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During the first 10 minutes of John Mulaney’s interview for Rolling Stone’s “Last Word” column — where pop-culture icons reflect on their work, success, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way — he holds forth on the following topics: Eurovision, the campy, annual global pop-song contest; the Songwriters Hall of Fame; and the memoir of Jimmy Webb, the songwriter-composer behind “Wichita Lineman” and “MacArthur Park.”

“Please feel free to include literally anything we discussed,” Mulaney says before we jump into the real interview questions, “because it’ll be far...

What do you do after you've won the Oscar for Best Picture? If you're Bong Joon-ho, you get right back to work to make another banger, and choose to make it potentially weirder and more studded with Hollywood stars than anything you've made before. The first full trailer for Bong's "Parasite" follow-up "Mickey 17" is finally here, and his adaptation of Edward Ashton's trippy sci-fi novel, "Mickey7," looks great — darkly funny, unnerving, and, yes, trippy.

The first sneak peek of the new movie came over a year ago, in December 2022. At that point, "Mickey 17" was due to hit theaters by early 2024, but it was subsequently delayed by what The Hollywood Reporter previously referred to "post-strike production shifts," which no doubt gave the movie's team more time to make it as sharp and cinematic as possible in post-production.

"Mickey7" and Bong's new movie both follow the life of an "expendable,...

During the Warner Bros. panel at CinemaCon, Robert Pattinson and director Bong Joon-Ho shared a trailer and new details about their upcoming science-fiction drama Mickey 17.

Robert Pattinson and Bong Joon-ho took the CinemaCon stage, giving the impression they’re proud of the movie they’ve made. Mickey 17 is based on the novel Mickey 7, but they changed it to 17 because that’s the number of times Pattinson’s character dies in the film.

Here’s a plot synopsis for Mickey 17: “Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal…and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.” In addition to Pattinson, Mickey 17 has a wealth of other talents on board,...

Netflix generates more contemporary content than anyone, but they’re dipping into the past to curate the great movies from the ’70s. These are the films that people like myself discovered as kids in the early days of when HBO premiered on cable. Bravo, I say. Here’s the preliminary list.

Alice Doesn’T Live Here Anymore

A widowed singer and single mother starts over as a diner waitress in Arizona, befriending her coworkers and romancing a ruggedly handsome rancher.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Writer: Robert Getchell

Producers: Audrey Maas, David Susskind

Key Cast (Alphabetical): Ellen Burstyn, Jodie Foster, Diane Ladd, Alfred Lutter, Harvey Keitel, Kris Kristofferson, Vic Tayback

Distributed By: Warner Bros. Discovery

Initial Release Date: December 9, 1974

At the 47th Academy Awards, Burstyn won Best Actress

Black Belt Jones

High-kicking Black Belt Jones is dispatched to take down a group of Mafia goons trying to muscle in on a downtown karate studio.

It’s a hot soap from ’65, when movies promised raging passion but delivered cheap teases and hypocritical judgments. It’s Suzanne Pleshette’s only starring role, but it doesn’t exploit her bright personality, her sense of humor. John O’Hara’s tale hasn’t much pity for a promiscuous young wife who breaks the rules. Does nymphomania make her a social menace, or is she victimized by a script determined to put the blame on Mame? Costarring Ben Gazzara, Bradford Dillman and Peter Graves.

A Rage to Live

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 197

1965 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date December 28, 2022 / Available from [Imprint] / aud 34.98

Starring: Suzanne Pleshette, Bradford Dillman, Ben Gazzara, Peter Graves, Bethel Leslie, Carmen Mathews, Linden Chiles, James Gregory, Ruth White, Mark Goddard, Sarah Marshall, George Furth, Virginia Christine, Aneta Corsaut, Frank Maxwell, Almira Sessions.

Cinematography: Charles Lawton Jr.

Costume Designer: Howard Shoup

Art Director: James Sullivan

Film Editor: Stuart Gilmore...

John Gabriel, an actor and singer best known for his role as Dr. Seneca Beaulac on the ABC soap opera “Ryan’s Hope,” has died. He was 90.

“It is with an unspeakably heavy heart that I share the news of my father’s passing,” Gabriel’s daughter, actress Andrea Gabriel, announced in an Instagram post Sunday, which included a headshot of her father and a photo of him walking her own the aisle on her wedding day. “John Gabriel was my hero, my role model, and my champion, but above all, my daddy. … I will love you forever.”

Andrea Gabriel did not provide further details on her father’s death, including the cause of his passing.

Gabriel, played Dr. Seneca Beaulac, the chief of staff at New York’s Riverside Hospital, on ABC’s “Ryan’s Hope” for 10 years, from 1975-1985, and again at the end of its run, from 1988-1989. In...

John Gabriel, the actor known for his turn in ABC soap opera Ryan’s Hope, has died. The Daytime Emmy nominee was 90 years old.

While no details were immediately available regarding a cause of death, Gabriel’s passing was confirmed on Instagram today by his daughter, actress Andrea Gabriel (Lost).

“It is with an unspeakably heavy heart that I share the news of my father’s passing,” she wrote. “John Gabriel was my hero, my role model, and my champion, but above all, my daddy… I will love you forever.”

Born on May 25, 1931 in Niagara Falls, New York, Gabriel portrayed Ryan’s Hopes‘ controlling Dr. Seneca Beaulac between 1975 and 1985, and then between 1988 and ’89.

During his decades as an actor, he gathered nearly 60 screen credits, receiving his first and only Emmy nomination in 1980. The actor is also known to have played the Professor—the role that ultimately went to Russell Johnson—in the original,...

Nelson Riddle is a patron saint of comic book entertainment. He arranged the theme to Batman, the original 1960s camp classic TV series which paved the way for all things geek. That theme caught the excitement children of all ages felt from the moment of the twirling introductory horns through the POWs and ZOKs of the opening battle. Full-set drum rolls propel a swing-blues rhythm section through an ever-building cascade of wonder. Insistent scat singing clashes with atonal chordal squawks until it sounds like it will all come crumbling down, unless someone fires up the Bat-Signal.

You won’t find that in Nelson Riddle: Music With a Heartbeat. Nelson was one of the chief architects of the “Great American Songbook,” working with Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, and Nat King Cole. He helped Linda Ronstadt take the standards out of the elevator. Riddle scored hundreds of films,...

The Monkees have survived many logical endpoints. They first seemed like they were done when their TV show went off the air in early 1968, and then again multiple times after: when they disbanded as a recording unit in 1971, when their reunion tours fizzled out amid bitter infighting in the early 2000s, and when Davy Jones died in 2012 and Peter Tork followed in 2019.

But they’re (probably) ending for real this year when surviving members Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz head out on a farewell tour. It kicks off September 10th in Spokane,...

Helen Reddy, the Australian singer whose global hit “I Am Woman” became a feminist anthem and who was the subject of a 2019 biopic of the same title, died today in Los Angeles. She was 78.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved mother, Helen Reddy, on the afternoon of September 29th 2020 in Los Angeles,” her children Traci Donat and Jordan Sommers said in a statement. “She was a wonderful Mother, Grandmother and a truly formidable woman. Our hearts are broken. But we take comfort in the knowledge that her voice will live on forever.”

Born on October 25, 1941, in Melbourne; Reddy came from a showbiz family and made her debut onstage at age 4. She first hit the U.S. charts in 1971 with “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” Mary Magdalene’s big song from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. About...

Returning to Broadway, Harry Connick Jr. chooses his muse wisely and well, taking the stage in an attractively modern, multi-media setting to celebrate that most sophisticated of the American songbook’s founders, Cole Porter.

At its frequent best, Harry Connick Jr.: A Celebration of Cole Porter, opening tonight at the Nederlander Theatre, pairs Porter’s songwriting genius with Connick’s superb musicianship, supple, ear-pleasing vocals and a brash confidence that pushes the music from the comfort of classic pop into bolder, jazzier terrain. Connick, with his years on American Idol, movie screens and concert stages, is certainly the most popular interpreter of American standards, and he takes fine advantage of that good will, unafraid to slip in an occasional dissonance or to slow down a vocal like a train creeping to its halt. Where Connick leads, his audience knows to follow.

It helps, of course, to entice with some...

Orchestras are indie rock’s new Marshall stacks. That’s fitting on a lot of levels — as a satisfying class-action appropriation of elitist cultural tropes, as a deconstruction of those same tropes, and as an elevation of collectivism over American myths of individualism and exceptionalism that’ve lately been twisted into such ugly shapes. Also: done right, orchestrations just sound dope. There’s plenty of ‘em done right on Angel Olsen’s latest, All Mirrors, her best record yet in an excellent ouevre, giving her goth-folk drama queen tendencies room to roam far and wide.

Last week filmgoers were treated to a rather nifty feature documentary, Fiddler: A Miracle Of Miracles, all about the creation of the beloved stage classic “Fiddler on the Roof”. Well, let’s continue the “musical mood” with another doc about a very popular lady singer. Uh oh, the last big female singer feature docs were 2015’s Amy (Ms. Winehouse) and last year’s Whitney (Ms. Houston), so could this be about another songstress struck down at far too young an age? Happily, I can give a resounding “No!”. She appears in new footage and narrates several sequences. However, there’s more than a hint of tragedy at the film’s conclusion. But the journey is quite magical, as she dazzles in a wide range of musical styles and genres. All this audio delight comes courtesy of Linda Ronstadt: The Sound Of My Voice.

Her screen story starts in the...

In 2015, Trisha Yearwood was one of the artists selected for the Recording Academy’s all-star tribute to Frank Sinatra, during which she performed “I’ll Be Seeing You.” The event’s musical director, producer Don Was, asked her backstage if she’d ever considered doing a full album of standards. She told him, “Yes, every day.”

As far back as the mid-Nineties, the singer had been mixing orchestral versions of her country hits with standards at full-fledged symphony shows, along with delivering the occasional knockout rendition of “Somewhere” from West Side Story at special events.

“I feel if I were to organize it correctly I would try to sing like a Mexican and think like a German. You know what I mean? I get it mixed up,” Linda Ronstadt joked to Rolling Stone in 1978. The quip was a comical reference to her Mexican-German heritage but also, in retrospect, a reflection of Ronstadt’s many musical influences and interests, along with the self-deprecating humor she has employed throughout more than five decades of music stardom. Born in July 1946 in Tucson, Arizona, where her father, Gilbert, the...

Ray Milland produces, directs and stars in this odd, forgotten travelogue / adventure / romance /crime tale filmed in Portugal’s beautiful capital. Claude Rains is magnificent, Maureen O’Hara is okay and relative newcomer Yvonne Furneaux is a knockout. Most remembered is Nelson Riddle’s adaptation of the film’s title theme, one of the most admired pop instrumentals of the 1950s. Filmed in Republic’s ‘Naturama’ and ‘Trucolor,’ both of which prompt plenty of fuzzy man Savant-‘splaining.

Lisbon

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 90 min. / Street Date November 6, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Ray Milland, Maureen O’Hara, Claude Rains, Yvonne Furneaux, Francis Lederer, Percy Marmont, Jay Novello, Edward Chapman, Harold Jamieson, Robie Lester.

Cinematography: Jack Marta (Naturama and Trucolor)

Film Editor: Richard L. Van Enger

Original Music: Nelson Riddle

Written by John Tucker Battle, story by Martin Rackin

Associate-Produced and Directed by R. Milland

Lisbon is one...

Quincy Jones has done it all. From a jazzman to a bandleader to a civil rights soldier to a producer of pop’s greatest triumphs, he’s earned his legendary status a dozen times over. Without him, Leslie Gore and Michael Jackson as we knew them wouldn’t have existed — but he also indelibly marked the careers of Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Tevin Campbell and scores more. Along the way, he’s earned the highest honors, and at 85 he’s as fiery as ever. In the new Netflix documentary Quincy,...

Last year’s self-titled LP recast Dirty Projectors as Dave Longstreth’s one-man-avant-pop-band. This suggested two possible blueprints going forward — the other branded on 2009’s Bitte Orca by the gorgeously ping-ponging vocals of his former bandmates Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian. For Lamp Lit Prose, Longstreth melds both strategies in a flood of ideas and magnificent vocal arrangements. The results are by turns dazzling and exhausting.

Partly it’s is an issue of balance. The best moments of Bitte Orca and Swing Lo Magellan are at core collective. Here, the spotlight stays on Longstreth,...

Ahead of Monday’s Season 14 Semi-Finals of The Voice, I was feeling pretty confident that I already knew which singers would be making up the Final Four: Team Blake’s Pryor Baird and Kyla Jade, Team Alicia’s Britton Buchanan and Team Kelly’s Brynn Cartelli. (If they really do go to the Finals, that isn’t half bad, given my historically spotty track record as a prognosticator; when I made my initial prediction a month ago, I picked three out of those four but had subbed in Jackie Foster for Pryor — a mistake, I now suspect.) So the question...

"Ok, listen, I gotta play you something." Tracy Morgan gestures to a young man, one of a gaggle of publicists and assistants and network reps hovering around the periphery of an Austin conference room. Some of them are checking their phones, or pretending to. Others are simply staring nervously at the man at the center of the room. The 49-year-old comedian is here with The Last O.G., the TBS comedy that will mark his long-awaited, somewhat delayed post-accident return to TV and is premiering at SXSW later that day. (It...

You’ve seen Phantom Thread, perhaps multiple times. You’ve been playing Jonny Greenwood’s score on repeat. And now you’re wondering what to do until the Blu-ray arrives this April. Well, Paul Thomas Anderson has you covered. In special screenings around the country, you might have heard a few songs play before the film begins, and now Tiff has revealed those were hand-selected by the director for a special pre-viewing playlist.

They’ve now revealed the full list of songs, clocking in at 23 and ranging from Beyoncé to Bruce Springsteen to Rihanna to Neil Young to Carly Simon and far beyond. Of course, there’s also some Bernard Herrmann thrown in for good measure. Ahead of 70mm screenings at the Tiff Bell Lightbox starting Friday, they’ve collected the tracks into a Spotify list, which can be listened to below, followed by a round-up of recent extensive Phantom Thread talks with its creators.

Paul Thomas Anderson is here to help you set the mood before your “Phantom Thread” viewing. While Jonny Greenwood’s Oscar-nominated score is well worth numerous streams, the director has curated his own mixtape of 23 songs he suggests you listen to before watching his romance drama. Anderson shared the playlist with Tiff., All 70mm screenings of “Phantom Thread” at the Tiff Bell Lightbox theater will play the songs before showtime.

The mixtape is pretty incredible on its own, featuring hits from Beyoncé, Rihanna, Carly Simon, Neil Young, and more, but it’s even better for those who have seen “Phantom Thread” and understand the relationship between Daniel Day-Lewis’ Reynolds Woodcock and Vicky Krieps’ Alma. Rihanna’s “Stay” is especially appropriate for the two lovers.

The full “Phantom Thread” playlist is below, courtesy of Tiff. The film is up for six Oscars at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

I recently counted down the 25 best scores and soundtracks of the past year, and coming in at the top spot was the newest work from one of the greatest continuing collaborations in filmmaking: Jonny Greenwood’s score for Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest work. Now available to stream in full, the Radiohead member’s Phantom Thread score is a shimmery, deeply moving orchestral triumph.

“We talked a lot about ’50s music, what was popularly heard then as well as what was being written and recorded,” Greenwood tells Variety. “Nelson Riddle and Glenn Gould’s Bach recordings were the main references. I was interested in the kind of jazz records that toyed with incorporating big string sections; Ben Webster made some good ones.” Greenwood continues, “The smaller groups, and solo players, work like close-ups [and] not necessarily to accompany [a] visual, but rather, to focus your attention on and make you feel directly engaged with the characters.

The year’s greatest score is best heard in the context of the film, of course, but if you can’t wait for a wide release of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread on January 19, Jonny Greenwood’s Ost will be available digitally a week prior. The first listen has now landed and for those waiting on a physical release, Nonesuch will debut the CD on February 9 and the vinyl LP on April 21.

“We talked a lot about ’50s music, what was popularly heard then as well as what was being written and recorded,” Greenwood tells Variety. “Nelson Riddle and Glenn Gould’s Bach recordings were the main references. I was interested in the kind of jazz records that toyed with incorporating big string sections; Ben Webster made some good ones.” Greenwood continues, “The smaller groups, and solo players, work like close-ups [and] not necessarily to accompany [a] visual, but rather, to...

Jonny Greenwood has worked with Paul Thomas Anderson three times before, including “There Will Be Blood,” “The Master,” and “Inherent Vice,” but he may have just saved the best for the fourth time. “Phantom Thread,” Anderson’s latest about the romance between a famous London fashion designer (Daniel-Day Lewis) and a country waitress (Vicky Krieps), finds Greenwood working with his biggest orchestra yet (a 60-string ensemble) and crafting his most lush melodies to date.

Read More:Jonny Greenwood’s ‘Phantom Thread’ Original Score is Used in Nearly 70% of the Movie

“We talked a lot about ‘50s music, what was popularly heard then as well as what was being written and recorded,” Greenwood recently told Variety about the score. “Nelson Riddle and Glenn Gould’s Bach recordings were the main references. I was interested in the kind of jazz records that toyed with incorporating big string sections, Ben Webster made some good ones,...

Paul Thomas Anderson fans are well accustomed to how instrumental Jonnny Greenwood’s music is to the auteur’s body of work. Whether it’s the foreboding strings in “There Will Be Blood” or the discordant percussion in “The Master,” Greenwood’s original scores expertly capture Anderson’s tones. This fact is especially true in “Phantom Thread,” which marks the fourth collaboration between Anderson and Greenwood.

Variety reports that Greenwood’s score has been included in 90 minutes of the 130-minute drama, which means you’ll be hearing the score in nearly 70% of the movie. Greenwood’s music has always been important to Anderson’s films, but it’s dominant in “Phantom Thread” in a way it never has been. In some ways it acts as a Greek chorus of sorts, changing and...

Water Tower Music announced today the October 6 release of two titles: Batman and Harley Quinn: Music From The DC Universe Original Movie And Batman Vs. Two-Face: Music From The DC Animated Movie. The albums feature the movie’s original score by Dynamic Music Partners (Dmp), a team of 3 composers who previously scored Batman Beyond. The soundtracks will be available at all digital music providers and on CD exclusively at Fye stores. “We’re thrilled that WaterTower Music is releasing soundtracks for two of our current projects: Batman & Harley Quinn and Batman vs. Two-Face!” explained the three Emmy Award-winning composers Michael McCuistion, Lolita Ritmanis and Kristopher Carter, collectively known as Dynamic Music Partners. “The “Batman vs. Two-Face” score gave us one final opportunity to honor the late Adam West as Batman, with all the Bams! Zings! and Pows! made famous by the original television series music written by musical...

It’s finally here in all its glory, the Howard Hawks movie nobody loves. The epitome of clueless ’60s filmmaking by an auteur who left his thinking cap back with Bogie and Bacall, this show is a PC quagmire lacking the usual compensation of exploitative thrills. But hey, it has a hypnotic appeal all its own: we’ll not abandon any movie where Teri Garr dances.

Red Line 7000

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1965 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 110 min. / Street Date September 19, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: James Caan, Laura Devon, Gail Hire, Charlene Holt, John Robert Crawford, Marianna Hill, James (Skip) Ward, Norman Alden, George Takei, Diane Strom, Anthony Rogers, Robert Donner, Teri Garr.

Cinematography: Milton Krasner

Film Editors: Bill Brame, Stuart Gilmore

Original Music: Nelson Riddle

Written by George Kirgo story by Howard Hawks

Produced and Directed by Howard Hawks

Critics have been raking Howard Hawks’ stock car racing epic...

Broadway’s delightful — but wickedly accurate — satire of big business was brought to movie screens almost intact, with the story, the stars, the styles and dances kept as they were in the long-running show that won a Pulitzer Prize. This is the place to see Robert Morse and Michele Lee at their best — it’s one of the best, and least appreciated movie musicals of the 1960s.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date March 14, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Robert Morse, Michele Lee, Rudy Vallee, Anthony Teague, Maureen Arthur, Sammy Smith, Robert Q. Lewis, Carol Worthington, Kathryn Reynolds, Ruth Kobart, George Fennemann, Tucker Smith, David Swift.

Cinematography: Burnett Guffey

Film Editor: Allan Jacobs, Ralph E. Winters

Original Music: Nelson Riddle

Art Direction: Robert Boyle

Visual Gags: Virgil Partch

From the play written by Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows,...

What a Way to Go!

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1964 / Color B&W / 2:35 enhanced widescreen 1:37 flat Academy / 111 min. / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, Robert Cummings, Dick Van Dyke, Reginald Gardiner, Margaret Dumont, Fifi D’Orsay, Maurice Marsac, Lenny Kent, Marjorie Bennett, Army Archerd, Barbara Bouchet, Tom Conway, Peter Duchin, Douglass Dumbrille, Pamelyn Ferdin, Teri Garr, Queenie Leonard.

Cinematography: Leon Shamroy

Film Editor: Marjorie Fowler

Original Music: Nelson Riddle

Written by: Betty Comden, Adolph Green story by Gwen Davis

Produced by: Arthur P. Jacobs

Directed by: J. Lee Thompson

Want to know what the producer of Planet of the Apes was up to, before that milestone movie? Arthur P. Jacobs was an agent for big stars before he became a producer, which positioned him well for his first show for 20th Fox, What a Way to Go!

Robert Wagner as a social climbing psycho killer? I knew it! 'Mr. CinemaScope Smile' grins only once or twice in this movie, and then only to fool an unsuspecting woman. A great cast brings tension to Ira Levin's outrageous tale of murder. Joanne Woodward has a powerful role, but my heartthrob this time out is lovely Virginia Leith. A Kiss Before Dying Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 95 min. / Street Date May 3, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Virginia Leith, Joanne Woodward, Mary Astor, George Macready, Robert Quarry. Cinematography Lucien Ballard Art Direction Addison Hehr Film Editor George A. Gittens Original Music Lionel Newman Written by Lawrence Roman from a novel by Ira Levin Produced by Robert L. Jacks Directed by Gerd Oswald

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

It's a safe bet that a huge chunk of Americans now identify Robert Wagner as the father of Anthony Dinozzo on TV's NCIS.

[Brightcove "4804745844001" "" "" "auto"] Frank Sinatra Jr., one of the most visible torchbearers of his father's legacy, died Wednesday at 72. Sinatra the younger was born Jan. 10, 1944. By the time he was 6, his parents had divorced. His father's heavy performance schedule - something like two films and four albums a year through the 1950s and '60s - meant that the pair didn't have a close relationship during Jr.'s early life: "He was a good father as much as it was within his power," he told The Guardian diplomatically in 2012. Regardless, Jr. followed in his father's footsteps. He'd studied music formally since the age...

[Brightcove "4804745844001" "" "" "auto"] Frank Sinatra Jr., one of the most visible torchbearers of his father's legacy, died Wednesday at 72. Sinatra the younger was born Jan. 10, 1944. By the time he was 6, his parents had divorced. His father's heavy performance schedule - something like two films and four albums a year through the 1950s and '60s - meant that the pair didn't have a close relationship during Jr.'s early life: "He was a good father as much as it was within his power," he told The Guardian diplomatically in 2012. Regardless, Jr. followed in his father's footsteps. He'd studied music formally since the age...

Rko's final in-house production is a good end-of-an-era film, a spirited and well-made musical comedy. Bright-eyed Jane Powell can't stop accepting marriage proposals, from nerdy Tommy Noonan, dreamboat kisser Cliff Robertson and zillionare Keith Andes. She imagines her future with each man in musical terms, through production numbers staged by Gower Champion. The Girl Most Likely DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1956 / Color / 1:78 enhanced widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date November 17, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Jane Powell, Cliff Robertson, Keith Andes, Kaye Ballard, Tommy Noonan, Una Merkel, Kelly Brown, Judy Nugent, Frank Cady, Joseph Kearns, Marjorie Stapp, Robert Banas. Cinematography Robert H. Planck Film Editor Doane Harrison Original Music Nelson Riddle Choreographer Gower Champion Written by Devery Freeman, Paul Jarrico (uncredited) Produced by Stanley Rubin Directed by Mitchell Leisen

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

From roughly 1925 to 1957, the powerful men in charge of the big studios controlled most aspects of production. That...

CBS and the Recording Academy will honor the 100th anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s birth with a star-studded concert in December. “Sinatra 100 — An All-Star Grammy Concert” will feature Alicia Keys, John Legend, Carrie Underwood, Usher, Adam Levine, Garth Brooks and other stars singing Sinatra’s hits. Among the songs featured will be work by composers Don Costa, Gordon Jenkins, Quincy Jones and Nelson Riddle. The tribute performances will be integrated with footage of performances by Sinatra himself. “The name Frank Sinatra is synonymous with excellence that is timeless. As a performer, he possessed undeniable charisma and masterful artistry that resonate throughout.

Working across a wide range of musical mediums, Ivor Novello Award-winning and BAFTA-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton has embraced everything from large scale orchestral and choral works to innovative electronic sound design, live salsa bands to post-rock guitar line-ups.

From The Counselor, The Awakening and the upcoming Steve Jobs film, to name a few, Pemberton has delivered another eclectic score – this time Guy Ritchie’s latest movie The Man From U.N.C.L.E., in theatres Friday, August 14.

Fans of the TV show are familiar with the theme music from composer Jerry Goldsmith, with additional music for the various seasons provided by Morton Stevens, Walter Scharf, Lalo Schifrin, Gerald Fried, Robert Drasnin and Nelson Riddle.

Now comes the film version and a 5-star, international score that exudes the 1960’s as if it was pulled from a time vault. You’re right into the film from the first musical note and drum beat.

Recently the...

Mad Men is ending, and while the show's opening credits are inseparable from RJD2's haunting theme, there was a time when that beat was known only as "A Beautiful Mine," by RJD2 and rapper Aceyalone.

Matthew Weiner originally wanted a Beck song to play as the show's opening theme, but the singer turned down every offer from the show's producers. Weiner was driving and listening to NPR one day when he heard "A Beautiful Mine" played as segue music between two stories and was immediately struck by it, though the version that ultimately was used was so different from...

George M. Roberts, the master musician known as "Mr. Bass Trombone" whose melodic sound can be heard on Nelson Riddle-arranged albums for Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, has died. He was 86. After a long battle with multiple sclerosis, Roberts died Saturday of complications from pneumonia in Fallbrook, California, the International Trombone Association announced. Roberts' skillful and innovative playing made him a much-in-demand session player in Los Angeles from the 1950s through the '80s. In 2005, he estimated that he had played on more than 6,000 recordings, spanning a half-century. Riddle, who was under contract

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Madrid — Renowned Cuban pianist Bebo Valdes, a composer and bandleader who recorded with Nat "King" Cole, was musical director at Havana's legendary Tropicana Club and a key participant in the golden age of Cuban music, has died in Sweden at age 94.

The news of his death was confirmed by Cindy Byram, the agent of Valdes' son Chucho Valdes, who is a well-known musician in his own right. A cause of death was not given.

The senior Valdes studied piano and later taught it to Chucho (Jesus Dionisio Valdes), who went on to become a founding member of the internationally acclaimed Cuban-based jazz band Irakere.

The father began playing accompaniments at Havana's famous night clubs in the 1940s. He then worked with singer Rita Montaner as her pianist and arranger from 1948 to 1957, when she was the lead cabaret act at the Tropicana.

His orchestra Sabor de Cuba also accompanied singers Benny...

Here is last week's caption pic winner. This week's caption pic is at the bottom of the page.

Thanks to everyone for participating! The winner is ...

"Maybe having sauerkraut with the corned unicorn hash wasn't such a great idea after all."

Thanks to Luke for this week's winning caption!

Weekend Birthdays! (Note: Birthday shoutouts are for out entertainers, allies, or for any celeb that seems to have a following on Ae). Bradley Cooper (above) is 38, Michael Stipe is 52, Danny Pintauro is 37, Diane Keaton is 67, Pamela Sue Martin is 60, January Jones is 35, Robert Duvall is 82, Joe Flanigan is 46, and Dot Marie Jones is 49. 2013 Renewal Scorecard. Revenge is "A Sure Thing," The New Normal is "A Safe Bet," and Happy Endings "Could Go Either Way."Joseph Gordon-Levitt is set to host the 2013 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony.Out readers have chosen their man of the year , and it's ... Anderson Cooper. Jesse Tyler Ferguson...

Here Lies... Paul Williams' rock opera score for Phantom of the Paradise, lain to rest by Nelson Riddle's nostalgia-drenched work on The Great Gatsby.

Andreas here with more spoooky Oscar Horrors, this time singing the praises of composer Paul Williams. His Oscar-nominated work on Brian De Palma's horror musical astonishes with its versatility, bouncing from one pop mode to another—surf rock to glam rock to piano ballad—all the while keeping tempo with De Palma's virtuosic visuals. The songs aren't hollow pastiches, either; Williams imbues them with surprising emotional depth, coloring the whole film with their underlying melancholy. In order to pull off such an operatic saga, De Palma needed big music, and Williams really delivers.

Phantom, after all, is a macabre tale of the music industry, filled with songwriters, divas, and wannabes (Williams himself even co-stars as the villainous Swan, a kind of Mephistopheles by way of Phil Spector.

Above: A rack focus in Bullitt.

Trespassers Will Be Eaten

Perhaps a less eye-grabbing, but still “driving” title for this third Mubi soundtrack mix should be Shifting Gears...as such, it’s a free-falling, propulsive survey of scores focusing on the thriller in all of its manifestations: detective procedurals, bank heists, neo-noirs, spy films, psychodramas, giallos, chases, races, and sci-fi mind-games. Featured also are a few composers better known for their more famous musical projects. Police drummer Stewart Copeland’s metallic, rhythmic score for Rumble Fish, gamely taunts the self-conscious black and white street theatre of Francis Ford Coppola's film. So-called fifth Beatle, producer George Martin’s funky Shaft-influenced Live and Let Die score ushers in a more leisurely 70s-era James Bond, as incarnated by Roger Moore. Epic crooner visionary Scott Walker’s fatally romantic melodies for Leos Carax’s inventively faithful Melville adaptation Pola X is remarkably subdued and lush.

Getty Stephen Sondheim in March 2011.

Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has helped to create some of Broadway’s greatest stage shows. But he says the world of classical music is behind some of his deepest influences, including such composers as Sergei Rachmaninoff and Joseph-Maurice Ravel.

“It is aesthetically fulfilling to hear composers take my music seriously,” said Sondheim, who was interviewed briefly on stage this weekend during a concert of 17 compositions inspired by songs from his musicals “Sweeney Todd,” “Company,...

The on-going rumor about another go at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is alive and well. Too bad Hollywood is attempting to top the original. The Oscar winning 1974 version filled with soft lensed close-ups of Redford and Farrow is still sublime. The Nelson Riddle score forever magical.

I’d say anyone would be hard pressed to try to recapture that kind of lightning in a bottle, unless your Moulin Rouge director, Baz Luhrmann. MTV News pinned down Luhrmann on the status of the film he’s still pursuing as well as casting rumors. Here’s what the director had to say on The Great Gatsby.

And on Thursday, Production Weekly tweeted this:

Rumored casting for The Great Gatsby, Leonardo DiCaprio for Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire for Nick Carraway & Amanda Seyfried for Daisy Buchanan.

To be truthful, I’m kind of torn on this. On the one side, a remake,...

Movies and fashion blend beautifully together. The recent fashion show featuring the latest collection by Dolce and Gabbana was inspired by the film Baarìa - La porta del vento, an upcoming Sicilian-Italian comedy film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. It was the opening film of the 66th Venice International Film Festival in September 2009. It is also the Italian entry for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In this series, we're listing down some very old and very new films that celebrate fashion at its finest! First on our list of 10 is The Great Gatsby:

- - -

Directed by Jack Clayton from the screenplay of Francis Ford-Coppola, The Great Gatsby (1974) tells about Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, who finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle,...

Movies and fashion blend beautifully together. The recent fashion show featuring the latest collection by Dolce and Gabbana was inspired by the film Baarìa - La porta del vento, an upcoming Sicilian-Italian comedy film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. It was the opening film of the 66th Venice International Film Festival in September 2009. It is also the Italian entry for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In this series, we're listing down some very old and very new films that celebrate fashion at its finest! First on our list of 10 is The Great Gatsby:

- - -

Directed by Jack Clayton from the screenplay of Francis Ford-Coppola, The Great Gatsby (1974) tells about Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, who finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle,...

Movies and fashion blend beautifully together. The recent fashion show featuring the latest collection by Dolce and Gabbana was inspired by the film Baarìa - La porta del vento, an upcoming Sicilian-Italian comedy film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. It was the opening film of the 66th Venice International Film Festival in September 2009. It is also the Italian entry for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In this series, we're listing down some very old and very new films that celebrate fashion at its finest! First on our list of 10 is The Great Gatsby:

- - -

Directed by Jack Clayton from the screenplay of Francis Ford-Coppola, The Great Gatsby (1974) tells about Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, who finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle,...

Movies and fashion blend beautifully together. The recent fashion show featuring the latest collection by Dolce and Gabbana was inspired by the film Baarìa - La porta del vento, an upcoming Sicilian-Italian comedy film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. It was the opening film of the 66th Venice International Film Festival in September 2009. It is also the Italian entry for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In this series, we're listing down some very old and very new films that celebrate fashion at its finest! First on our list of 10 is The Great Gatsby:

- - -

Directed by Jack Clayton from the screenplay of Francis Ford-Coppola, The Great Gatsby (1974) tells about Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, who finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle,...

Movies and fashion blend beautifully together. The recent fashion show featuring the latest collection by Dolce and Gabbana was inspired by the film Baarìa - La porta del vento, an upcoming Sicilian-Italian comedy film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. It was the opening film of the 66th Venice International Film Festival in September 2009. It is also the Italian entry for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In this series, we're listing down some very old and very new films that celebrate fashion at its finest! First on our list of 10 is The Great Gatsby:

- - -

Directed by Jack Clayton from the screenplay of Francis Ford-Coppola, The Great Gatsby (1974) tells about Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, who finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle,...

The Untouchables is the classic crime TV series that ran from 1959 to 1963 on ABC, based on the novel by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, following the adventures of Ness, the Prohibition agent, who fought gangsters in 1930's Chicago with the help of a special team of agents nicknamed the 'Untouchables'. The mostly violent stories revolved around Ness' enmity with the criminal empire of Chicago mob boss 'Al Capone', starring actor Robert Stack as Ness and Bruce Gordon as 'Frank Nitti'. Desilu produced 118 episodes, introduced by radio newsman Walter Winchell, featuring memorable orchestrated theme music by Nelson Riddle. Notable guest-stars included actors Jack Lord, Lee Marvin, James Caan, Mike Connors, Martin Balsam, Peter Falk, Telly Savalas, Lee Van Cleef, Charles Bronson, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York. Click on any of the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek a clip from an episode of The Untouchables.