Archive
WAR HORSE – John Williams
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A variation on the classic Black Beauty tale about of the life of a heroic horse, filtered through the cinematic lens of director John Ford, War Horse is director Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the well-regarded novel by Michael Morpurgo about the adventures of a horse named Joey during World War I. The action moves from rural Devon, where young Joey is raised as a plow horse by Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) to work on his father’s farm, to the battlefields of central Europe after he is sold to the British Army upon the outbreak of war and is adopted by a kindly cavalry officer as his personal mount. Moving from adventure to adventure, Joey makes his way through the mire of The Great War, serving on both sides of the conflict – and all the while young Albert, now himself serving in the trenches, never gives up hope of being reunited with his equine friend. The film co-stars Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Niels Arestrup, Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch, and of course has a score by the venerable John Williams, his second score of 2011 after several years away from the podium. Read more…
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There’s a lot of discussion going on in film music circles these days about the direction the art is taking, and a lot of it stems from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s Oscar win for their score for The Social Network last year. Amongst many mainstream film critics, Reznor and Ross’s ambient drones are seen as ushering a newer, better way of scoring films, one that moves away from the “schmaltzy emotional manipulation” written by the likes of John Williams and James Horner, and instead embraces a cold, clinical musical style that is more akin to sound effects than traditional film music. In his review of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Variety film critic Justin Chang said the score “blends dread with driving momentum, establishing a richly unsettling mood with recurring dissonances, eerie wind chimes and pulsating reverb effects”. In his simultaneously-published review of War Horse, he criticized the film for “a cloying strain of bucolic whimsy driven by John Williams’ pushy score”, so you see what we’re up against. Read more…
THE DARKEST HOUR – Tyler Bates
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
As a general rule, and if I can help it, I don’t engage in hyperbole on Movie Music UK. A recurring cliché is that predominantly web-based reviewers are prone to proclaim every new thing “Best Something Ever” or “Worst Something Ever”, with no real sense of the history of whatever they are reviewing, and it’s a difficult stigma to overcome. Having said that, and with those points in mind, you will understand what it means why I say that Tyler Bates’ score for The Darkest Hour is one of the worst film scores I have ever heard. The last time I wrote something along these lines was when I reviewed Geoff Zanelli’s awful effort for the film Gamer in 2009. In my review of it I posted a picture of a polar bear with a migraine to illustrate how it made me feel; as such, here is a similarly illustrative visual representation of how I felt after listening to The Darkest Hour: Read more…
OVERBOARD – Alan Silvestri
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Director Gary Marshall, who was well known for his comedic success on TV with shows like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy, hired writer Leslie Dixon to write a new romantic comedy, Overboard. This outrageous story concerns a wealthy and pretentious married couple, Joanna Stayton (Goldie Hawn) and Grant Stayton III (Edward Herrmann) and Dean Proffitt (Kurt Russell) a local redneck carpenter. Joanna is a bitch of a woman who, after stiffing Dean for carpentry work, happens to fall overboard. She wakes up with amnesia and so begins a comic and outrageous story. Grant takes the opportunity to deny knowing her and seizes his long desired chance to escape a horrific marriage. Meanwhile Dean falsely claims to be her husband – seeking her household care of his four kids as recompense for his unpaid job. Well, be careful what you ask for! As the plot develops Joanna and Dean begin to fall in love, Joanna’s mother closes in on a search for her daughter, and the return of Joanna’s memory looms. To say the plot was silly and contrived is an understatement! Nevertheless the chemistry between Hawn and Russell worked and it suffices to say that Americans just love a romantic comedy. As such the film went on to become a big commercial success. Read more…
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY – Alberto Iglesias
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A slow burning thriller based on the classic espionage novel by John le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a film about corruption at the highest level of the British spy game. Influenced in part by the real-life exploits of the British-Soviet double agent Kim Philby and set in Britain in the mid 1970s, the film stars Gary Oldman as George Smiley, a taciturn, but brilliant secret agent who becomes embroiled in a labyrinthine plot of bluff and double-bluff when he discovers that there is a mole leaking classified information to the Soviets, and that the mole might well be one of the highest ranking agents in MI5, Britain’s elite intelligence agency. This is not the secret world of James Bond however: these spies are thinkers and manipulators rather than men of action, with a strategic mind more akin to chess than swordplay and gunfights, and much of the film develops via hushed conversations in darkened corridors and furtive rifling through filing cabinets. The film features an all star cast including Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, Simon McBurney and Ciaran Hinds, and is directed by Swede Tomas Alfredsson, making his English-language debut following his spectacular success with the original Swedish version of Let The Right One In. Read more…
BREAKING DAWN, PART I – Carter Burwell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The fourth of the projected five Twilight movies, Breaking Dawn Part I is the first of a two-part series concluding the cinematic saga based on Stephanie Meyer’s massively popular horror-romance novels. Teen heartthrobs Robert Pattinson, Kristin Stewart and Taylor Lautner return as Edward, Bella and Jacob, the three protagonists in the never-ending love triangle between a vampire, a werewolf and the human object of their desires. The story revolves around Edward and Bella’s marriage and her subsequent pregnancy with a half-human half-vampire baby; not only does she have to contend with the implications of this hybrid, but Jacob’s werewolf clan – mortal enemies of the Cullen vampires – are planning to kill Bella and her unborn child before it becomes a threat to them. The film is directed by Bill Condon, and features the usual supporting cast – Nikki Reed, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellen Lutz, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone – as well as Michael Sheen as the leader of the enigmatic vampire clan, the Volturi. Read more…
THE ARTIST – Ludovic Bource
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Each year, around this time, an unexpected art house film emerges as a critical darling with Academy Awards potential. It happened to Life is Beautiful in 1998, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in 2000, Brokeback Mountain in 2005, Juno in 2007, Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, Precious in 2009… the list goes on and on. In 2011, that film could be The Artist, director Michel Hazanavicius’s story about a silent movie matinee idol in 1920s Hollywood whose career is threatened by the advent of sound in motion pictures. The difference here, unlike those other films, is that The Artist is a silent film itself, shot in black and white and in such a way that the style and tone of the piece mirrors the very films in which Hazanavicius’s protagonist appears. The movie stars Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle and Penelope Ann Miller, and has already opened to great critical acclaim in the United States. Read more…
55 DAYS AT PEKING – Dimitri Tiomkin
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
55 Days at Peking is an epic film which joined politics and a love story as it explored European imperialism at the dawn of the 20th century. Set in Peking (now Beijing) we see the capital city occupied and under the financial domination of eleven European countries and Japan. They exploit the populace, are immune from Chinese laws and compete for economic control. A populist peasant rebellion called the Boxers rises up with fury and covert support from the Dowager Empress to expel the foreigners and restore Chinese honor and sovereignty. Producer Samuel Bronston assembled a stellar cast that included Charlton Heston as U.S. Major Matt Lewis, Ava Gardner as Russian Baroness, Natalie Ivanoff with whom he falls in love and David Niven as Sir Arthur Robinson, head of the British delegation. Regretfully despite the grandeur of its sets, its splendor and pageantry, the film’s narrative was uninspired, its script weak, and it suffered massive production challenges; implacable hostility between Heston and Gardner (she quit the film and they were forced to kill off her character!), went through four directors and ended up being both a commercial and critical failure. Read more…
IMMORTALS – Trevor Morris
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Considering what a rich and vivid palette they have, and how much potential there is for great storytelling, there haven’t been many great films made about Greek gods. In the past couple of years Hollywood has tried to work its way into that world, with films like Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the remake of Clash of the Titans, but found limited success. Unfortunately, Immortals continues the trend by being a film with a great deal of promise, but which is severely lacking in dramatic content. The film is directed by Tarsem Singh, and stars Henry Cavill as Theseus, a simple mortal man who is chosen by Zeus (Luke Evans), the king of the Gods, to put an end to the reign of Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), a ruthless tyrant who is searching for the mythical Epirus Bow, a weapon of such enormous power that it has the capability to release the Titans – vicious warriors who were enslaved by the Gods centuries ago – and with which he intends to wage war on the Gods themselves. The film, which also stars Stephen Dorff, Frieda Pinto and John Hurt, looks fantastic, as is always the case with Tarsem’s films, but suffers from terrible pacing, especially in the film’s first half, confusing interchangeable characters which make empathy difficult, and a curious lack of connection with the audience, which left me unexpectedly uninvolved and – at times – rather bored. Style over substance, it seems. Read more…
THE RUM DIARY – Christopher Young
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Rum Diary doesn’t quite know what kind of film it wants to be. On the one hand it’s another wry look at life through the alcohol-soaked and frequently hilarious lens of the late Gonzo author Hunter S. Thompson, on whose novel this film is based, and on whom the lead character Paul Kemp is clearly modeled. On the other hand, it’s a comparatively serious examination of the American suppression of native culture of Puerto Rico in the 1950s, specifically the way in which rich industrialists manipulate the system and steal from the local landowners in order to line their pockets. Then again, it’s a romance, in which the Kemp character falls in lust with the beautiful young wife of a shady entrepreneur. But, most of all, it’s a love letter to Puerto Rico itself – the unspoiled beaches, the sunny climes, the generous people, and the seemingly unlimited supply of alcohol that keep the wheels of the island greased. Read more…
PUSS IN BOOTS – Henry Jackman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Given the worldwide success of the Shrek franchise, it was only a matter of time before we started seeing spinoffs, and so it comes as no surprise that the fall of 2011 sees the release of Puss in Boots. The feline lover-and-fighter quickly became an enormously popularly character following his initial appearance in Shrek 2, with his swashbuckling ways, his flirtatious voice (provided by Antonio Banderas), and his secret weapon – big, adorable eyes which turn grown men to jelly – and this new movie focuses solely on him. Directed by Chris Miller, the film again features Banderas as the leading voice, and is a prequel of sorts, telling the story of the events leading up to Puss’s introduction to Shrek and Donkey, from Puss’s point of view. The cast features the voices of Salma Hayek as Puss’s paramour Kitty Softpaws, Zach Galifianakis as Humpty Dumpty, Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris as Jack and Jill, and even Guillermo Del Toro as the mysterious Moustache Man. Read more…
THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN – John Williams
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I think you have to be Belgian, or at least a Francophone, to fully appreciate all the subtleties and nuances of Tintin. Created by the Belgian artist and author Georges Rémi under his pen name Hergé, the character first appeared in print in 1929 and went on to appear in 23 adventure novels spanning a 46-year period up until 1975, followed by the posthumous publication of a final story in 1986, three years after Hergé’s death. Not only that, the stories have been adapted for radio, theatre, and a popular 1960s animated television show with its famous voiceover proclaiming that you are watching “Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin!” Despite all that, and for reasons I have never fully understood I was never a fan of the franchise – unlike Hollywood giant Steven Spielberg, who is not a Francophone, but who is adapting the story for its first major big screen adventure using state of the art-motion capture technology. Read more…
LE GRAND PARDON/THE BIG PARDON – Serge Franklin
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Le Grand Pardon is, for all practical purposes, a Jewish version/variation of the famous 1972 film “The Godfather”. The story focuses on the Bettouns, a family of Sephardic Jews and the expanding criminal enterprise run by head of the family Raymond, their godfather. Growing tensions play out as we see Raymond’s inability to compartmentalize his criminal enterprise from the intimacy of his family life as a turf war develops and escalates with a rival Arabic gang. It suffices to say unlike director Alexandre Arcady’s first film, the successful “Le Coup de Sirocco”, that “Le Grand Pardon” was unsuccessful both critically and commercially. Read more…
THE THING – Marco Beltrami
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s The Thing is a prequel to the popular and influential 1982 film of the same name, which was directed by John Carpenter and starred Kurt Russell and Wilford Brimley. The first few moments of that film show a Norwegian man in a helicopter shooting at a dog barreling across the frozen wastes of the Antarctic; the next 20 minutes reveal that the Norwegian was part of a scientific team, all of whose members have been gruesomely killed, and their research station burned to the ground. This film looks at the circumstances leading up to that awful discovery – who the Norwegians were, what they found buried deep beneath the ice, and more importantly, what killed them. The film stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, and a whole host of Norwegian character actors in the smaller roles, and has an original score by Marco Beltrami, who spends part of his time channeling Ennio Morricone, and the rest of the time drawing upon his considerable horror movie music experience. Read more…
DESCENTE AUX ENFERS/DESCENT INTO HELL – Georges Delerue
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The 1986 film Descente Aux Enfers was adapted from the murder mystery novel by author David Goodis. It tells the story of Alan Kolber (Claude Brasseur), a middle-aged alcoholic French crime novelist and his wife Lola (a very young Sophie Marceau in one of her first film roles), a young woman half his age who are struggling in an unhappy marriage. They resolve to take a holiday to Haiti in an attempt to reset their marriage. Things go terribly awry when a drunken Alan kills a mugger and ends up being blackmailed for murder when he fails to report the incident. What unfolds is a tale of drama and hidden secrets as aspects of Lola’s past come to light as they struggle to find funds to pay the blackmailer. Read more…
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