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ALIEN – Jerry Goldsmith
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In space, no one can hear you scream.
The genesis of Alien came from writer Dan O’Bannon who, having co-written the film Dark Star in 1974, wanted to make a more serious and horrific sci-fi movie. Later, while working on the failed effort by director Alejandro Jodorowsky to bring Frank Herbert’s Dune to life, O’Bannon discovered the work of Swiss artist H. R. Giger, whose ‘disturbing but beautiful’ work further influenced O’Bannon’s ideas for the creature at the center of his story. O’Bannon collaborated with fellow writer Ronald Shusett on the story; they drew inspiration from many works of science fiction and horror, but eventually pitched the idea to studio heads as “Jaws in space,” with the central monster being a diabolical alien that would rape a human to allow its offspring to gestate and, when mature, burst out of the host. Propriety and rating concerns led them to tone down this initial idea and make it a non-sexual implantation, but it was still implicitly a rape, with a male host to make it more repugnant; however, their story was repeatedly turned down by the Hollywood studio establishment, which deemed it too violent and gory. Read more…
GLADIATOR II – Harry Gregson-Williams
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE FILM, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER WAITING UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE DONE SO TO READ IT.
Almost 25 years after director Ridley Scott and lead actor Russell Crowe brought the swords-and-sandals Roman epic back to the Hollywood mainstream with their movie Gladiator – and won Best Picture at the Oscars to boot – we have a sequel in the shape of Gladiator II. It’s a wonderful example of old-fashioned epic filmmaking on a grand scale, full of massive battle scenes, opulent visuals, and heightened emotional drama.
The film is set in the Roman Empire circa the year 200AD during the reign of twin emperors Geta and Caracalla; it stars Paul Mescal as Hanno, a simple farmer living in the North African region of Numidia, who is taken prisoner by a Roman army led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) after they successfully attack and conquer his home city in a great naval battle; Hanno’s warrior wife Arishat is killed in combat. Hanno is taken to Rome as a slave and sold to a gladiator school owned by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who promises Hanno an opportunity to kill Acacius if he wins enough fights in Rome. However, there is much more afoot; Acacius is secretly part of a plot to overthrow the stupid and corrupt emperors and intends to return Rome to its former glories. Macrinus, meanwhile, has his own plans for political advancement, and intends to use his gladiators to attain it. And as for Hanno… there is much more to him than meets the eye, and a lot of it relates to Acacius’s wife Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), and her former relationship with the gladiator Maximus, who died in the arena all those years ago. Read more…
A MAN CALLED PETER – Alfred Newman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The genesis of this film lay with the book A Man Named Peter, a biography of preacher Peter Marshall, who served as Chaplin of the United States Senate from 1947 to 1949. 20th Century Fox believed that the inspirational life of this well-respected preacher would translate well to the big screen. Samuel G. Engel was placed in charge of production with a $1.74 million budget, Henry Koster was tasked with directing, and Eleanore Griffin was hired to adapt the novel and write the screenplay. A fine cast was assembled, including Richard Todd as the Reverend Peter Marshall, Jean Peters as his wife Catherine Marshall, Marjorie Rambeau as Miss Laura Fowler, and Jill Esmond as Mrs. Findlay. Read more…
RUDYARD KIPLING’S THE JUNGLE BOOK – Basil Poledouris
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Hot on the heels of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in Hollywood’s short-lived series of supposedly faithful film adaptations of classic novels, this live-action versions of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book reimagines the classic tale as an adventurous, romantic epic. Directed by Stephen Sommers, the film focuses on Mowgli (Jason Scott Lee), a young boy raised by animals in the Indian jungle after being separated from his family. Years later, as an adult, Mowgli re-enters human civilization when he encounters Kitty (Lena Headey), his childhood friend and the daughter of a military officer working within the British Raj. As Mowgli navigates the clash between his jungle upbringing and human society, his relationship with Kitty deepens, eventually becoming a forbidden romance; however, he faces hostility from the corrupt Captain Boone (Cary Elwes), Kitty’s fiancé, who seeks to exploit Mowgli’s knowledge of the jungle to find the legendary treasure of Monkey City. Read more…
RED ONE – Henry Jackman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Red One is a fun and enjoyable action/fantasy/comedy with a seasonal twist, written by Chris Morgan and Hiram Garcia, and directed by Jake Kasdan in his ‘Jumanji’ mode. The film stars Chris Evans as notorious hacker Jack O’Malley, aka The Wolf, whose life is turned upside down when he provides a set of co-ordinates to a mysterious client, which leads to Santa Claus (J. K. Simmons) being kidnapped from his complex in the North Pole. O’Malley – who is a lifelong skeptic and has not believed in Santa since he was a small child – is apprehended by Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), head of North Pole security, at the behest of Zoe Harlow (Lucy Liu), the head of M.O.R.A,. a clandestine military organization that oversees and protects a secret peace treaty between mythological creatures and humanity. Despite both of them having misgivings about the other, Drift and O’Malley team up and embark on a wild globe-trotting action adventure, as they try to find out who kidnapped Santa and why. Read more…
THE GLASS SLIPPER – Bronislau Kaper
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
After the stunning commercial and critical success of Lili in 1953, MGM began searching for another vehicle to showcase French dance star Leslie Caron. Well, they finally found one, a 1944 play about Cinderella called “The Glass Slipper” by Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon. They purchased the film rights assigned Edwin H. Knopf, who had produced Lili, to production with a budget of $1.998 million. Charles Walters was tasked with directing, and Anatole de Grunwald was hired to write the screenplay, however he was eventually replaced by Helen Deutsch who had written Lili. Leslie Caron would play Ella, and joining her would be Michael Wilding as Prince Charles, Elsa Lanchester as Widow Sonder, Amanda Blake as Birdena, Lisa Daniels as Serafina, Barry Jones as the Duke, and Estelle Winwood as Mrs. Toquet, the fairy godmother. Read more…
TOM & VIV – Debbie Wiseman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Thomas Stearns ‘T. S.’ Eliot is considered to be one of the 20th century’s greatest poets, with notable works such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, Four Quartets, and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, the latter of which inspired the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. While living in London in 1914 Eliot met and married Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a governess from Cambridge, who became not only the love of his life, but also his muse, inspiring what is possibly Eliot’s most acclaimed work, The Waste Land, written in 1922. However, their relationship was also turbulent, in part because of Viv’s health problems, which eventually resulted in her having significant mental instability and often being confined to an asylum. Although they formally separated in 1933 Eliot refused to divorce her, and they remained married until her death in 1947. Their relationship became the subject of the 1984 play Tom & Viv by Michael Hastings, which was then adapted into this film by Hastings and screenwriter Adrian Hodges. The film starred Willem Dafoe as Eliot and Miranda Richardson as Haigh-Wood, and was directed by Brian Gilbert. Although not especially successful from a financial point of view it was acclaimed by critics, and both Richardson and Rosemary Harris (who played Haigh-Wood’s mother) were nominated for Oscars for their roles. Read more…
ELLIOT GOLDENTHAL: MUSIC FOR FILM – Elliot Goldenthal
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Each year at the Film Fest in Ghent, Belgium, one composer is awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the World Soundtrack Awards committee, and as part of that experience there is a live concert of their music, and an accompanying soundtrack compilation CD. Previous Lifetime Achievement Award winners include Laurence Rosenthal, Mark Isham, Mychael Danna, Gabriel Yared, Shigeru Umebayashi, Marco Beltrami, Carter Burwell, Terence Blanchard, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Alan Silvestri. In 2024, the recipient was Elliot Goldenthal, and this is the album celebrating him and his work. Read more…
EAST OF EDEN – Leonard Rosenman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Warner Brothers Studios was approached by director Elia Kazan with a proposition to base a film on the fourth, and final part of John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel East of Eden. Given his reliable track record of success, the studio gave him the green light to proceed with the project. Kazan purchased the film rights from Steinbeck, and would manage production as well as direct. Paul Osborn was hired to write the screenplay. Casting was a struggle; Kazan rejected Marlon Brando and Montgomery Cliff as too old to play the teenage brothers and instead selected new talent 24-year-old James Dean to play Cal Trask. Joining him would be Julie Harris as Abra Bacon, Raymond Massey as Adam Trask, Richard Davalos as Aron Trask, Jo Van Fleet as Cathy Trask, and Burl Ives as Sam the sheriff. Read more…
THE WILD ROBOT – Kris Bowers
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Wild Robot is a new animated science fiction adventure film, based on the 2016 children’s novel of the same name by Peter Brown, and directed by Chris Sanders, one of the co-directors of How to Train Your Dragon. The story follows the life of Roz, a highly sophisticated service robot who is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and who must quickly adapt to her surroundings. Over time she builds relationships with the local wildlife, including befriending a fox named Fink, and becoming the adoptive mother of an orphaned goose named Brightbill; however, she soon finds that her new idyllic life as a ‘wild robot’ is under threat from the company that built her. The film has an enormously impressive voice cast led by Lupita Nyong’o as Roz, Pedro Pascal as Fink, and Kit Connor as Brightbill, plus Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Catherine O’Hara, Matt Berry, and Ving Rhames. The film is a beautifully drawn, artistically rendered, funny, moving exploration of numerous concepts related to environmentalism and nature, consumerism, motherhood, adaptability and building relationships, and it has been an enormous box office success, grossing more than $270 million, and sequels based on Brown’s other Roz novels are already in the works. Read more…
THE SANTA CLAUSE – Michael Convertino
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Santa Clause is a Christmas fantasy comedy movie starring Tim Allen as Scott Calvin, a divorced father who accidentally causes Santa Claus to fall from his roof and die one Christmas Eve. Scott unwittingly agrees to a “contract” – the titular “Santa clause” – by putting on Santa’s suit, and magically transforming into a new Santa Claus. This sets off a series of transformations in Scott’s life, as he gains weight, grows a white beard, and develops a love for milk and cookies. However, his transformation strains his relationship with his young son Charlie (Erik Lloyd), and his ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson), who thinks he’s endangering Charlie with fantasies of being Santa. Read more…
HERE – Alan Silvestri
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Here is a cinematic experiment film directed by Robert Zemeckis, adapted from a graphic novel by Richard McGuire, which uses the ‘static camera’ conceit to tell the story of a specific place throughout time – from the era of the dinosaurs through the ice age, to the dawn of humanity, pre-Columbian native Americans, and then after a house is built on that spot, the different families who live there, from the Colonial era to the present day. The main story follows the Young family – WWII veteran Al and his wife Rose, who buy the house and raise their children there, one of whom, Richard, marries his childhood sweetheart Margaret, and lives there too. It’s an intimate, sensitive portrayal, a snapshot of vignettes that chart the passage of time in non-linear fashion, and which touches on all that comes with it – birth, death, and all the ups and downs of life in between. Some critics have decried at as being overly-sentimental and mawkish, and while I admit that it does go for the emotional jugular with unashamed regularity, I nevertheless thought it was lovely, a welcome escape from depressing reality. I also thought the main technical idea, where the camera never moves but the world moves around it, worked really well; the way Zemeckis uses overlapping boxes to delineate the shifts in time were especially effective. Read more…
UNTAMED – Franz Waxman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The genesis Untamed lies with South African Helga Moray, who wrote a 17-page outline of the story that drew inspiration from one her female ancestors. Her handiwork caught the eye of producer William Bacher who saw a story that needed to be brough to the big screen. He purchased the film rights, which allowed Moray to expand her story into a full-fledged novel. After being rejected by many studios due to cost concerns, 20th Century Fox agreed to finance the film to exploit their new CinemaScope technology. Bacher and Bert E. Friedlob were assigned production with a $3.56 million budget, Henry King was tasked with directing, and a team of writers that included Michael Blankfort, Frank Fenton, Talbot Jennings and William Bacher would write the screenplay. A fine cast was assembled, led by Tyrone Power as Paul van Riebeck and Susan Hayward as Katje O’Neil. Joining them would be Agnes Moorehead as Aggie O’Toole, and Richard Egan as Kurt Hout. Read more…
Quincy Jones, 1933-2024
Composer Quincy Jones died on November 3, 2024, after a short illness. He was 91 years old.
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. – known to all as ‘Q’ – was born in Chicago, Illinois, in March 1933. Jones grew up in a challenging environment, with his mother battling schizophrenia and his father working as a carpenter and semi-professional baseball player. When he was ten, his family moved to Seattle, Washington, where he met future jazz great Ray Charles. The two became fast friends, and Jones, a natural musician, learned trumpet, piano, and arranging. He attended Seattle’s Garfield High School and later earned a scholarship to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. However, he left before finishing to tour with jazz great Lionel Hampton, marking his entry into the world of professional music.
In the 1950s, Jones moved to New York City and became immersed in the jazz scene, working with icons like Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Count Basie. He also collaborated with major record labels as an arranger and conductor. By the late 1950s, Jones was touring Europe and later moved to Paris, studying composition and orchestration under Nadia Boulanger, a legendary music teacher. Read more…
CONCLAVE – Volker Bertelmann
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Conclave is the latest film from German director Edward Berger, whose last film All Quiet on the Western Front won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and was nominated for Best Picture, in 2022. It is based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Robert Harris and stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, and Isabella Rossellini. Fiennes plays Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, an English catholic priest who is called into action by the Vatican when the Pope dies of a heart attack. Lawrence is charged with organizing and overseeing the papal conclave – a gathering of the Roman Catholic cardinals from around the world which is convened to elect the next pope – but quickly finds himself at the center of a firestorm, investigating allegations and scandals inside the church, while also navigating his own personal crisis of faith. Read more…
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