Archive
A GOOD YEAR – Marc Streitenfeld
Original Review by Clark Douglas
If a lead character in a mainstream movie declares “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing!” at the beginning (and his name isn’t Vince Lombardi), is there any doubt that he will change his mind by the film’s end? No, and I don’t suppose that’s a huge problem. “A Good Year” is a predictable message film, and in this case, I’m okay with that. However, I’m not okay with the fact that the film doesn’t even buy into it’s own message.
The theoretical character from the beginning of my review is indeed the leading character of the film. His name is Max (Russell Crowe), and he is a stock market go-getter with a large staff and a mean streak. He is a perfect “in need of redemption” candidate for the film’s purposes… greedy, selfish, uncaring, with a surprisingly gentle piece of his past buried away under piles of money. When Max learns of the death of the man who raised him, his Uncle Henry (played by Albert Finney in flashbacks), his reaction is basically a shrug. Well, until he learns that he’s inherited Henry’s estate (which includes a wine vineyard), which could bring in a pretty penny. Read more…
THE RETURN – Dario Marianelli
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Following his Oscar nomination for Pride & Prejudice last year, and his subsequent arrival in the ‘Hollywood Studio System’ with V for Vendetta, it was sort of inevitable that, before long, Dario Marianelli would turn up scoring a studio horror flick. Every composer does at least one (although some spend their entire careers doing nothing else!) It’s almost a rite of passage, something you have to do to earn your spurs, and be accepted as a reputable and reliable figure in the cogs that make up the system, which establishes you as one of the great fraternity from whose ranks most Hollywood movie scores are written. Dario Marianelli’s flick, it turns out, is The Return. Read more…
Basil Poledouris, 1945-2006
Composer Basil Poledouris died on November 8, 2006, at his home in Los Angeles, California, after a battle with cancer. He was 61.
Vassilis Konstantinos Poledouris was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in August 1945, to a family of Greek immigrants. A piano player from an early age, Basil moved to Los Angeles in 1964 to study filmmaking and music at the University of Southern California, where he was a contemporary of soon-to-be-directors George Lucas, John Milius and Randal Kleiser, who would go on to be lifelong friends and collaborators. Poledouris dabbled in acting – he had a non-speaking role as a crewmember on the original series of Star Trek – but concentrated on music following his graduation with a BA in film studies.
Poledouris composed music for over 100 educational films before getting his break in feature films, which came in 1978 following the release of the popular cult surfing movie Big Wednesday (directed by Milius), and which he followed by writing music for hit teen romance The Blue Lagoon in 1980, and the action fantasy epic Conan the Barbarian in 1982. The latter film launched the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and is considered one of the finest fantasy scores ever written. Read more…
BABEL – Gustavo Santaolalla
Original Review by Clark Douglas
So this is what it feels like on the other side. Last year, I wrote an very positive review of Paul Haggis’ “Crash”. In fact, I went so far as to call it the year’s best film. I spent a good portion of time arguing with others who said the film was cheap, overdramatic, and contrived. Now, here is “Babel”, which is receiving reviews eerily similar to those “Crash” received, and they’re just as divided… some critics call it a complex and thought-provoking masterpiece, others call it hokey rubbish. This time around, I absolutely agree with the dissenters, for some of their reasons, and for some of my own. “Babel” was directed by the talented Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also made the acclaimed “21 Grams” and “Amores Perros”. Both of those films were contrived, but convincing. Not so here. Read more…
THE PRESTIGE – David Julyan
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Honestly, you wait ages for a film about magicians in turn-of-the-century Europe, and then two come along at once! This happens in Hollywood with quite amazing regularity, and seems to be a trend that shows no sign of going away. So, following on the heels of The Illusionist is The Prestige, which has a better pedigree in terms of filmmakers, and a more bankable cast. The film stars Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as Alfred Borden and Robert Angier, two friends, aspiring stage magicians in London at the height of the Victorian era. However, when Alfred causes the death of Julia, Robert’s wife, their friendship becomes a deep animosity. Thereafter, the two magicians strive to outdo each other, both on stage and in life, trying to develop more and more elaborate and dangerous illusions, and carrying out acts of bitter vengeance. With a director in the shape of Christopher Nolan (hot from Batman Begins), a superb supporting cast that includes Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis and David Bowie, and a talented production crew recreating the opulence of the time period, The Prestige has been a critical and commercial success. Read more…
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS – Clint Eastwood
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s interesting to see how the public perception of Clint Eastwood has changed over the years. In the 1950s he was a TV cowboy, familiar from series such as Rawhide. In the 1960s, he moved to the big screen, and became an icon through his roles in classic spaghetti westerns like A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly. In the 1970s he became a bona fide Hollywood star, with leading roles in box office smashes like Dirty Harry, The Enforcer, Magnum Force and Every Which Way But Loose. By the 1980s he had moved sideways into directing, and enjoyed significant success with Sudden Impact, Firefox, and Heartbreak Ridge. The last 20 years or so, though, have seen him emerge as a true cinematic artist and a beloved member of the film-making fraternity, with the acclaimed Unforgiven, The Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. Read more…
THE QUEEN – Alexandre Desplat
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997, was something of a turning point in the modern history of the United Kingdom. Up until that time, the British royal family were generally looked upon with fondness. Sure, they had their moments of scandal, Prince Phillip continually said stupid things to people on foreign tours, and there was a section of society which called for them to be abolished and the country turned into a republic. But, beyond this, the House of Windsor was seen as a mighty figurehead, as people who represented the best interests of Britain at home and abroad, as a family to be looked up to and admired. However, the reaction of the Royal Family to the death of Diana caused unprecedented resentment and outcry. The Royal Family’s rigid adherence to protocol was interpreted by the public as a lack of compassion, and all of a sudden the tide turned against them. Now, the Royal Family was cold and insular, out of touch with the thoughts and feelings of the nation they ruled, and totally irrelevant to modern British life. Queen Elizabeth II in particular came in for special criticism, initially for her refusal to allow the Royal Standard on top of Buckingham Palace to fly at half mast, and later for her seemingly forced and insincere broadcast to the nation several days later. Read more…
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND – Alex Heffes
Original Review by Clark Douglas
There were several “based on true events” historical dramas in 2006 about different parts of Africa, and “The Last King of Scotland” is the best of them. It is a somewhat flawed film, but reaches remarkable heights during it’s best moments, and it lingers with you long after the credits have rolled. Nicolas Garrigan (James McAvoy) is a young Scottish man who’s just gotten his medical degree. Desperate not to become stuck in his father’s medical practice, he runs off to Uganda (of all places) and decides to work in a small medical clinic there, healing the needy and so on. The year is 1971, and Uganda is in the middle of being overthrown by an up-and-coming general named Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). Read more…
RENAISSANCE – Nicholas Dodd
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
To the outsider, the relationship between the composer and the orchestrator is a strange, symbiotic, largely misunderstood affair. Composers, who are ultimately responsible for the majority of the sound of their own work, pass off their musical outlines to others for “fleshing out” for a variety of reasons, time pressure being the most frequently cited. A seasoned composer like John Williams, whose recent scores have been orchestrated by John Neufeld and Eddie Karam, will hand over manuscripts which are 99% complete in detail, leaving the orchestrators with little to do other than write it out neatly and prepare it for copying. Others, on the other hand, will have little more than a melodic line written out, and it will be up to the orchestrator to convert this simple tune into something which can be played by a large symphony orchestra. It is in these circumstances that the influence of the orchestrator becomes apparent: he or she will add a great deal of their own musical personality to scores which are not yet fully realised, and depending on how successful the composer is, the familiar touch of a particular orchestrator can be heard, sometimes above that of the actual composer. Over the years, a great number of orchestrators have left their mark, from early pioneers like Hugo Friedhofer, through Alexander Courage and Arthur Morton and Grieg McRitchie, to today’s top talents like Mark McKenzie, Robert Elhai, Brad Dechter and Conrad Pope. Arguably the most identifiable of the current crop, however, is Nicholas Dodd. Read more…
ALL THE KING’S MEN – James Horner
Original Review by Clark Douglas
When it was originally slated for a late 2005 release, “All the King’s Men” was being touted as one of those “can’t-miss” Oscar nominees, with a good director and a cast that Academy members couldn’t help but drool over. Then it disappeared. Many rumors surfaced, as they always do, the most prominent one being that it was feared “All the King’s Men” couldn’t hold up against the 2005 competition. After a year of retooling and new marketing, it’s finally here, and despite the relatively weaker movie crop of 2006, “All the King’s Men” doesn’t stand a chance. The film is based on the 1946 novel of the same name, which was made into an Oscar-winning 1949 film. Our narrator and central figure, Jack Burden (Jude Law) tells us a familiar story… an idealistic, charming politician (Sean Penn) with big goals who was hindered by his weaknesses… most notably, his weakness for women. If Bill Clinton’s name is coming to mind, it should come as no surprise that James Carville played a major role in helping get this film off the ground. Read more…
THE BLACK DAHLIA – Mark Isham
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The enduring mystery of the ‘black dahlia’ murder case has intrigued and confounded Hollywood since 1947. It involves the grisly death of an aspiring young actress named Elizabeth Short, who was found dead – literally chopped in half at the waist and dismembered – in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles, 8 miles south of downtown Hollywood. The shocking brutality of her killing made her much more of a media figure in death than she ever was in life, who dubbed her “The Black Dahlia”, a pun on the title of the Alan Ladd film The Blue Dahlia, which had recently been released. Despite the efforts of hundreds of police, and the enormous media coverage, Short’s killer has still never been found, although the suspects at the time included such high profile names as publisher Norman Chandler, folk singer Woody Guthrie, gangster Bugsy Siegel, and even Orson Welles. This fascinating history is the basis of director Brian De Palma’s latest film, based on the novel by James Ellroy, which hypothesises one possible version events. The all-star cast includes Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, and Mia Kirshner as Short. Read more…
HOLLYWOODLAND – Marcelo Zarvos
Original Review by Clark Douglas
There’s been an awful lot of buzz surrounding “Hollywoodland” in the past month or two, and that’s not so surprising… at a first glance, the film looks like Oscar material. It’s a handsomely crafted movie boasting a cast with a lot of credentials. To top things off, the movie is based on a true story, which somehow always manages to increase the chances of a film during awards season. Given these elements, it is a bit surprising to find that “Hollywoodland”, on the whole, is rather unremarkable. No, it is not a bad film, and I wouldn’t think of advising anyone not to go see it, but at the same time, I can’t really recommend it. Read more…
LASSIE – Adrian Johnston
Original Review by Clark Douglas
The world’s most loveable bitch is back! I refer not to Sir Elton, but to Lassie, that much-acclaimed wonder dog to top all wonder dogs. Sure, Rin-Tin-Tin and Toto had their fifteen minutes, and Scooby-Doo isn’t far behind, but surely Lassie bests them all. If that fact was ever in doubt, this latest adventure seals the deal. One might expect a 2006 version of Lassie to feature a bunch of pop culture references, cameo appearances, in-jokes, and perhaps even a celebrity voiceover for Lassie herself. This “Lassie” is, thankfully, nothing like that, and we can be equally grateful that Timmy and his constantly-trapped leg are nowhere to be found, either. Director Charles Sturridge has crafted a beautiful retelling of Eric Knight’s original novel, which had previously been adapted into the charming “Lassie, Come Home” in 1943 with Elizabeth Taylor and Donald Crisp. Read more…
THE ILLUSIONIST – Philip Glass
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I make no secret of the fact that, for the most part, I’m not a huge fan of Philip Glass’s music. Over the years, scores such as Kundun, The Hours, and his ‘qatsi’ trilogy, which were all acclaimed by the mainstream music media, have generally left me cold and un-moved. His style of writing, the repeated rhythmic patterns, the micro-motifs, and the entrenched ‘minimalism’ just doesn’t appeal to my ear. As far as Philip Glass the composer is concerned, however, I gained a great deal of respect for him as a person when, several years ago, he began conducting a fascinating ‘experiment’ on himself by agreeing to score mainstream Hollywood studio movies – the Angelina Jolie thriller Taking Lives, the Stephen King adaptation Secret Window, and so on – simply to see whether he could do it or not. Whereas the contemporary classical music world tends to sneer at film music as being a lesser art form, Glass took the trouble to discover for himself just how difficult a job being a mainstream film composer can be, and in doing so endeared himself to many who have been arguing this very point for years – myself included. It perhaps comes as no surprise, therefore, to discover that his latest effort is a very high-profile, mainstream studio picture: the elegant magical romantic adventure, The Illusionist. Read more…
PULSE – Elia Cmiral
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Once upon a time, for a short period, Elia Cmiral was considered a ‘hot property for the future’ in Hollywood music circles. Having taken a tortuous circuit to the mainstream – via his Czech homeland, his adopted country of Sweden, and work on the TV show Nash Bridges – his first major film, the 1998 Robert De Niro thriller Ronin was pretty much roundly praised. Then, two years later, came the nadir: the ill-fated, critically derided Battlefield Earth, which almost single-handedly re-destroyed John Travolta’s career, and catapulted Cmiral into the realms of straight-to-video Z-grade horror movies. Pulse is only his fourth cinematic feature since the turn of the millennium and, unfortunately, neither the film or the score is likely to alter his career trajectory. Read more…
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