There’s something fitting, in this 75th anniversary year for Wonder Woman, that the character’s iconic portrayer, Lynda Carter, has returned to television as the President of the United States in the “Supergirl” series. Spoiler Alert: Cinemablend discusses the twist that reveals something provocative and unexpected about the character, information that raises some telling and contemporary concerns.

The best film I saw at the Middleburg Film Festival was the lusciously romantic “La La Land,” a musical from writer/director Damien Chazelle, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.  Chazelle and Stone appeared after the film, interviewed by Middleburg Film Festival Advisory Board member John Horn.

Chazelle wrote this film before his acclaimed “Whiplash,” which won an Oscar for J.K. Simmons. But it was not until the critical and box office success of that film that he could get financing for a musical inspired in part by classic Hollywood and by the films of Jacques Demy. Music was an essential component in “Whiplash” as well. But “La La Land” is the kind of musical where people break into song and dance, even literally dancing on air. And they don’t really make films like that anymore. He wanted it to hark back to the musicals of the 40’s and 50’s but also feel modern. He wanted to cast people who had not been in a musical together before, so it would “not feel like a distanced endeavor. They can guide you through it even if you’re skeptical at first.”

What drew him to this idea was the way “your emotions can upend logic in a musical. If your emotions are powerful, a 90-piece orchestra will appear. You can make the unreal real.” It can convey “the craziness of falling in love.”

What drew Stone was two things. First, she said, was “the build to the ending. I’m a freak for endings.” Second was the passion of Chazelle’s vision. She loved the “hope and joy that can give you that last 10 minutes. It’s melancholy and heart-breaking but with hope…My favorite movies are where you find that full spectrum of emotion.”

Did you enjoy the twisty thriller “Girl on a Train?”  I’m giving away a copy of the book!  To enter, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Train” in the subject line and tell me a train ride you took.  Don’t forget your address!  (US addresses only)  I’ll pick a winner at random on November 1, 2016.  Good luck!

The Middleburg Film Festival had an outstanding line-up of films, many with filmmakers present to answer questions. But unquestionably the highlight of the festival was the concert tribute to composer Henry Jackman. Middleburg is unique in its annual recognition of film scores with its Distinguished Film Composer award, and they do it right. The Shenandoah Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of maestro Jan Wagner, performed the world premiere of suites from films scored by Jackman. The finale included the Freedom Choir singing with the orchestra the haunting score from “The Birth of a Nation.”  Hearing the music without the sound effects and dialogue demonstrated powerfully how essential the score is to establishing the mood, direction, and character of the story.

In between clips from Jackman-scored films that ranged from “Monsters vs. Aliens” to “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and Seth Rogen’s “The Interview,” Jackman spoke with Middleburg Film Festival Advisory Board member John Horn about the “weird and nasty noises” he includes in some of his compositions. He said that the first film that made him think about the contribution made by the music was, of all things, “Predator.” He was still in school, studying music, and was captivated to hear that the “Predator” score was “very harmonically sophisticated music with tritone chord changes.” He laughed that years later, when he told composer Alan Silvestri how much that music had inspired him, Silvestri responded, “I didn’t even try with that one!”

Despite the fact that his music teacher told him that “Film music isn’t real music, dear boy,” he decided to pursue it.

He said that one advantage to working on animated films is the longer lead time.  He often has a couple of years with updates on storyboards and character designs, while with live-action features, he hopes for as much as three months.  He is happy when the director has a sophisticated understanding of music (Edward Zwick impressed him by asking whether “the da capo should start here”), what he really appreciates is a director who will be clear about the mood and story.  He is glad to have direction with terms like “stress, kinetic, and narrative.”  He emphasized more than once that a film composer has to understand story as well as music.

A composer can help a movie’s problems, but can’t fix them, he told us.  “Music can sneak you past things” and “when characters are off the screen you can add some narrative.”  He said that Hans Zimmer told director Ron Howard that he could convey all of the dense historical background for “The Da Vinci Code” by writing music that “will make the audience feel devastated and know that what happened was really unfair,” and that would be enough.

He talked about working in different genres and with different directors.  Paul Greengrass like “ruthless realism.”  But in a movie like “Puss in Boots,” there is “no point in trying to be subtle.  It’s not often you get to see an egg sword fight with a cat.”  And for  the provocative satire, ‘The Interview,” instead of going for the comedy, he created a big, pompous classical score, “something Kim Jong-un might approve.” And for “The Birth of a Nation,” he asked “Why wouldn’t Nat Turner get the same compositional and orchestral accompaniment” that Mel Gibson had in “Braveheart?”

He said that matching the score to the film can be “chess-like problem-solving.”  The festival’s award, then, was the equivalent of designating him a grand master.