Whether or not you’re a fan of Star Trek Into Darkness, you should take a look at the latest SoundWorks Collection shorts on the music of the film. Michael Coleman visited the 20th Century Fox Newman Scoring Stage to document some of the recording of the Star Trek sequel’s score. While there he interviewed Tim Simonec, the conductor and orchestror, while also getting some footage of director J.J. Abrams and composer Michael Giacchino overlooking the sessions. Also named in the video is co-producer Michelle Rejwan as the orchestra plays “Happy Birthday” in her honor (at least I think it’s in her honor since the camera is turned toward her). Behind the scenes stuff like this is always neat, and here Simonec explains some of what’s different about the Into Darkness score compared to the previous Star Trek movie’s music. For one thing this has more synth less choir. I also just like watching all the professional musicians. It’s easy to forget about all that talent while watching a movie, especially when you wind up nitpicking at the writing and directing. While Giacchino’s compositions themselves may be criticized, there’s absolutely no digging at the people on the strings and horns and percussion. Their performance of the score is objectively perfect, as that job always has to be. Watch the brief video after the jump.

The sort of fame that comes from appearing on reality television can be fleeting. Remember Puck, the filthy bike messenger who put his finger in Pedro’s peanut butter on MTV’s The Real World? No? Let’s go with something more recent. How about Richard Hatch, the manipulative nudist from CBS’ Survivor? Still no? Omarosa, that bitch from The Apprentice? William Hung, that Ricky Martin wannabe from American Idol? At one point these people were the darlings of popular culture, and now their names conjure up barely a glimmer of recognition. Hopefully for Fox Searchlight the name Susan Boyle is recent enough that it’s still at the tips of everyone’s brains though, because Deadline Hollywood is reporting that they’ve just signed off on a deal that gives them the rights to her life story. It turns out that, in the time since her revelatory 2009 performance on Britain’s Got Talent, where she taught the world that even people who aren’t 16-year-old girls with hair extensions can sing, Boyle has been spending her time doing things like cutting albums and signing deals to have a stage musical about her life story made.

Just a day after Peter Jackson and his team released Neil Finn’s song from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the folks at Empire have released the full soundtrack for free online. Now you can get a preview of what the December 13 release will hold. The score is from composer Howard Shore, who as you know also served as music man behind The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s all got a very Middle Earthian feel to it, as is appropriate for such a release. However, fans will undoubtedly find enough in Shore’s new score that feels fresh and new.

It just doesn’t stop, does it? Not only is one film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s “The Hobbit” not enough for movie fans (or director Peter Jackson? or his vast and very talented cast? or the country of New Zealand?), two film adaptations are also not enough, so you better believe that just one soundtrack isn’t even close to good enough for a production that has now ballooned to include three films based on one novel. WaterTower Music has just announced (via Fandango) the release of the official soundtrack to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and, shock of shocks, just one disc isn’t going to cut it. The Official Motion Picture Soundtrack will arrive in stores and online on December 11 as a two-disc set, with a Special Edition also available on that same day. The so-called Special Edition will include six exclusive bonus tracks, seven extended score cues, and deluxe liner notes. The soundtrack features an original score by Academy Award winner Howard Shore (who also did the score for Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy), along with a new original song by Crowded House’s Neil Finn. You can check out the full track listing for both editions of the soundtrack after the break, if you’re into that sort of thing.

If there’s one theme that emerges from the Skyfall theme from British crooner Adele — which you can listen to below — it’s that the end is coming. But what is it, exactly, that’s ending? Surely not the time of Daniel Craig’s James Bond era. Nor the Bond franchise, both of which will go on long after the Sam Mendes 23rd film in the franchise. What it has to do with the movie, we don’t yet know, but it’s a fun thought exercise. Beyond that, the new theme is moody, melodic and full of grande promises about the nature of the November release.

There are a lot of things that writer/director John Ridley’s upcoming biopic of rock great Jimi Hendrix, All Is By My Side, has going for it. The most obvious asset being its star, André Benjamin, who has shown potential as an actor, has a ton of experience being a musician, and looks pretty much exactly like Jimi Hendrix once he’s all dressed up in costume and letting his afro roam free. There’s one huge stumbling block that has a lot of people questioning what the point of making this movie is at all though: the Hendrix estate didn’t sign off on letting them use any of the musician’s music in the film. How do you make a movie about Hendrix’s music career without showing him playing any of his music? Rolling Stone has the scoop. Apparently the biggest strategy Ridley and company are employing when it comes to getting around the issue of not being able to use any of Hendrix’s copyrights is that they’re going to focus on an isolated part of the musician’s career, the period where he was just emerging onto the scene in ’66 and ’67. Or, as producer Sean McKittrick puts it, “This is the story of Jimi being discovered as a backup musician and how he went to London and became Jimi Hendrix.” In McKittrick’s opinion, focusing on just the early part of Hendrix’s career is smarter than making a movie that covers his whole life, because, “That would be like making a movie

When director Joseph Kosinski revived Disney’s sci-fi classic TRON with the belated but visually dazzling 2010 sequel TRON: Legacy, the results were a mixed bag to say the least. One thing that pretty much everyone could agree upon when it came to that film, however, is that the score by French electronic group Daft Punk was the best thing it had going for it. Eschewing a traditional film score in favor of the pulsing, electronic sounds of Daft Punk worked wonders when it came to bringing the world of TRON to life and really making it hum, and it’s not hard to imagine that the film could have been far less effective without such a perfect marriage of image and sound. TRON: Legacy isn’t the only film that’s gone the nontraditional route when it comes to finding its music in recent years, either. From Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood scoring Paul Thomas Anderson movies, to Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor scoring David Fincher films, to The Chemical Brothers providing the music for Joe Wright’s Hanna, bringing a mainstream musician in to score your film instead of hiring one of the well-established film score composers seems to have become a full-scale trend, and a trend that has so far provided us with some amazing music. Since it worked for him once, Kosinski is looking to go back to that well for his next sci-fi adventure, Oblivion. The Playlist reports that in order to find the musical accompaniment for this Tom Cruise-starring tale of

We learned not too long ago that David Gordon Green has made a movie that’s so low budget and has so much indie cred, nobody even heard about it until it was already finished shooting. It’s called Prince Avalanche, it stars Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch as a couple of road workers painting the lines on isolated and little used roads, and it’s a remake of a 2011 Icelandic film called Either Way. Since most everyone is in agreement that the David Gordon Green who makes small, experimental films is the best David Gordon Green there is, said news was generally accepted as being good news. But things get even better. Now there’s word that this new film will be bringing back memories of Green’s earlier, indie-r work even more so than we may have imagined. Consequence of Sound is reporting that Austin, Texas band Explosions in the Sky have agreed to make some time to score the film once their current tour wraps up in August. The guys from Explosions in the Sky and Green have all known each other for quite a while, as he’s already used a bunch of their music in his earlier works All the Real Girls and Snow Angels.

Even though the release of Prometheus has been a polarizing one for movie fans, the overall consensus is that it is a brilliantly made movie from a technical perspective. Even the haters and mediocre reviews point out the striking visuals and classy use of 3D. What often gets lost in this discussion is the sound design and mix, which is as important to making a film as any visual elements. The good folks at Soundworks Collection have released a brief-yet-detailed look into the sound of Prometheus, presented by Dolby. Included in the video are Supervising Sound Editors Mark Stoeckinger and Victor Ennis, Sound Re-recording Mixers Ron Bartlett and Doug Hemphill, Sound Designers Ann Scibelli and Alan Rankin, and Sound Effects Researcher Charlie Campagna. Fans of sound design will enjoy hearing about the creative and often low-tech elements that inspired the high-tech sound mix. The sound team talks about how they preserved the sound from Ridley Scott‘s original Alien and found inspiration in everyday items like soda, pop rocks, and a blue-fronted Amazon parrot to create the sound landscape heard in the film. Check out the video after the break.

Park Chan-wook is a talented filmmaker who’s never afraid to get experimental and crazy with his work, so film fans have been looking forward to his first English language movie for quite a while. The director’s breakthrough into the world of Hollywood will finally come in the form of a film called Stoker, which stars Mia Wasikowska as a teenage girl who’s forced to reconnect with a strange and probably dangerous uncle after the untimely death of her father. Just hearing that Park has gotten the chance to direct names like Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, and Jacki Weaver is enough to make Stoker a heavily anticipated release already, but today some new news broke that makes the movie look like even more of a surefire delight. According to Film Music Reporter, composer Clint Mansell has scored the film, and is currently recording its music at Air Studios in London. Mansell has been doing film work for a while, but he’s probably best known as being a longtime collaborator of Darren Aronofsky’s. Their work together has created some of the greatest scores of the last decade or so, with the soundtracks for Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain probably being the high points. Mansell was also responsible for the mellow tones that made up the score for Duncan Jones’ debut film Moon, a track list that surely shows up on a lot of movie score nuts’ top-ten of the 2000s lists. He is also a particular favorite of our own Allison

We’re going to get this out of the way and, like, totally quickly – I love Valley Girl. Unironically. I think it’s hilarious and weirdly romantic and that Nicolas Cage has never, ever looked better (and sexier). And also? The music is phenomenal (Cage’s Randy is really into the underground punk scene). And all that embarrassing praise and all those bizarre personal revelations aside, what made Valley Girl work is that it chronicled a specific lifestyle during the actual period in which it existed – that is, the “for sure, totally, tripendicular” slice of life California life during the 80s. A remake? Well, I worry that a remake is just going to poke fun at the time period, not look back on it with any sort of endearing nostalgia. MGM has been working to get a remake going for awhile now, and apparently Paramount is getting in on the action. According to Deadline Agoura Hills, the studios have now reportedly even picked a director for the film, which will be a musical version that will see its leads singing “New Wave tunes from bands like The Go Go’s and The Cars.” Clay Weiner will start his feature directing career with the film, apparently triumphing over “a number of well-established helmers who wanted the job.”

There are a number of elements to Nicolas Winding Refn‘s upcoming release, Drive, that are surprising. But beyond the shocking violence (if you’ve got a weak tummy, consider investing in a blindfold, or at least polish up your eye-covering reflexes before hitting the theater) and the nifty double-crossings and Ryan Gosling being a mind-blowing badass, there is nothing more surprising than the film’s soundtrack. Upon first listen, it’s incongruous. In fact, the soundtrack may make you feel as if you’ve finally lost total touch with reality and regressed all the way back to the eighties. Don’t worry about it, you’re not having an acid flashback or a stroke, the soundtrack really is that unexpected. The soundtrack will also make you want to become a tough as nails hitman and drive like you’re being chased by a pack of pissed off mobsters. It’s probably best to listen to it far, far away from the wheel of a car. Who am I kidding? Get this soundtrack, then get in your Pinto or Fiesta or whatever, and drive like hell. If you haven’t gone through puberty yet (and, if so, why are you driving?), this soundtrack paired with American muscle will change that faster than you can put pedal to metal and break whatever flimsy speed limit is posted nearby. I’m not telling you to break the law. This soundtrack is telling you to break the law. Check it out after the break:

The Internet can get kind of obsessive when it comes to its young adult action/adventure novels. The Hunger Games is the latest severely popular book series about young people facing grave peril while forming tumultuous love triangles that is in pre-production for a film adaptation, and speculation about the casting has been running wild. To this point, most of the talk has been about who would play the lead character Katniss Everdeen. We’ve reported that Hailee Steinfeld is one of the front-runners for the role. In addition to Steinfeld, the most oft mentioned young actresses that keep getting drug through the rumor mill seem to be Chloe Moretz and, most recently, Jennifer Lawrence. While debate over who is likely and who would be best rages over the Katniss casting, some talk about the male lead has started up as well. The Playlist talked with Alex Pettyfer, and he confirmed that he is being courted to possibly join the Gary Ross directed film. While he has been sent a script, Pettyfer says that he has yet to read it. You might recognize Pettyfer, as he’s a ridiculously dreamy young guy, he’s had two big films released in the last couple weeks, and he is probably poised to be young Hollywood’s next it boy. His two recent releases were the super-heroic I Am Number Four and the super-pathetic Beastly. That’s one marketed toward the boys and one toward the girls. All he probably needs is one high profile role to really break

There are two very excellent reasons why you should be interested in the Hot Tub Time Machine soundtrack. Check ‘em out inside.

Paramount and MySpace have released the full-length music video for Linkin Park’s “New Divide,” which will be featured on the soundtrack for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

You’ve got the touch. You’ve got the power. When all hell’s breaking loose, you’ll be riding the eye of the storm. Just like Stan Bush’s newly remixed version of “The Touch.”

A new show from the ‘Friday Night Lights’ team will bring ‘The Wizard of Oz’ to modern day Manhattan.

The following music video, which is of the song “Crying Blood” by V.V. Brown, will be featured as part of the soundtrack for the horror comedy Lesbian Vampire Killers, one of our favorite films from this year’s Fantastic Fest at SXSW line-up.

Elfman is in for Terminator: Salvation and Morricone is out for Inglorious Basterds. Does that sound right to you?

The music video for “Another Way to Die,” the theme song for the upcoming Bond movie Quantum of Solace, performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys, has hit the web today via Yahoo Music.