Archive
THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN – Max Steiner
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Warner Brothers had long been attracted to the idea of filming a tale of the legendary lover Don Juan. After six years and countless revisions, screenwriter George Oppenheimer finally completed a script that satisfied Warner Brothers executives. Director Vincent Sherman was able to secure a fine cast that included the mercurial Errol Flynn (Don Juan de Maraña), Viveca Lindfors (Queen Margaret), Alan Hale (Leporello) and Robert Douglas (Duke de Lorca). The story concerns Don Juan de Maraña, Spain’s ambassador to the English court, who has damaged the prestige of the Spanish King with his blatant and insatiable womanizing. Discredited in diplomatic circles, Don Juan attempts to restore his standing after he meets the beautiful Queen Margaret, with whom he falls in love for the first time of his life. Although Margaret is trapped in a loveless marriage with King Philip III, she strives to resist Don Juan’s alluring and seductive advances. In a bold move to restore his honor Don Juan uncovers a plot by the King’s ruthless minister Duke de Lorca, to usurp the King’s authority. Regretfully he is outmaneuvered after De Lorca intimidates the cowardly king into compliance and threatens to execute the Margaret. Yet all is not lost as Don Juan with the assistance of his servant Leporello, fencing master Don Serafino, and court jester Sebastian have the last word. In a series of fierce battles he saves the day with an epic final sword duel with Duke de Lorca. The film was a critical success earning two Oscars, but only a modest commercial success. Read more…
THE IMPOSSIBLE (LO IMPOSIBLE) – Fernando Velázquez
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
On December 26th 2004 a massive 9.1 earthquake struck off the coast of the island of Sumatra, causing a colossal tsunami tidal wave to spread violently across the Indian Ocean. Countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand and India were severely damaged by the effects of the tsunami, but the country of Indonesia was affected most, with some 131,000 people confirmed killed in its immediate aftermath, and hundreds of thousands more left homeless, and forced to deal with the disease and poverty that inevitably followed. Almost eight years later, the tsunami is generally considered one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recorded history, having already been classified as the largest earthquake for over 40 years, and the third largest on record. Director Juan Antonio Bayona’s film The Impossible – known as Lo Imposible in Spanish speaking countries – stars Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts as Henry and Maria, a normal family who happen to be on vacation in the country at the time the tsunami strikes, and who get caught up in the horrific tragedy. It is through their eyes, their plight, and their struggle to survive that we witness the devastating events unfold. Read more…
HALO 4 – Neil Davidge
GAME ZONE REVIEW
Original Review by Joseph W. Bat
It is strange to think today that video games are billion-dollar franchises. The gamer of today definitely knows of the Halo series of games. It was with Halo 2 & Halo 3 we saw arguably for the first time how games could be marketed as a blockbuster event like a big budget Hollywood film. Having early beginnings on Mac and PC, Halo made its debut on Microsoft’s at the time new video game console XBOX. And it has been home to it ever since. The original trilogy as it will be known now, created by developer Bungie Studios, brought a huge community together. It would spawn fan fiction, several novels, short films, and even catching the eye of Hollywood to develop a feature film. It isn’t often a hugely successful series like Halo changes creative hands, but that is exactly what Halo 4 is. Read more…
THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER – Erich Wolfgang Korngold
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The Prince and the Pauper was Mark Twain’s first effort to write a historical fiction novel. Director William Keighley had screenwriter Laird Doyle adapt the tale for film and hired swashbuckler star Errol Flynn (Miles Hendon) to head his cast, which included Claude Raines (Lord Hertford) and the twins Billy and Bobby Mauch. The story involves the birth of two boys who share both an uncommon resemblance and destiny: the pauper Tom and prince Edward. As a kid, Tom would often sneak into the palace garden and play with the prince. One day they change clothes with each other and are discovered by the guards, which eject the prince who they assumed, was a pauper. As the two boys struggle with their new lives, King Henry VIII dies leaving Tom under the malevolent control of Lord Hertford the duty of assuming the throne. With the assistance of mercenary Miles Hendon, Edward succeeds in interrupting the coronation and regaining his standing as rightful heir. The film did not achieve critical success but was never the less a commercial success. Read more…
LOOPER – Nathan Johnson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Looper is a high-concept science fiction action movie, directed by Rian Johnson and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt. The film takes the concept of time-travel and mixes it with organized crime; in the future, when the mob wants to take someone out, they use the newly invented but highly illegal time-travel technology to send someone back in time, whereupon they are immediately killed by a Looper – an assassin in the past. Joe (Gordon-Levitt) is one such looper, and is good at his job – until he realizes that his latest victim, just sent back in time, is the future version of himself… Critics have called Looper one of the most intriguing science-fiction movies in several years, and young director Rian Johnson is quickly becoming heralded as a new and exciting cinematic visionary. Read more…
THE MASTER – Jonny Greenwood
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Despite living in Los Angeles, and despite being a very casual acquaintance of someone who I know for a fact is one, I know very little about Scientology. You occasionally see them set up on Hollywood Boulevard, offering ‘stress tests’ to unsuspecting tourists, and you hear odd stories about Tom Cruise in the tabloid news, but beyond that my actual knowledge of the details of the late L. Ron Hubbard’s much-derided ‘celebrity religion’ is sketchy at best – little more than lurid tales of science fiction, aliens, past lives, and the like. In Paul Thomas Anderson’s film The Master, the word ‘scientology’ is never uttered, but it’s clear what is going on, and the film is a less-than-pretty expose of the origins of the religion. Read more…
WOLFEN: REJECTED SCORE – Craig Safan
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Director Michael Wadleigh chose to adapt Whitley Strieber’s novel Wolfen to film, as he believed it afforded him an opportunity to infuse depth and intelligence into the horror genre. The story is a mytho-historical tale that reveals the existence of a hidden intelligent species called Wolfen that have co-existed with humans for centuries. After a city cop (Albert Finney) is assigned to solve a horrific set of violent murders, he gradually unravels the mystery that are the Wolfen who will now do anything to ensure their anonymity. Replete with Indian legend and folklore about wolf spirits, the story was heralded for its sophistication and effort to elevate the horror genre. Regretfully, the film ran seriously over budget and Wadleigh was fired and never allowed to complete his vision. The film was not a commercial success, however critics acknowledged it as an unusual and ambitious effort. Read more…
THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN – Geoff Zanelli
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A couple of years ago I wrote a review of the soundtrack for the film Gamer, by Geoff Zanelli and Robb Williamson, in which I posted my now-famous ‘polar bear with a migraine’ photo, and basically called it was one of the worst film scores I have ever heard in my life. Despite hating the music for that particular film, I was very careful not to criticize the composer himself, who was clearly providing exactly what the director and producer of that film wanted in terms music – which just happened to be music I cannot tolerate. A lot of us tend to forget, myself included sometimes, that a film composer’s primary motivation is to support with music the director’s vision of the film being made, and any secondary life the music takes on apart from the film is entirely inconsequential to the reason the music exists in the first place. A composer might be asked to write grating and grinding electronics for one film, as Zanelli was on Gamer, and a less-experienced critic might call him a hack, or whatever other derogatory terms spring to mind. But all composers, by necessity, have to be versatile, and Geoff Zanelli’s versatility and talent is highlighted by his work on The Odd Life of Timothy Green, a film score at the other end of the musical spectrum from Gamer as it is possible to be. Read more…
L’AFRICAIN – Georges Delerue
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Director Philippe De Broca had three passions; Africa, adventure and comedy. So when he was offered an opportunity to direct L’Africain, he needed no coaxing. The story concerns Victor (Philippe Noriet) and Charlotte (Catherine Deneuve) who have separated, only to have fate bring them back together in unusual circumstances. He is a bush pilot and conservationist who has fled civilization to Africa where he has setup a floating grocery store. Charlotte has also come to Africa to build a tourist center by Lake William where she hopes to study pygmies who live near by. She quickly realizes that Victor’s site is the best location to build and so they reunite and join in common cause. Yet soon old conflicts reemerge and when a gang of ruthless ivory smugglers, elephant stampedes, crocodiles and pygmies are thrown into the mix all hell breaks loose! Read more…
THE EXPENDABLES 2 – Brian Tyler
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Had it been made in 1989, The Expendables 2 would without a doubt have been the biggest box office draw of the year. At the height of the action hero era, any film with a cast that included Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis alongside Jean Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren and Chuck Norris… well, the testosterone quotient alone might have been enough to make any cinema screen explode with sheer masculinity. Add in modern action stars Jason Statham, Liam Hemsworth and Jet Li, a competent director in Simon Wells, and a concise and self-aware screenplay, and you have a film that is both a nostalgic throwback to that macho era, and an enjoyable contemporary popcorn adventure that pulls no punches when it comes to blood, bullets, fists, and slow-motion walks towards the camera. Stallone stars as the leader of a band of good-guy mercenaries for hire, who are sent by the CIA into the mountains of Albania to retrieve the contents of a safe lost in a plane crash. It looks like a walk in the park, until one of their number is killed by the suavely ruthless (and unambiguously named) arms dealer Jean Vilain – played with icy coolness by Van Damme – who is also after the contents of the safe, and all hell breaks loose as the Expendables look for revenge. Read more…
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Dark Knight Rises is director Christopher Nolan’s eagerly-awaited final installment in the Batman trilogy he initiated with Batman Begins in 2005, and continued with The Dark Knight in 2008. Set seven years after the conclusion of the second film, The Dark Knight Rises finds the billionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) living in seclusion, having allowed his crime-fighting alter-ego Batman to take the blame for the crimes committed by the former DA Harvey Dent, including the murder of Wayne’s soul-mate, Rachel. However, Wayne’s self-imposed isolation is threatened by two very different interlopers into Gotham City: the formidable masked terrorist Bane (Tom Hardy), who seems to be masterminding a plan to undermine the very fabric of contemporary society, and sophisticated cat burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), who breaks into Wayne Manor to steal a necklace, but comes away with much more. To combat the rising threat, Wayne is forced to become Batman once more, but is he strong enough – mentally, and physically – to face the challenge? The film has an all-star supporting cast, including Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, and has become one of the most popular and successful box-office hits of 2012, ending Nolan’s vision on an undisputed high note, but cleverly paving the way for future installments by different directors. Read more…
Marvin Hamlisch, 1944-2012
Composer Marvin Hamlisch died on August 6, 2012, at his home in Los Angeles, California, after a brief illness. He was 68.
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch was born in June 1944 in New York City to Austrian Jewish parents. He was a child prodigy who entered Juilliard at age seven, and then attended Queens College, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967.
A rare winner of the EGOT – Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards – Hamlisch was one of the most decorated and versatile musicians of his generation. His work ranged from heartfelt ballads to rousing film scores, from Broadway showstoppers to pop hits, all marked by his melodic gift and deep emotional accessibility. He began his career as a rehearsal pianist for Barbra Streisand early in his career, later becoming her musical director and collaborator. His songs became hits for numerous artists, and his work as a conductor with major orchestras further expanded his artistic reach; his popular songs include “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” and “California Nights” for Lesley Gore, and “The Travelin’ Life” for Liza Minnelli.
His first film score was for 1968’s The Swimmer. He also wrote music for several early Woody Allen films, including Take the Money and Run (1969) and Bananas (1971). Hamlisch’s film work brought him three Academy Awards, all in 1974: two for The Way We Were (Best Original Score and Best Song, shared with lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman), and one for his adaptation of Scott Joplin’s ragtime music for The Sting. Other notable film and TV scores in his career include Kotch in 1971, Save the Tiger in 1973, the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977, Ice Castles in 1978, Ordinary People in 1980, Sophies Choice in 1982, Shirley Valentine in 1989, and The Mirror Has Two Faces in 1996. Read more…
BEL AMI – Lakshman Joseph de Saram and Rachel Portman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Bel Ami is a historical romantic drama based on the 1885 novel by Guy de Maupassant. Directed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod, the film is set in Paris in the late 1880s and stars Robert Pattinson as the amoral Georges Duroy, a journalist for the newspaper La Vie Française, who rises from being a junior officer in the French Army in Algeria, to being one of the most powerful and influential men in the city, which he achieves by manipulating a series of well-connected, intelligent, and wealthy mistresses. The film also stars Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina Ricci as the women Duroy takes advantage of – both morally, socially and sexually – as he makes his ascent through the decadent world of the rich and the privileged. The film’s equally rich and decadent score is by Lakshman Joseph de Saram and Rachel Portman, who share composing duties equally between them. Read more…
THE ROBE – Alfred Newman
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
20th Century Fox Studio chief Darryl Zanuck chose to use “The Robe” to introduce his new creation Cinemascope to the world. Cinemascope used an anamorphic lens that allowed the filming process to create an image of up to a 2.66:1 aspect ratio, almost twice as wide as the industry standard. He hired veteran Henry Koster to direct and adapted the script from the novel by Lloyd Douglas, which he had envisioned for years. “The Robe” is a Biblical epic, a love story and a tale of a man’s struggle for redemption. Marcellus (Richard Burton) is a Roman military tribune from a noble family who offends Caligula, heir to the Roman throne. In retribution he is deployed to Palestine, thus separating him from his life of luxury and his lover Diana (Jean Simmons). Upon his arrival he is given command of the unit charged with executing Jesus Christ, which he dutifully discharges. While drunk he happens to win in a craps game Jesus’ homespun robe after the crucifixion. The death of Jesus affects Marcellus profoundly, and henceforth he is tormented by recurring nightmares, delusions and guilt for his role in his crucifixion. On orders from Tiberius he returns to Palestine in search of the robe, which he believes has bewitched him. He thus begins a personal journey that will lead him to discover faith, forgiveness and ultimately redemption. The film was a huge critical success, winning two Oscars and a Golden Globe for Best Picture. The film and Cinemascope were also a huge commercial success, earning profits seven times that of its production costs. Read more…
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER – Henry Jackman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is the first movie based on the very popular series of “mashup” novels by Seth Grahame-Smith, in which a real, famous person or an established literary classic is re-imagined with a science fiction or horror twist. Other entries in the mini-genre include “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, “Queen Victoria: Demon Slayer” and “Unholy Night”, but Abraham Lincoln is the first to make the transition to the big screen. Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the film stars as Benjamin Walker as the 16th President of the United States, recounting the story of his early life: having discovered that his beloved mother was murdered, young Lincoln vows vengeance against the man responsible, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), but is overpowered and almost killed by Barts, who is actually a vampire. Lincoln is rescued and nursed back to health by the enigmatic Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), who trains Lincoln to be a vampire hunter, and promises the idealistic young man that he can exact his revenge when the time is right. The film, which also stars Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Rufus Sewell, was originally going to be scored by the Oscar-winning duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, before the film eventually fell into the hands of one of the most talented and creative recent graduates from Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control stable, Henry Jackman. Read more…
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