"Across 110th St." by J.J. Johnson

J.J. Johnson's astounding score to Barry Shear's epic blaxploitation (ish) thriller "Across 110th Street" has to be in the conversation of the great soundtracks of all time. Taken as just a record alone, it's excellent, but the smart, spare, mostly percussive tracks that underscore the great chase scenes are completely perfect - the musicianship is superb, the musical concepts are tight and the overall tone matches the scenes perfectly. It certainly doesn't hurt that much of the soundtrack features vocals by one of the great all time soul singers, Bobby Womack, who also wrote the songs that weren't strictly part of the score, which was performed by J.J. Johnson and His Orchestra. It gets no better than this.

It's interesting to note that the song "Across 110th Street" used in the film is not the same version you've probably heard before; it's tougher, faster and more raw than the more polished single. The sweet, sad love song "If You Don't Want My Love" had also been a single for Womack, and was re-recorded here in again a much more raw, sparsely instrumented style. The Latin flavored, almost disco-ish "Quicksand" plays as background music in a Harlem bar, and the tough blues song "Do It Right" blasts in suddenly and jarringly, underscoring a scene in a dry cleaner where hoods try to coerce information out of a man by putting his head in a hot press.

This film isn't often talked about as one of the great 70's films; a lot of times it's not even one of the first films that comes to mind when discussing great blaxploitation films, but it ought to be. One could argue that the production value is too high to put in firmly in the category of true blaxploitation, and that's true: ten blaxploitation films could probably have been made for what "110th Street" cost. It moves very quickly, and even though there's a few unintentionally funny moments, (mostly due to Anthony Quinn's character's hilariously short temper: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT TALKING?!?!?" punch, kick etc), overall it's pretty legit dialogue-wise. See this film immediately if you haven't and you like blaxploitation or mafia movies, or even just great music.

"Tenebre" by Massimo Morante, Fabio Pignatelli, and Claudio Simonetti

The score for Dario Argento's giallo masterpiece "Tenebre" is so ahead of its time that I'm sure I could fool an unwitting friend into believing it came out yesterday. The main theme was used as a sample by the Parisian electronic duo Justice for the song "Phantom" on their well regarded 2007 album "Cross"; it features an epic evil robot sounding vocoder line and driving disco drum beat. Justice did not have to do much to it to make it sound new. In my opinion they definitely did it justice!! WAKA WAKA! Get out of here, Dad.

Throughout the film there's disparate styles coming together to create an effective score: heavy breakbeats with weird choirs and vocals by synthetic operatic demon women, syncopated bass lines, amazing Giorgio Moroder-esque disco (which plays under the credits, cutting out abruptly for a few seconds and then hilariously continuing right where it's left off in the next scene), and plenty of that weird funk sound that only Italians making music for giallo horror films seem to be able to create. Warbly, unsettling jack-in-the-box music and even baroque organ, neither of which sound on paper like something that would fit the general tone the composers have set fit in perfectly.

The three composers were ex-members of the legendary Italian band the Goblins, who scored many horror films in the 70's and 80's (including the well known "Suspiria", another giallo masterpiece of Argento's), and their mastery of making music for the genre is on full display.

I love Tenebre - not only is it a great film but there's plenty of WTF moments, particularly in the dialogue overdubbing; I spent almost the entire film trying to figure out if the cast was filmed speaking Italian and was later overdubbed in English, eventually coming to the conclusion that no, they're speaking English the whole time and occasionally (or really, more than occasionally) the audio doesn't seem to be synced up correctly, though I'm still not sure about it (do you know?). In one of the countless unintentionally hilarious moments two of the main characters try to sneak around behind the house of the suspected killer while wearing brightly colored clothes and whispering and talking to each other audibly to anyone within 50 yards. "He couldn't have seen us!" says one, as the suspected killer looks out his window. Watch this movie, listen to the soundtrack - (be warned that the link to the film is going to a streaming Amazon version which is really shitty quality; however it doesn't seem to be possible to stream a higher quality version (anyone out there know of one?) and to buy it on blu-ray or DVD seems a pretty expensive proposition but it's probably worth it. Cin cin!

"Nightcrawler" By James Newton Howard.

James Newton Howard's score for Dan Gilroy's tense thriller "Nightcrawler" varies wildly aesthetically from one scene to the next, but it always works. Both the direction and the score are executed flawlessly. The sonic choices range from the opening shot's jangly guitar all the way to flanged drum machine beats in the very next scene, and then at one point staccato orchestral strings and at another huge breathy sound sculptures. Howard's score only gets dissonant a few times, remaining melodic throughout the rest of the film, which is somewhat of a different way of thinking about scoring a modern day film in this genre, where constant dissonance seems to be the preferred method of creating tension. My favorite moment of music in the movie is bizarre spaghetti western tune coming through a radio while the protagonist fuels up at a gas station.

The film itself is riveting and very original, definitely one of the best big budget Hollywood thrillers I've seen in the last year. It features one of the best car chases since Bulliet. I'd think Gyllenhaal's portrayal of the deranged protagonist would have gotten him a best actor nomination but I've accepted at this point that I'm the world's worst guesser of who will get nominated for an Oscar/what people will like. Nightcrawler is also notable for avoiding displaying the news camera's footage during the action; we only see what the camera sees when they're cutting the footage together at the news station, and thus the film avoids a gimmick which is growing old fast in modern cinema. It's a little weird, very exciting and very highly recommended.