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The Place Beyond The Pines
Mike Patton
Star Ryan Gosling reteams with Blue Valentine Director Derek Cianfrance in this ambitious 2012 follow-up film that details the ripple effect of fate and destiny in the family lives of two very different men, one (Gosling) a motorcycle stunt performer with a shadowy past, the other (Bradley Cooper) a rookie police officer with a promising future. Eva Mendes, Ray Liotta and Bruce Greenwood round out the all-star cast.» Read full feature
Since seguing into film scoring with 2009’s Crank: High Voltage, former Faith No More lead singer Mike Patton has quickly forged a reputation for his innovative and eclectic approach to the craft. Tackling Cianfrance’s gritty existential epic from the inside-out, Patton’s avant-gardist approach merges synthesizers, guitar and vocals in a series of unconventional arrangements designed to evoke the characters’ ever-changing mental and emotional states. As fate toys unpredictably with the course of human events, Patton toys equally unpredictably with the harmonic convergence of jazz, folk, rock, blues and classical. If the blues-affected backwater moodiness of synth and reverb guitars in “Schenectady” suggests something ominous and foreboding, it’s quickly detoured by the neo-gothic vocal arrangement of “Family Trees” and the gently jazzy romanticism of “Bromance.” Subsequent tracks further stir the unpredictability of Patton’s musically shape-shifting pot: the post-modern Gregorian chant of “Evergreen,” the cacophonous guitar-driven dissonance of “Misremembering,” the thunderous, purgatorial oppression of “Handsome Luke” – a free-flowing musical journey through a volatile, ever-changing minefield of lost hopes, forgotten dreams, lingering nightmares and retributive karma. -
The Host
Antonio Pinto
Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan (Atonement, Hanna) stars in writer/director Andrew Niccol’s (Gattaca) adaptation of the Stephanie Meyer (Twilight) novel about one girl’s courageous quest to fight an invasion of aliens determined to take over all human bodies and subjugate their minds.» Read full feature
An elegant, hypnotic fusion of orchestral and electronic, Brazilian composer Antonio Pinto’s (City of God, Lord of War) alternately romantic, suspenseful and elegiac score captures the bittersweet passions aroused by the film’s unusual and challenging dilemma. Injecting intermittent electronic motifs into otherwise traditional, classical orchestrations (“Escape,” “Catch Us,” “I’m Alive”), Pinto shrewdly places a musical exclamation point on the film’s otherwise daunting alien invasion storyline while relying on straightforward orchestral cues like “Into the Caves” to underline its overriding faith in humanity and the resilience of human emotion. -
The Company You Keep
Cliff Martinez
Produced and directed by Robert Redford, this adaptation of Neil Gordon’s 2003 novel also stars Redford as a former Weather Underground radical whose life is thrown into turmoil after an ambitious young reporter (Shia LaBeouf) delves into the arrest of another former radical (Susan Sarandon).» Read full feature
Regular Steven Soderbergh composer Cliff Martinez channels a tense sense of ideological ambivalence into his minimalistic but highly effective score. Short cues comprised primarily of synthesizer and electronic percussion – sometimes moody and ambient ("Bye Mom," "You’re My Brother," "It Was Hardly Groovy"), elsewhere tense and percussive ("Bring Home the War," "Take the Subway," "Close Call on the Train") – underline the film’s key narrative and emotional tension, youthful rage versus mature reflection. Part thriller, part socio-political drama, Martinez’ approach to the film combines and blends musical elements of both genres, achieving a rare and beguiling musical hybrid. -
Welcome to the Punch
Harry Escott
Once considered one of the best unproduced scripts in the UK, “Shifty” writer/director Eran Creevy’s sophomore effort stars Mark Strong as a wanted criminal whose unexpected return to London to help his son puts him back on a collision course with the determined detective (James McAvoy) he previously eluded.» Read full feature
From the slow and steady electronic crescendo of the film’s “Titles” track, the ominous and epic trajectory of Creevy’s film is assured – all part and parcel of “Hardy Candy” and “Shame” composer Harry Escott’s bag of heart-stopping genre tricks. Percussive, pulsating and unrelentingly driven tracks like “St. Botloph’s,” “Burning Hella” and “Gunfire at the Greigo Mar” move the film along like a high-speed train, setting a dramatic stage for the inevitable collision of wills. By contrast, eerily industrial mood tracks like “Off into the Sunset,” “Morgue” and “Punch” almost fade into the sound design, thoughtful interludes that allow the story the chance to inhale before Creevy springs his next unexpected twist or eruption of violence. -
Lars and the Real Girl
David Torn
Ryan Gosling delivered a breakout performance in Australian director Craig Gillespie’s offbeat 2007 comedy about an awkward young man whose earnest relationship with a blowup sex doll named Bianca has a curiously unforeseeable effect on his family and home town.» Read full feature
With a warm, homespun folksiness, renowned guitarist and composer David Torn gives an otherwise peculiar premise precisely the earnestness it needed to win the hearts and minds of audiences. One of 2007’s surprise independent hits, Gillespie’s film glides along the rails of Torn’s score like a well-worn boxcar, its seemingly inconceivable contrivances ironed and folded into emotionally honest vignettes courtesy of gentle and genteel tracks like “Opening” and “Still Opening,” “Karin Accepts Him,” “Lars Changing…” and “They Actually Touch,” and “Where We Started.”
