Archive
GLI UOMINI, CHE MASCALZONI/WHAT SCOUNDRELS MEN ARE – Cesare Andrea Bixio
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
After the success of Italy’s first “talkie,” La Canzone dell’Amore, in 1930, the Italian film industry embraced the new format and blossomed. Director Mario Camerini aspired to be at the forefront of this emerging era of Italian cinema and transform it from one dominated by theatrical adaptations shot in reconstructed studio environments to one embracing outdoor filming in scenic, naturalistic locations across Milan and Lake Como. A marriage made in heaven followed when Cines studio executives decided to create a modern, populist romantic comedy while establishing a refreshing, realistic visual style by shooting on actual Milanese locations rather than artificial studio sets. The result was the film Gli Uomini, Che Mascalzoni, or What Scoundrels Men Are. A team of writers, including Camerini, Aldo De Benedetti, and Mario Soldati, wrote the screenplay; Cines managed production; and Camerini directed. Vittorio De Sica starred as Bruno, joined by Lia Franca as Mariuccia. Read more…
THE SPITFIRE GRILL – James Horner
THROWBACK THIRTY
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Spitfire Grill is a small-scale American drama film written and directed by Lee David Zlotoff, a television veteran best known as the creator of MacGyver and for his work on Remington Steele. The film marked Zlotoff’s feature directing debut and stars Alison Elliott as Percy Talbott, a young woman released from prison after serving time for manslaughter who decides to make a new start in the tiny town of Gilead, Maine. There she finds work at the Spitfire Grill, a weathered local diner owned by the formidable Hannah Ferguson, played by Ellen Burstyn. Percy gradually forms an especially important friendship with Hannah’s niece-by-marriage Shelby, played by Marcia Gay Harden, while Will Patton, Kieran Mulroney, and Gailard Sartain round out the principal cast. The story is essentially one of wounded people finding community and redemption: Percy’s arrival disturbs the town’s settled routines, but her energy eventually revives both the Grill and some of the people around it, even as secrets involving Hannah’s past and a mysterious figure living in the nearby woods begin to surface. Read more…
MEDORA: EMPRESS OF THE BADLANDS – Will Van de Crommert
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the greatest thrills I get as a film music critic is when I stumble upon a score for an almost completely unknown film, listen to it on a whim, and discover a gem. This happened to me this week when I listened to the music for this film, Medora: Empress of the Badlands, a period western directed by Daniel Bielinski, which had a very short theatrical run in limited cinemas back in April before moving to on-demand and streaming services. It is a tale that brings together Gilded Age New York wealth, European aristocracy, the Dakota cattle boom, Theodore Roosevelt’s Badlands period, frontier gun culture, and late-19th-century French politics, all in one remarkable story. Read more…
DER BLAUE ENGEL/THE BLUE ANGEL – Friedrich Hollaender
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Following the success of The Jazz Singer in 1927, Hollywood, by 1929, was rapidly dominating global cinema with its new synchronized sound technology. Germany’s leading film studio, Universum Film AG (UFA), sought to create a massive, high-profile project to demonstrate that German cinema could compete internationally. To that end, Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) was chosen. The studio also sought to capitalize on the career achievements of iconic silent movie actor Emil Jannings, who in 1928 had become the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actor in Hollywood. However, with the arrival of sound, his thick German accent made him unsuitable for American talking pictures, and it was hoped that The Blue Angel would provide Jannings with a prestigious film through which he could demonstrate a successful transition to German talkies. Erich Pommer was placed in charge of production and, at Jannings’ request, secured Hollywood director Josef von Sternberg on loan from Paramount Pictures. Carl Zuckmayer and Karl Vollmöller led a team that adapted Heinrich Mann’s 1905 novel, Professor Unrat (Professor Filth). While the novel was a sharp, satirical attack on the bourgeois hypocrisy and rigid authoritarianism of Imperial Germany, Sternberg heavily altered the story. He shifted the focus away from political satire to create a more intimate psychological tragedy about romantic obsession and personal degradation. Jannings starred as Professor Immanuel Rath, joined by Marlene Dietrich as Lola and Kurt Gerron as Kiepert. Read more…
EMMA – Rachel Portman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The mid-1990s were an extraordinary time for Jane Austen on screen. Within a remarkably short period audiences were treated to Roger Michell’s Persuasion, Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, Andrew Davies’s enormously popular BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth, Amy Heckerling’s contemporary Emma reworking, Clueless, and finally this more traditional version of Emma, released theatrically in the summer of 1996. The film was written and directed by Douglas McGrath, who was making his feature directing debut after having earned an Academy Award nomination for co-writing Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway in 1994. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma Woodhouse, a wealthy, intelligent, confident young woman living in the English village of Highbury who has convinced herself that she possesses an exceptional talent for matchmaking. Unfortunately, Emma understands almost everyone’s romantic feelings except her own. Read more…
SKYWARD SPIRIT – James Horner, Simon Rhodes
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The death of a great composer usually creates a terrible finality. There may be expanded albums, previously unreleased cues, alternate takes, and new recordings, but the expectation of hearing something genuinely unfamiliar eventually disappears. This is what makes Skyward Spirit, a newly recovered concert work by James Horner, such an extraordinary and unexpectedly emotional gift for people like me, who have been fans of his work for most of our lives. More than a decade after Horner’s death, here is music that feels fresh, vibrant, unmistakably his, and connected to one of the great passions of his life: flying. Read more…
CHETNIKS! THE FIGHTING GUERRILLAS – Hugo Friedhofer
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The 1943 film Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas was originally titled “The Seventh Column” and based on a story by Jack Andrews. The film was conceived as wartime propaganda, intended to show American and global audiences that Hitler’s forces were not invincible. It portrayed the Chetniks as fearless underdogs fighting a guerrilla hit-and-run campaign to liberate their nation under the inspired leadership of General Draža Mihailović. 20th Century Fox greenlit the project and assigned Bryan Foy and Sol M. Wurtzel to production. Louis King directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Jack Andrews and Edward E. Paramore Jr. Philip Dorn starred as Draža Mihailović, joined by Anna Sten as Ljubica Mihailović, Shepperd Strudwick as Lieutenant Aleksa Petrović, Virginia Gilmore as Natalia, and Martin Kosleck as Gestapo Colonel Wilhelm Brockner. Read more…
THE FRIGHTENERS – Danny Elfman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Frighteners is a supernatural horror-comedy film directed by Peter Jackson, made at the fascinating midpoint between the gleefully disreputable splatter films that established Jackson’s reputation and the enormous fantasy epics that would soon make him one of the most famous filmmakers in the world. Michael J. Fox stars as Frank Bannister, a widowed former architect who, following the traumatic death of his wife, discovers that he can see and communicate with ghosts. Frank turns this ability into a scam: his spectral friends haunt local houses, and he then arrives as a self-proclaimed psychic investigator to “exorcise” them for a fee. Things become considerably less amusing when an apparently supernatural serial killer begins murdering people around town, forcing Frank to confront both the mystery of the killings and the unresolved tragedy in his own past. Read more…
COYOTE VS. ACME – Steven Price
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Coyote vs. Acme is a live-action/animated comedy based on the classic Looney Tunes characters created by Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese, and more specifically on the 1990 New Yorker humor piece “Coyote v. Acme” by writer Ian Frazier. It is directed by Dave Green and stars Will Forte, Lana Condor, and John Cena, alongside numerous animated Looney Tunes characters. The story takes place in a world in which cartoon characters and human beings live side-by-side, and focuses on Wile E. Coyote, who has spent decades attempting to catch and eat the apparently uncatchable Road Runner. Unfortunately, virtually every rocket, catapult, explosive, giant magnet, pair of rocket-powered roller skates, or other ridiculous contraption he has purchased from the Acme Corporation has malfunctioned spectacularly, usually causing significant physical injury to himself. Eventually Wile E. decides that enough is enough and hires unsuccessful Albuquerque personal injury lawyer Kevin Avery (Forte) to sue Acme for selling him defective and dangerous products. Avery, assisted by his idealistic niece Paige (Condor), takes the case, only to find himself facing the vast resources of the Acme Corporation and its slick, arrogant attorney Buddy Crane (Cena), while gradually discovering evidence of a much larger corporate conspiracy. Read more…
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