Lakeshore Records has digitally released the original series soundtrack for the PBS documentary series Asian Americans by two-time Daytime Emmy-winning composer Vivek Maddala. The music score reflects the series’ exploration of two centuries of immigration and civil rights experiences by Asian Americans in the U.S. The docuseries aired last month on PBS and is now available for streaming on PBS.org and the PBS Video app.
The soundtrack album includes 84 minutes of key moments and themes from the sweeping music score, taking listeners on a stimulating ride that traverses gritty 19th-Century American textures and elegant European romantic motifs; 20th-Century jazz, soul, and rock; and modern-day brooding electronica. Splashes of musical color come from places as varied as Japan, Philippines, Korea, China, and India–all threaded into a cohesive musical fabric that transcends temporal or geographic boundaries.
“The Asian Americans series is a significant work in terms of both the quality of the filmmaking and the importance of the subject matter. I feel incredibly honored to have been invited to compose the music score… to craft a melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic voice for this vital history. The series directors, producers, and editors proved to be superb collaborators in this regard,” said Maddala.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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