Archive
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND – John Powell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The third, and possibly most eagerly-awaited X-Men movie yet, The Last Stand ushers in the 2006 summer season as one of the first genuine blockbusters of the year. Directed by Brett Ratner, it sees the returning cast of the previous instalments (Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Rebecca Romijn, Anna Paquin) joining up with some new faces (Kelsey Grammer, Vinnie Jones, Olivia Williams, Shohreh Aghdashloo) in a complicated plot involving a cure for mutantism, a resurrected mutant whose powers are out of control, and a powerful war between the good and evil mutants for the fate of humanity. It’s all lofty, exciting-sounding stuff, and deserving of a score to match its epic aspirations. Read more…
THE DA VINCI CODE – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s not often that a work of fiction generates such a frenzy of attention that the Vatican itself is compelled to comment on its contents, but that’s what happened in the aftermath of the release of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code in 2003. The book, which offers controversial theories about subjects as wide ranging as the life of Jesus Christ, the nature of the Holy Grail, corruption within the Catholic church, the roles of several Masonic orders, and the legacy of artists and scholars such as Isaac Newton, Claude Debussy, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci himself, has sold more than 40 millions copies world-wide, making it one of the most successful books of the 21st century. Critics have denounced it as a work of poorly-written fiction whose subject matter is tantamount to blasphemy; admirers of Brown’s work have lauded it as an enjoyable work in its own right, which as well as being a thrilling page-turner, highlights a number of important questions which scholars of world history have been asking for many years. I personally enjoyed it immensely. Read more…
POSEIDON – Klaus Badelt
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The latest addition to the ever-growing list of unnecessary Hollywood remakes (following hot on the heels of the likes of The Pink Panther and When a Stranger Calls), Poseidon is a big-budget action-adventure disaster movie directed by Wolfgang Peterson – who is himself no stranger to watery problems, having previously directed Das Boot and A Perfect Storm. When a luxury cruise liner is capsized by a massive tidal wave on New Year’s Eve, the surviving revellers – Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Emmy Rossum – find themselves desperately climbing through the wrecked ship, trying to escape before the whole thing sinks and drowns them all… and that’s basically it. It’s a very simple plot, which sticks close to director Ronald Neame’s 1972 original (which starred Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and Roddy McDowall among others), but will be totally redundant for anyone who remembers it, or its classic John Williams score. Read more…
THE PROMISE – Klaus Badelt
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
So, here’s a statement you won’t see me make very often: The Promise is the best score of Klaus Badelt’s career, and one of the best scores to be released in the first half of 2006. As I have written on many, many occasions, one of my favourite styles of film music is the combination of a western orchestra with solo performances by Chinese instruments, and Badelt’s score for director Chen Kaige’s visually sumptuous film is the latest to join a long and distinguished list, along with the likes of Rachel Portman’s The Joy Luck Club, Conrad Pope’s Pavilion of Women, Basil Poledouris’s The Touch, and Tan Dun’s Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Read more…
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III – Michael Giacchino
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s not so long ago that JJ Abrams was just another budding writer/director in Hollywood, and Michael Giacchino was a promising young composer writing music for video games. However, following the huge success of Abrams’ TV shows Alias and Lost, and Giacchino’s work on the box-office blockbuster The Incredibles, the pair of them are now cinematic hot properties, working together on one of summer 2006’s most-eagerly awaited and high-profile action movies: Mission Impossible III. The third film based on the classic 1960s spy thriller show, Mission: Impossible III once again stars Tom Cruise as special agent Ethan Hunt, trotting around the globe to all manner of exotic locations, on a secret mission to thwart the nefarious plans of the film’s arch-villain, Owen Davian, played by recent Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman. Along for the ride is a big name supporting cast which includes Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and by all accounts the film is a spectacular, gadget-filled, explosion-laden thrill ride which pushes all the right blockbuster buttons. Read more…
AN AMERICAN HAUNTING – Caine Davidson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Cashing in on the currently in-vogue “demonic possession” sub genre of films, initiated by last year’s surprise hit The Exorcism of Emily Rose, An American Haunting stars Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek and young Rachel Hurd-Wood, and tells the allegedly true story of the Bell family, settlers in rural Tennessee in the early 1800s, who became the first family in American history to have a family member be killed by a malevolent spirit, and to have the death officially recorded as such. The film is directed by Courtney Solomon, whose debut feature was the poorly-received fantasy Dungeons & Dragons in 2000. American Haunting has fared much better, bringing in over $15 million at the US Box Office to date. Read more…
UNITED 93 – John Powell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There can scarcely be a person who doesn’t remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11th 2001, when four passenger aircraft were hijacked by terrorists from the extremist Al Qaeda group and flown into the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre in New York, destroying the latter completely. Many people of my generation refer to it as our ‘Pearl Harbor’, or our equivalent of the day JFK was shot. A cultural touchstone which, for some, has becoming a defining moment of the 21st century. I vividly remember sitting in my old office in Regent Court at the University in Sheffield, working on some project, and a colleague sticking their head round my door. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon. “Have you heard what’s going on in America?” they asked. I shook my head no, flicked on to Yahoo news, and read about the unfolding horror. Sky News went on the TV as soon as I got home, and stayed on almost for the next 24 hours as I watched the rest of the footage with increasing disbelief. Read more…
ABOMINABLE – Lalo Schifrin
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Abominable may have the unique honour of being the first ever film where an established Hollywood composer scored the feature directorial debut of their offspring. Certainly no other filmmaking-children-of-composers spring to mind. The director in question is Ryan Schifrin, the 33 year-old son of Lalo Schifrin, and the film in question is Abominable, a horror-thriller set in the Pacific North-West, where action man Preston Rogers (Matt McCoy) is recovering in an isolated cabin after a climbing accident. His recuperation is put on hold, however, when he sees the legendary Bigfoot – and realises that the supposedly-friendly Sasquatch is in reality a vicious man-eating beast! The only problem is that, after years of hoax sightings, no-one believes Preston’s tale, and it falls on his shoulders to warn everyone before the beast goes on a bloody rampage. The film also stars Lance Henriksen, Jeffrey Combs, Dee Wallace Stone (from ET), the late Paul Gleason, and newcomer Haley Joel, and will be released straight-to-DVD in October 2006. Read more…
V FOR VENDETTA – Dario Marianelli
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Remember, remember, the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot; I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
In the UK, every November the 5th is celebrated as “bonfire night”, a rather odd but very popular tradition which commemorates the events of 5 November 1605, when a group of Catholic conspirators led by a fellow named Guy Fawkes tried to assassinate the Protestant King James I by blowing up the Houses of Parliament with barrels of gunpowder (their ultimate aim was to return a Catholic monarch to the throne). Fawkes was chosen as the one who would physically light the barrels and set off the explosions, but the plot was apparently foiled when he fell asleep in one of the chambers under Parliament and was discovered by guards. He was arrested, confessed under torture, and identified his co-conspirators. Fawkes was subsequently convicted of treason and executed by being hung, drawn and quartered, and as a final ignominy, had his remains burnt in public, a sort of “taste of his own medicine”, to do to him what he would have done to the King. Read more…
Remembering Toru Takemitsu, 1930-1996
Composer Toru Takemitsu died ten years ago today, on February 20, 1996, in Tokyo, Japan, of pneumonia while undergoing treatment for bladder cancer. He was 65.
FULL REMEMBRANCE COMING SOON.
FIREWALL – Alexandre Desplat
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s funny how, all of a sudden, a composer comes out of nowhere and becomes one of your favourites. French composer Alexandre Desplat first appeared on the international scene in 2000 with his elegant score for the chess-themed romantic drama The Luzhin Defence; since then, through scores such as Girl With a Pearl Earring, Birth, Hostage, The Upside of Anger and Syriana, he has risen to become arguably the most exciting Gallic composer since Georges Delerue, with the capacity to write both thrilling action music and sensitive orchestral material with equal skill. Two Golden Globe nominations and a recent César Award for ‘The Beat That My Heart Skipped’ would seem to reinforce his place in the bigger scheme of things. His score for Firewall will hopefully be just as well received, and cement his position as one of Hollywood’s brightest stars. Read more…
Academy Award Nominations 2005
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the nominations for the 78th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2005.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- ALBERTO IGLESIAS for The Constant Gardener
- DARIO MARIANELLI for Pride & Prejudice
- GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA for Brokeback Mountain
- JOHN WILLIAMS for Memoirs of a Geisha
- JOHN WILLIAMS for Munich
These are the first Oscar nominations for Iglesias, Marianelli, and Santaolalla, and are the 39th and 40th nominations for Williams. Williams previously won for Fiddler on the Roof in 1971, Jaws in 1975, Star Wars in 1977, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial in 1982, and Schindler’s List in 1993.
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- JORDAN HOUSTON, CEDRIC COLEMAN, and PAUL BEAUREGARD for “It’s Hard out Here for a Pimp” from Hustle & Flow
- DOLLY PARTON for “Travelin’ Thru” from Transamerica
- KATHLEEN ‘BIRD’ YORK and MICHAEL BECKER for “In the Deep” from Crash
The winners of the 78th Academy Awards will be announced on March 5, 2006.
NANNY McPHEE – Patrick Doyle
Original Review by Peter Simons and Jonathan Broxton
A Mary Poppins fantasy for the modern age, Nanny McPhee is based on Christianna Brand’s successful series of Nurse Matilda children’s books, adapted for the screen by actress Emma Thompson. Thompson herself plays the titular nanny, a hook-nosed, wart-faced, fright-wigged governess who uses magic and good humour to control the children in her charge. Newly-widowed Cedric Brown (Colin Firth) is failing to control his seven children, who have already chased away 17 nannies with their unruly behaviour. However, when a mysterious voice urges Cedric to hire Nanny McPhee, she arrives at the Brown home quickly stamps her authority over hew new charges. Things seem to finally be settling down, until trouble erupts when Cedric’s cantankerous Great-Aunt Adelaide (Angela Lansbury) tells him he must be married by the end of the month, or she’ll cut off his money and separate the children – so Nanny McPhee and the oldest Brown sibling Simon (Thomas Sangster) team up to find a wife for Cedric, thereby keeping the family together. The film, directed by Kirk Jones, has a supporting cast full of heavyweight British thespians (including Derek Jacobi, Imelda Staunton, Celia Imrie, and Kelly Macdonald), and features a delightful, whimsical score by Patrick Doyle. Read more…
BAFTA Nominations 2005
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominations for the 59th British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2005.
In the Best Original Music category, which is named in memory of the film director Anthony Asquith, the nominees are:
- T-BONE BURNETT for Walk the Line
- GEORGE FENTON for Mrs. Henderson Presents
- ALBERTO IGLESIAS for The Constant Gardener
- GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA for Brokeback Mountain
- JOHN WILLIAMS for Memoirs of a Geisha
This is the first nomination Iglesias. It is the second nomination Santaolalla, the third nomination for Burnett, the sixth nomination for Fenton, and the eleventh nomination for Williams. Santaolalla previously won for The Motorcycle Diaries in 2004. Williams previously won for Jaws and The Towering Inferno in 1975, Star Wars in 1978, The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982, Empire of the Sun in 1988, and Schindler’s List in 1993.
The winners of the 59th BAFTA Awards will be announced on February 19, 2006.
HALF LIGHT – Brett Rosenberg
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the absolute best things in being a film music fan is when a score for a film which no-one has heard of, written by a composer no-one knows, appears out of nowhere and reaffirms your faith that somewhere, out there, great film music is still being written. This is what happened to me with Half Light, an Australian-British co-production starring Demi Moore and directed by Craig Rosenberg, with music by the director’s brother, composer Brett Rosenberg. I first discovered Half Light back in March 2006, when I rented the DVD from Blockbuster purely on the strength of its interesting cover art. The film is a supernatural thriller-cum-romantic drama, which sees Demi Moore playing novelist Rachel Carlson, whose idyllic London life with her family is shattered when her young son Thomas (Beans El-Balawi) drowns in a freak accident. With her already rocky marriage on increasingly unstable ground, and seeking solace to recover from the tragedy, Rachel retreats to an isolated village in a remote part of northern Scotland, where she also plans to finish her latest book. At first everything goes well: the locals, despite being a little unusual, are generally friendly, and she even embarks on a hesitant, illicit romance with local lighthouse-keeper Angus McCulloch (Hans Matheson). However, before long, things start happening which cause Rachel to begin to examine her sanity – not least the fact that she seems to be receiving frightening visits from her son’s ghost… Read more…
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