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Goodspeed Musicals has revealed the cast for About Time, a new musical revue about life, love and laughter in your third act. About Time will run from May 24 – June 15 at Goodspeed’s Terris Theatre in Chester, Conn.. About Time opens the 2025 season at The Terris Theatre, which is dedicated to the development of new musicals. At first, they were Starting Here, Starting Now. After a few years, they were Closer Than Ever. Now, decades later, the legendary award-winning writing team of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire complete the trilogy they didn’t know they were creating...About Time. From long-ago love affairs and ambitions of the past to tech-savvy grandkids and lost keys, this funny and touching revue features all...

Nepo babies have been around as long as there have been artists. The idea of a "legacy" is one we humans simply cannot get away from. As storytelling beings, we will have always constructed -- and will continue to construct -- broad, historical, intergenerational narratives for ourselves. We can't stop tracing our professional and personal origins among the ancients, and writing their stories directly into our own. We simply shed our fascination with the possibility that talents can be passed from one generation to the next. 

That's certainly the case in Hollywood, a relatively recent art institution in human history, but still rife with its own multigenerational legacies. It's likely you read the headline above and instantly thought of the Coppola clan. The Coppola family has, as of this writing, accrued 12 Oscar wins and 40 nominations between them, and they currently hold the record for the family with the most members to be nominated for Oscars.

On Dec. 16, 1977, Paramount released Saturday Night Fever in theaters, where it would go on to gross more than $90 million domestically and then garner an Oscar nomination for John Travolta in the leading actor category at the 50th Academy Awards. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:

Saturday Night Fever is a kick, a film that ostensibly promises little more than a showcase for the highvoltage personality of TV’s John Travolta, but one that grows progressively more involved and involving as it explores the rites of passage of today’s urban teenagers. It even takes some of the shock of American Graffiti‘s closing title and builds it into the script.

The comparison to Graffiti is not gratuitous. Where the earlier film proffered a fond farewell to the innocence of the ’50s, Saturday Night suggests that while useful high spirits still remain, the innocence is long gone. Substitute now...

The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola’s outstanding thriller from 1974, is getting a 4K release this month, right as the film reaches its 50th birthday. While you would think half a century would be enough to put it beside other dated films of the 1970s, it is actually a pretty relevant picture that still feels very important.

According to Collider, Lionsgate Home Entertainment is releasing The Conversation in 4K, a first-time release for Coppola’s classic thriller starring Gene Hackman and Harrison Ford. Per Collider, the 4K release will also include the usual goods:

“The Conversation's 50th anniversary 4K edition will come with a new introduction from Coppola, a new trailer, as well as a collection of previously released bonus materials. Also featured is an original cassette tape of the film's score performed by David Shire. The physical media will be available for purchase this December.”

The Conversation stars Hackman as Harry Caul,...

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 classic The Conversation is 50 years old – and is coming to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray…

It’s a terrific movie trivia question: at the 1975 Academy Awards, Francis Ford Coppola had two films nominated for Best Picture. The one that people tend to know is The Godfather Part II, which took home the Oscar. The one that might even be better than that is the paranoid thriller The Conversation, that’s very much a candidate for being Coppola’s best film.

It stars Gene Hackman, and the Cannes Palme D’Or winner is now celebrating its 50th birthday. As part of that celebration, it’s coming to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray for the very first time.

Set for release on 15th July, you can find more information on the release, and order a copy, right here.

Initially, the movie will be available in an impressive-looking collectors’ set, with two discs in the box,...

Dan Wallin, the music scoring engineer who recorded such classic film scores as “Spartacus,” “Bullitt,” “The Wild Bunch” and “Out of Africa,” died early Wednesday in Hawaii. He was 97.

Twice Oscar-nominated for best sound (1970’s “Woodstock” and 1976’s “A Star Is Born”), he won a 2009 Emmy for sound mixing on the Academy Awards telecast and received two additional Emmy nominations in the sound mixing category.

But it was Wallin’s skill behind the console, recording and mixing musical scores for movies and TV, that won him legions of fans among nearly all of Hollywood’s top composers and ensured steady employment for more than half a century.

He recorded the music for an estimated 500 films, including those for “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Cool Hand Luke” and “Finian’s Rainbow” in the 1960s; “The Way We Were,” “Blazing Saddles,” “Nashville,” “King Kong” and “Saturday Night Fever” in the 1970s; “Somewhere in Time,” “The Right Stuff...

There was perhaps no movie director more in demand in the 1970s than Francis Ford Coppola, who was leading the New Hollywood film movement with epics like “The Godfather” (1972), “The Godfather Part II” (1974) and “Apocalypse Now” (1979). But fewer viewers remember his quiet neo-noir drama “The Conversation,” a complete turnaround in production scale and arguably his only intimate, simple dramatic film. While it was not as financially successful as the previously aforementioned grander classics, the mystery thriller was just as acclaimed and lauded, earning three Oscar nominations and winning the Palme d’Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. Now on its 50th anniversary, let’s look back at one of Coppola’s overlooked films, “The Conversation,” which was released on April 7, 1974.

The picture stars Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, a top surveillance expert who stumbles upon an ambiguous comment – that may lead to a potential murder – while recording for one of...

Superhero movies were nearing their maximalist peak in 2017 — "Avengers: Infinity War" was a year away, while the DC Extended Universe was self-destructively racing toward "Justice League" without a roadmap or significant audience buy-in — when James Mangold quietly, confidently subverted the genre with "Logan." There had been attempts at revisionist superhero films before, but they were mostly based on/influenced by explicitly revisionist graphic novels (e.g. Zack Snyder's "Watchmen" and Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy). Josh Trank's "Chronicle" was probably the boldest of the bunch, but that was a top-to-bottom original.

Mangold's "Logan" was different. It used Hugh Jackman, the man who'd been playing Wolverine for 17 years, to tell an X-Men tale that branched out from the film franchise's narrative to depict a Logan in physical decline. Nothing lasts forever — not even, apparently, Wolverine's mutant healing process. He is in unremitting pain, and each altercation plunges him deeper into agony.

The Conversation

The Conversation, 11.15pm, BBC2, Monday, November 13

Francis Ford Coppola was enjoying a purple patch when he made this gripping psychological thriller between his Oscar-winning Godfathers - and it’s worth remembering that in addition to winning the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 1975 for Godfather II, he was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay for this, losing out to Chinatown. The Conversation’s subject of surveillance is ever-green, while its anti-hero Harry Caul is also one for the ages. From the opening slow zoom sequence on the conversation of the title to the sound design from Walter Murch and the jazz-inflected score from David Shire, the craft is classy all round. Look out for Harrison Ford in an early role as a slimeball and a small and uncredited but...

Apple TV+’s hit limited series “Hijack” starring Idris Elba is a nail-biting thrill ride set in real-time. Over the years, there have been many types of hijack films. Besides planes, there have been suspenseful takeovers of ships, trains, subways and even trucks.

“The Taking of the Pelham One Two Three,” from 1974 — avoid the two remakes — is a superb thriller about four men who take over a New York subway car and hold the passengers, conductor and an undercover policeman hostage unless they get $1 million (remember that was a lot of money 49 years ago). If their demands aren’t met, they will start killing hostages. Directed by Joseph Sargent and adapted by Peter Stone from the best-selling novel by John Godey, “Taking” boasts a stellar cast at the top of their game including Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Hector Elizondo and Martin Balsam. David Shire penned the influential score.

A year...

The Story: Nine years after the disappearance of astronaut Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea), Discovery One mission overseer, Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) is given the opportunity to take part in a joint U.S-u.S.S.R mission to see what went wrong. There’s only one problem – the two countries are on the cusp of nuclear war, and tension between the American and Soviet teams looks to unmoor an already impossible mission.

The Players: Starring: Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow, Bob Balaban and Keir Dullea. Music by David Shire. Written and directed by Peter Hyams.

The History: Crafting a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey sounds like a fool’s errand. Being that it’s one of the most acclaimed films ever made, in order to be judged any kind of success the sequel would have to be some kind of masterpiece. In 1984, director Peter Hyams,...

HBO’s upcoming miniseries White House Plumbers is a new take on what is one of the most shocking events in United States politics. The 1972 Watergate break-in — or break-ins, as the show reveals — to bug the Democratic National Committee caused a sequence of events that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, who became the first United States president ever to step down from office. The series tells the story with all of the humor and wit characteristic of its creative team, many of whom previously collaborated on Veep, which is one of the best comedies on HBO Max.

The rollercoaster that is the story of White House Plumbers is helped along by the series’ fantastic score, which was composed by Jeff Cardoni. Cardoni is a prolific film and television composer, who notably scored the Sam Jones documentary on Tony Hawk and will lend music to the upcoming Smartless podcast tour documentary.

Amazon Studios is taking to the streets to promote Ben Affleck’s “Air,” which chronicles the beginnings of the iconic Air Jordan sneaker brand.

The studio has teamed up with iconic sneaker culture icon Jason Markk to host a multi-city consumer experience, dubbed “Fresh Air,” which ties into the film’s social campaign, “A shoe is just a shoe until I step into it.”

The activation will see guerilla street teams flood U.S. cities including Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Chicago, in a unique opportunity to bring together sneakerheads and celebrate the culture and history of the sneaker community. The street team will also have a presence at the Jason Markk flagship store in L.A.

Free to the public, the “Fresh Air” activation allows attendees to celebrate self-expression through fashion as they share their sneaker stories while getting a complimentary shoe cleaning, with premium care products from...

A superb thriller is now better than ever on 4K. We’ve always known why it rewards viewings: it’s both thrilling and funny. When Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam and Hector Elizondo hijack a subway train, Walter Matthau must scramble to collect a ransom while trying to figure out how they’ll make their escape. Peter Stone’s dialogue is delightful — the loud & mouthy ’70s New Yorkers are hilariously abrasive — and lovable. “Who wants to know?!!!” Includes a Blu-ray disc and a new commentary.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three 4K

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 104 min. / Street Date December 20, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 39.95

Starring Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, Earl Hindman, James Broderick, Dick O’Neill, Lee Wallace, Tom Pedi, Jerry Stiller, Rudy Bond, Kenneth McMillan, Doris Roberts, Julius Harris,Robert Weil.

Cinematography Owen Roizman

Original Music David Shire...

Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 "Dracula" was promoted as a faithful adaptation of the 1897 novel, down to its full title "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Don't think for a moment this means the movie is a stuffy stage reading, concerned only with literally adapting the text. No, Coppola's rendition of Stoker is one of the most visually audacious films of its decade.

Mini-documentary "In Camera: The Naïve Visual Effects of Dracula" explores how Coppola and his team used entirely in-camera special effects, resulting in a film as tactile as it is lavish. Coppola explains this choice was motivated by period accuracy:

"Given that the book 'Dracula' was written around 1900, being the same date as the birth of the cinema... coming out of magicians and illusions and basically magic tricks, I thought would not only make the film entirely in a false place, in a studio, but I would only use effects...

There’s a classic sound to heist films, especially of the ’60s and ’70s – a little jazzy, a little stealthy, occasionally raucous and wild – and composer Daniel Pemberton cleverly channels it throughout “The Bad Guys,” the DreamWorks Animation action comedy that opens today.

“The film in some ways is an homage to classic caper movies,” says the English composer, “and it’s a world I really love playing in. You get to be really bold: big breaks, big brass sections, big tunes and big grooves.”

Pemberton’s high-energy music sets the mood and drives the action in Pierre Perifel’s animated adventure about a notorious criminal gang that considers going straight after they cross paths with a guinea-pig philanthropist and their red-fox governor.

“At its core, it’s a very joyous score, even though there’s sneakiness, tension, all that kind of stuff,” he notes. He cites Quincy Jones’ “The Italian Job,...

Small thief and parolee Max Dembo is pinned in a parole system that all but guarantees he’ll go back to robbing banks and jewelry stores. Dustin Hoffman has one of his best and most unusual roles, taken from the story of a real bank robber. Directed by Ulu Grosbard, the docu-drama look at the seedy side of Los Angeles is graced with a perfect cast: Theresa Russell, Gary Busey, Harry Dean Stanton, M. Emmet Walsh, and Kathy Bates. Sure, the rotten parole officer drives Dembo back to crime, but pulling jobs is in his blood. It’s one of the best portraits of a criminal ever.

Straight Time

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1978 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 114 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date September 29, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Theresa Russell, Gary Busey, Harry Dean Stanton, M. Emmet Walsh, Rita Taggart, Kathy Bates, Sandy Baron, Jake Busey.

Cinematography: Owen Roizman

Art Director: Dick Lawrence

Film Editors: Sam O’Steen,...

Marilyn Bergman, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Grammy-winning songwriter whose lyrics written with her husband, Alan Bergman, graced such hits as “The Way We Were,” “The Windmills of Your Mind,” “In the Heat of the Night” and the songs from “Yentl,” has died. She was 93 years old.

Bergman was the first woman president and chairman of the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), a post she held from 1994 to 2009. She and her husband and lifelong writing partner Alan Bergman wrote the words to some of the most popular film and TV songs of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, and continued to write together well into the 2000s.

They were Oscar nominated 16 times, and won three. The Bergmans were frequent collaborators with composers Michel Legrand and Marvin Hamlisch (“The Way We Were”).

The Bergmans were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980 and received its Johnny...

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Even the most iconic films wouldn’t be the same without music. A good film score knows how to hit the right notes in accurately conveying everything from mood and theme, to emotions and tone. Similar to a soundtrack, which is a collection of music that wasn’t written specifically for the film but fits the overall theme, musical scores are meant to enrich the viewing experience. And if you’ve watched a movie that gave you goosebumps, the music could have something to do with it.

If you’re a cinephile or movie buff who enjoys musical scores, we rounded up a list of some of the best scores to buy on...

The 20th annual World Soundtrack Awards saw composers Nicholas Britell and Hildur Guðnadóttir take home prizes for their musical works featured in HBO’s Succession and Todd Philip’s Joker, respectively.

Britell, whose Succession theme song took home an Emmy award in 2019, received the World Sountrack Award’s TV composer of the Year Award. Guðnadóttir, who landed her first Oscar nomination and win for her Joker score this year, was awarded the award ceremony’s Film Composer of the Year prize.

The annual awards ceremony, which crowned winners for a number of categories including Best Original Song and Discovery of the Year, honored Oscar-winning composer Gabriel Yared with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Previous Lifetime Achievement Award honorees include Elmer Bernstein, David Shire and Frédéric Devreese.

“”I am thrilled and very honoured to be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award. I have been a...

You’ll be halfway through “I’m Your Woman” before its premise is clear, but the mystery is as gripping as its payoff. Director Julia Hart’s fourth feature pairs an engrossing turn from Rachel Brosnahan with a tense ‘70s-set script constructed with jigsaw precision. The full picture may amount to a contrived gangster story, but Hart (who scripted with her partner Jordan Horowitz) approaches that formula from the inside out.

“I’m Your Woman” owes much to Brosnahan’s evolving performance as she goes from terrified housewife to trenchant survivalist over the course movie, and the movie consolidates the strengths of Hart’s previous work. Like her breakout Civil War script “The Keeping Room,” it finds women trapped in a man’s world, and forced to resort to violence as a means of escape. And like the lo-fi superhero drama “Fast Color,” its heroine goes on the lam before she truly understands what’s chasing her,...

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“Next Stop… Hijack!”

By Raymond Benson

There were many motion pictures made in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s that depict New York City as a less than desirable place to be. A hell on earth full of crime, grime, sin, debauchery, drugs, gangs, and corruption. You know the titles—The Out of Towners, Midnight Cowboy, Joe, Taxi Driver…

While the portrayal may very well have been true, to a certain extent, this reviewer lived in Manhattan over a decade during the relevant years and found it to be the most exciting, vibrant, culturally potent, and beautifully stimulating environment. Not only that, the #6 Irt train is one this reviewer rode almost daily, so the stops, the milieu, and the atmosphere were dead-on familiarities. As some of us like to say today in the age when 42nd Street and Times Square have been “Disney-ized,” we...

Gene Hackman officially announced that he had retired from acting in 2008. Prior to that, his last feature film appearance was in the 2004 comedy Welcome to Mooseport. So an entire generation of film lovers have grown up in an era devoid of the man's immense talents. Now, this March they'll get to see what they're missing when the Two-Time Oscar winner returns to theaters in Francis Ford Coppola's classic The Conversation for the first time since its release in 1974.

Award-winning New York-based specialty distributor Rialto Pictures is bringing Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation back to theaters. The 1974 thriller, starring Gene Hackman and winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, opens March 20 at New York's Film Forum and Landmark's Nuart Theatre in L.A., with newly struck 35mm prints personally supervised by Coppola. The rollout also offers theaters an alternate Dcp restoration remixed in Dolby 5.1 by legendary sound designer Walter Murch,...

Rialto Pictures is bringing Francis Ford Coppola’s Palme d’Or winning 1974 movie The Conversation back to theaters, starting March 20 at New York’s Film Forum and Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in L.A., with newly struck 35mm prints personally supervised by the five-time Oscar winning filmmaker.

The platform release will offer theaters an alternate Dcp restoration remixed in Dolby 5.1 by 3x Oscar winning sound designer Walter Murch.

Written, produced and directed by Coppola, The Conversation stars Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, a paranoid, secretive surveillance expert who has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that a couple, on whom he is spying, will be murdered. Upon re-hearing the tapes, however, Caul believes he may be putting the couple in danger if he turns the material over to his client. But what one hears can ultimately turn out to be quite different from what was actually recorded.

A version of this story about Thomas Newman and the Newman family first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s Oscar magazine.

When you think of the first families of the Oscars, you might think of the Coppolas, with nominations for director Francis Ford Coppola, his father Carmine, his daughter Sofia, his son Roman, his nephew Nicolas Cage, his former son-in-law Spike Jonze and his brother-in-law David Shire; or the Hustons, with Walter, his son John and John’s daughter Angelica all nominated.

But no family has more Oscar nominations than the Newmans. This year, the Academy’s most honored family received its record-breaking 91st, 92nd and 93rd nominations: a pair in the Best Original Score category for Thomas Newman’s “1917” and his cousin Randy Newman’s “Marriage Story,” and an additional nomination for Randy’s song “I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” from...

One of the longest-running musical partnerships in Broadway history, lyricist and director Richard Maltby, Jr. and composer David Shire, will be honored, along with a diverse group of 17 other outstanding artists, at the 35th Annual Bistro Awards on Monday, March 9 at Gotham Comedy Club 208 West 23rd Street. As is the Bistro Awards tradition, the evening will feature performances by the winners.

First photo of the Out of the Box Theatrics' limited engagement of Sybille Pearson book, Richard Maltby, Jr.lyrics and David Shire's music heart-warming musical, Baby, are now available. The production has extended through Saturday, December 21, 2019 due to strong ticket sales. Directed and choreographed by Ethan Paulini, Baby stars Tony Award-winner Alice Ripley and plays a site-specific loft in midtown Manhattan 14 W 45th Street. Preview performances began on Friday, December 6, 2019. Limited tickets are available online at www.ootbtheatrics.com.

Out of the Box Theatrics has released First Look photos of the cast of their upcoming limited engagement production of Baby. Featuring a book by Sybillie Pearson, lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr. and music by David Shire's music, the production will be directed and choreographed by Ethan Paulini at a site-specific loft in midtown Manhattan 14 W 45th Street, Friday, December 6 through Saturday, December 14, 2019. Tickets are now on sale.

Out of the Box Theatrics' Founding Artistic Director, Liz Flemming announced today that Tony Award-winner Alice Ripley will lead the cast of a limited NYC engagement of Sybillie Pearson book, Richard Maltby, Jr. lyrics and David Shire'smusic heart-warming musical, Baby. Directed and choreographed by Ethan Paulini, the production will play a site-specific loft in midtown Manhattan 14 W 45th Street Friday, December 6 through Saturday, December 14, 2019. Tickets are now on sale here.

When I think about the American New Wave, I’m always traveling through the vast open roads of North America, its forever-changing landscapes and mythical American dreams, with all its bittersweet promise. Sonically speaking, I’m in that space, too. So much of the New Hollywood cinema is vast Americana; Death Valley and desert-hot gas stations, the ultimate nihilistic road movie. But so much of it is everywhere else too; sleek Manhattan apartment blocks, the old Wild West, and the outer regions of space. In my head it’s a mixtape of philosophical and artistic ideas, one of cinema’s counter-culture melting pots where more questions are raised than answered and the plot is not driven by a desire for resolution.This mix was dreamed up as a mixtape: driving across state lines, re-adjusting the radio station on the dashboard as the trip moves further towards a destination that is unknown.

Halloween begins early in New York this year with the first annual Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival, kicking off this week in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown. In addition to showcasing Washington Irving’s iconic story that introduced readers to the headless horseman, the festival will be home to all manner of macabre celebrations, including a live stage reading of Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space and a performance of Jeffrey Combs' one-man show Nevermore: An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe.

Go here to read the full schedule for Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival, visit their website for more info, and read the official press release for additional details:

Press Release: Sleepy Hollow, NY – The first annual Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival (Shiff) taking place in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown, New York, on October 10-13, 2019, has just released its full program of events!

Taking place at the historic Tarrytown Music Hall and Warner Library,...

One of three editors on Sam Esmail’s Homecoming, Rosanne Tan was asked to tap into the visual and sonic style of “paranoid thriller movies [from] the past,” working within a broad conceptual framework set by Esmail, while trying to surprise him with the choices she made.

Based on a podcast by co-creators Micah Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz, the series is set at Homecoming, a facility claiming to help soldiers in their transition back to civilian life. Cutting back and forth between two time periods, the half-hour drama’s focal point is Heidi (Julia Roberts), a social worker at the facility who comes to intuit a much more sinister agenda on the part of her employer.

Cutting four episodes of Homecoming, Tan played a pivotal role in shaping the series’ tone and visual style. After working on the third season of Mr. Robot, the editor knew Esmail’s preference for unconventional,...

Music supervisor Maggie Phillips had her hands full on “Homecoming” and “The Umbrella Academy,” but for very different reasons. When director Sam Esmail insisting on using only pre-existing classic soundtracks to score his conspiracy thriller, Phillips found herself in uncharted territory, which turned into a licensing nightmare. And even though the series about an adopted sibling superhero rivalry offered a more conventional challenge, Phillips was still keen on pushing the nostalgic factor in fresh musical ways.

“All of my projects before [‘Homecoming’] I’ve chosen songs and editors are temping in score, and then the composer comes in and replaces,” Phillips said. “And sometimes I’ll help with the temp score, but that’s not very common. But Sam wanted all pre-existing soundtracks as cues [to evoke the paranoia vibe] of ‘All the President’s Men,’ ‘Klute,’ and ‘The Conversation,’ and then that list got expanded and changed out of necessity because of the licensing...

Songwriter Norman Gimbel, whose works won him an Oscar, Grammy and admission to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, has died. He passed on Dec. 19 at his home in Montecito, Calif. at age 91, according to a tribute posted by Bmi. Gimbel’s lyrics to Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly and Jim Croce’s I Got A Name were just some of the highlights of a catalog that reads like a compilation of 20th century hits. His lyrics graced the English language version of The Girl from Ipanema and the TV themes to Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley; he earned an Academy Award with David Shire for Jennifer Warnes’s It Goes Like It Goes; he was the Best Original Song winner for 1979’s Sally Field starrer Norma Rae; and shared the Grammy Song of the Year with longtime writing collaborator Charles Fox in 1973 for Killing Me Softly.Gimbel and...

Norman Gimbel, an Oscar and Grammy-winning composer whose lyrics graced hit songs such as Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly with His Song” and Jim Croce’s “I Got a Name,” died at the age of 91 on December 19 at his longtime home in Montecito, Calif.

His death was confirmed by Bmi, which paid tribute on its website, noting: “Bmi was greatly saddened to learn of the passing of renowned songwriter Norman Gimbel, a truly prolific and gifted writer who will be greatly missed by his many friends and fans here.”

The Brooklyn native wrote the words to both “The Girl from Ipanema” and the “Happy Days” theme, earning an Academy Award with David Shire for Jennifer Warnes’ “It Goes Like It Goes,” the Best Original Song winner for 1979’s “Norma Rae,” which also garnered Sally Field her first of two Best Actress Oscars.

With his longtime writing collaborator Charles Fox,...

Norman Gimbel, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning lyricist whose career included Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly With His Song," Jim Croce's "I Got a Name" and the themes to Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, has died. He was 91.

Gimbel died Dec. 19 at his longtime home in Montecito, Calif., son Tony Gimbel told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Brooklyn native shared his original song Academy Award with David Shire for "It Goes Like It Goes," performed by Jennifer Warnes for Norma Rae (1979), starring Sally Field in an Oscar-winning turn.

With music by his most frequent ...

Norman Gimbel, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning lyricist whose career included Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly With His Song," Jim Croce's "I Got a Name" and the themes to Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, has died. He was 91.

Gimbel died Dec. 19 at his longtime home in Montecito, Calif., son Tony Gimbel told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Brooklyn native shared his original song Academy Award with David Shire for "It Goes Like It Goes," performed by Jennifer Warnes for Norma Rae (1979), starring Sally Field in an Oscar-winning turn.

With music by his most frequent ...

This article marks Part 15 of the Gold Derby series analyzing 84 years of Best Original Song at the Oscars. Join us as we look back at the timeless tunes recognized in this category, the results of each race and the overall rankings of the winners.

The 1978 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:

“Ready to Take a Chance Again” from “Foul Play”

“Hopelessly Devoted to You” from “Grease”

“When You’re Loved” from “The Magic of Lassie”

“The Last Time I Felt Like This” from “Same Time, Next Year”

“Last Dance” from “Thank God It’s Friday”

Won: “Last Dance” from “Thank God It’s Friday”

Should’ve won: “Ready to Take a Chance Again” from “Foul Play”

After the ho-hum affairs of 1976 and 1977, it’s nice to come upon a Best Original Song line-up with not just one or two listenable nominees. In fact, 45 years of Best Original Song in,...

Louisa Mellor Nov 9, 2018

From the creator of Mr Robot and starring Julia Roberts, Amazon’s Homecoming thriller channels classic '70s paranoia…

Before it was a TV show starring Julia Roberts and Bobby Cannavale, Homecoming was an audio drama starring Catherine Keener and David Schwimmer. Two seasons have been released so far, telling the story of Heidi Bergman, a counsellor working at a facility helping to reintegrate traumatised veterans into society.

Amazon bought the rights and brought in Mr. Robot’s Sam Esmail to add pictures to Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg’s story. By all accounts, after a faithful adaptation of the podcast’s first episode, he and the team have added a great deal more than just pictures. Heidi’s story has been both expanded and accelerated, while background elements have been developed in preparation for an already-commissioned second season (look out for a mid-credits scene in the...

For “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail, classic thrillers were the inspiration to adapt Gimlet podcast “Homecoming” into an episodic series. He wanted to capture the tension and paranoia of films by directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Alan J. Pakula, Brian De Palma, and Stanley Kubrick.

“When we started talking about music, I started to talking to my editors about those classic scores by Pino Donaggio, Bernard Herrmann, John Williams and John Carpenter even,” said Esmail.

However, Esmail didn’t want to use these classic scores as a reference point, or temp music: He wanted to use the actual scores.

“I just started thinking, this is going to be really unfair to ask a music composer to ape David Shire’s ‘Conversation’ theme,” said Esmail. “That’s just ridiculous, or to ask someone to ape Michael Smalls’ theme from ‘Klute.'”

Esmail broached the subject with music supervisor Maggie Phillips when she first interviewed for the job.

David Shire's melodies have earned him an Oscar, a Grammy, countless Emmy and Tony nominations, as well a special place in the hearts of audiences spanning as far back as 1960. David drops by Shetler Studios to look back on his career and revisit not only such films as The Conversation, The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three, All The President's Men, Return to Oz, Zodiac, Norma Rae, and Saturday Night Fever, but to explore his collaboration with Richard Maltby Jr that produced such musicals as Starting Here, Starting Now, Baby, Take Flight, Big, Closer Than Ever, Love Match, How Do You Do, I Love You, and The Sap Of Life.

Death is just a thing that happens sometimes. If we’re being completely honest, death is a thing that happens all the time. Now. And now. And in the space between those words. Almost two people die every second of every day, blindly joining hands as they close their eyes and jump into the abyss — quickly now, so as not to hold up the line. Life goes on because not everyone goes with it.

Like a traditional melodrama that’s been thoroughly filleted and then pounded flat, Russell Harbaugh’s raw and exquisite “Love After Love” is a very honest film about how things change when someone is gone, which means that it’s also a film about how they don’t. One moment a bed is full, the next moment the bed is empty; one moment a house is empty, the next moment the house is haunted. Everything is effected,...

Friars have socialized and been entertained by every major Broadway and Great American Songbook composer starting with Friar George M. Cohan, who in addition to writing over 50 Broadway shows and 300 songs happened to pen Over There at a table during lunch at the Friars Club. Last night continuing this tradition, and in the same building that Friar Irving Berlin, Sammy Cahn and countless luminaries have performed, musical theatre legends Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire entertained The Friars with a major dose of Maltby amp Shire music.

By Todd Garbarini

High school friends Enid Coleslaw (Thora Birch) and Rebecca Doppelmeyer (Scarlett Johansson) absolutely cannot wait to be free of the prison of school, defiantly flipping the bird and squashing their mortarboards following their graduation. Enid isn’t off the hook just yet: her “diploma” is instead a note informing her that she must “take some stupid art class” (her words) if she hopes to graduate. Their fellow classmates are caricatures of everyone we all knew during our adolescence. Melora (Debra Azar) is inhumanly happy all the time and oblivious to Enid and Rebecca’s sense of ennui and contempt. Todd (T.J. Thyne) is ultra-nervous to talk with the insouciant Rebecca at the punchbowl. Another bespectacled student sits off by himself. Enid and Rebecca are at both an intellectual and emotional crossroads. They want to share an apartment; however, they seem unaware of the amount of money they...

Red Bull Theatertoday announced a very special Revelation Reading for two nights only, on Sunday, June 18th and Monday June 19th at The Duke on 42nd Street 229 West 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues Red Bull will present a concert reading of The Country Wife, a new musical adapted from the play of the same name by William Wycherley by Richard Maltby Jr. with lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and music by David Shire, and direction by Mr. Maltby.

Red Bull Theater today announced a very special Revelation Reading for two nights only, on Sunday, June 18th and Monday June 19th at The Duke on 42nd Street 229 West 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues Red Bull will present a concert reading of The Country Wife, a new musical adapted from the play of the same name by William Wycherley by Richard Maltby Jr. with lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and music by David Shire, and direction by Mr. Maltby.

Long Wharf Theatre, under the director of Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein and Managing Director Joshua Borenstein, presents the world premiere of The Most Beautiful Room in New York, a new musical with book and lyrics by Adam Gopnik and music by David Shire, directed by Edelstein.The production will take place beginning tonight,May 3, and runningthrough May 28, 2017 on the Claire Tow Stage in the C. Newton Schenck III Theatre. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below...

For many years, director Ben Wheatley has been one of Britain’s top genre exports from his early supernatural crime-thriller Kill List to the dark comedy Sightseers and the trippy war movie, A Field in England. Last year, he even took on the difficult task of adapting J.B. Ballard’s High-Rise, starring Tom Hiddleston, a crazy movie that also paid homage to another great British filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick. (All of these movies were either written, co-written and/or edited by Wheatley’s long-time silent partner, Amy Jump.)

Wheatley’s new movie Free Fire features an amazing ensemble cast that includes Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy, Sharlto Copley, Michael Smiley and more, as it sets up a gun deal that goes wrong and turns into a violent shoot out inside an abandoned warehouse.

The movie shows the amazing skills of Wheatley and Jump with terrific dialogue and some of the most insane action scenes,...

The story might go on and on and on but our three part interview with Tony Award winner Richard Malby, Jr. must come to an end. In our last discussion, Richard discusses how an observant stage manager got him working on Miss Saigon, why Arthur Laurents isn't the next Agatha Christie, when he knew Big The Musical wasn't going to work, and what the secret is behind his collaboration with composer David Shire.

Richard Maltby Jr, acclaimed lyricist and director, sits down again with Rob and Kevin to pull back the curtain on his illustrious career. In this episode, Richard discusses how he met David Shire, looks back onLove MatchampHow Do You Do I Love You,two musicals that never came to Broadway, and the process of working with choreographers. Plus, Richard pulls back the curtain on such legends as Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ronny Graham, and Cameron Mackintosh.