A RAISIN IN THE SUN – Laurence Rosenthal
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
“A Raisin in the Sun” was adapted from the acclaimed play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. It is a potent narrative on the pathology of segregation still pervasive in America almost one hundred years after the hope and promise of the Great Emancipation. The title is derived from the renowned poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes, who poses the following question, “does a dream deferred dry up like a raisin in the sun”? Set in the early 1950’s, the story provides us with a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, an African-American family living in the dire poverty of the South Side of Chicago. Mama the matriarch has just inherited an insurance check for $10,000 after the death of her husband. What ensues is a tragedy born of desperation arriving at an intersection of competing aspirations. Mama wants to buy a house to fulfill her dream of a better life, while her son Walter would rather use the money to invest in a liquor store with his friend. Beneatha, Mama’s daughter, wants to use the money for her medical school tuition. Read more…
THE SOCIAL NETWORK – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A film about Facebook, the online phenomenon of the 21st century, doesn’t sound especially interesting when you first think about it, but the history of its creation is actually quite fascinating. Mark Zuckerberg was a 20-year-old student at Harvard University when he and his roommate Dustin Moskovitz launched the first incarnation of Facebook into the world in 2004; despite various lawsuits, development problems, and other issues, Facebook eventually became the dominant social networking website with 500 million users worldwide, and eventually making Zuckerberg the world’s youngest multi-billionaire, worth $6.9 billion according to the Forbes 2010 Rich List. The film is directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, and stars Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake and Rooney Mara. Read more…
THE WAR WAGON – Dimitri Tiomkin
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The tale opens with Taw Jackson played by America’s defining western actor John Wayne returning from prison. This film is indeed a rarity as Wayne for the first time in his career plays a villain. He is bent on recovering his fortune which was stolen from him by antagonist Frank Pierce after being wounded in a shoot-out. At his ranch Jackson decides to make a deal with Lomax (Kirk Douglas), the very man who shot him five years ago to join forces against Pierce and steal a large gold shipment. The gold is transported in an armored stage coach called “The War Wagon” that is very heavily guarded. This is a classic example of vigilante justice as these two men collaborate in assembling a team of men to stage a hold-up to regain Jackson’s lost gold. Read more…
MEGAMIND – Hans Zimmer, Lorne Balfe
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A silly-but-fun animated action/comedy set in a world of super-heroes and super-villains, Megamind features the voice talent of Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey and Jonah Hill. After their respective planets are destroyed Superman-style, two alien babies – one who looks human, one with a giant blue head and superior intellect – crash land on Earth. The human-looking baby grows up to be Metro Man, the savior of the fictional Metro City, while the other grows up to be Megamind, his arch enemy and super-villain. After kidnapping beautiful reporter Roxanne, Megamind hatches a typically hare-brained scheme to kill Metro Man but – as much to his own surprise as anyone else’s – actually succeeds in apparently dispatching his nemesis. However, rather than being happy with his triumph, Megamind quickly becomes depressed with having no-one to fight, and concocts a new scheme: to genetically alter Roxanne’s hapless cameraman Hal, turning him into a new hero… Read more…
TOBRUK – Bronislau Kaper
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The movie is set in North Africa September 1942. Germany’s top General Erwin Rommel’s and his dreaded Afrika Korps are poised to invade Egypt. The allied command sends in a British Special Forces unit that includes German Jews which invariable causes friction and distrust with their British commandos. They proceed to kidnap a Canadian officer held prisoner by the Vichy French government in Algeria who is an expert topographer. The officer, Donald Craig, is charged with the daunting challenge of guiding this company of British and German-Jewish commandos through 800 miles of the desolate Sahara. The goal is to aid a planned amphibious landing against the seaport of Tobruk and its massive fuel storage base. The team is forced to confront and overcome various challenges, the final one being the discovery of an undetected German armored force poised to launch into Egypt. Read more…
127 HOURS – A. R. Rahman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The true story of Aron Ralston is one of human fortitude, bravery, defiance in the face of death, and incredible bad luck. A young and healthy daredevil with a penchant for extreme sports, Ralston took a brief weekend hiking trip to the canyons around Moab, Utah in the summer of 2003, and had the singular misfortune of suffering an accident which left his right arm pinned against a canyon wall by a large boulder, with no way of extricating it. After five lonely days, and hovering close to death, Ralston eventually took the unimaginable decision to amputate his own arm – with no anesthetic – using nothing more than a blunt Swiss Army knife, and staggered out of the canyon, where he was rescued and ultimately made a full recovery. Read more…
Introducing Craig Lysy
I had the good fortune of meeting Jon in 2008 through the Filmtracks scoreboard. We realized that we were both local LA guys and so agreed to setup a meeting. We first met over a cup of tea at the Northridge Borders book store and talked for almost 4 hours about our shared passion – film scores. It was an instant connection that has since evolved into a truly wonderful and rewarding friendship.
Jon has suggested to me on a number of occasions that I consider reviewing and launching my own site. If I was in my twenties and single I would have taken him up on both in a heartbeat, but at 56 and married, the timing and investment is just too ambitious. But on the matter of reviews, I have decided to accept Jon’s generous solicitation. I am honored and gratified to collaborate with Jon by joining one of the finest film score sites on the internet. Read more…
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART I – Alexandre Desplat
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The conclusion of the Harry Potter saga is as much of a cinematic event as it was a literary one when J.K. Rowling’s eagerly-awaited seventh book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released in July 2007 and broke a myriad of records for book sales. The success of the Harry Potter franchise is quite astonishing: it is reportedly responsible for almost single-handedly revitalizing the children’s literature market, brought fantasy fiction out of geekdom and into the mainstream, and of course made Rowling herself a gazillionaire, thanks not only to the book sales but also to the spin off merchandise, theme park rides, and of course the movies and soundtracks based on her work. Read more…
IRON MAN 2 – John Debney
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The sequel to the phenomenally successful super hero movie from 2008, Iron Man 2 sees Robert Downey Jr. returning to don the futuristic red and gold suit as Tony Stark, the multi-billionaire industrialist who saves the world in his spare time as his metallic alter ego. This time around his nemesis is megalomaniacal Russian juggernaut Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), seeking revenge for the death of his scientist father, who helped design the original Iron Man technology. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film also stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Stark’s loyal assistant Pepper Potts, Don Cheadle as Stark’s friend Colonel “Rhodey” Rhodes, and Scarlett Johansson as the sexy undercover agent Nastaha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow. Read more…
LET ME IN – Michael Giacchino
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Let Me In is the American remake of the underground hit Swedish vampire movie Låt Den Rätte Komma In (Let the Right One In), which was released to great acclaim in 2008. Directed by Cloverfield helmer Matt Reeves and set in the 1980s, the film stars Kodi Smit-McPhee as Owen, a bullied and lonely young boy who lives in a rundown tenement in New Mexico with his mother (Cara Buono), who is in the midst of a divorce. One day, he makes friends with an equally lonely young girl named Abby (Chloe Moretz), who has moved into the same apartment block with her elderly guardian (Richard Jenkins). Despite being initially hesitant, the two develop a gradual friendship; but Abby harbors a secret – she is a vampire, and has been responsible for the spate of murders being investigated by a dogged detective (Elias Koteas). Despite being a remake of what many consider a superior European film, Let Me In has garnered a great deal of praise, for its performances, for its proper adherence to John Ajvide Lindqvist’s original novel, and for Michael Giacchino’s chilling score. Read more…
TOY STORY 3 – Randy Newman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The second sequel to the groundbreaking Pixar animation comes 15 years after the original, but despite the passage of time has not lost any of its magic or charm. As well as being an excellent (and very funny) diversion for children, it’s also an imaginative, nostalgic, pathos-filled treat for adults, dealing with such mature themes as obsolescence and loss. The majority of the original voice cast – Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn – return to join up with newcomers Ned Beatty and Michael Keaton in a brand new story where the toys are accidentally delivered to a day care facility when their beloved owner Andy goes away to college. At first happy to be played with again, the toys quickly find out that life in the day care is not quite as rosy as it seems, and hatch a plan to escape. Read more…
THE LAST AIRBENDER – James Newton Howard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Last Airbender, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, is a fantasy adventure film based on the extremely popular Nickelodeon animated TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which ran from 2005 from 2008. The film is set in a world where civilization is divided into four nations based on the elements – water, earth, air and fire – and the concept that, within each nation, people called “benders” have the ability to manipulate their element by practicing different kinds of martial arts. In addition to elemental benders, there is also one person who can manipulate all four elements simultaneously – the mythical Avatar of the title – and his presence brings peace and stability to the world. In Shyamalan’s film, the current Avatar, an air nomad named Aang, has been missing for almost 100 years, and in the intervening period the ruthless Fire nation has begun to dominate the other three elemental kingdoms. After Aang is discovered frozen in ice by two young members of the Water Tribe, the three set off to stop the Fire nation and restore balance to the elements. Read more…
Welcome to the new look Movie Music UK
After many years of a rather stagnant and out of date site design, plus various technological and security-related issues over the past six months, I have decided to bite the bullet and launch a site upgrade, with a new look, and new features intended to make the site more interactive and modern.
The review content and composer biography archive will remain the same (as, hopefully, will the quality of writing!), but in addition to these classic elements the site now has an RSS feed, is set up to allow instant feedback from readers through direct comment areas on each review, and is plugged in to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Digg, and various other social media outlets to allow easy link sharing.
Over the coming months I will be working on new reviews and content while moving over and converting all the existing reviews and composer biographies to the new style. Currently the majority of the historical reviews and composer bios are unavailable, but this will gradually change over time. I expect all the content to be back live within 10-12 weeks.
I hope you like the all-new MMUK. Comments and questions are always welcome, of course!
INCEPTION – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
An action thriller dealing with the manipulation of dreams, Inception is the latest film from Batman Begins and Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan. Leonardo di Caprio stars as Cobb, one of an elite group of corporate espionage specialists who have mastered the technology of ‘dream invasion’, which allows him to literally enter the dream world of a subject while he is asleep. A man with a tortured past, Cobb and his cohort Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) are hired by wealthy industrialist Saito (Ken Watanabe) to infiltrate the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), a corporate rival, and perform an ‘inception’, a dangerous procedure where, rather than extracting information, an idea is surreptitiously placed into the subject’s subconscious without them realizing. After assembling his team (Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao), Cobb begins his journey into dreamworld, where he not only has to contend with the dangers presented by the task, but also his own personal demons, in the form of his long-dead wife Mal (Marion Cotillard). Read more…
DRAGONSLAYER – Alex North
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Dragonslayer is a difficult score for someone like me to review, and this is why: it’s because I’m not a musicologist. You can’t review scores as intellectually challenging and musically complex as Dragonslayer in the usual way, because it’s not a standard score: despite being a fantasy film set in an ancient world of dragons, sorcerers, kings, and damsels in distress, the music is about as far removed from the genre conventions as one can imagine. I don’t have the musical vocabulary, or a deep enough knowledge of the compositional techniques Alex North employs in this score, to be able to do it justice, and any attempt by me to describe it in the usual emotional terms would be laughably futile. So let me begin with this: Dragonslayer is one of the most challenging, difficult, complicated, infuriating, disturbing, chaotic scores you are ever likely to hear. It’s also quite brilliant. Read more…
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