DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY – Randy Edelman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Certain film stars, especially those who die young, often attain a mythical status in popular culture after their death. James Dean is one of these figures. Marilyn Monroe is another. More recently, people like Chadwick Boseman are likely to maintain a significant profile for many years to come. For Asian Americans, their iconic star who died too soon is Bruce Lee, the San Francisco-born actor whose passion for martial arts – and his combining of those two things on film – made him a star. Lee died from a cerebral edema in July 1973 at the age of 32 with just a handful of released films – including The Big Boss and Fist of Fury – to his name; Enter the Dragon, his most famous film, and Game of Death, would be released posthumously. Despite his brief period of stardom, Lee’s movies revolutionized martial arts cinema, with their blend of realistic fight scenes and philosophical overtones. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a biopic based on his life; it stars Jason Scott Lee (no relation) in the title role, co-stars Lauren Holly as his wife Linda, and features Nancy Kwan, Robert Wagner, and Michael Learned in supporting roles. The film is directed by Rob Cohen, and has an original score by Randy Edelman. Read more…
CHEVALIER – Kris Bowers and Michael Abels
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Think of a classical composer. Any classical composer. What sort of face springs to mind? White. Male. Middle Aged. Some sort of imposing hairdo, probably a beard. Formal clothes. A facial expression that combines seriousness with intelligence. It’s the sort of face we’ve all seen for hundreds of years, from Mozart to Beethoven to Brahms, to Tchaikovsky and beyond. It’s what we’re all accustomed to seeing and thinking of when western classical music is mentioned. However, the truth is that there is, and has always been, more diversity than that, both in terms of gender and race, but most of the music of non-white non-male composers was overlooked and, at times, intentionally suppressed in the past, to the point that today very few of us know, and can name, any composers outside those gender-based and race-based confines. This new movie, Chevalier, attempts to redress some of that a little. Read more…
DEVOTION – Erich Wolfgang Korngold
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1942 Warner Brothers decided to embark upon opulent period piece involving a fictionalized biopic of the renown Brontë sisters. Robert Buckner was assigned production with Keith Winter and Edward Chodorov hired to write the screenplay. Curtis Bernhardt was tasked with directing a lavish and opulent tale and a stellar cast was assembled, including Olivia de Havilland as Charlotte Brontë, Ida Lupino as Emily Brontë, Nancy Coleman as Anne Brontë, Paul Henreid as Reverend Arthur Nicholls and Sydney Greenstreet as the renowned publisher William Makepeace Thackeray. Read more…
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING – Patrick Doyle
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I will always maintain that, with the possible exception of Sir Laurence Olivier, the only director who can successfully translate Shakespeare to the big screen is Kenneth Branagh. His 1989 cinematic debut Henry V was a lightning bolt, doing away with stuffy line readings and instead embracing rich and complex emotions, thereby making the Bard’s prose modern and invigorating. He brought scenes to life with lavish settings and action sequences, and surrounded it all with rich, bold music. His second Shakespeare adaptation after Henry V was this one: Much Ado About Nothing, a romantic comedy first published in 1599. Read more…
PETER PAN & WENDY – Daniel Hart
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I have lost count of how many Peter Pan movies there have been since the work was first published by Scottish author J. M. Barrie in 1904, such is its enduring popularity with audiences across the world. It’s a timeless story of Victorian children who yearn for adventure, of pirates and fairies, of lost boys and native princesses, and of a little boy who can fly and who refuses to grow up. One of the most popular big-screen versions of the story was the 1953 animated film produced by Walt Disney, and now as part of their ‘live action remakes’ series that film has been re-imagined as the magical adventure Peter Pan & Wendy. The film is directed by David Lowery – who also helmed the live-action Disney remake of Pete’s Dragon in 2016 – and stars Alexander Molony and Ever Anderson as the title characters Peter Pan and Wendy Darling, plus Jude Law as Captain Hook, Yara Shahidi as Tinker Bell, and Alyssa Wapanatahk as Tiger Lily. Read more…
DECEPTION – Erich Wolfgang Korngold
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Warner Brothers Studios was searching for a film that would showcase two of their leading actors, Barbara Stanwyck and Paul Henried. To that end, late in 1943 they purchased the film rights to the 1927 two-character French play “Monsieur Lamberthier” by Louis Verneuil. They believed that the film noir drama would translate well for a suspenseful big screen adaptation. Henry Blanke was assigned production, provided a $2.882 million budget, and John Collier and Joseph Than were hired to write the screenplay. Irving Rapper was tasked with directing and a powerhouse cast for the ages was assembled, including luminaries; Bette Davis as Christine Radcliffe, Paul Henreid as Karel Novak, and Claude Rains as Alexander Hollenius. In the three years it took to launch the project, Bette Davis, whose star was ascendant, replaced Stanwyck for the lead role. Read more…
ON DANGEROUS GROUND – Bernard Herrmann
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1951 director Nicholas Ray had just wrapped up shooting the WWII action film “The Flying Leathernecks” and decided that his next project would a film noir melodrama based on the 1945 novel “Mad With Much Heart” by Gerald Butler. RKO Pictures executives were initially resistant, finding the novel “unpleasant and uncommercial”, but were ultimately persuaded by Ray’s vision and passion. John Houseman was assigned production and A. I. Bezzerides was tasked with adapting Butler’s novel and writing the screenplay. For the cast, Ray hired Ida Lupino as Mary Malden, Robert Ryan as Jim Wilson, and Ward Bond as Walter Brent. Read more…
THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH – Bernard Herrmann
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Alfred Hitchcock had directed in England, the film “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934). In 1941 he decided on a new American incarnation, but it did not come to fruition until 1956 when Paramount Pictures agreed it was a movie that could be well-adapted to the new decade. Filwite Productions joined with Paramount and provided a $1.2 million budget. Hitchcock would manage production and direct, and Charles Bennett and D. B. Wyndham-Lewis were tasked with writing the screenplay. A fine cast was assembled with James Stewart as Dr. Benjamin McKenna, Doris Day as Josephine Conway McKenna, Bernard Miles as Edward Drayton, Brenda de Banzie as Lucy Drayton Christopher Olsen as Henry McKenna, and Daniel Gélin as Louis Bernard. Read more…
ANCHORS AWEIGH – George E. Stoll, Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Gene Kelly caught the eye of Hollywood studios who were impressed by his athletic American style of dancing, as well as his talent as a choreographer. Seeking to capitalize on his talent, MGM studios offered him a contract. This led them to task him to choreograph, dance and star in the studio’s next planned musical – “Anchors Aweigh”. The film was yet another one of MGM Studios penchant for musicals. It would be the first of three “Buddy” films, which teamed Gene Kelly with Frank Sinatra. Production was assigned to Joe Pasternak with a budget of $2.6 million, Natalie Marcin was hired to write the story, with Isobel Lennart writing the screenplay, and George Sidney was tasked with directing. For the cast, Frank Sinatra would star as Clarence “Brooklyn” Doolittle, Gene Kelly as Joe Brady and Kathryn Grayson as Susan Abbott. Read more…
INDECENT PROPOSAL – John Barry
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
What would you do for a million dollars? That was the question on everyone’s lips following the release of Indecent Proposal, one of the most talked-about films of 1993. The film is directed by Adrian Lyne – the man behind such equally controversial fare as 9½ Weeks and Fatal Attraction – and stars Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson as Diana and David, a young couple who are deeply in love but in severe financial straits. In a final act of desperation they travel to Las Vegas and invest everything they have in a high-stakes game of poker – but they end up losing it all. Enter John Gage (Robert Redford), a handsome billionaire, who comes to David with the indecent proposal in question: one million dollars, in exchange for one night with Diana. What happens in the aftermath of this will test Diana and David’s relationship to its limits, and the film asks interesting questions about love, temptation, and the consequences of making choices based solely on money. Read more…
CHUPA – Carlos Rafael Rivera
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There have been many ‘boy and his pet’ stories, in both film and literature over the decades – the list is too enormous to mention – but the common threads that link so many of them is the way that humans and animals often bond with each other in extraordinary circumstances, and change each other’s lives for the better as a result. This new film, Chupa, directed by Mexican filmmaker Jonás Cuarón (son of Alfonso Cuarón), was inspired by one specific ‘boy and his pet’ story – 1982’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – but whereas Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece involved friendly aliens, Cuarón’s film involves a creature from Mexican folklore: the chupacabra. The story follows a teenager named Alex (Evan Whitten) who, while visiting family in Mexico, gains an unlikely companion when he discovers a young chupacabra hiding in his grandpa’s shed. To save the mythical creature, Alex and his cousins must embark on the adventure of a lifetime. The film co-stars Demián Bichir and Christian Slater and has been a massive success on Netflix in the weeks since it premiered in April 2023. Read more…
THE NORTH STAR – Aaron Copland
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1942 President Roosevelt created the Office of War Information (OWI) to serve as America’s official propaganda agency. The OWI pressured Hollywood studios to make war films that favorably represented the Soviet Union to generate public support given that they and America were now allies fighting Nazi Germany. Following a personal request by President Roosevelt, MGM executive Samuel Goldwyn decided to contribute with the film The North Star. Goldwyn, assisted by William Cameron Menzies, took charge of production with a $3 million budget. Lillian Hellman was hired to write the story and screenplay, and Lewis Milestone was tasked with directing. An exceptional cast was assembled, including Ann Baxter as Marina Pavlova, Dana Andrews as Kolya Simonov, Walter Huston as Dr. Pavel Grigorich Kurin, Walter Brennan as Karp, Ann Harding as Sophia Pavlova, Jane Withers as Clavdia Kurina, Farley Granger as Damian Simonov and Erich von Stroheim as Dr. von Harden. Read more…
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCK FINN – Bill Conti
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Adventures of Huck Finn is a period adventure film directed by Stephen Sommers, based on the classic novel by Mark Twain. It’s one of dozens of adaptations of Twain’s timeless story, which combines elements of carefree adventure with more serious explorations of themes relating to friendship, morality, and the injustices of slavery, which were still fresh in the minds of Americans in 1885, when the book came out, considering that Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation freeing the slaves had been issued in 1862, just 23 years previously. The film follows the adventures of a young boy named Huck Finn (Elijah Wood), who runs away from his abusive father and teams up with an escaped slave named Jim (Courtney B. Vance) as they journey down the Mississippi River on a raft; as they travel down the river, Huck and Jim encounter a variety of colorful characters, including two con men (Robbie Coltrane and Jason Robards) who pretend to be the long-lost brothers of a wealthy man, and a group of feuding families who threaten to tear each other apart. Read more…
THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE – Brian Tyler
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In 1981 video gaming was changed forever following the launch of Nintendo’s Donkey Kong arcade game. The game introduced two iconic characters into public consciousness: the titular antagonist, a 300-pound gorilla with a penchant for throwing barrels at people, and the hero, an Italian plumber named Mario. Since then, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games – including some of the most successful and popular titles of all time – and has become the recognizable mascot face of Nintendo as a whole. Understandably, Nintendo have been very protective of their man, and have been reluctant to allow movie adaptations featuring him (or, for that matter, many of their other characters); this reluctance was compounded following the 1993 release of the Super Mario Bros. film starring Bob Hoskins, which was a critical and commercial disaster. Now, almost 45 years after his initial appearance, Nintendo finally have a bonafide hit on their hands with this new Super Mario Bros. Movie, an animated action adventure featuring all the classic characters – Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, and more – and the voice talents of Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, and Fred Armisen, among many others. Read more…
THE PRISONER OF ZENDA – Alfred Newman and Conrad Salinger
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
With the onset of a new decade, MGM studio executives embarked on an ambitious plan to remake several popular black and white films in color. To that end, in 1951 they announced that they had purchased the film rights of “The Prisoner of Zenda” (1937) from David O. Selznick for $225,000. A creative decision was to use many of the same production elements as the 1937 film, including; the identical script, camera angles, setting and musical score. Pandro S. Berman was assigned production and provided a $1.708 million budget. Richard Thorpe was tasked with directing, and a stellar cast was assembled, which included; Stewart Granger as Rudolph Rassendyll, Deborah Kerr as Princess Flavia, James Mason as Rupert of Hentzau, Louis Calhern as Colonel Zapt, Robert Douglas as Michael, Duke of Strelsau, Jane Greer as Antionette de Mauban and Robert Coote as Fritz von Tarlenheim. Read more…
Shop at the Movie Music UK Store
Member of the
MOVIE MUSIC UK 