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A LETTER FROM THE WESTERN FRONT – Ryan Shore
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A short review for a short score, but one which marks the emergence of a composer who could one day be very popular. Ryan Shore is Howard Shore’s nephew, and has already undertaken orchestrating duties for his uncle on a number of scores, notably the recent Dogma and Existenz. His debut score as a solo composer is for the highly regarded World War I animated drama A Letter from the Western Front, directed by NYU student filmmaker Daniel M. Kanemoto and which won several respected student film and animation awards in 1998, including the coveted Gold Medal at the Student Academy Awards. Read more…
THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER – Carter Burwell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Director Simon West burst onto the cinema screens in 1997 with his big, brash, in-your-face debut Con Air, a film which effectively ushered in a whole new era of films with a cumulative effect akin to drinking seventeen cups of espresso coffee – you leave the cinema with eyes like saucers, stunned into submission at the sheer spectacle of what you have just witnessed. Thankfully, Jerry Bruckheimer is not involved at all in The General’s Daughter, West’s follow up, and therefore it does not bear any of his overbearing influence, although the slick, polished cinematic style associated with his work remains firmly in place. Read more…
INSTINCT – Danny Elfman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Here’s a statement that’ll make your toes curl: Instinct is Danny Elfman’s best score in six years. Whoa! Hold on a minute! We didn’t see that one coming! What about his Oscar nominations, Good Will Hunting and Men In Black? What about Black Beauty and Dolores Claiborne? What about Mission Impossible, widely regarded as one of the best action thriller scores in years? What about A Civil Action and A Simple Plan, two of his recent complex dramas? Well, in the opinion of this reviewer, Instinct blows each and every one of those worthy scores out of the water with its combination of soaring strings, passionate brasses, African percussion and that heavenly, heavenly female choir which hasn’t been used to this extent since Edward Scissorhands almost a decade ago. Read more…
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