Archive
JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION – Michael Giacchino
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Pitched as the third and final part of the Jurassic World trilogy, and the sixth film overall in the series which began back in 1993 with the original Jurassic Park, Dominion is the film where – finally – the two main casts of this long-lasting dinosaur disaster franchise come together for an exciting, combined adventure. The film is set several years after the end of the last one, Fallen Kingdom, and finds Owen and Claire, former employees of the Jurassic World park, now working to protect the dinosaurs that are living free in the world. They are also the surrogate parents of the clone child Maisie Lockwood – until she is kidnapped by a mysterious group that wants to exploit her unique DNA. Meanwhile, Ellie Sattler reconnects with her former partner, paleontologist Alan Grant – from whom she has been mostly estranged since the events of Jurassic Park – to ask him to help her find the source of a plague of mutant locusts which is devastating crops, and which appears to contain dinosaur DNA. The two groups come together when the two plot strands – Maisie’s kidnappers, and the source of the genetically modified locusts – leads them all to Biosyn, a successful tech company owned by the enigmatic Lewis Dodgson that runs a dinosaur habitat high in the Dolomite mountains, and where scientist Ian Malcolm – another veteran of the original Jurassic Park – now also works. Read more…
BAMBI – Frank Churchill and Edward H. Plumb
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Walt Disney was in dire financial straits with his last two films, Pinocchio and Fantasia, both under-performing at the box office. He needed a hit to reverse the company’s sliding fortunes when he came across the 1923 novel “Bambi, A Life in The Woods” by Felix Salten. The novel offered violence, sexual conquest, betrayal, and blood-and-guts action by cutthroats and murderers, yet after sifting out all its unsavory elements, it spawned an idea of a family film that centered on a young fawn named Bambi. Disney purchased the film rights in 1937 and personally took charge of production with an $858,000 budget. He insisted that the voices of children be used to speak for the many forest animals instead of adults speaking as children. It would take a team of six writers led by Perce Pearce, three years, with countless revisions, to finally draft a screenplay that met Disney’s expectations. David Hand was tasked with direction, and the voice cast included Bobby Stewart as Baby Bambi, Donnie Dunagan as Young Bambi, Hardie Albright as Adolescent Bambi and John Sutherland as Young Adult Bambi. Joining them would be Peter Behn as Young Thumper, Tim Davis as Adolescent Thumper and Same Edwards as Young Adult Thumper, Paula Winslowe as Bambi’s Mother, Will Wright as Friend Owl, Cammie King as Young Faline and Ann Gillis as Young Adult Faline. Read more…
MAIKA – Christopher Wong
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Maika, subtitled The Girl from Another Galaxy, is a Vietnamese children’s sci-fi adventure drama, directed by Ham Tran, starring Diep Anh Chu, Kim Nha, Ngoc Tuong, and Phu Truong Lai. The film follows the adventures of an 8-year-old boy named Hung, who is grieving the loss of his mother. After a meteor falls to earth, he meets an alien girl from a distant planet named Maika, who is searching for her lost friend. The alien helps Hung make new friends and heal a broken heart – but Maika is being followed by sinister forces, and Hung must help Maika avoid them so she can return home. The film is being touted as the first ever Vietnamese sci-fi film for children, and normally I would review this as part of my ‘under the radar’ series, but the film has actually been released in a number of theaters in the United States too (especially in cities with large Vietnamese populations), which means I can use this as an opportunity to also talk about its score, which was written by Christopher Wong. Read more…
FAR AND AWAY – John Williams
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Far and Away is a romanticized film about the American immigrant experience, specifically those who came from Ireland seeking their fortune in the new world in the 1890s, while the country was still recovering from the great potato famine several decades previously. The film stars Tom Cruise as Joseph Donnelly, a poor farmer from rural Ireland who meets Shannon Christie (Nicole Kidman), the privileged daughter of his father’s landlord, and they bond over their shared plans to emigrate to America. The film then follows the travails of the couple as they travel from Ireland to Boston, fall in with a local gang boss, and get involved in everything from bare knuckle boxing to prostitution simply to survive; the ultimate aim is for them to travel from Boston to Oklahoma to take part in a so-called ‘land race,’ the winner of which is given a plot of land and a shot at the American dream. The film co-starred Thomas Gibson, Robert Prosky, Colm Meaney, and Cyril Cusack alongside Cruise and Kidman, and was written by Bob Dolman and directed by Ron Howard – the same duo who made Willow in 1988. Read more…
TOP GUN: MAVERICK – Lorne Balfe, Harold Faltermeyer, Lady Gaga, and Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the summer of 1986 the world fell head over heels in love for Maverick, Goose, Iceman, and the men and women of Top Gun – the Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program of the United States Navy, which trains some of the best military combat pilots in the world. With its combination of intense jet fighter action, macho camaraderie, and steamy romance, the film was a massive box office blockbuster, and cemented its star Tom Cruise as one of Hollywood’s premiere leading men – a position he continues to hold, more than 35 years later. Fans of the film have been clamoring for a sequel for decades, and production on it finally began in May 2018, with an intended release date of July 2019 – but it was pushed back and back and back, initially to June 2020, then December 2020, then July 2021, then November 2021, due to the combined impact of re-shoots, the COVID pandemic, and then a clogged schedule. It eventually hit cinemas at the end of May 2022 – almost four years to the day since they started making it – but it was more than worth the wait: reviews were stellar, both from audiences and critics, and at the time of writing it has already grossed $291.6 million at the US box office alone. Read more…
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS – Bernard Herrmann
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Director Orson Welles had for some time desired to bring Booth Tarkington’s 1918 novel The Magnificent Ambersons to the big screen, a story that offered a wistful view of a dying American aristocracy. In order to gain RKO studio backing, he renegotiated his contract and granted the studio final cut rights. With their blessings, he oversaw production with a $854,000, which ballooned to over $1.18 million. He would also write the screenplay, and personally direct the film. A fine cast was assembled, which included Joseph Cotton as Eugene Morgan, Dolores Costello as Isabel Amberson Minafer, Anne Baxter as Lucy Morgan, Tim Holt as George Amberson Minafer, Agnes Moorhead as Fanny Minafer, and Orson Welles as the narrator. Read more…
UNLAWFUL ENTRY – James Horner
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Unlawful Entry was one of a spate of home invasion movies that hit theaters in the early 1990s. Directed by Jonathan Kaplan from a screenplay by Lewis Colick and Ken Friedman, the film starred Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe as Michael and Karen Carr, a happy couple living in an upscale part of Los Angeles. One night an intruder enters their home and attacks Karen before escaping; one of the police officers who responds to their 911 call is Pete Davis (Ray Liotta), who is friendly and helpful and goes out of his way to install a good security system in the house. However, what initially appears to be a kind gesture quickly turns sinister when Pete develops an unhealthy fixation on Karen, and begins to stalk her. The film, which co-starred Roger E. Mosley and Ken Lerner, was a commercial success, and was especially praised for Ray Liotta’s compelling and terrifying performance as the unhinged Pete. Read more…
MEN – Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Folk horror is a sub-genre within the larger horror pantheon which uses folklore, coupled with a rural setting and themes of isolation, religion, and the power of nature, to terrify audiences. It is often found in British films, with efforts like Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man standing out as defining works, while more recent films like The Witch, Midsommar, and Lamb, have broadened the horizons internationally. Writer-director Alex Garland’s film Men returns to the genre’s roots, being set in an idyllic village in the English countryside, but from this starting point he takes viewers on a brutal, hallucinogenic journey through themes of misogyny, toxic masculinity, and post-traumatic stress. Jessie Buckley stars as Harper, a widow who decides to take a holiday in the English countryside following the apparent suicide of her husband. Once she is settled into the pretty house she is renting, Jessie meets several men in the village – the owner of the house, a vicar, a teenage boy, a policeman, a pub landlord – all of whom are played by Rory Kinnear. Most disturbingly, she frequently encounters a naked man (also Kinnear), who appears to be stalking her. Read more…
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY – George M. Cohan, Ray Heindorf, and Heinz Roemheld
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1941 Warner Brothers Studios was seeking ideas for a new musical production. They finally conceived of a musical biopic film about the legendary American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer and theatrical producer George M. Cohan. They secured Cohan’s blessing and studio executives Jack L. Warner and Hal B. Wallis would manage production with a $1.5 million budget. Robert Buckner and Edmund Joseph were hired to write the screenplay and Michael Curtiz took the reins to direct. The cast included James Cagney as George M. Cohan, Joan Leslie as Mary Cohan, Walter Huston as Jerry Cohan, Richard Whorf as Sam Harris, Rosemary DeCamo as Nellie Cohan, and Irene Manning as Fay Templeton. Read more…
HOSTILE TERRITORY – John Koutselinis
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Hostile Territory is a low-budget western action-drama directed by Brian Presley, starring Matt McCoy, Brea Bee, Brad Leland, and Lew Temple. The film is set shortly after the American Civil War, and tells the story of Union soldier Jack Calgrove, who is taken as a prisoner of war by the Confederacy and eventually (and incorrectly) presumed dead. When Jack finally returns home years later he discovers that his wife has died and his children – who are mistakenly considered orphans – have been sent away on a so-called ‘orphan train,’ to be placed in a new home deep in the American West. Desperate to save his children, Jack teams up with a fellow former soldier and a band of sharpshooting Native Americans, and sets out to rescue his family. It’s one of those films which, in bygone years, would have been called ‘straight to video,’ but which now appears in those endless lists of VOD Videos-on-Demand that every cable TV service provides, and it would most likely have passed by without much fanfare, were it not for its outstanding score. Read more…
HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH – Randy Miller
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the most popular and successful horror franchises of the 1980s and 1990s was Hellraiser, based on Clive Barker’s groundbreaking but somewhat controversial 1986 novella The Hellbound Heart. The first film based on the story was released in 1987 and introduced the iconic Pinhead character to the pantheon of horror movie monsters: an inter-dimensional ‘cenobite’ traveler who ensnares unwary souls with his cryptic puzzle box, and then sentences them to a lifetime of torture that blurs the lines between pain and pleasure. A sequel, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, was released in 1988, which expanded on the mythos of the cenobites, and was mostly well received by audiences. This second sequel, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, marked the end of the series of ‘good’ Hellraiser movies – from this point on, through seven further interminable entries, the franchise became worse and worse, to the point where Hellraiser fans essentially consider this to be the conclusion of the story. Read more…
DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA – John Lunn
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The enormously popular small screen adventures of the Crawley family continue their transition to the big screen with a second cinematic outing, Downton Abbey: A New Era, written by Julian Fellowes and directed by Simon Curtis. As we all know, Downton Abbey is a British drama series charting the lives and loves of the aristocratic Crawley family and their various staff and servants, all of whom reside at the titular estate in northern England. It’s a blend of domestic drama, historical and political intrigue, and scandalous romance, dressed up with upper-class British pageantry, and it was wildly popular and successful both domestically and in the United States. The original series debuted in 2010, and was followed by the first theatrical film in 2019. This new film, set in 1928, tells two parallel stories: one regarding Maggie Smith’s character Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, who has unexpectedly inherited a villa in France; and one where a film crew arrives at Downton to make a silent film starring screen lothario Guy Dexter (Dominic West), which sends everyone into a tizzy. The film stars the familiar cast of regular Downton actors – Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter – and was a popular success upon its UK opening. Read more…
THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON – Max Steiner
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1941 MGM commissioned a heroic script by Aeneas MacKenzie, Wally Kline and Lenore J. Coffee about the life of General George Armstrong Custer, which would allow the studio to showcase their box office megastar Errol Flynn. Hal B. Wallis and Robert Fellows were placed in control of production with a $1.358 million budget. Raoul Walsh was tasked with directing after Flynn vetoed the studio’s first choice of Michael Curtiz. Flynn would star as General George Armstrong Custer, and joining him would be Olivia de Havilland as Elizabeth Bacon Custer, Arthur Kennedy as Ned Sharp, Charley Grapewin as California Joe, Gene Lockhart as Samuel Bacon, and Anthony Quinn as Crazy Horse. Read more…
ALIEN 3 – Elliot Goldenthal
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
When I first started writing about film music, in the summer of 1997, I tried to write a review of Alien 3. I had seen the film previously, and liked it a great deal, and I remember being especially impressed with the music in the finale, so I went out and bought Elliot Goldenthal’s soundtrack CD. This was my first experience of his music outside of film context, and my film music knowledge at that point barely extended beyond the big orchestral scores of John Williams and James Horner, and the sweeping romance of John Barry. Hearing Alien 3 for the first time was… well, it was almost indescribable. I had no idea what I was listening to. It felt like angry, vicious, random noise, and I absolutely hated it. I hadn’t yet begun to explore the darker and more atonal side of film music, I had no knowledge of Stravinsky or Penderecki, or of twentieth century avant-garde music in general. In short, I had no clue what Elliot Goldenthal was doing. I didn’t have the vocabulary to understand it. Thankfully, thirty years down the line, I now have had vastly more exposure to and tolerance of this type of aggressive music, and I can now appreciate it for the masterpiece it is. Read more…
Ramadan Scores 2022, Part 1
Every year, during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, television stations across the Middle East and North Africa broadcast lavishly-produced, high profile drama and comedy television series. The cream of the Arabic-speaking world is involved in their creation – directors, writers, actors, and composers – and the resulting shows play to audiences of millions across the region. Many of the best series come from Egypt, and this article takes a look at the music from five of the most high profile Egyptian-made Ramadan dramas of 2022, featuring music by composers Khaled Al Kammar, Khaled Hammad, Layal Watfeh, Mohamed Nassef, Ashraf Elziftawi, and Adel Hakki, among others, plus additional scores from shows made in Kuwait and Syria.
I want to publicly thank my friend, the award-winning author and poet Hasan Namir, for his invaluable help here – this article literally would not be possible without him! Read more…
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