Archive
MULAN – Harry Gregson-Williams
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The latest Walt Disney animated film to be re-imagined as a live action motion picture is Mulan, directed by Niki Caro and written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Lauren Hynek, and Elizabeth Martin. Like its 1998 predecessor, it is loosely based on the Chinese folklore tale The Ballad of Mulan, and stars Chinese actress Yifei Liu in the title role. In Imperial China, Mongol hordes led by the warlord Böri Khan (Jason Scott Lee) and the witch Xianniang (Gong Li) are invading the borders of the empire, leading the Emperor (Jet Li) to call for conscripts – one man from each family – to bolster his troops. Despite being the eldest child in her family, Mulan is forbidden from joining the army due to her being female; her war veteran father, despite being old and frail, volunteers to represent his family instead. To save her father from almost certain death in battle, Mulan disguises herself as a man and enlists, eventually joining the platoon of Commander Tung (Donnie Yen). Despite having very little training, Mulan is soon thrust into conflict with Böri Khan’s troops, and must fight to save her homeland – without revealing her gender, or bringing dishonor to her family. Read more…
REVERSAL OF FORTUNE – Mark Isham
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
For quite a lot of the summer of 1990, the movie Reversal of Fortune was a hot topic of conversation. It tells the true story of European aristocrat Claus von Bülow, who in 1982 was arrested, tried, and convicted for the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny von Bülow, who went into a coma after an apparent insulin overdose and subsequently fell into a persistent vegetative state. Claus – who had a haughty and arrogant demeanor, and was estranged from Sunny – maintained his innocence, and launched an appeal, hiring Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz to prepare his defense. Despite being initially convinced of Claus’s guilt, Dershowitz begins to find evidence that points to inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case, which could actually prove his client’s innocence. The popularity of the film led to a great deal of new media focus on the case, as well as a number of ‘did-he-or-didn’t-he’ articles in the press, and water cooler talk about Claus and his life. The film was written by Nicholas Kazan, adapting Dershowitz’s own book about the case, and was directed by Barbet Schroeder. It starred Jeremy Irons as Claus, Glenn Close as Sunny, and Ron Silver as Dershowitz, and was nominated for three Academy Awards, with Irons taking home the Oscar for Best Actor. Read more…
TENET – Ludwig Göransson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE FILM, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER WAITING UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE DONE SO TO READ IT.
The dual concepts of time and reality have been at the forefront of Christopher Nolan’s films almost since the very beginning of his career, when his sophomore effort Memento in 2000 explored the life of a man with no short-term memory by essentially running the movie backwards. Most of his subsequent films – including The Prestige, Inception, and Interstellar – have tackled variations on similar themes, from dreams within dreams, to the circular temporal nature of interplanetary travel via black holes. Even his last film, Dunkirk, messed around with time by presenting the evacuation of the beaches of Normandy in 1940 from three different perspectives, all of whom experience the event from a different chronological point of view. With Tenet, however, Nolan has delved into these concepts more deeply than ever before, creating a film that examines the notion of time from a physiological point of view, introducing theories as complex as statistical mechanics and thermodynamic entropy into a large-scale action spy thriller. Read more…
DARKMAN – Danny Elfman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Having gained cult popularity and success as a result of his influential horror movies The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, writer-director Sam Raimi was given his first crack at a major studio feature towards the end of the 1980s. The project he chose was Darkman, based on a short story he wrote years earlier as an homage to Universal’s horror films of the 1930s. The film stars Liam Neeson, in what was essentially his first leading role after spending the 1980s putting in impressive supporting performances in films such as Excalibur, Krull, The Bounty, The Mission, Suspect, The Dead Pool, and others. Neeson plays Peyton Westlake, a scientist who is developing a new type of synthetic skin to help burn victims. Westlake’s life is changed forever when his girlfriend, attorney Julie Hastings (Frances McDormand), finds incriminating evidence against corrupt property developer Louis Strack (Colin Friels). Strack hires ruthless mobster Durant (Larry Drake) to ‘send a message’ to Julie, which results in Westlake’s lab being burned to the ground and Westlake himself being disfigured and left for dead. However, Westlake miraculously survives the attack, and uses his synthetic skin treatment to treat his own injuries – the only drawback being the unintended side-effects, which give him super-human abilities, but also render him mentally unstable, borderline psychotic, and bent on wreaking vengeance on those responsible for his disfigurement. Read more…
THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN – Craig Armstrong
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The One and Only Ivan is an adventure-drama for children, directed by Thea Sharrock, and based on the successful and popular 2012 novel by Katherine Applegate. It is the story of a silverback gorilla, the eponymous Ivan (voiced by Sam Rockwell), who lives in a mall as a sideshow attraction, alongside an aged elephant named Stella (voiced by Angelina Jolie) and a friendly dog named Bob (voiced by Danny DeVito). Ivan is generally happy, as he does not remember his life before the mall, and he entertains guests by creating finger-paint artwork. However, the arrival of a baby elephant named Ruby kickstarts a desire in Ivan to be free – especially when he witnesses Ruby being mistreated by the mall’s owner, Mack (Bryan Cranston). Eventually, with the help of a young girl named Julia, Ivan hatches a plan to escape, not only for himself, but for all his friends. The film has been praised for its positive environmentalist tone, good teaching lessons for kids, and warm-hearted family values, and was a modest success when it premiered on Disney+ in August 2020, having been pushed there away from cinemas due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more…
FLATLINERS – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Flatliners was one of several films released in 1990 to deal with the topic of the afterlife and near-death experiences. Directed by Joel Schumacher from a screenplay by Peter Filardi, the film follows a group of young and ambitious medical students who, in an attempt to unlock some of the mysteries of life, start to experiment on each other with ‘near-death experiences.’ The students take turns with each other to stop each other’s hearts in a laboratory setting, trying to initiate visions of the ‘afterlife,’ and then hopefully bring each other back using defibrillators before death becomes permanent. One by one, the students volunteer to ‘flatline,’ but in the aftermath of their experiences they are each haunted by horrifying and disturbing visions of their respective pasts. The film starred Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, and Oliver Platt, as the five students; the film was a hit with audiences upon its release, grossing $61 million at the box office, and was nominated for an Oscar for its sound editing. Read more…
FEARLESS – Anne Kathrin Dern
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Fearless is an animated family action/sci-fi/comedy written and directed by Cory Edwards which premiered on Netflix in August 2020. It tells the story of a high school teenager named Reid, who spends an inordinate amount of time playing a video game called Planet Master. One day, while playing the game, a cosmic wormhole contrives to send the three children of the game’s protagonist, Captain Lightspeed, out of the game and into the real world, where they end up outside Reid’s house. The children are all imbued with various different super-human abilities – think Jack-Jack from The Incredibles, times three – which Reid suddenly has to deal with as he takes care of them and waits for Captain Lightspeed to come and take them back to his dimension. Unfortunately the game’s villain, Dr. Arcannis, has also discovered the wormhole, and hatches a plot to kidnap the children and finally defeat his nemesis. The only thing standing in his way: Reid. The film features voice performances by Yara Shahidi, Miles Robbins, rapper Jadakiss, R&B singer Miguel Pimentel, Gabrielle Union, basketball superstar Dwyane Wade, and SpongeBob SquarePants himself Tom Kenny, and has a terrific original score by the super-talented young German composer Anne Kathrin Dern. Read more…
FAHRENHEIT 451 – Bernard Herrmann
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Famous French Director Francois Truffaut was fascinated by the possibilities of directing a film version of Ray Bradbury’s acclaimed 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451. He met with the author who was supportive and obtained the film rights. He then secured the backing of Universal Pictures for what would be the company’s first European production. Lewis M. Allen was tasked with producing the film and a modest budget of $1.5 million was provided. Austrian actor Oskar Werner was cast as Guy Montag, which proved a mistake as he would not accept Truffaut’s vision for his character. The conflict was so severe that Truffaut contemplated abandoning the project. Joining Werner would be Julie Christie in a dual role as Linda Montag and Clarisse – a decision later criticized. Cyril Cusack would play Captain Beatty and Anton Diffring would play Fabian. The story is set in a dystopian future where a totalitarian government rules the United States and uses a Gestapo-like force called the “Firemen” to seek out and destroy all books by fire in an effort to suppress dissent, and any idea that challenges the security of the governing order. It explores the life of Fireman Guy Montag who relentlessly finds and burns books believing they make people unhappy. By chance he makes the acquaintance of schoolteacher Clarisse who asks if he ever reads the books he burns. This spurs his curiosity and he begins to hide books, choosing David Copperfield by Charles Dickens to be his first read. Read more…
MILLER’S CROSSING – Carter Burwell
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Miller’s Crossing was the third feature film directed by the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, following their debut Blood Simple in 1984, and their sophomore effort Raising Arizona in 1987. Like the others, it’s a crime thriller, but this one is a period piece, set amongst Irish gangsters during the American prohibition era in the 1920s. Gabriel Byrne plays Tom Reagan, the right hand man of ruthless mob boss Leo O’Bannon, played by Albert Finney. Problems arise when Leo finds himself in a territorial conflict with Italian gangster Johnny Caspar, an issue that is exacerbated by the fact that Tom is having an affair with Leo’s girlfriend Vera (Marcia Gay Harden), who is the sister of crooked bookmaker Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro), on whose head Caspar has put a bounty. As the stakes rise, Tom sees an opportunity for some personal gain, and begins to play both sides against each other – with potentially deadly results. The film was generally well-received by critics at the time, who praised its noirish atmosphere, dense plot, and intentional references to the works of Dashiell Hammett. Read more…
UNBELIEVABLE!!!!! – Gerald Fried
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The only reason I’m writing a review of the score for Unbelievable!!!!! is because it is likely to be the only chance I ever get to review a new score by Gerald Fried. For those who don’t know his name, New York-born Fried is a legend in classic TV music circles. He wrote the famous ‘Spock vs. Kirk’ fight music for the Amok Time episode of Star Trek in 1967, and he wrote episodic scores for some of the most iconic shows in television history, including Mission: Impossible, The Man from UNCLE, Lost in Space, M Squad, Gilligan’s Island, and Wagon Train, among many others. But Fried also has outstanding big screen credentials too; he was the first choice composer for a young director named Stanley Kubrick, and scored his debut efforts Fear and Desire in 1953, Killer’s Kiss in 1955, The Killing in 1956, and Paths of Glory in 1957. He received an Oscar nomination for his score for the documentary feature Birds Do It Bees Do It in 1974, and then won an Emmy for co-scoring the groundbreaking miniseries Roots with Quincy Jones in 1977. Fried is 92 years old now, and prior to this film hadn’t scored a full-length narrative feature since 1988, 33 years ago, but somehow director Steven Fawcette lured him out of retirement to write music for this project. Read more…
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH – Bernard Herrmann
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
20th Century Fox studio executives sought to cash in on the recent commercial success of two fantasy-adventure films, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days. They envisioned a big budget CinemaScope production, which would once again draw upon a story by famous French novelist Jules Verne, in this case, his 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. Charles Brackett was given the reins to produce the film, and would collaborate with Walter Reisch to write the screenplay. Henry Levin was tasked with directing, and ultimately secured a fine cast, despite some recasting problems. James Mason would play Professor Sir Oliver Lindenbrook, with Pat Boone joining as his apprentice Alec McEwan, Diane Baker as Jenny Lindenbrook, Arlene Dahl as Carla Goteborg, Peter Ronson as Hans Bjelke and Thayer David as Count Arne Saknussemm. Read more…
DUCKTALES – THE MOVIE: TREASURE OF THE LOST LAMP – David Newman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Created in 1947 by legendary Disney animator Carl Barks, the character Scrooge McDuck was popular for many years before finally being given his own animated TV series, Ducktales, in 1987. The show followed McDuck – Donald Duck’s Scottish uncle, the richest duck in the world – and his three grand-nephews (Huey, Dewey, and Louie) on a series of adventures, most of which either involved seeking out treasure, or thwarting the efforts of various assorted villains who were themselves seeking to steal Scrooge’s fortune. The show was a smash hit over its first three seasons, and paved the way for other new high quality Saturday morning series to be commissioned, including Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, and TaleSpin. Of course, a movie spin-off was inevitable, and so the summer of 1990 saw the premiere of Ducktales – The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp. Read more…
AN AMERICAN PICKLE – Michael Giacchino, Nami Melumad
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Something unusual has been happening to Seth Rogen lately: he’s becoming a really interesting filmmaker. The man who started as the guffawing stoner in films like Pineapple Express has, of late, been tackling much more challenging material, blending drama with comedies that have a much more satirical and intellectual undertone. The Interview almost started a political international incident with North Korea in 2014, and Sausage Party was a swipe at organized religion hidden behind raunchy sex jokes, while The Long Shot proved his potential to be a slightly more conventional leading man in a romantic comedy. Now, with his new movie An American Pickle, Rogen is taking a surprisingly deep look at themes relating to loneliness, family, heritage, and Jewishness, in the context of a fish-out-of-water comedy. Rogen stars as Herschel Greenbaum, a Jewish man who emigrates to New York from Eastern Europe with his pregnant wife in 1919. Having secured work in a pickle factory, disaster strikes when Herschel accidentally falls into a barrel of brine, which somehow manages to preserve him perfectly. He wakes up exactly 100 years later to find Brooklyn very much changed; his only living relative is his great grandson Ben (also Rogen), a lonely app developer who no longer considers himself a practicing Jew. However, despite their initial happiness at finding each other, problems soon begin to arise, most of which are exacerbated by Herschel’s old-fashioned attitudes, and Ben’s lack of interest in his heritage. Read more…
JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS – Bernard Herrmann
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Producer Charles Schneer and famed stop-motion photography master Ray Harryhausen decided that their fourth collaboration would take them to the realm of the ancient Greek myths. They chose the epic hero’s quest tale of Jason and his Argonaut crew who sail to the ends of the earth in search of the Golden Fleece, born from a winged ram and a symbol of divine sanction and kingship. Schneer would produce the film using his Morningside Productions company in partnership with Columbia pictures. A very generous budget of $3 million was provided and Don Chaffey was tasked with directing. Beverly Cross and Jan Read were hired to write the screenplay and a fine cast was assembled, which included Todd Armstrong in the titular role, joined by Nancy Kovack as Medea, Gary Raymond as the villain Acastus, Laurence Naismith as Argus, Niall MacGinnis as Zeus, Honor Blackman as Hera, Jack Gwillim as King Aeetes, John Carey as Hylas, and Nigel Green as Hercules. Read more…
DIE HARD 2 – Michael Kamen
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The career trajectory of sitcom star Bruce Willis was forever changed by the success of Die Hard in 1988. No longer was he the charmingly roguish detective David Addison from the hit TV show Moonlighting; now he was the all-action NYPD cop John McClane, who had single-handedly foiled the gang of international terrorists who had taken over a Los Angeles skyscraper. Demand for another Die Hard movie was high, and so in the summer of 1990 Willis returned as McClane in Die Hard 2, which was released with the suffix ‘Die Harder’ in some territories. The film was adapted from Walter Wager’s 1987 novel 58 Minutes and saw McClane getting caught up in an all-new terrorism plot at Washington DC’s Dulles Airport. A group of disgruntled former special forces soldiers have disabled the airport’s air traffic control system so they can rescue a drug lord, who is being extradited to the US to stand trial. To make matters worse, a number of commercial passenger planes are circulating above the airport, unable to land, all of which are quickly running out of fuel, and McClane’s wife Holly is on board one of them. The film co-starred Bonnie Bedelia, William Sadler, Franco Nero, John Amos, and Dennis Franz, and was directed by Finnish action movie specialist Renny Harlin. Read more…
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