Archive
OUTBREAK – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Outbreak is a medical disaster thriller directed by Wolfgang Petersen, inspired by Richard Preston’s 1994 nonfiction book The Hot Zone. The story begins when a highly contagious and lethal virus, named Motaba, is discovered in Zaire in 1967. The U.S. military secretly destroys the infected village to prevent its spread but keeps the virus as a potential bioweapon. Years later, the virus resurfaces when an illegally smuggled monkey carrying Motaba is brought into the United States. The monkey ends up in a small California town, where the virus mutates into an airborne strain, making it even deadlier; the disease spreads rapidly, causing severe hemorrhagic fever and killing its victims within days. U.S. Army virologist Colonel Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) and his team, including his ex-wife Dr. Roberta Keough (Rene Russo), race against time to find a cure. However, their efforts are hindered by General Donald McClintock (Donald Sutherland), who wants to suppress the outbreak to protect the military’s bioweapons program. As the town is placed under martial law and the military considers firebombing it, Daniels and his team try to track down the host monkey and develop a cure just in time to prevent mass destruction. Read more…
IFMCA Award Winners 2024
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2024 IFMCA AWARDS
BEAR MCCREARY WINS SCORE OF THE YEAR FOR SECOND SEASON OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER; ALAN SILVESTRI WINS TWO AWARDS FOR HERE, HIS 20TH COLLABORATION WITH ROBERT ZEMECKIS;COMPOSERS FROM UK, FRANCE, ITALY, ALSO TAKE HOME AWARDS
FEBRUARY 27, 2025 — The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its annual list of winners for excellence in musical scoring, in the 2024 IFMCA Awards.
The award for Score of the Year goes to American composer Bear McCreary, for his score for the second season of the Amazon Prime fantasy television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The score also won the award for its genre, being named Best Original Score for Television, while McCreary was also named Composer of the Year. McCreary’s work in 2024 in addition to The Rings of Power includes the nostalgic 1980s comedy The 4:30 Movie, the horror flick Imaginary, and music for the latest seasons of multiple TV shows such as Outlander, Halo, and Masters of the Universe, which he wrote along with his staff composers at Sparks & Shadows.
IFMCA member Jon Broxton wrote that Season Two of The Rings of Power was “the equal of the score for Season One in every way, because not only does McCreary revisit each of his fantastic recurring themes, he augments them with a handful of brand new ones, and incorporates them all together to create a dramatically potent, musically compelling, emotionally satisfying, intelligently structured blockbuster that, to me, confirms why this type of leitmotivic approach to film scoring is the pinnacle of the art.”
This is McCreary’s second Score of the Year victory in three years, having previously won for the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in 2022. These wins also take McCreary’s all-time IFMCA win tally to 12, making him the fifth most successful composer in IFMCA history after John Williams, Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, and Alexandre Desplat. Read more…
PRESENCE – Zack Ryan
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Presence is the latest film from the highly eclectic filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, whose efforts over the years have veered from the mainstream (Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, Magic Mike), to the arthouse (Sex Lies and Videotape, Solaris), to the boldly experimental (The Girlfriend Experience). Presence sort of blurs the lines between all three; essentially a meditation on death and grief dressed up with horror/thriller overtones, the film is told from the point of view of ‘the presence,’ a spectral poltergeist-like figure that haunts a house that has just become the new home of a suburban family – mom Lucy Liu, dad Chris Sullivan, and their children Callina Liang and Eddy Maday. To reveal more about the plot would be an injustice, suffice to say that the film has been broadly praised for its technical elements, its performances, and for the philosophical undertones of writer David Koepp’s screenplay. Read more…
THE ROSE TATTOO – Alex North
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Renowned director Hal Wallis saw opportunity with the Broadway production of “The Rose Tattoo” by Tennessee Williams, which opened at the Martin Beck Theater in New York on February 3, 1951, ran for 306 performances, and won four Tony Awards. He stated in his memoirs that he saw its premiere and “knew at once that I had to buy it. It was sure to be a great success. Audiences would identify with its earthiness, its sexuality, its deeply felt emotions and naturalistic dialogue.” He purchased the film rights, and sold his vision to Paramount Pictures, who placed him in charge of production. Daniel Mann was hired to direct, and author Tennessee Williams would write the screenplay. For the cast, Williams was insistent on Italian actress Anna Magnani playing Serafina Delle Rose, and this would be her first English speaking role. Joining her would be Burt Lancaster as Alvaro Mangiacavallo, Marissa Pava as Rosa Delle Rose, and Ben Cooper as Jack Hunter. Read more…
CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD – Laura Karpman
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.
Somehow, over the course of some 17 years, we have now racked up an astonishing 35 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the enormously ambitious interlocking series of super-hero films that first began with Iron Man back in 2008. If you also include the 15 or so multi-season live action TV shows, plus the various animated shows and one-off specials, we are now at a point where viewers have to keep track of more than 100 hours of story in order to understand what is happening – and, to be frank, it’s starting to become a chore. Read more…
QUENTIN DURWARD – Bronislau Kaper
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1951 MGM sought to capitalize on the huge commercial success of Robert Taylor in “Ivanhoe” with him starring in another period piece. To that end they chose to adapt the 1823 novel “Quentin Durward” by Sir Walter Scott. Pandro S. Berman was again assigned production with a $2.47 million budget, Robert Ardey and George Frooeschel were hired to write the screenplay, and Richard Thorpe was tasked with directing. For the cast, Robert Taylor would star in the titular role as the hero Quentin Durward, with Kay Kendall as Isabelle, Countess of Macroy, Robert Morley as King Louis XI, George Cole as Hayraddin, Alec Clunes as Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and Duncan Lamont as Count Philip De Creville. Read more…
BAFTA Winners 2024
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) have announced the winners of the 78th British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2024.
In the Best Original Music category, the winner was Daniel Blumberg, who won the award for his score for The Brutalist, director Brady Corbet’s epic drama about the life of a fictional Hungarian architect who emigrates to the United States in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Accepting his award, Blumberg said:
“Thank you so much for acknowledging the work and the BAFTAs. And thanks to Brady [Corbet], its been amazing to work with one of my best friends. And I want to thank my co-producer Peter Walsh, who’s here for working so hard on the film. And all these incredible musicians who played on the score, like John Tilbury and Axel Dorner. Oh yeah, and John’s wife Janice for making lunch every day! Thanks to Mark my manager, and my family Stacy [Martin] and Keith, and my friends at Oto. Thank you.”
The other nominees were Volker Bertelmann for Conclave, Kris Bowers for The Wild Robot, Robin Carolan for Nosferatu, and Clément Ducol and Camille Dalmais for Emilia Pérez.
IFMCA Nominations 2024
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
BEAR MCCREARY LEADS LIST OF NOMINATED COMPOSERS WITH SIX NOMINATIONS; ANIMATED FILMS, TELEVISION SHOWS, DOMINATE ‘SCORE OF THE YEAR’ CATEGORY; SHORT FILMS INCLUDED AS A NEW CATEGORY FOR FIRST TIME
FEBRUARY 13, 2025. The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of nominees for excellence in musical scoring in 2024, for the 21st annual IFMCA Awards. Composer Bear McCreary leads the list of composer nominees with six nominations, followed by Kris Bowers, who has four.
Four of American composer McCreary’s nominations are for his work on the second season of the Amazon Prime fantasy television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is nominated as Score of the Year and Best Television score, and also received two nominations for Composition of the Year. McCreary also received a Comedy Score nomination for his work on the Kevin Smith’s nostalgic coming-of-age film The 4:30 Movie, and was himself nominated for Composer of the Year; his work in addition to The Rings of Power and The 4:30 Movie includes a creative and entertaining score for the horror flick Imaginary, and music for the latest seasons of multiple TV shows such as Outlander, Halo, and Masters of the Universe, which he wrote along with his staff composers at Sparks & Shadows. Read more…
SCL Award Winners 2024
The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL) has announced the winners of the sixth annual SCL Awards, honoring the best in film and television music in 2024. The SCL is the premier professional trade group for composers, lyricists, and songwriters working in the motion picture, television, and game music industry, and is headquartered in Los Angeles. The winners are:
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A STUDIO FILM
- KRIS BOWERS for The Wild Robot
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN INDEPENDENT FILM
- DANIEL BLUMBERG for The Brutalist
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A TELEVISION PRODUCTION
- ATTICUS ROSS, LEOPOLD ROSS, and NICK CHUBA for Shōgun
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL TITLE SEQUENCE FOR A TELEVISION PRODUCTION
- JEFF TOYNE for Palm Royale
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG FOR VISUAL MEDIA – DRAMA/DOCUMENTARY
- DIANE WARREN for “The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG FOR VISUAL MEDIA – MUSICAL/COMEDY
- TRENT REZNOR, ATTICUS ROSS, and LUCA GUADAGNINO for “Compress/Repress” from Challengers
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE FOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA
- WINIFRED PHILLIPS for Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
DAVID RAKSIN AWARD FOR EMERGING TALENT
- ANDREA DATZMAN
SPIRIT OF COLLABORATION AWARD
- HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS and RIDLEY SCOTT
SCL JURY AWARD
- JEFF BEAL for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Movie Music UK Awards 2024
2024 has been a difficult, challenging year for multiple reasons, but one aspect that continues to impress was the overall quality of its film music. I heard more than 800 scores in 2024 – either as a soundtrack album, in movie context, or both – and I ended up rating 98 of them **** or better, a decent rate of return by anyone’s standards.
Television music and video game music continues to exceed expectations, and at this point scores written for those media can easily stand shoulder-to-shoulder with traditional film scores – and often exceed them in terms of quality. I always say that there is great film music being written all over the world if you are prepared to put in a little effort to seek it out, but this year I’m very happy to also report that five of my ten nominees for Score of the Year were for major, mainstream Hollywood productions, and all of them feature the big, bold, thematic orchestral writing that drew me to the genre in the first place.
These are joined by a trio of excellent scores from the UK, from France, and from Poland, as well as the TV and game scores I previously mentioned, while my winners and nominees in the various genres are taken from an enormous cross-section of world cinema, and include films and TV shows from locales as disparate as Finland, South Korea, Hungary, Japan, Spain, China, Sweden, and more. After going through what it has gone through over the past few years film music’s resurgence continues, and I hope that this article allows you to discover some gems that catch your ear and touch your heart.
So, without further ado, here are my choices for the best scores of 2024! Read more…
JUST CAUSE – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Just Cause is a psychological thriller based on the 1992 novel of the same name by John Katzenbach, directed by Arne Glimcher, starring Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, Blair Underwood, and Ed Harris. The film follows Paul Armstrong (Connery), a Harvard professor and former lawyer, who is drawn back into the legal world when an elderly woman pleads with him to help her grandson, Bobby Earl Ferguson (Underwood), a black man convicted of the brutal murder of a young girl in a small Florida town. Initially reluctant, Armstrong is convinced of Bobby Earl’s innocence after the accused claims that he was coerced into confessing by a ruthless sheriff, Tanny Brown (Fishburne). As Armstrong investigates, he uncovers more inconsistencies in the case and follows leads that point to another suspect, serial killer Blair Sullivan (Harris), who is incarcerated for another crime. However, as the case unravels, Armstrong slowly realizes that not everything is as it seems. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2024, Part 7
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the seventh and last of 2024, is a massive bumper crop covering NINE scores from across the world, all of which deserve to be considered in people’s end-of-year best lists. The scores include a Spanish animated adventure film, an acclaimed WWII documentary, an Italian comedy-drama, a Hungarian historical epic film, an uplifting and life-affirming Norwegian documentary , a sultry Italian thriller TV mini-series, a Spanish Christmas-themed animated action-adventure comedy, a Spanish horror-thriller TV series for Netflix, and a Japanese drama television series! Read more…
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE – Leonard Rosenman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Warner Brothers Pictures was looking for a vehicle to showcase their new, young contract actor James Dean. In 1954 they decided that they had finally found it with a 1944 novel by Robert M. Lindner, “Rebel Without A Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath”. They purchased the film rights, David Weisbart was assigned production with a $1.5 million budget, Stewart Stern was hired to write the screenplay, and Nicholas Ray was tasked with directing. For the cast, James Dean would star as Jim Stark, and joining him would be Natalie Wood as Judy, Sal Mineo as John “Plato” Crawford, Jim Backus as Frank Stark, Ann Doran as Carol Stark, Corey Allen as Buzz Gunderson, and William Hopper as Judy’s father. Read more…
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