The Society of Composers & Lyricists hosted a panel discussion Wednesday night with composers Dominic Lewis (“The Man in the High Castle”), Alex Wurman (“Patriot”), and Jason Derlatka and Jon Ehrlich (“Goliath”). Gold Derby moderated the event at the Landmark Regent Theater in Westwood that was organized by Amazon and Impact 24 PR. Lewis worked under legendary composers John Powell, Hans […]...
- 6/25/2017
- by Zach Laws
- Gold Derby
Awards Daily TV talks to Patriot composer Alex Wurman about composing Amazon’s streaming series from pilot to full series order. Steven Conrad’s Patriot started life as an Amazon Pilot project.
- 6/22/2017
- by Clarence Moye
- AwardsDaily.com
Jill Sprecher's comic thriller, "The Convincer," has lost a lot since it premiered at Sundance seven months ago. The film lost its original title; it's now called "Thin Ice." The film lost its editor, Stephen Mirrione, who won an Oscar for his work on "Traffic." The film lost its composers, Emmy-winner Alex Wurman and Grammy-winner Bela Fleck. And it has lost its filmmakers, writer-director Jill Sprecher and her sister/co-writer Karen ...
- 7/26/2011
- Indiewire
Jeff Danna has taken over scoring duties on the crime drama The Convincer. He is replacing Alex Wurman who had completed a score for the film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The movie is directed by Jill Sprecher (Thirteen Conversations on One Thing) and stars Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Billy Crudup and Lea Thompson. The film follows a desperate insurance salesman whose scheme to get a hold of a rare violin leads to unforeseen consequences. Deadline reported in March that Ato Pictures is a wrapping up a domestic distribution deal for the drama, but no announcement has been made since and The Convincer is still awaiting a release date.
Danna is having a busy year with two other feature projects coming up. As reported in April, the composer is also scoring Pascal Laugier’s mystery thriller The Tall Man starring Jessica Biel and the action thriller...
Danna is having a busy year with two other feature projects coming up. As reported in April, the composer is also scoring Pascal Laugier’s mystery thriller The Tall Man starring Jessica Biel and the action thriller...
- 6/3/2011
- by filmmusicreporter
- Film Music Reporter
WaterTower Music has released a soundtrack album for the romantic comedy Something Borrowed. The album includes 12 songs from the movie from such artists as Tyrone Wells, Natasha Bedingfield, Peter Bradley Adams, Hipjoint, King Floyd, Pt Walkley and Collective Soul. No score tracks from composer Alex Wurman are featured on the soundtrack. The album is available to download on Amazon. Check out the audio clips below. Something Borrowed directed by Luke Greenfield and starring Kate Hudson, Ginnifer Goodwin, John Krasinski and Colin Egglesfield is now playing in theaters. Visit the official movie webpage for more information.
Amazon.com Widgets...
Amazon.com Widgets...
- 5/9/2011
- by filmmusicreporter
- Film Music Reporter
Three new movies are opening nationwide and this weekend:
The comic book adaptation Thor directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Ray Stevenson, Kat Dennings, Rene Russo and Stellan Skarsgaard is expected to top the weekend box office. Patrick Doyle has composed the score for the film and a soundtrack has been released on Buena Vista Records. Check out our announcement for details on the album and audio clips. Also visit Film Music Magazine for a short interview with Doyle on his first comic book/superhero score.
Also opening wide is the comedy Jumping the Broom directed by Salim Akil and starring Angela Bassett, Paula Patton, Laz Alonso, Loretta Devine, Mike Epps and Julie Bowen. Edward Shearmur composed the film’s score and a soundtrack with both score and songs from the film has been released earlier this week by Madison Gate Records.
The comic book adaptation Thor directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Ray Stevenson, Kat Dennings, Rene Russo and Stellan Skarsgaard is expected to top the weekend box office. Patrick Doyle has composed the score for the film and a soundtrack has been released on Buena Vista Records. Check out our announcement for details on the album and audio clips. Also visit Film Music Magazine for a short interview with Doyle on his first comic book/superhero score.
Also opening wide is the comedy Jumping the Broom directed by Salim Akil and starring Angela Bassett, Paula Patton, Laz Alonso, Loretta Devine, Mike Epps and Julie Bowen. Edward Shearmur composed the film’s score and a soundtrack with both score and songs from the film has been released earlier this week by Madison Gate Records.
- 5/6/2011
- by filmmusicreporter
- Film Music Reporter
HollywoodNews.com: Prolific stars as well as HBO towered over the 2010 Primetime Creative Arts Emmy awards on Saturday afternoon.
Such celeb faves as Betty White and Neil Patrick Harris took respective wins for their work as guests on “Saturday Night Live” and “Glee” in the comedy series acting category. John Lithgow and Ann Margret took top honors as drama guests respectively for Showtime’s “Dexter” and NBC’s “Law & Order: Svu.” In accepting his kudo, Lithgow accidentally thanked HBO.
That pay cabler had a lot to be thankful for as it took home 17 trophies, seven of which were for its miniseries “The Pacific.”
Largely the Creative Arts Emmys honor the categories of for casting, art direction, choreography, cinematography, costumes, hairstyling, makeup, editing, lighting, music, sound, visual effects, stunts and technical direction.
Another two dozen Emmys will be handed out in the acting, best series and writing categories in a live...
Such celeb faves as Betty White and Neil Patrick Harris took respective wins for their work as guests on “Saturday Night Live” and “Glee” in the comedy series acting category. John Lithgow and Ann Margret took top honors as drama guests respectively for Showtime’s “Dexter” and NBC’s “Law & Order: Svu.” In accepting his kudo, Lithgow accidentally thanked HBO.
That pay cabler had a lot to be thankful for as it took home 17 trophies, seven of which were for its miniseries “The Pacific.”
Largely the Creative Arts Emmys honor the categories of for casting, art direction, choreography, cinematography, costumes, hairstyling, makeup, editing, lighting, music, sound, visual effects, stunts and technical direction.
Another two dozen Emmys will be handed out in the acting, best series and writing categories in a live...
- 8/22/2010
- by HollywoodNews.com
- Hollywoodnews.com
In their first feature, Blades of Glory, co-directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck proved themselves to be perfectly capable but mostly forgettable filmmakers: despite a few inspired one-liners, the comedy played as broadly as possible, and it was only the central presence of a gifted comedian (Will Ferrell) that gave the finished product what little spark it had. The eerie thing about The Switch is how closely it hews to what didn't even feel like a formula the first time but now has all the earmarks of a template: it's got some great jokes but a lot of broad strokes, and it's only Jason Bateman's pitch-perfect comic chops that makes the film work as much as it does. Gordon and Speck apparently set out to create a perfectly serviceable and not at all challenging Hollywood studio picture, and that's what they've come up with: something with a few cute...
- 8/20/2010
- by Daniel Carlson
Motherhood was on everyone's mind on Monday, Aug. 17, at the Arclight Theatre in Hollywood, where Jennifer Aniston introduced her latest romantic comedy "The Switch" to the world. The film is all about a single, 40-year-old woman who decides to use artificial insemination in order to have a child.Aniston was joined at the fete by her co-stars Jason Bateman, who escorted his wife Amanda Anka, Patrick Wilson and a blue-haired Juliette Lewis, along with the film's composer Alex Wurman and actor friends Jon Heder, Kathy Najimy, Ethan Suplee and Richard Portnow.But all eyes were on Aniston, who looked slim and lovely in a strapless two-tone Lavin minidress, as she walked the red carpet alone. Her solo status in real life is reflected in "The Switch," but she's not quite ready to follow her character into being a single mother.But choice for women is an...
- 8/17/2010
- Filmicafe
What is it about the emperor penguin and its home in the bitterly inhospitable terrain of the Antarctic that makes us stare slack-jawed with wonder? Surely this is one of nature's oddest creations. This creature, a bird actually, is both comical and noble in appearance. Once it leaves its natural home in the coastal sea, the penguin must struggle to accomplish any task on the icy land. Yet the stoic, resolute heroes and heroines of Luc Jacquet's March of the Penguins captivate the viewer.
Warner Independent, which acquired the French documentary at this year's Sundance Film Festival, has added a new Alex Wurman score and an English-language narration by Morgan Freeman for the American market. (The film opened Jan. 26 in Paris.) Gone is the gimmick of actors providing dialogue for the penguins. Instead the American release reverts to the purity of the birds staring at each other or gazing silently on their precious chicks, leaving the viewer to intuit the emotional context. Wurman's upbeat music is a major plus, attentive to the humor and gravity of penguins' traditional mating ritual.
Jacquet insists upon viewing this almost suicidal ritual as a "love story." The anthropomorphic approach might put off a biologist, but who can deny the close bond between mates necessary to produce and protect a single egg or the agony suffered by a parent when a chick is lost?
After filming in 16mm over a daunting 13 months in conditions that only can be imagined, the director and his editor, Sabine Emiliani, shape the footage into a compelling tale of survival, an annual race against time on which the survival of the species itself depends. When the birds turn 5, they leave behind the relative safety of the food-filled sea as the polar winter descends each March. They trek single-file for more than 70 miles on their feet or sliding on bellies to their traditional breeding ground. Here males and females pair off. (The film never tells us what happens to those without a mate.)
As the weather worsens, the female produces a single egg. In a delicate juggling act that often fails, the female must transfer the egg to the male for safeguarding on the top of his feet and beneath a fold of warm flesh and feathers. The egg cannot otherwise survive as the temperature drops to 80 below and winds can exceed 100 mph. Starved and exhausted, the females trek back to the sea to fill their bellies for the newborn. Meanwhile, the males huddle together, going 125 days without food, waiting for the eggs to hatch and their mates to return with food. Many females do not return, falling victim to the exhausting march or predators such as the leopard seal.
If and when the females do return and a chick has survived -- both are big ifs -- it is now the famished fathers' turn to stagger back to the sea for food. This cycle continues until the young can make the journey to the coast and take their first dive into the Antarctic waters. Surprisingly, at least to those who buy into the "love story," the family unit now breaks apart. The young penguin might never see its parents again, and parents rarely mate a second winter.
Jacquet's crews, filming underwater and in a white wasteland that looks like a frozen Monument Valley, get amazingly close shots of the birds battling the elements. Only at the end credit roll do we glimpse the crew in action, clumsily setting up their tripods and being observed with curiosity by the penguins. Perhaps the film is a love story, after all. What else can explain the dedication of these crazy French filmmakers?
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS
Warner Independent Pictures
Warner Independent and National Geographic Features films present a Bonne Pioche production in association with Wild Bunch
Credits:
Director: Luc Jacquet
Narration: Jordan Roberts
Based on a screenplay by: Luc Jacquet, Michel Fessler
Producers: Yves Darondeau, Christophe Lioud, Emmanuel Priou
Executive producer: Ilann Girard
Directors of photography: Laurent Chalet, Jerome Maison
Music: Alex Wurman
Editor: Sabine Emiliani
Narrator: Morgan Freeman
MPAA rating: G
Running time -- 80 minutes...
Warner Independent, which acquired the French documentary at this year's Sundance Film Festival, has added a new Alex Wurman score and an English-language narration by Morgan Freeman for the American market. (The film opened Jan. 26 in Paris.) Gone is the gimmick of actors providing dialogue for the penguins. Instead the American release reverts to the purity of the birds staring at each other or gazing silently on their precious chicks, leaving the viewer to intuit the emotional context. Wurman's upbeat music is a major plus, attentive to the humor and gravity of penguins' traditional mating ritual.
Jacquet insists upon viewing this almost suicidal ritual as a "love story." The anthropomorphic approach might put off a biologist, but who can deny the close bond between mates necessary to produce and protect a single egg or the agony suffered by a parent when a chick is lost?
After filming in 16mm over a daunting 13 months in conditions that only can be imagined, the director and his editor, Sabine Emiliani, shape the footage into a compelling tale of survival, an annual race against time on which the survival of the species itself depends. When the birds turn 5, they leave behind the relative safety of the food-filled sea as the polar winter descends each March. They trek single-file for more than 70 miles on their feet or sliding on bellies to their traditional breeding ground. Here males and females pair off. (The film never tells us what happens to those without a mate.)
As the weather worsens, the female produces a single egg. In a delicate juggling act that often fails, the female must transfer the egg to the male for safeguarding on the top of his feet and beneath a fold of warm flesh and feathers. The egg cannot otherwise survive as the temperature drops to 80 below and winds can exceed 100 mph. Starved and exhausted, the females trek back to the sea to fill their bellies for the newborn. Meanwhile, the males huddle together, going 125 days without food, waiting for the eggs to hatch and their mates to return with food. Many females do not return, falling victim to the exhausting march or predators such as the leopard seal.
If and when the females do return and a chick has survived -- both are big ifs -- it is now the famished fathers' turn to stagger back to the sea for food. This cycle continues until the young can make the journey to the coast and take their first dive into the Antarctic waters. Surprisingly, at least to those who buy into the "love story," the family unit now breaks apart. The young penguin might never see its parents again, and parents rarely mate a second winter.
Jacquet's crews, filming underwater and in a white wasteland that looks like a frozen Monument Valley, get amazingly close shots of the birds battling the elements. Only at the end credit roll do we glimpse the crew in action, clumsily setting up their tripods and being observed with curiosity by the penguins. Perhaps the film is a love story, after all. What else can explain the dedication of these crazy French filmmakers?
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS
Warner Independent Pictures
Warner Independent and National Geographic Features films present a Bonne Pioche production in association with Wild Bunch
Credits:
Director: Luc Jacquet
Narration: Jordan Roberts
Based on a screenplay by: Luc Jacquet, Michel Fessler
Producers: Yves Darondeau, Christophe Lioud, Emmanuel Priou
Executive producer: Ilann Girard
Directors of photography: Laurent Chalet, Jerome Maison
Music: Alex Wurman
Editor: Sabine Emiliani
Narrator: Morgan Freeman
MPAA rating: G
Running time -- 80 minutes...
Sometimes an import can gain something in translation. Case in point: “March of the Penguins,” the smartly Americanized edition of the breathtakingly beautiful nature docu reviewed by Variety in French-lingo version under its original title — “The Emperor’s Journey” (“La Marche de l’empereur”) — at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Aimed squarely at auds that flocked to “Winged Migration,” fascinating pic about penguin mating rituals could waddle through leggy summer run with savvy marketing in limited release.
Helmer Luc Jacquet originally used an anthropomorphic approach while dramatizing the procreation cycle of emperor penguins in frigid Antarctica icescapes. Specifically, he focused on a single couple out of thousands, “individualizing” the pair by employing actors Romane Bohringer and Charles Berling to voice the penguins murmuring sweet nothings to each other. (Jules Sitruk voiced their eventual offspring.)
Revised version prepared for co-release by Warner Independent Pictures and National Geographic Feature Films is more traditionally objective,...
Helmer Luc Jacquet originally used an anthropomorphic approach while dramatizing the procreation cycle of emperor penguins in frigid Antarctica icescapes. Specifically, he focused on a single couple out of thousands, “individualizing” the pair by employing actors Romane Bohringer and Charles Berling to voice the penguins murmuring sweet nothings to each other. (Jules Sitruk voiced their eventual offspring.)
Revised version prepared for co-release by Warner Independent Pictures and National Geographic Feature Films is more traditionally objective,...
- 6/21/2005
- by Joe Leydon
- Variety Film + TV
Proving that even infantile humor can be funny, "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" does make you laugh even if you hate yourself for doing so. A creation of former "Saturday Night Live" colleagues, the comedy plays like an extended skit with bits of improvisation and several slightly extended sequences.
Will Ferrell co-wrote the script with former "SNL" head writer Adam McKay. Ferrell plays the title role, while McKay makes his directing debut. If Ferrell's recent screen successes -- "Elf" and "Old School" -- mean anything, this broadly played (to put it mildly) antic comedy should become a hit with the young crowd.
The film does tackle an interesting subject -- the invasion of the male-dominated TV newsroom by women journalists in the 1970s. Formerly a place where anchormen, male reporters and a mostly male crew smoked, sipped Scotch and generally exuded testosterone, this clubby atmosphere was shattered by female reporters and eventually -- to the men's shock and chagrin -- anchorwomen.
Ferrell stars as Ron Burgundy, the top-rated anchorman in the San Diego market during the '70s, whose wardrobe fits his name and whose journalistic talents are nonexistent. What he is is a news reader, a voice disconnected from the brain. (He is notorious for reading anything that appears on a teleprompter, which will lead to his ruination.)
His "sidekicks" are Champ Kind (David Koechner), outfitted with a cowboy hat and a good-ol'-boy sensibility; Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), a field reporter with a flair for the fatuous; and weather guy Brick Talmand (Steve Carell), who is as thick as a ... well, a brick.
In the name of "diversity," news producer Ed Harken (the always hilarious Fred Willard) recruits newswoman Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) for the news team. Her very presence provokes conflicted instincts among the men. The entire news team tries to bed her, with disastrous results for all except Ron. But when a traffic mishap (involving a uproarious cameo by Jack Black) prevents Ron from making the evening newscast one fateful day, Veronica replaces him and, despite the best efforts of the rest of the male team to sabotage her, is an instant success. So the fur flies as the tomcats howl and scratch in bitter frustration.
The key to the comedy is that Ferrrell and McKay see TV newsrooms of the '70s as kindergartens. The high jinks and attempts to undermine colleagues are akin to children fighting over the sandbox. This bright comic idea extends to a "rumble" among all the male San Diego news teams, which features achingly funny cameos by, among others, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller and, as a PBS newsman, Tim Robbins.
Ferrell and Applegate make appealing foes whose sexual attraction only fuels their acrimonious rivalry. Ferrell's suavity -- for the '70s, mind you -- barely covers up his oafishness, while Applegate's pretty-in-pastel glamour barely disguises her predatory instincts. All the other actors have amusing moments in the broadest, most cartoonish sense.
The behind-the-camera team has goofy fun with the era's truly awful hair and fashion styles, equally bad music and monochromatic, bare-bones TV news desks. Of course, the main fun comes at the expense of the era's male chauvinism that now plays like such quaint nonsense.
ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY
DreamWorks Pictures
An Apatow production
Credits:
Director: Adam McKay
Screenwriters: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay
Producer: Judd Apatow
Executive producers: Shauna Robertson, David O. Russell
Director of photography: Thomas Ackerman
Production designer: Clayton R. Hartley
Music: Alex Wurman
Co-producer: David Householter
Costume designer: Debra McGuire
Editor: Brent White
Cast:
Ron Burgundy: Will Ferrell
Veronica Corningstone: Christina Applegate
Brian Fantana: Paul Rudd
Brick Tamland: Steve Carell
Champ Kind: David Koechner
Ed Harken: Fred Willard
Garth Holliday: Chris Parnell
Helen: Kathryn Hahn
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 94 minutes...
Will Ferrell co-wrote the script with former "SNL" head writer Adam McKay. Ferrell plays the title role, while McKay makes his directing debut. If Ferrell's recent screen successes -- "Elf" and "Old School" -- mean anything, this broadly played (to put it mildly) antic comedy should become a hit with the young crowd.
The film does tackle an interesting subject -- the invasion of the male-dominated TV newsroom by women journalists in the 1970s. Formerly a place where anchormen, male reporters and a mostly male crew smoked, sipped Scotch and generally exuded testosterone, this clubby atmosphere was shattered by female reporters and eventually -- to the men's shock and chagrin -- anchorwomen.
Ferrell stars as Ron Burgundy, the top-rated anchorman in the San Diego market during the '70s, whose wardrobe fits his name and whose journalistic talents are nonexistent. What he is is a news reader, a voice disconnected from the brain. (He is notorious for reading anything that appears on a teleprompter, which will lead to his ruination.)
His "sidekicks" are Champ Kind (David Koechner), outfitted with a cowboy hat and a good-ol'-boy sensibility; Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), a field reporter with a flair for the fatuous; and weather guy Brick Talmand (Steve Carell), who is as thick as a ... well, a brick.
In the name of "diversity," news producer Ed Harken (the always hilarious Fred Willard) recruits newswoman Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) for the news team. Her very presence provokes conflicted instincts among the men. The entire news team tries to bed her, with disastrous results for all except Ron. But when a traffic mishap (involving a uproarious cameo by Jack Black) prevents Ron from making the evening newscast one fateful day, Veronica replaces him and, despite the best efforts of the rest of the male team to sabotage her, is an instant success. So the fur flies as the tomcats howl and scratch in bitter frustration.
The key to the comedy is that Ferrrell and McKay see TV newsrooms of the '70s as kindergartens. The high jinks and attempts to undermine colleagues are akin to children fighting over the sandbox. This bright comic idea extends to a "rumble" among all the male San Diego news teams, which features achingly funny cameos by, among others, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller and, as a PBS newsman, Tim Robbins.
Ferrell and Applegate make appealing foes whose sexual attraction only fuels their acrimonious rivalry. Ferrell's suavity -- for the '70s, mind you -- barely covers up his oafishness, while Applegate's pretty-in-pastel glamour barely disguises her predatory instincts. All the other actors have amusing moments in the broadest, most cartoonish sense.
The behind-the-camera team has goofy fun with the era's truly awful hair and fashion styles, equally bad music and monochromatic, bare-bones TV news desks. Of course, the main fun comes at the expense of the era's male chauvinism that now plays like such quaint nonsense.
ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY
DreamWorks Pictures
An Apatow production
Credits:
Director: Adam McKay
Screenwriters: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay
Producer: Judd Apatow
Executive producers: Shauna Robertson, David O. Russell
Director of photography: Thomas Ackerman
Production designer: Clayton R. Hartley
Music: Alex Wurman
Co-producer: David Householter
Costume designer: Debra McGuire
Editor: Brent White
Cast:
Ron Burgundy: Will Ferrell
Veronica Corningstone: Christina Applegate
Brian Fantana: Paul Rudd
Brick Tamland: Steve Carell
Champ Kind: David Koechner
Ed Harken: Fred Willard
Garth Holliday: Chris Parnell
Helen: Kathryn Hahn
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 94 minutes...
- 7/23/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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