This week I had the great fortune of sitting next to composer Alexandre Desplat for a KUSC radio interview about his new score for The Monuments Men. I was pretty excited about this film from the moment I saw the above photo (taken during production) sometime last year, wondering what Desplat could possibly be doing on a horse cart with Matt Damon…both men rocking berets. The fact that the film also starred George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, and Bob Balaban—and, based on the trailers, just looked like a lot of fun—made me even more excited.
Twenty years ago, on January 14th, 1994, Richard Attenborough’s Shadowlands opened in American theaters. William Nicholson adapted his own 1985 teleplay (which he also turned into a stage play) based on the true account of British author/professor C.S. Lewis’s autumnal and ill-fated romance with American poet Joy Gresham. Attenborough was not the first director attached to the film adaptation (Sydney Pollack had been developing it), but he brought an Englishman’s sensibility and familiarity with Oxford and its academics, personally chose Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger to play the leads (flawlessly), and retained his regular collaborator, composer George Fenton, to write the score.
I had the privilege of interviewing Hans Zimmer for a 
It’s a magical time to be an Arrested Development fan. The short-lived show spawned such a vocal following after its death in 2005 that it warranted an unprecedented resurrection season produced exclusively for Netflix, premiering all at once this Sunday, May 26. (A feature film is also in the works.) The series is a perfect, self-contained comedy universe, full of some of TV’s richest characters, played by one of the most flawless ensemble casts ever assembled, and running along a singular vein of humor that weds the simplicity of puns and physical comedy with a complex web of ongoing gags and an intimate knowledge of literature, politics, and pop culture.