Archive
CAPTAIN CORELLI’S MANDOLIN – Stephen Warbeck
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Stephen Warbeck just gets better and better. I have to admit that, when he won the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love back in 1998, I dismissed his victory as nothing but sheer luck – a middling composer being fortuitously attached to the right movie at the right time. As time has passed, however, my opinion has changed. Fanny and Elvis and Mystery Men were OK. Billy Elliott was good. Quills was excellent. And now, with Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Warbeck has finally emerged as a bonafide competitor to John Barry, George Fenton and Rachel Portman as the British composer of choice for romantic dramas. Read more…
AN AMERICAN RHAPSODY – Cliff Eidelman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I’ve waited three long years to type this sentence. Cliff Eidelman is back. The TV movie Witness Protection notwithstanding, it’s been a lean three years away from the scoring circuit for this extremely talented 34-year-old composer, whose career seemed to have completely stopped in its tracks. After bursting onto the scene in 1991 with his score for Star Trek VI, and enjoying six or seven years of comparative success, Eidelman suddenly stopped getting hired, despite him applying to score dozens for movies and narrowly failing to make the cut at the final hurdle. His last album of music was from the family drama One True Thing, in 1998 – until now. Read more…
FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN – Elliot Goldenthal
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s been a long wait since Titus for Elliot Goldenthal to spring a new score on the world, but it has been more than worth it. His work on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is, from a pure enjoyment perspective, possibly the best of his career to date. I say that it is his best from an enjoyment perspective not because this score is his most challenging or complex – those accolades are reserved for works such as Alien 3 and Titus – but because, in terms of themes and developments, and for old-fashioned beauty, Final Fantasy has them all licked. It’s a dark, dark, score, make no mistake, but it contains more than its fair share of moments in the light. Read more…
THE LAST SEPTEMBER – Zbigniew Preisner
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Zbigniew Preisner is not the happiest of composers. Despite receiving critical acclaim for his work on The Double Life of Veronique and the Three Colours trilogy, and a modicum of commercial success on films such as The Secret Garden and Fairytale: A True Story, a broader recognition amongst the mainstream soundtrack world has so far eluded the Pole. His music is always well composed, but on the whole rather slow and dour, alienating many of those who might seek something a little more cheerful. Unfortunately, his score for The Last September is not going to buck the trend in any way. Read more…
LARA CROFT – TOMB RAIDER – Graeme Revell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Few films have had as troubled a post-production than Tomb Raider, the first big-screen outing for the pneumatically-breasted super heroine from the world of computer games, Lara Croft. Musically, the entire set-up was a shambles, eclipsing even such scoring debacles as The Avengers and What Dreams May Come. The first name attached to the project was John Powell; then, game composer Nathan McCree was announced as being the film’s composer. To the utter dismay of score fans, it was then announced that dance DJ Norman Cook (aka Fat Boy Slim) would co-ordinate the soundtrack. Then, in an amazing about-face, Cook was bumped off and Michael Kamen came in. Sigh of relief. But then, with just weeks to go before the film’s high profile premiere, Kamen downed tools and bolted the project, leaving poor old Graeme Revell with less than 10 days to write and record a 50-minute score for a full orchestra augmented by electronics. The Hollywood composing merry-go-round seemingly knows no depths of stupidity. Read more…
EVOLUTION – John Powell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Having never been particularly enamored with either of their individual works, I have often wondered just what kind of chemistry develops when Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell work together to enable them to write such charming and ebullient scores as Antz, Chicken Run and Shrek. I have also often wondered whose musical personality is the more dominant when it comes to these magnificent animation works – and now I think I know. Evolution, John Powell’s first major solo score since Face/Off and Forces of Nature, is a definite kissing cousin to the Dreamworks hits in terms of tone and style, and has more than changed my attitude of the Englishman as a composer in his own right. Read more…
PEARL HARBOR – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Director Michael Bay so much wanted for Pearl Harbor to be his Titanic – an epic love story that takes place within one of the most tragic, violent, and talked-about events of the 20th Century. But, with Michael Bay being the director he is, it had to not just equal, but eclipse James Cameron’s Oscar-winning watery thriller. Instead of sinking one boat, Bay sinks a couple of dozen. Not content with presenting a simple boy-meets-girl story, Bay turns Pearl Harbor’s romance into a love triangle. And, in an effort to outdo James Horner’s work on the earlier film, Bay hired Hans Zimmer to wring every last emotional drop from his audience and his listeners. And he succeeds – almost. Read more…
THE LUZHIN DEFENCE – Alexandre Desplat
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
What’s the sound of a French composer falling off a tall building? Desplat. I’m opening this review with a joke because I’ll wager that most of you have never heard of Alexandre Desplat, the French-born composer of The Luzhin Defence. Before I saw this film and heard this album, I knew his name, and could I list a few of his previous films (Innocent Lies, A Self Made Hero, Love Etc.), but nothing beyond that. Even now, biographical details about Desplat’s life are sketchy – I don’t even know how old he is – but I do know this: he is a composer of considerable talent. Read more…
CROCODILE DUNDEE IN LOS ANGELES – Basil Poledouris
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Paul Hogan must have had an especially large electric bill last year – otherwise why on Earth would he resurrect his now rather dated character Crocodile Dundee for a third outing, 13 years after the first sequel. Hogan said, in defense of his movie, that he thought people might be interested in where “Mick had been for the last decade; what had happened to him and his life”. Well, flogging a dead horse is one thing, if it makes a buck or two for the people involved, I have nothing against shameless capitalism. But Crocodile Dundee has no redeeming features – its not funny, its not very interesting and, worst of all, its not even particularly well made. Read more…
SPY KIDS – Robert Rodriguez
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There’s a saying in Britain – I don’t know how widespread it is in the rest of the English-speaking world – which states that “too many cooks spoil the broth”. What this means, basically, is that if too many people try to take part in one thing at once, the end result can be diminished by the contributions of its many creators. This old adage can be applied to Spy Kids, an enjoyable children’s action score which is rendered just a little overly-schizophrenic through the use of eight – count ’em – eight different composers. Basically, Spy Kids is a James Bond adventure story with a difference – the protagonists are pre-teens. What some people may find surprising is the fact that it was written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, the man who previously brought the world such dark, violent movies as El Mariachi, Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn and The Faculty. The plot is simple: Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) are semi-retired spies with two precocious children, Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara). Gregorio and Ingrid still occasionally blast off on an adventure when duty calls but unfortunately, their sabbatical has made them a little rusty – so much so that they end up being captured by the diabolical Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming), a children’s TV show host who is planning to use an army of robot children to take over the world. The only solution? The kids to rescue, armed with a load of cool gadgets and the espionage know-how inherited from mom and dad. Read more…
THE DISH – Edmund Choi
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Composer Edmund Choi has had an unusual career to date. After graduating, he wrote music for Praying With Anger and Wide Awake, Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan’s first two films, and the romantic comedy Down To You in early 2000. However, it was his re-scoring of the Australian comedy The Castle in 1999 (Miramax asked him to replace Craig Harnath’s original music for the American market) that landed him this assignment writing the score for Rob Sitch’s follow-up. Unfortunately, despite his undoubted talent, Choi has fallen into the trap many fledgling composers find themselves facing, and succumbed to a bad case of temp-track fever. Set in 1969, The Dish is a warm and appealing comedy starring Sam Neill as Cliff Buxton, an amateur astronomer from rural Parkes, NSW, Australia, who is the man in charge of the large satellite transmitter which sits proudly in the community’s main sheep paddock. Then, suddenly, Parkes is put on the map when NASA contacts Buxton to ask him to provide backup technology for Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the face of the moon. With the help of his good natured but slightly inept assistants (Kevin Harrington, Patrick Warburton), Buxton is only too pleased to be of service to the Americans – but gets more than he bargained for when a technical glitch back home in Houston leaves the Parkes Dish solely responsible for sending out the lunar TV pictures to a world holding its collective breath. Sitch’s endearing film was one of 2001’s sleeper successes, at least critically – it did very little at any box-office, despite receiving glowing reviews – and boasts a charming lead performance from Neill, a world away from the histrionics of Jurassic Park and its sequels. Read more…
AFRICA – Alex North
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I so much want to like Alex North’s music. Every bone in my body tells me that, technically, he was one of the most gifted and creative composers every to work in Hollywood. Modern luminaries laud his work as being some of the most groundbreaking ever written for the Silver Screen. Jerry Goldsmith was a close friend and ardent admirer. As a 14 time Oscar nominee, the esteem in which he is held speaks for itself. But, with a few notable exceptions, I never have been able to actually sit and “enjoy” an Alex North score. He didn’t write that kind of music. Read more…
ROBOCOP: PRIME DIRECTIVES – Norman Orenstein
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Preconceptions are funny things, especially in film music. When Robocop: Prime Directives dropped through my door, with the name Norman Orenstein adorning the package, my first instinct was to dismiss it as cheesy TV music. Without wanting to sound unkind, Canadian composer Norman Orenstein’s career to date has hardly been stellar. A series of cut-price straight-to-video classics such as Ski School II, Mask of Death and The First 91/2 Weeks have been the highlights of his film music career so far – until Robocop Prime Directives came along. Working with a comparatively small budget, and out of his personal studio in Toronto, Orenstein emerged with a surprisingly vibrant, large-scale, enjoyable series of cues which mix electronics with sampled acoustics and a smattering of live instruments. It’s a world away from the classic march Basil Poledouris wrote for the film series, but as TV music goes this is as solid a score as you would expect. Read more…
THE CLAIM – Michael Nyman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I’m not really given to making lofty proclamations here, but this is one guaranteed to ruffle a few feathers: The Claim is Michael Nyman’s best score to date. I’m not talking best as in the complexity of the music, or the craftsmanship: rather, The Claim is Nyman’s first film score in the sense that it overflows with emotion. It’s lush, it sweeps, and it features one of the most attractive central themes the enigmatic Englishman has ever written. Michael Nyman writing for a big-screen adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge; that I can believe. Michael Nyman writing for an epic Western set at the height of the gold rush; well, that’s another proposition entirely. Read more…
ALL THE PRETTY HORSES – Marty Stuart, Kristin Wilkinson, Larry Paxton
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I’ve spoken about preconceptions many times before on Movie Music UK; pre-judging a score based on what you know about the movie, and the composer, before you hear the music. Once again, I have been found guilty of negatively pre-judging a particular score, only to hear the thing and be totally blown away. The score in question this time is All the Pretty Horses, written by Marty Stuart, with additional music by Larry Paxton, Kristin Wilkinson and Daniel Lanois. All the Pretty Horses is director Billy Bob Thornton’s sophomore effort, following his critically acclaimed, Oscar-winning debut Sling Blade. It’s a rites-of-passage Western, adapted from the popular novel by Cormac McCarthy and starring Matt Damon as John Grady Cole, a young man in rural 1940s Texas who, after being made homeless following his grandmother’s death, heads off to Mexico with his best buddy Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas) to seek his fortune. Unfortunately, fortune is not what Cole and Rawlins find south of the Rio Grande, instead becoming involved in the affairs of a teenage gunslinger Blevins (Lucas Black), a Mexican rancher’s daughter (Penelope Cruz), with whom Cole falls in love, and the local police, who take exception to the blossoming romance between the handsome American and the beautiful señorita. Read more…
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