Phil Rosenthal. He's got good reason to be happy: he's a multiple Emmy winner for creating, writing, and producing Everybody Loves Raymond, he's got a lovely family, and a Netflix show where he gets to run around the world trying new dishes and meeting new people.
Somebody Feed Phil returns for its third season this weekend, featuring another five stops on Rosenthal's never-ending tour to eat everything on the planet. From Seoul, South Korea to Marrakesh to Chicago, it's a consistent delight to watch Rosenthal greet each new destination with a combination of wit, whimsy, and trepidation. Part of the joy of watching Phil go about his travels isn't just experiencing the sights and bites he does, but watching Phil throw himself into these new experiences with a trepidatious enthusiasm. "I'm like Anthony Bourdain," he told me once, describing his pitch of the show to Netflix, "but I'm afraid of everything."
Granted, the world has changed quite a bit since the last time we saw Phil scarfing down exotic treats in far-flung locations. The COVID-19 pandemic has closed down much of the world, and the same restaurants and chefs he showcases are particularly hard-hit right now. And yet, as Phil explains in our interview, that might be the best reason of all to watch: in a time when we can't eat or go places, Phil can do it for us, and show us the world we can come back to once all the dust settles and we can return to some semblance of normal.
Together, Phil and I talk about his relationship with food, how the pandemic is affecting the way we eat and order meals, and what his trip to Chicago revealed about The Spool's hometown.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
Amazon's Homecoming, based on the Gimlet Media podcast of the same name about a mysterious facility meant to rehabilitate combat veterans, but which carries its own secrets, was one of the most inventive and deeply strange TV series of 2018. Directed by Mr. Robot's Sam Esmail, the show was a twisty, timeline-hopping mystery carried musically by source tracks from noir thrillers like Vertigo and others; a compilation album in score form.
Now Homecoming is back for a second season, which just dropped on Prime Video, and a lot has changed -- the script goes beyond the plot of the podcast source material, and star Julia Roberts is gone. Now, the tale of Homecoming and its labyrinthine plots are explored from a new angle -- a combat veteran (Janelle Monáe) who wakes up on a boat in the middle of a lake, with no memory of who she is or how she got there. In her search to recover herself, we find her connection to Homecoming and the company that's acquired it, headed by Chris Cooper as a reclusive billionaire. Returning cast members Stephan James and Hong Chau also return in expanded roles.
The show is also different behind the camera -- Kyle Alvarez succeeds Esmail as director, and now the show sports a moody, spine-tingling original score courtesy of composer Emile Mosseri. A member of the indie rock band The Dig, he's branched out into film score composition in the last couple of years to stunning effect, from his score to The Last Black Man in San Francisco to his upcoming turns with Sundance favorites Kajillionaire and Minari. Now, with Homecoming, he has the added challenge of emulating the film noir inspirations of season 1 while making the score his own. The results are fascinating, both highly indebted to the sourced tracks of the first season while also finding eerie new corners for the show's universe to musically inhabit.
We sat down with Mosseri to talk about these things and more, and even get him to play a cue from the Homecoming score ("Calico") for us.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
A futuristic park that simulates the Old West with human-like robot characters. A 1001-car-long bullet train that speeds perpetually along the remnants of a frozen Earth. These are the worlds of two of TV's most high-concept series to date, HBO's Westworld and TNT's Snowpiercer. Both adaptations of out-there science fiction films -- the former from Michael Crichton, the latter from Bong Joon-ho -- the challenge of adapting them to screen is still vast, even in the big-budget world of Peak TV.
And yet, cinematographer John Grillo has worked on both, spearheading the visual look for Westworld's second and third seasons and acting as lead cinematographer for Snowpiercer, which itself took a long, rocky track to release.
Grillo's work differs greatly in approach for each of these disparate sci-fi worlds: Westworld is vast and sprawling, contrasting the open plains of the Old West for futurist minimalism in its robot cowboy-less third season; Snowpiercer, meanwhile, is all cramped train cars and mining social drama out of the intricately-designed cars that make up its central setting. Each car is a different world, from the prison-like barracks of the tail to the neon-soaked bacchanal of the Night Car.
The Spool sat down with Grillo to talk about the logistical challenges of shooting for TV, the ways both shows have had to change and grow to fit their specific tonal briefs, and whether he might like to take a break from robot revolutions and futuristic class metaphors for a simple, straightforward psychological drama.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Cards Against Humanity for sponsoring this episode!)
Since we've been stuck inside for so long, I've longed for the open plains of the Western. Luckily, Kino Lorber's got our back; this year marks the twentieth anniversary of Nancy Kelly's sumptuous film Thousand Pieces of Gold, which they're celebrating with a remarkable 4K restoration, courtesy of IndieCollect, which you can find on their virtual screening service Kino Marquee. Critically acclaimed at the time but eventually lost to the annals of history, there's no better time to revisit it.
Based on the novel of the same name by Ruthanne Lum McCunn, Kelly's Western tells the story of Lalu, played by Rosalind Chao long before she'd make waves with films like The Joy Luck Club and her extended stint on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. She's a young Chinese woman in the 19th-century who finds herself sold to a Chinese man who runs a brothel in a small Idaho mining town. Far from accepting her fate as a prostitute, though, Lalu finds ways to assert agency and free will in a world that is especially hostile to women, Chinese women especially.
It's wild to watch this in 2020, in a world more openly aware of the misdeeds perpetrated against women, and especially women of color, and see the ways Kelly's sensitive lens handles the deep, theatrical nuances of Lalu's story. It's an especially wonderful early star turn for Chao, demonstrating remarkable strength and vulnerability as a woman forced to make something of herself. I've been a fan of Chao for years, and when it came time to cover Kino Lorber's restoration of this film, I leapt at the chance to talk to her.
Now, for those who don't know, I co-host a Twitch livestream series for Consequence of Sound called COVID-EODROME, which you can find on COS's Twitch channel. A week or two back, my colleague Scout Tafoya and I were lucky enough to talk to the cast and crew of Thousand Pieces of Gold -- in addition to Chao, we spoke to her co-star Chris Cooper, director Nancy Kelly and editor/producer partner Kenji Yamamoto.
But on top of that, I got the chance to speak to the lovely Rosalind Chao one-on-one for this show. Together we discuss her work on this film, the immense struggles she had as a young actress early in her career, and the ways her work has blossomed since then. And yes, we spare a little time to talk about Star Trek, too. Take a listen.
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One of the strange new things about our post-COVID world, especially int he realm of entertainment, is that the demise, however hopefully temporary, of the movie theaters has evened the playing field somewhat -- blockbusters have to compete with small indies and genre movies on the VOD and streaming gridiron, which is exciting in its own way. Now, intimate gems like Andrew Ahn's Driveways have an incredible chance to be seen by others who might not otherwise give it a look. But it's well worth it; it might be one of the best films of the year to date.
The second film from director Andrew Ahn, who made waves at Sundance in 2016 with his debut Spa Night, Driveways follows Kathy, played by Hong Chau, a single mother who brings her eight-year-old son Cody (played by Lucas Jaye) to upstate New York to help her clean and sell her late sister's house. When she gets there, though, she finds a whole hidden life her estranged sister kept from her -- a scrambled mess of hoarded boxes and loneliness. But as she works to understand her sister from beyond the grave in ways she didn't in life, she and Cody forge a surprisingly sweet relationship with the Korean war vet next door, played by Brian Dennehy in one of his very last screen roles.
Ahn has a beautiful command of his camera and the tight-knit ensemble he's created. Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen's screenplay tells a beautiful story about the connections we have with each other, however tenuous, and the ways they can grow and drift with the passage of time. Chau and Jaye turn in wonderful work, the former is her lustrous, pained usual self, and Jaye is a remarkably sensitive young actor who puts in impeccable work. But the specter of Dennehy's passing lends this, his final major performance, an aching level of poignancy, a man who'd seen the world and was just beginning to recognize he was at the end of it.
I got to speak to Andrew Ahn about working on Driveways, the adjustments you make as a sophomore filmmaker, and working with the late, great Brian Dennehy.
While composer Michael Abels was awarded "Discovery of the Year" at the 2019 World Soundtrack Awards for his eerie, minimalist score for Jordan Peele's Us, he's hardly a fresh-faced up and comer. Before transitioning into film scoring, Abels was already an acclaimed orchestral and concert composer, having composed symphonies, ballets and operas for orchestras across the country.
This history with classical music seemingly clashes with his unexpected, experimental work on the films of Jordan Peele, but in Cory Finley's Bad Education (premiering today on HBO), it allows him to return to a very familiar wheelhouse. Based on the true story of the largest fraud case in American public school history, Bad Education centers on the superintendent of a prestigious public school in upstate New York (a charming, complex Hugh Jackman), and the complex web of deceit, hidden desires, and lies resting just beneath the surface of his quest for excellence.
Abels' score is lush, intimate, and reflective of Finley's uniquely arch approach to the material -- baroque, string-heavy requiems for forbidden love ("Eye Contact") clash with concert-band bombast that reflects Roslyn High School's razor-thin veneer of academic prestige ("Ave Noster Redemptor"). For Abels, it was a return to familiar forms, and he even mined his own history as an educator for inspiration.
For The Spool, Abels sat down with us to talk about his score for Bad Education, how he gets into the mindset of the characters he scores for, and the complex dynamics of being a mixed-race composer in heavily white environments. He also talks us through the process behind crafting one of the score's cues, "Eye Contact", while performing it on the piano for us.
You can listen to the full podcast above, and below listen to Abels' full score for Bad Education on Spotify (including the tracks he plays in the episode, "Eye Contact" and "Eye Contact -- Appassionato Alternate").
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
Hulu's intense, melodramatic miniseries Little Fires Everywhere aired its finale earlier this week, capping off the intense tale of the Richardson family (led by an impulsive, blinkered matriarch played to a terrifying tee by Reese Witherspoon) and the ways they intersect with the impoverished Warren family (including a powerful Kerry Washington) in the sleepy suburb of Shaker Heights in the '90s. There were confessions, screaming matches, and Witherspoon delivering one of television's greatest shrieks.
Based on the novel by Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere feels very much in tune with the kind of intense family dramas we can expect of this era of prestige TV -- slick, intense, and emotionally complex. Elena and Mia's battle of wills crosses lines of wealth, race, and privilege, creating a nasty little war amid the ostensible bliss of suburbia.
But underpinning all of the difficult racial and class dynamics on which the drama hangs is its score, a novel collaboration between veteran film composer Mark Isham and Florence and the Machine keyboardist Isabella Summers. Between its main title tune (a baroque combination of crashing percussion, driving strings and a chutes-and-ladders piano riff underpinning it) and the tailor-made covers of '90s songs sung by up and coming vocalists handpicked by Summers, it's a surprising sonic landscape that pulls the viewer into the emotional reality of the show's gripping histrionics.
Isham and Summers sat down with The Spool to chat about their collaboration on Little Fires Everywhere, the long and winding road to finding the show's sound, and how two musicians with backgrounds in pop music found a singular groove of their own.
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Just last month, in the early stages of America's encounter with the coronavirus, Chinese-American actor Tzi Ma had a haunting encounter in his neighborhood grocery store: someone shouted "you should be quarantined" from a passing car. It was a shocking example of anti-Asian bigotry that drove him to spearhead a social media campaign called #WashtheHate, in which Ma and other Asian-American actors and celebrities spoke out against prejudice and discrimination towards Asians and Asian-Americans. But of course, Ma is more often (and rightly) recognized for his decades of work as an accomplished character actor, from films like Dante's Peak and Rush Hour in the '90s to his recent boom of work in the 2010s and beyond in Arrival and The Farewell. In writer-director Alan Yang's Netflix drama Tigertail, Ma gets one of his most robust and complicated roles to date: Pin-Jui, a Taiwanese-American man and first-generation immigrant looking back on a life of sacrifice and dreams deferred. On the day Tigertail premieres on Netflix, I sit down with Ma to talk about the film, the responsibility of embodying an analogue for the filmmaker's own father, the complexities of "Facebook acting", and the importance of tolerance and community amid the isolation and division of coronavirus. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
Paul Leonard-Morgan is no stranger to composing for science fiction, lending a propulsive, industrial wall of sound to films like Limitless and Dredd, as well as video games like the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077. But with Amazon Prime Video's latest anthology series Tales from the Loop, he's in a milder, more contemplative mode -- delicate, thoughtful, and endearingly beautiful.
Based on the 'suburban sci-fi' artwork of Swedish illustrator Simon Stålenhag, Tales from the Loop tells the story of a sleepy, timeless town, under which lies 'the Loop', an research facility overseen by a mysterious institute conducting experiments on the nature of the universe. Along the way, the residents of the town feel its curious effects -- time loops, alternate universes, and the like -- and discover new things about themselves along the way.
Closer to something like Arrival than Stranger Things, Tales from the Loop eschews bombast for something more akin to a tone poem. Episodes are slow, deliberate, heavily fueled by dusky visuals and restrained performances by the likes of Jonathan Pryce, Rebecca Hall and Paul Schneider, most of whom flit in and out of the episodes as we see the disparate ways the Loop's experiments reveal new things about these decidedly ordinary people.
And underpinning this all is the score, a collaboration between Leonard-Morgan and the legendary Philip Glass that coats each stolen glance and mournful experiment with minimalist, arpeggio-laden wonder. Tales from the Loop is all about its atmosphere, and Glass and Leonard-Morgan's score mines a graceful elegance from the interdimensional magic surrounding Mercer, Ohio's denizens.
In anticipation of the show's release, The Spool sat down with Leonard-Morgan to talk about Tales from the Loop's bittersweet magic, working with Philip Glass, and the ways the isolation that comes from our current historical moment is changing the ways composers and musicians collaborate with each other remotely.
It's hard to find a more prolific genre TV composer than Jeff Russo. The guitarist-turned-composer has made quite a splash in the last five years, chiefly as Noah Hawley's go-to guy for eerie, experimental scores for shows like Fargo and Legion. But he's also cut his teeth on sci-fi prestige shows like Altered Carbon and thrillers like Counterpart and The Night Of. But one of his most unique challenges of late has been crafting the musical voice for CBS All Access's revitalized vision for the Star Trek franchise, with two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery and now Star Trek: Picard under his belt. While there are moments of bombast and melodicism to be found in the music of both shows (akin to the series' tradition from composers like Jerry Goldsmith and Michael Giacchino), Russo's approach for both series is often moodier, more contemplative. Just one listen to Picard's opening theme gives you an idea of how much more gentle and intimate his sound can be. In the wake of Picard's first season finale, The Spool sat down for a podcast interview with Russo to discuss his approach to scoring Trek's new series, juggling so many projects at once, and the responsibilities that come from being a part of a decades-long musical legacy. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
When Emily Ting was in her twenties, she returned to her father's toy factory in China to help out with the family business. Not only was it a formative experience for Ting herself, it formed the basis for her second narrative feature, Go Back to China, which is currently playing in limited release (and, if you're in Chicago, is playing at Facets Cinematheque this weekend). The tale of a spoiled fashion school graduate (YouTuber Anna Akana) forced to return home to work at her father's (Richard Ng) toy company, Go Back to China is a slight, but extremely warm-hearted and incisive look at the cultural rifts between Chinese and American culture, and of the conflicting bonds of family and responsibility. Fitting with her personal connection to the material, Ting's approach is intimate and approachable, never veering outside the confines of artifice. She, with the help of winning performances from Akana and Ng (as well as Lynn Chen as the family's put-upon sister), maintains a laser focus on her characters' idiosyncrasies and the bone-deep resentments that they have to reconcile. Leading up to the film's wider release, I sat down with Ting to talk about the ways Go Back to China dovetails with her personal life, the challenges that come with directing a second feature, and the strides Asian-American cinema has been making in the past few years. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
This Valentine's Day, it's important to remember that love can take many forms -- romantic, platonic, sexual, familial. The best love stories are tales of struggle, of people fighting for (and, in the non-sad ones) earning their partner's affection, regardless of the social and cultural barriers placed before them. It's been gratifying to see Céline Sciamma's exquisite lesbian romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire bandied about as the ultimate date movie for this romantic weekend; more people, in my humble opinion, should watch good movies, and Portrait is certainly one of those. But Portrait star Noémie Merlant has another unconventional love story to show us, as festivalgoers discovered at this year's Sundance Film Festival: Zoé Wittock's droll, darkly comic romance Jumbo. Here, Merlant plays Jeanne, an emotionally-stunted adult woman living a life of isolation and loneliness with her outgoing, divorced mother (Emmanuelle Bercot). She's withdrawn, strange, and finds little kinship with others. But love strikes her in the most unconventional ways (as it is often wont to do): in the form of the latest attraction at the amusement park where she works, an enormous tilt-a-whirl called "Move it!", which she affectionately calls Jumbo. Crafting a romance between a woman and an amusement park ride is no small feat, especially within the auspices of an otherwise genre-typical European dark comedy. But one of Jumbo's joys is watching the way Wittock and cinematographer Thomas Buelens bring the titular attraction to life -- a staggering combination of dynamic, programmable lighting in conjunction with sound design and Merlant's performance. Not only that, the divide between the straightforward confines of Jeanne's everyday world and the bold, presentational surrealism of her erotic fantasies with Jumbo was a bold stylistic and logistical feat, evoking the strangeness of Under the Skin as imposed onto a Quentin Dupieux-esque anti-comedy. Shortly after Sundance, I got the chance to sit down with Buelens to talk about the process behind crafting Jumbo's gargantuan love interest, his perspective behind the camera, and threading the needle between domestic comedy and full-on mechanical sex dreams. Take a listen! (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Snake People for sponsoring this episode!)
There's something primal and primordial about the physical activity of dance and its ability to express passions and emotions words can't properly encapsulate; as Leonard Cohen once sang, "dance me to the end of love." In Levan Akin's stunning And Then We Danced, dance becomes the conduit for a forbidden love between a young dancer named Merab (a rousing, expressive breakout from Levan Gelbakhiani) and his mysterious, rebellious rival Irakli (Bachi Vilishvili). A touching, layered tale of queer love amidst the restrictive traditions of Georgian culture, it's one of the best films of last year, chiefly due to Akin's deft directorial hand and the loose, cinema verite approach to capturing the little details of Merab's world of dance. After spending more than a year spinning around the festival circuit -- it premiered to a rousing response at Cannes, and has made its way through OUTshine, Chicago International Film Fest and even this year's Sundance -- And Then We Danced is finally coming to wider release. It premiered last weekend in NY and LA, and is hitting Chicago's Music Box Theatre on Valentine's Day (Music Box Films has picked up the film for distribution). The Spool sat down for a lovely chat with writer/director Levan Akin about the film's origins, Akin's desire to open up the world (and Georgian culture in particular) to a greater tolerance of LGBTQ+ people, and the protests and secrecy that have hounded this film in its home country around its release. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
Child stars can often have a rough road in their early roles, especially if they're 'the kid' of the film, surrounded by adults and thrown into the daunting challenges of a film set. For Milan Ray, co-star of the Amazon Original Movie Troop Zero, having a group of other kids on set helped. As Hell-No Price, the headstrong bully-turned-best-friend of McKenna Grace's dreamer Christmas in Bert & Bertie's quirky kid dramedy, Ray has the unenviable task of putting forth a strong, boisterous personality while also allowing for key moments of vulnerability. Drenched in the sun-soaked affectations of 1970s Georgia (period outfits and Southern vernacular and all), Troop Zero gives its young stars plenty of whimsy to work from, and Ray is a particular highlight. Prior to this year's Sundance Film Festival, I caught up with Milan while she was in Chicago attending a screening of Troop Zero to talk about her life at the beginning of your career, her then-upcoming Sundance premiere of Charm City Kings, and what it'd be like if she got to fulfill Hell-No's goal of recording a message to send into the cosmos. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
M. Night Shyamalan is a master of the unsettling -- from The Sixth Sense to Signs and beyond, one of Night's major signposts is a heaping helping of discordant atmosphere and the fragile lines between illusion and reality. His new series for Apple TV+, Servant, dabbles in those aesthetics to devilish delight. The tale of an affluent Philly couple, Sean (Toby Kebbell) and Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) who take in a mysterious nanny named Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) to care for their son, Jericho -- himself a therapeutic doll meant to help Dorothy through the grief of losing the real Jericho six months prior -- Servant has all the signposts of an M. Night joint, from the deliberately stylized acting choices to the meticulous distance of its presentation. One of the key players of Servant's haunting feel is composer Trevor Gureckis (The Goldfinch, Bloodline), who glazes every narrative surface of the show with unconventional, spine-chilling soundscapes. For the week of the show's season finale, The Spool sat down with Gureckis to discuss working with Night, the unique process of writing music for television, and playing with the fuzzy nature of the show's reality. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
It's impossible to overstate the impact of the Apollo 11 mission on the collective cultural and scientific consciousness: for many, Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin's 1969 moonwalk could be considered mankind's greatest achievement to date. For the fiftieth anniversary, editor/filmmaker Todd Douglas Miller painstakingly recreated the ins and outs of the mission, from takeoff to the crew's safe return, in the gripping CNN doc Apollo 11. Central to the doc's appeal, alongside its exclusive use of gorgeous archival footage (including previously unseen 70mm footage), is its pulse-pounding score courtesy of Miller's longtime collaborator Matt Morton. In keeping with the doc's approach of preserving the period-appropriate immediacy of its subject, Morton composed, engineered, and mixed the score for Apollo 11 with era-specific synthesizers and music equipment available at the time of the mission, including first-generation Moog synthesizers. What results is a tense, immediate work of composition that keeps you on the edge of your seat, mining incredible tension out of a historical event whose outcome we already know. We already celebrated the doc as an honorable mention for one of the best films of 2019, but January's as good a time as any to talk to Morton about the process behind scoring Apollo 11, the painstaking process behind finding the era-appropriate equipment, and scoring a documentary like a thriller. Take a listen! (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
The holidays are (at their best) a time of wholesomeness, gift-giving, and the nervous interactions between adults and children who don't normally interact. In that spirit, Netflix's release of John Mulaney's new comedy special, John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch, feels particularly well-timed. A pastiche of kid's TV variety shows from the '70s and '80s, the special sees Mulaney spearheading an army of golden-voiced tots through sketches, songs, and setpieces that touch on everything from the tentative relationship between a family and their grandmother's new boyfriend, to the anxiety of being ignored when you're trying to put on a skit for a room of uncaring adults, to the finer minutiae of New York geography and politics. As you can presume, the songs are a pretty integral part of Sack Lunch Bunch, a beautifully eclectic group of ditties co-written by songwriter Eli Bolin. Bolin previously worked with Mulaney on the Documentary Now! episode "Co-Op: Original Cast Album", itself a glorious homage to old-school New York theater. But Sack Lunch Bunch put Bolin firmly in his wheelhouse, having written songs for Sesame Street and his own kid-centric songwriting project in New York, Story Pirates. I got a chance to sit down for a phone interview with Bolin to talk about his collaboration with Mulaney and co-writer Marika Sawyer, writing songs for kids, and his greatest fears. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
In an age where film discourse gets divided between wholly original films and derivative spectacle based on existing properties, it's rare to find a big-budget spectacle that straddles that line of bombast while remaining distinctly of its own universe. Such is the case with Tom Harper's The Aeronauts, which just premiered on Amazon Prime Video. Based loosely on a real-life hot air balloon ride in the 1860s in which scientist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) took vital atmospheric data that would kickstart the science of meteorology (and also broke records for the highest any human being had been at that point), the film straddles an intriguing sense of wonder with seat-clenching thrills not unlike the survival stakes of Gravity. Not only that, Redmayne's co-star female aeronaut Amelia Rennes (Felicity Jones), a fictionalized replacement for Glaisher's real-life copilot, provides welcome chemistry and plays host to some of the more physically death-defying elements of the film. The day after it screened at the Chicago International Film Festival, The Spool got a chance to sit down with Harper (who also directed this year's Wild Rose) to talk about the origins of the project, balancing real-life spectacle with visual effects, and the cinematic utility of a dog in a parachute. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
Science-fiction space opera on television is experiencing a real renaissance in the last few years, and at the tip of the spear is The Expanse. It's a sprawling, richly-conceived adaptation of the James S.A. Corey novels of the same name, set in a universe where mankind has colonized the solar system, but the same problems of paranoia, war, and distrust follow us out into space. The show nearly died last year when its previous home, Syfy, abruptly canceled it in the middle of its third season, but a vigorous fan campaign (and the largesse of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos) saw the prestige space drama move to Amazon Prime Video. Now, the fourth season is out, the budget is bigger, and the crew of the Rocinante is in even more hot water than ever. Helming the ship is showrunner Naren Shankar, a decades-long veteran of science fiction television from Star Trek: The Next Generation to The Outler Limits. I was lucky enough to sit down for a podcast interview with Shankar to talk about the show's rescue from cancellation, the scope afforded them by their new administrators, and what awaits the characters (and audiences) in a surprisingly planet-bound season 4. Also, we muse on the passing of the late, great Star Trek actor René Auberjonois. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
Apple's new streaming service Apple TV+ has leveraged its brand on a slate all-original content; while the last month has seen several shows come and go, this weekend sees the release of Apple TV+'s first original movie, Hala. Written/directed by Minhal Baig, Hala is loosely derived from Baig's own experiences as a Muslim-American teenager growing up in a Pakistani-American household in Chicago. Torn between the conservative religiousness of her parents, and the temptations of freedom that come from the outside world, Hala (Blockers' Geraldine Viswanathan) goes through an earnest, painful journey of self-discovery, finding new angles to the coming-of-age story. Hala was set and filmed in Chicago, and back in October Baig got the chance to show the film at this year's Chicago International Film Festival, bringing her story back to the city where it's set. While she was here, I got the opportunity to sit down with her to discuss the lines between Hala's life and her own, what it's like coming back to Chicago, and getting the writing bug from slam poetry and anime fanfiction. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Backblaze for sponsoring this episode!)
This Veteran's Day sees the release of Midway, Roland Emmerich's action-packed recounting of the Pacific front in WWII, starting from the attack on Pearl Harbor and building to the titular offensive that turned the tide in America's favor. We're not short of films depicting the Greatest Generation, but Midway does its level best to offer up a snapshot of the many figures involved in one of WWII's most pivotal battles. Central to the ensemble are Navy pilots and Pacific War heroes Richard "Dick" Best (Ed Skrein, Alita: Battle Angel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) and his best friend Clarence Earle Dickinson (Luke Kleintank, The Man in the High Castle, The Goldfinch), who evince the high-flying derring-do of Emmerich's battle-hardened cast. I sat down with Skrein and Kleintank to discuss the responsibility that comes with honoring the sacrifices of America's Greatest Generation, the intense research that goes into playing such mythic real-life figures, and how much gum Skrein had to chew on set as his hotshot pilot. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Backblaze for sponsoring this episode!)
Few young stars have had as strong a breakout debut as Thomasin McKenzie. A relatively unknown New Zealand actress a couple of years ago, she captured the attention of critics and audiences alike with her startling, haunting role in 2018's Leave No Trace, as a young girl hiding in the woods with her survivalist father. Her latest film sees her on the run from the government in a much different, more irreverent way: as Elsa, the rebellious Jewish girl who causes no amount of trouble for the title character of Taika Waititi's Nazi satire Jojo Rabbit, McKenzie has to put on a lot of different hats -- survivor, terrified teenager, assertive antagonist to a young Nazi boy (Roman Griffin Davis) lost to Nazi rhetoric. The results are decidedly cheeky (the movie could best be described as Moon-reich Kingdom), but McKenzie serves a vital role in grounding the Nazi goofs in a harrowing sense of immediacy. Her Elsa is scared, but resolute, someone haunted by the loss of the childhood she should be living; and yet, through Jojo and the labyrinthine games they play together, gets to enjoy a glimmer of wonder in the darkest time in human history. What struck me as I spoke with Thomasin during the Chicago International Film Festival is her imagination, her quiet thoughtfulness; she takes her time, offers long, contemplative pauses as she gathers her thoughts. There's something ethereal about her sense of wonder and imagination, someone with consideration beyond her years but who maintains the curiosity of childhood. Together, we spoke about coming into the process of the film, the cultural moment Jojo Rabbit arrives in, and how she might like to play an alien one day. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
Navigating the muddy waters of teenage emotions and sexuality is hard enough: your body is growing and doing weird stuff, you can't figure out what you're turning into and forgetting who you were, and you're just so horny all the time. But what if the awkwardness of teen sexuality was codified and bureaucratized, and what if that was just the start of your emotional problems?
That's the essential gist of Wyrm, Christopher Winterbauer's retrofuturistic dramedy that posits a school policy called "No Child Left Alone" in which kids are fitted with a signal collar that only unlocks after you have your first kiss. For Wyrm (Theo Taplitz), the last kid in his class to still have his collar, his journey to "pop his collar" turns out to be way more complicated than expected.
Doused in the bright, garish aesthetics of the late '80s and early '90s (imagine Lisa Frank meets 1984), Wyrm is a dry, droll coming-of-age comedy that hearkens back to the deadpan quirkiness of Napoleon Dynamite and Rushmore. Adapted from Winterbauer's short film of the same name, Wyrm expands its characters' story from an isolated tale of arrested sexual development to a dysfunctional family tale about a clan processing the loss of one of their own in their own entertainingly distinct ways. During its run at Fantastic Fest a couple of weeks back, I got the chance to talk to Christopher Winterbauer over the phone about his adoration for the analog aesthetics of '80s and '90s ephemera, the complex emotions of grief, and the long, winding road he took to transform Wyrm from underdog short film to fully formed feature. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
In an era when horror and '80s nostalgia are having an incredible renaissance (hello, Stranger Things!), In Search of Darkness comes along at pretty much the perfect time. A sprawling, comprehensive four-hour documentary chronicling the bloody, gore-filled history of '80s horror, Darkness structures itself year by year, subject by subject, interviewing horror filmmakers, actors, and aficionados to revisit horror movies big and small from the spookiest decade for cinema on record. For a series of talking-head interviews, it's remarkably insightful, working best as a refresher course to all the movies '80s kids rented at the hidden aisles of Blockbuster, or saw at midnight screenings at their local rep theater. Entertainment journalist-turned-David Weiner takes a breezy, accessible approach to such a robust subject, drawing on his own clear affection for the genre and ease as an interviewer to draw out fun tidbits from the likes of Keith David, Tom Atkins, and Joe Bob Briggs. For this week's podcast, I sat down to talk with Weiner about his love for '80s horror, finding the grace notes in his interview subjects, and what lessons we still have to learn from that blessed decade in spooky cinema. Take a listen! (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Backblaze for sponsoring this episode!)
Even in an age where trans visibility is higher than ever before, it's doubly important that authentic trans stories are told with sensitivity and care. To that end, stories like Flavio Alves' The Garden Left Behind, about a trans Latinx woman (played with admirable confidence by young unknown Carlie Guevara) trying to make her way through her transition and life as an undocumented immigrant in New York City, feel especially important.
While it screened at Reeling Film Fest in Chicago, I had the chance to sit down with Flavio to talk about a number of things surrounding The Garden Left Behind's production and politics - its unusual road to crowdfunding, the importance of casting trans and Latinx people in authentic roles, and charting the cycles of violence that tragically befall trans people of color at a disproportionate rate.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
It's festival season, folks, which means that The Spool is going to be knee-deep in film fests around the country! This weekend sees the beginning of Fantastic Fest in Austin, the beloved genre/horror fest brought to you by the fine folks at Alamo Drafthouse. Of all the under-the-radar spookfests Fantastic has in store, few are as deeply strange as Johannes Nyholm's nightmarish Koko-Di Koko-Da, a harrowing tale of grief and loss that profiles a grieving, contentious couple (Leif Edlund and Ylva Gallon) who are beset by terrors during a camping weekend they hope will bring them back together and help them move on from the sudden death of their daughter three years ago. However, trouble comes in the form of a bizarre trio of miscreants, including a charismatic Dutchman (Peter Belli) in a straw hat, a woman in pigtails (Brandy Litmanen) and a giant (Morad Baloo Khatchadorian) carrying a dead dog. Over and over, the couple are tortured and killed, then time conspires to thrust them back into the same situation with no hope of escape. It's disturbing, to be sure, but Nyholm's pitch-black sense of dark slapstick humor and narrative flights of fancy (including more than one shadow puppetry sequence) elevate this from your typical oddball Scandinavian horror into something more poetic and mournful. For the podcast, I sat down with Nyholm to talk about the origins of the project (and the title), the curious psychology of grief, and the time he took Koko-Di Koko-Da on a screening tour of Sweden on his own converted theater bus. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
In an age where most genre films and shows are remakes, sequels or reboots of existing properties, it's a rare treat when we get to sample a series that, for all its flaws, dares to just be influenced by things rather than directly derived. Such is the case for Amazon's new steampunk-fantasy series Carnival Row, an archly fantastical tale of a world occupied by humans and magical creatures, with hauntingly familiar racial and class conflicts dressed up with Victorian jackets and cobblestone streets. At the center of this Dickensian fantasia lie two star-crossed lovers - the (seemingly) human detective Rycroft Philostrate (Orlando Bloom) and the faerie smuggler Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delevingne), who find themselves reunited in the Casablanca-esque border town of the Burgue after a wartime romance. Their reunion gets complicated, however, as a string of mysterious, gory murders haunts the Burgue and threatens what fragile peace there is between human and fae once again. Screenwriter Travis Beacham (the Clash of the Titans remake, Pacific Rim) is no stranger to crafting intricate science fiction and fantasy worlds, and Carnival Row is the culmination of a nearly twenty-year journey to the screen (it was originally a feature script that languished for more than a decade on the Hollywood Blacklist). Now, as a big-budget Amazon series with a second season on the way, Carnival Row looks firmly positioned to fill the "lurid, fantastic prestige drama" gap left by the late Game of Thrones. For this week's podcast, I sat down with Beacham to talk about that long, winding road to getting Carnival Row made, its complex transition from feature script to streaming series, and from where he pulls such delightfully fantastical character names (Imogen Spurnrose, Absalom Breakspear, the list goes on). Take a listen! (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
CW: discussion of sexual assault and violence The Nightingale, Jennifer Kent's follow-up to her 2014 cult horror hit The Babadook, is a rough watch -- an intense, harrowing tale of revenge and resilience that stirs up blood and conversation in equal measure. The story of Claire (Aisling Franciosi), an Irish convict in colonial-era Tasmania whose husband and baby are murdered in a brutal rape and assault by uncaring British soldiers, The Nightingale captures her efforts to catch up to the traveling murderers with the help of a similarly-spurned aborigine named Billy (Baykali Ganambarr, in his first film role). Filmed in the stark greys and browns of the Tasmanian woods, their plight confined to a terrifyingly boxed-in aspect ratio, Kent's feature is as gorgeously grim as it is controversial in its content. Unlike The Babadook, it's a horror film of a different kind, one centered on man's inhumanity to man and the cyclical nature of vengeance. And of course, it's anchored by two arresting performances, from Francoisi's dynamic ferocity to Ganambarr's dangerous mix of acerbic wit and ancestral trauma. It also might be one of the best films of the year (read our review by Gena Radcliffe to see why). As The Nightingale moves from the festival circuit to wider release, I sat down for separate chats with Aisling Franciosi and Baykali Ganambarr about the film -- coming to their respective roles, their characters' relationship with male violence and British colonialism, and the challenging conversations this film brings out in people. Take a listen! (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
Meek Mill, born Robert Rihmeek Williams, is one of Philadelphia's most favored sons, and one of rap's most exciting new voices. Unfortunately, he's also been the subject of an ongoing relationship with the American criminal justice system, one historically and pathologically committed to punishing young black men at a disproportionate rate. After one fateful night in 2008, where he was convicted of drug dealing, gun possession and a host of other offenses (the details of which are still in debate), Meek has spent the last eleven years vacillating between parole and brief stints in prison. Today sees the release of Free Meek, Amazon's new docuseries, executive produced by Jay-Z, which seeks to tie Meek's story to the broader story of the inequities of the criminal justice system. Throughout its five episodes, the show weaves through Meek's own life and career, as well as the contentious relationship black people (especially those in low-income neighborhoods) often have with police and judges. It's vibrant, affecting stuff, eye-opening (though certainly not impartial) in its assessment of Meek's treatment as indicative of the challenges faced by young black men trapped in the system. To score Free Meek, long-time collaborators Jacob Yoffee and Roahn Hylton worked hard to meld Meek's hip-hop background with more traditional documentary scoring. On this week's podcast, I sat down to talk with them about blending their unique styles (Yoffee comes from a classical/jazz background, Hylton pop and hip-hop), the on-the-fly nature of scoring a docuseries as it's being made, and how Meek's story has become a rallying cry to change policing practices in this country. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
In an age where superhero movies are a dime a dozen, hundred-million-dollar tentpoles with strict formulas and crowd-pleasing spectacles, it's refreshing to see something like Freaks come across our radar. Zach Stein and Adam Lipovsky, directors of shorts and visual effects gurus in their own right, raised the funds for this sleepy sci-fi thriller about Chloe, a little girl (a raw, instinctual Lexy Kolker) hidden away in a decrepit neighborhood house with her overbearing, paranoid father (Emile Hirsch), instructed to never go outside. The world has fallen into disarray at the presence of 'freaks,' people with superhuman abilities who've proved so dangerous that the government has taken to hunting them down. It's implied that Chloe may possess some of these abilities, with her father taking great steps to keep her isolated from a world that hates and fears her. But as her powers start to grow in strength (along with her curiosity about the world outside her door), she begins to learn about herself, what she's capable of, and where she might find her long-lost mother (Amanda Crew). Alongside the criminally-underseen Fast Color, Freaks trafficks in smart, lo-fi superhero commentary under the lens of generational family dynamics; while its concerns aren't quite as heady as Julia Hart's fantastic film, Freaks still manages to entertain and provoke in fascinating ways, mostly through its performances by Kolker, Hirsch and veteran actor Bruce Dern as a mysterious ice-cream man with a deeper connection to the family than it first appears. For the pod, I sat down with Lipovsky and Stein for a remote interview during their run at Fantasia Fest 2019 to talk about the DIY origins of Freaks, handling new and old actors alike, and the timely political undertones of a film about grouping people as 'illegal.' We also discuss the perils and joys of independent filmmaking, of working with what you have, and turning Bruce Dern around on the science fiction genre for the first time since Silent Running. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
CW: contains discussions of sexual assault It's difficult, if not impossible, to truly capture the complexities of life after sexual assault, especially in an age where social media can relitigate the event and retraumatize victims in untold ways. The genius of Pippa Bianco's feature debut Share (premiering on HBO tonight) is that it doesn't shy away from its victim: Mandy (Rhianne Barreto), a high school student drunkenly taken advantage of at a house party one night. She remembers nothing of what happened, and her only clue is a blurry cell phone video from one of the perpetrators that got shared to everyone around school. Rather than fall into histrionics, or immediately demand justice, Mandy withdraws, doing everything she can to ignore it and move on. It's a challenging role to play, and Barreto accomplishes that sense of dissociation with incredible aplomb. Bianco's film focuses firmly on Mandy's experience, and the young actor manages to convey volumes of emotion in every one of Bianco's dreamlike closeups and staggered naturalistic conversations. Her relationship with her parents -- especially her father, played with a relatable dumbfoundedness by J.C. Mackenzie -- smartly highlights the disconnect between how adults feel she should react and how she actually does. Luckily, I got the chance to sit down with Rhianne and J.C. over a conference call to discuss how they were approached for the film, their characters' differing reactions to the film's events, and the need to have open, frank discussions about the impact of sexual assault in a post-#MeToo world. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
It's Fantasia season over at The Spool, as the Montreal-based genre film festival gives us access to all kinds of spooky new treats from independent filmmakers and foreign outlets alike. One of the most exciting films to come out of the fest is Vivarium, a haunting high-concept headscratcher from Lorcan Finnegan (Without Name) about a young couple (Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots) lured to a mysterious new housing development called Yonder, only for them to get lost within its confines. Minimalist science-fiction hellscapes are a particular passion of mine, and Vivarium looks to carry all the appropriate Twilight Zone/Black Mirror vibes to explore the homogeneity of suburbia, not to mention the anxieties of taking such a big leap in a budding relationship, all through a starkly horrific lens. The production design is stippled with endless rows of eerily identical McMansions, lit with foggy dread by Finnegan's DP MacGregor, a haunting stage for the drama on display. I got to speak to Finnegan about all these concerns - how Vivarium got started, working with A-listers like Eisenberg and Poots, and just what scares him so much about suburbs. Take a listen! (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
The cliche of the middle-aged dad with a secret second family is a well-worn one, but one that the indie comedy Being Frank attempts to complicate in some fascinating ways. When Phillip (Logan Miller) discovers that his dad Frank (Jim Gaffigan) has a whole other family across the country - one he seems to get along with better than his own - it sets in motion a series of farcical scenarios that require the two to keep Frank's secrets alive. While it falls into a lot of the goofy indie-movie trappings that plague this particular genre, Gaffigan's unexpectedly vulnerable performance and the taut direction of documentarian Miranda Bailey (making her narrative feature debut) help elevate Being Frank beyond its auspices. In this episode, I spoke with Gaffigan and Bailey (respectively) about Being Frank's unique challenges and myriad tones, as part of a roundtable interview with HollywoodChicago.com's Pat McDonald and Kicking the Seat's Ian Simmons. Together, we discuss Gaffigan's role choices, Bailey's transition from documentaries to scripted film, and the rocky road to getting Being Frank on the big screen. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
It's Pride Month, which means wading through the bevy of corporatized rainbow-flag merchandise to find a sense of solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, whether you're a member or just an ally. As far as we've come, though, it's important to remember the dark days of the past, and the activism that it's taken to reach what tentative progress the queer community has accomplished in the past few decades. It's fitting then, that June also sees the release of 5B, a harrowing, insightful documentary about the early days of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and the medical community's first fleeting steps toward not only solving the problem but treating it with dignity.
Co-directed by Paul Haggis and Dan Krauss, 5B tells the story of San Francisco General Hospital's Ward 5B, a section of the hospital dedicated exclusively by AIDS patients and spearheaded by a cadre of brave nurses and medical practitioners, many of whom were gay themselves. At a time when HIV/AIDS patients were stigmatized and fears of infection led many nurses to avoid touching them, the residents of Ward 5B worked without protective gear, careful to honor their dying patients' dignity. Amidst tremendous media scrutiny and claims of recklessness, Ward 5B served as a haven for celebrating AIDS patients' validity and humanity, providing vital care for the gay community during some of its darkest years.
For the film's release, I was honored to get the chance to talk to two of the documentary's subjects: Guy Vandenberg, who worked as an inpatient nurse in Ward 5B during the plague years, and husband, AIDS survivor and activist Steve Williams, whose own harrowing experience with the virus is framed in intriguing ways throughout the documentary. Together, they spoke to me about the atmosphere of the plague years, how the doc elucidates their story and the importance of activism in political environments (like this one) that seek to erase and invalidate the queer community.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
In an age where most major films are spoiled months before they come out, and even trailers have their own trailers, it's refreshing to get the occasional reminder that films can still surprise you. That's certainly the case with 1989's Miracle Mile, which turned 30 this month. The brainchild of filmmaker Steve De Jarnatt (Cherry 2000), Miracle Mile took nearly a decade to come to the screen, surviving years of studio notes and casting calls and rejected pleas for De Jarnatt to direct his own script. Eventually, he got it made and released in '89, and Miracle Mile is all the better for it - a twisty genre blend of romantic comedy, Cold War paranoia and apocalyptic chaos starring Anthony Edwards as a hapless trombone player who picks the wrong day to find the love of his life (a charming Mare Winningham) in the Los Angeles of the '80s. To say more would be to spoil the mid-film twist that turns Miracle Mile from a dreamlike tale of budding infatuation to a treatise on man's insignificance in the lifespan of the universe, but suffice to say it's well worth the ride - especially when you know as little as possible going in. That said, if you've already seen Miracle Mile, or you want to learn a bit more about it going in, De Jarnatt was generous enough to sit down with me to talk about the long road to the film's creation, the casting of Edwards and the creation of his iconic outfit, and how it holds up in an era of resurgent nuclear fears. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Lagunitas for sponsoring this episode!)
Throw a stone at the last thirty years of television, and chances are you'll hit a show Kurt Farquhar has written music for. One of the most prominent (and prolific) African-American TV composers of the last three decades, Farquhar's hand has touched everything from The King of Queens to Soul Food, Moesha to Sister, Sister, and more. The seven-time BMI winner has been dubbed "the musical voice of BET," but he's scored dozens of other shows for networks like NBC and CBS.
Right now, for instance, he's pulling triple duty on three shows that couldn't be more dissimilar - CBS's sitcom The Neighborhood, American Soul (BET's groovy '70s drama about the origins of Soul Train), and CW's street-level superhero series Black Lightning. Despite that heavy workload, Farquhar's sound - borne of an early music education at the National Conservatory of Music and studying under percussionist Johnny Lane - remains incredibly dynamic and diverse, from the R&B reminiscences of American Soul to the hip-hop-laced superhero spectacle of Black Lightning.
Farquhar was kind enough to sit down and talk with me about his history with music, his roots in Chicago, working on the films of acclaimed character actor and director Bill Duke, and putting in thirty years' worth of television composition with no signs of slowing down.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
The 7th Annual Chicago Critics Film Festival opens today, a rousing week of festival darlings courtesy from the fine folks of the Chicago Film Critics Association. From May 17-23rd at the Music Box Theatre, the CCFF will showcase some of the hottest films coming out of Sundance, SXSW, and others, as well as some film classics and shorts. This is a Chicago festival first and foremost, so it's great that the fest's opening night film is Saint Frances, a small but mighty indie drama made in Chicago by Chicagoans. In the light of horrifying current events, it's also disappointingly timely. Charting a few weeks in the life of 34-year-old waitress Bridget (screenwriter Kelly O'Sullivan, pulling in a magnificent, layered performance), Saint Frances follows her as she reflects on the increasing feeling that life has passed her by while she reckons with an unwanted pregnancy that results in an abortion, and all the complicated feelings that surrounds that. Meanwhile, she takes a job nannying for a suburban couple and caring for their exuberant, unpredictable six-year-old daughter Frances (Ramona Edith-Williams, preternaturally honest and cute as a button), these circumstances coalescing in unexpected ways. To ring in the festival, I had O'Sullivan and her partner/director Alex Thompson over to The Spool Studios to talk about the warm psychological nuances of Saint Frances, working together as creative partners in addition to being a couple, and the surprising urgency the film's frankness about abortion takes on following the worrying passage of recent anti-abortion bills in numerous states across the country. We also talk about the festival itself and the other film's we're all looking forward to seeing. Take a listen! (Saint Frances opens the Chicago Critics Film Festival tonight at 7 pm, followed by a Q&A with Thompson and O'Sullivan. Get tickets at the Music Box website.) (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
In this age of huge, million-dollar tentpoles and audience-pleasing spectacle, it's important to remember how we got here in the first place -- two little films called Jaws and Star Wars. Coming off the later years of New Hollywood, where auteurs handled studio money for increasingly sophisticated, niche projects, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg ushered in a new era of populist entertainment that would change the film industry forever. But how did they get there? How did two enthusiastic kids from USC Film School with a huge love for B-movies and science fiction serials become the godparents of popular culture? That's the subject of Blockbuster, a six-episode audio drama podcast courtesy of Epicleff Media (the minds behind Score: The Podcast) -- which dramatizes Lucas and Spielberg's early friendship, their struggles for success, and the rivalry that came with it. Drawing from extensive research and hundreds of hours of archival material, Blockbuster crafts an intimate portrait of the two iconic filmmakers' rocky road to cultural immortality -- an outcome they couldn't have possibly anticipated. For this week's podcast, I sat down with series creator Matt Schrader (who also directed the excellent doc Score: A Film Music Documentary) to talk about Blockbuster, Score (in both podcast and doc form), and the struggles of adapting such an intriguing Hollywood story to the narrative podcast medium. Along the way, we discuss John Williams, what composers are on our respective bucket lists and the American landscape that helped make something like Star Wars possible. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Lagunitas for sponsoring this episode!)
Penny Lane loves to make films to test her audiences' empathy for controversial outsiders: Nuts!' goat-gland huckster John Romulus Brinkley, the Morgellons-afflicted women of The Pain of Others, and so on. Her latest, Hail Satan?, takes a deep, witty look at another group of rebels: The Satanic Temple, a religious order-cum-anarchic political movement that views Satan as the ultimate agent provocateur. Their biggest concern? Pointing out the hypocrisy of the way America practices the separation of church and state, which all too often favors Christian fundamentalism. For every statue of the Ten Commandments put up outside a state courthouse, they petition to put up a statue of the dark demon Baphomet; they fight for the right to offer up Satanic prayer in schools right next to Christian prayer. The Temple is at once a deeply satirical group poking at the evils of fundamentalist Christianity and a religion who values the conception of Satan as someone rebelling against restrictive orthodoxies. Lane's approach to telling their story is rich, funny, and deeply engaging; supplementing the strictly archival-footage-based collage style she typically employs, Lane interviews figures from all sides of the Temple's surprisingly splintered factions to get a more intimate, contemporary picture of the temple. It's one of the best docs of the year, but that's typical for a year that features a Penny Lane film. This week on the pod, Lane (our first returning guest!) steps into The Spool Studios to talk about Hail Satan?, the challenges of shaking up her normal style, and why the film's title ends in a question mark. (This interview was recorded in mid-April during the Doc10 Film Festival in Chicago, Illinois; Hail Satan? is currently playing in select theaters, including the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. Get tickets here.) (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)
Houston-born filmmaker Patrick Wang has taken a decidedly unconventional road to his current career - an economist turned playwright turned filmmaker, Wang crafts (and self-distributes) works that are ambitious in scope, yet intimate in impact. His latest project is A Bread Factory, a two-part film series following a small arts community in upstate New York threatened by everything from bourgeois corporate-funded art to the invasion of deeply strange tourists with their own alien styles of communication. Wang's approach in both Bread Factorys hearkens back to everything from the loose, conversational ensembles of Robert Altman to the smooth casualness of John Cassavetes, punctuated with a surprisingly theatrical edge reminiscent of Ozu and New Taiwan Cinema. The residents of the town (and, occasionally, its invaders) are lovingly rendered with a vibrant, endearing cast including Tyne Daly, James Marsters, and the late, great Brian Murray, among other faces more unknown but no less gripping. Both films function perfectly well on their own, affecting two decidedly different tones - Part 1 more of a semi-realistic ensemble dramedy, Part 2 making room for greater musicality - but in concert they're a beautiful treatise on the transformative virtues of art, and the value of community that shares those joys together. This week, Wang braved the Chicago chill to stop by The Spool Studios for a fun, insightful chat about A Bread Factory Parts 1 & 2, discussing everything from Euripides to his affection for the two-shot, and the strange mixture of idealism and panic that happens in real, small arts communities. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to The House Theater of Chicago for sponsoring this episode; their latest show, Pinocchio: A Tall Tale About Telling the Truth, runs till May 19th.)
Last week, we at The Spool covered Chicago's small-but-mighty documentary film festival Doc10, a weekend-long paean to the joys of independent documentary filmmaking at the Davis Theater in my neighborhood of Lincoln Square. (Check out our other coverage - including dispatches on nearly every film that played at the fest - here.) Two of the documentaries showing at the fest - immigration doc The Infiltrators and AOC-led political profile Knock Down the House - come courtesy of Wavelength Productions, an independent outfit just a few years old focused on telling "great f*king stories." During the festival, Wavelength president/executive producer Jenifer Westphal and producer Joe Plummer stopped by the studio to talk about their precipitous rise with last year's doc darling Won't You Be My Neighbor?, the docs playing at the fest, and what they look for in a 'great fking story.' (Stay tuned after the outro for an outtake from the interview, including a special appearance from The Spool's most valuable - and furry - staff member, Bobbie.) (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Cards Against Humanity for sponsoring this episode!)
A.T. White's feature film debut Starfish is a curious, indescribable animal - an intriguing, inscrutable mix of alien invasion thrillers, ennui-soaked indie movies about beautiful sad people listening to beautiful sad songs, and Charlie Kaufman-esque breakdowns of the cinematic medium itself.
The story of a young woman (Virginia Gardner) returning to her small town to mourn the death of her close childhood friend (voiced by Christina Masterson amid a series of mixtapes), only to find herself as the last line of defense against an army of interdimensional creatures, Starfish puts on a lot of hats, its juggling of tones and genres part of its curious appeal. It's everything from 10 Cloverfield Lane to Silent Hill to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, wrapped up in an intriguingly experimental (and frequently gorgeous) package. (You can read Gena Radcliffe's review of the film for The Spool here.)
To talk about this incredibly difficult-to-describe film, I sat down in-studio with White during his visit to Chicago (it premiered at Facets Cinematheque two weeks ago) to discuss the origins of the project, the ever-changing shapes it took in post-production, and the late friend for whom he made the film in the first place.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Cards Against Humanity for sponsoring this episode!)
The Western has long been a male-dominated genre - when you think of the Old West, it conjures up images of brave cowboys, expansive mountain ranges, and mighty horses. But what of the women left behind on the outskirts of the frontier? What forces might they face - whether through the everyday isolation and oppression of gender roles and the dangers of the plains, or more supernatural forces the men are helpless to stop (or even see)?
Emma Tammi's feature debut The Wind explores these questions with the same kind of impressionistic arthouse flair that's become the fodder for the kind of mislabeled "arthouse horror" we've seen lately, from The Witch to Hereditary. This slow-simmering tale of a rancher's wife (Caitlin Gerard) beset by supernatural forces amidst the arrival of a strange couple to the area (Julia Goldani Telles and Dylan McTee) and the perpetual absence of her husband (Ashley Zukerman). Told in a non-linear fashion, The Wind is a slow burn of a Western horror tale, leaning hard on terrifyingly evocative images and a strong lead performance from Gerard.
This week on the pod, I spoke with Tammi about the origins of the project, the importance of telling women's stories in such a male-dominated genre, and the struggles of manifesting a creature that personifies so many of the anxieties women felt (and still feel) in the stifling dynamics of a patriarchal society.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Cards Against Humanity for sponsoring this episode!)
This week, we're doing something a little bit different - we're diving into the wide world of the written word, thanks to my recent trip to this year's Chicago Comics & Entertainment Expo! In addition to our other coverage, I was given the splendid opportunity to speak to Hugo-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal, author of the Lady Astronaut novels (the second of which, The Calculating Stars, was just nominated for a Hugo). The tale of an alternate history in which an asteroid hits the Eastern Seaboard and women have taken charge of the space program, the Lady Astronaut series is a refreshingly feminist take on the space race of the 1960s.
In addition to her work as an acclaimed science-fiction author, Kowal has spent decades as a professional audiobook narrator and puppeteer, putting the latter skills to use on the cult puppet show LazyTown. I met up with Kowal at C2E2 to have a brief but insightful chat about her books, the importance of addressing the erasure of women's contributions to the space program, and her experiences on LazyTown. Take a listen!
(You can find Mary Robinette's official website here, as well as her Patreon here. Buy The Fated Sky and The Calculating Stars here.)
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Lagunitas for sponsoring this episode!)
It can be easy to write off the hard work that goes into crafting well-made animated shows and multi-camera sitcoms; the former are decried as kid's stuff, and the latter are largely overshadowed by their acclaimed single-camera counterparts.
But in the case of Disney Channel's Star vs. the Forces of Evil, now entering its fourth and final season, and Michael Schur's new NBC sitcom Abby's (which just premiered this week), both feel like examples of their subgenre's unexpected growth. Star carries a similar energy to Steven Universe, with its cast of increasingly complex characters, serialized storylines, and catchy songs featuring talent like Nick Lachey and Patrick Stump. Abby's, meanwhile, offers a novel twist by filming its live audience outdoors, and serves as a strong vehicle for its capable cast, especially the always-endearing Natalie Morales as the show's openly bi protagonist.
Playing a vital role in both those shows is composer Brian H. Kim, a veteran of TV and film composing (particularly for comedies like How I Met Your Mother and My Name Is Doris), who's built up a not-insignificant fanbase among Star watchers for his groovy synth incidentals and cheerily addictive earworms - all of which he details on his Tumblr. Today on the show, I sit down to talk with Kim about the impact of Star on his career, the interactions with his fans, and the exciting challenges presented by a show like Abby's.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Lagunitas for sponsoring this episode!)
Joel Potrykus' Relaxer is an odd film to pin down - it's a slacker movie, a dark millennial comedy, a gruesome work of body horror, a harrowing interpersonal sibling drama, and a million other things. But the tale of a layabout twentysomething (a haunting Joshua Burge) stuck to a grimy leather couch, resolving to not eat, drink, sleep or get up until he reaches Level 256 of Pac-Man, on the cusp of the new millennium, is uniquely gut-wrenching in surprising ways. (You can read our review of Relaxer here.)
A movie like this requires either no explanation or heaps of it, so we got Potrykus on the line to talk about the origins of the project, working with his muse Joshua Burge, the freedom (and restrictions) of filming in a single locked-down apartment, and more.
(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Cards Against Humanity for sponsoring this episode!)
Being a superhero is never easy, but it's doubly difficult when you're dead. Such is the fate of Ben Hargreeves (Justin H. Min), co-star of Netflix's quirky, dark superhero drama The Umbrella Academy, which released its first season a couple of weeks ago. (You can read Gena Radcliffe's review of the season here.) Nicknamed "The Horror," Ben, like the rest of his superpowered siblings, were snatched from immaculate birth and trained at the titular Umbrella Academy by their cold, unfeeling father figure Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) to become a team of superheroes.
However, the pressures of their powers and the emotional distance from their father led to no small number of dysfunction - including Ben's untimely (and, for the audience at least, unexplained) death by the time the series begins. But thanks to his brother (and medium) Klaus (Robert Sheehan), we get to see Min's Ben tag along with the ragtag group of misfit heroes, a warm counterpoint to Klaus' drugged-out quirks and a stark reminder of the many ways this family has let each other down.
It's a role that comes with its fair share of challenges, and Min was kind enough to sit down for a quick interview to talk about playing a dead guy who can only interact with one other person on set, the mysteries behind his character's untimely end, and what he'd like to see out of Ben if Umbrella Academy goes to a second season.
More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Lagunitas for sponsoring this episode!)
Sundance is gone, but the film festival train keeps a-rolling, with SXSW starting later this month. Continuing our unofficial series of interviews with indie film composers, I spoke to Carla Patullo, Global Music Award-winning artist and composer of the upcoming horror-comedy Porno. Directed by Keola Racela, Porno tells the tale of five teenagers who uncover a demonic sex tape in the middle of a spooky old theater, unleashing a succubus who wreaks havoc on the poor innocents. It's a droll, erotically-charged spin on an old formula, and Patullo's vocals-heavy composing style seems like a fascinating accompaniment.
Leading up to the film's premiere at SXSW on March 9th, I sat down for a quick phone interview with Patullo to talk about the origins of the project, her past life as a Stevie Nicks-inspired rock and metal artist, and the unexpected freedom of working within a tight deadline. Also, we talk a bit about the Sundance Film Music and Sound Design Lab, where she worked as a Composer Fellow and began her journey to scoring Porno.
(NOTE: The audio quality of Carla's call contains some glitches and fuzziness; we apologize for that. A full transcript, edited for clarity, can be found below.)
While the Bosnian War ended more than twenty years ago, its effects can still be felt in the poverty and trauma of its people. As the independent documentary Among Wolves illustrates, however, a glimmer of hope and recovery comes from an unexpected source - the Wolves, a biker gang made up largely of Bosnian war vets who dedicate their time to doing humanitarian work in their region of the country. Whether protecting a herd of wild horses abandoned by society, or donating blood and rewiring electrical systems for schools, the Wolves are a stark contrast to the typical image of the biker.
To talk about the quiet, observational nature of Among Wolves and the intriguing story of its inception, I sat down with director Shawn Convey for a lovely chat that covered everything from the Wolves' charismatic leader, the impact of the war on these communities, and the curious challenges of filming a documentary when you don't speak the language of your subjects. Take a listen!
(You can read my review of Among Wolves here.)
More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Safehouse Chicago for sponsoring this episode!)
With the Sundance Film Festival wrapping up, there are still more discussions to be had about the fest's most exciting entries. Alongside his regular collaborations with Richard Linklater, composer Graham Reynolds finds the time to score other intriguing indies like Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann's riveting, idiosyncratic Sister Aimee - a Dust Bowl-inflected journey extrapolating from the real-life disappearance of a traveling evangelist in the 1920s (Anna Margaret Hollyman), imagining that missing period as a vibrant road trip to the border with her lover (Michael Mosley) and a mysterious Latina guide (Andrea Suarez Paz) in tow.
Together, we talk about the origins of the project, the importance of capturing the Western feel of the film, and the challenges and delights of working with filmmakers like Buck, Schlingmann, and Linklater.
Before that, however, I was extraordinarily pleased to sit down with fellow Chicago critic, friend, and filmmaker Michael Glover Smith (Mercury in Retrograde) about his latest Chicago-set film, the comedic triptych Rendezvous in Chicago. Structured by three different couples at three different stages in their relationship - a man and woman's first conversation in a bar, a gay couple taking some simple-yet-bold next steps, and a woman kicking her deadbeat boyfriend out of their apartment - Rendezvous carries the intimacy of Rohmer alongside the sparse experimentation of Bresson, in a much lighter and more accessible package.
It's a cracking entry in the filmmaker's already strong oeuvre, and we get into some spoiler-heavy talk about the film before its Chicago premiere this weekend at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Lagunitas for sponsoring this episode!)
With the Sundance Film Festival still raging, and some of the most exciting new and independent films seeing the light of day, I got the exciting chance to talk to two composers for films premiering at the fest. First, Piers Burbrook de Vere talks about his collaboration with Abe Forsythe on the cheeky, quirky, tonally dynamic zombie comedy Little Monsters.
Then, I spoke to Roger Suen, composer for Justin Chon's lush, melancholic Koreatown drama Ms. Purple about his deeply symbiotic working relationship with Chon, the mishmash of cultural and instrumental influences that went into his eclectic musical depiction of LA's multicultural atmosphere, and the importance of Asian-American filmmakers telling Asian-American stories with authenticity and specificity.
Before all that, however, I get to share my lovely, surprisingly involved interview with screen legend Richard Dreyfuss. On the heels of his recent visit to Chicago's Tivoli Theatre for an appreciation of Jaws, Dreyfuss talks to me about everything from the importance of civics education to the unconventional path that led him to his recent reemergence from acting retirement. (We also get to wax rhapsodic about Mr. Holland's Opus, so this podcast is pretty much a wall-to-wall music appreciation hour.)
More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Safehouse Chicago for sponsoring this episode!)