DEPARTURES – Joe Hisaishi
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the 2008 Academy Awards, Departures is a gentle, moving Japanese film directed by Yôjirô Takita, starring Masahiro Motoki as Daigo, a professional cellist who, following the break-up of his orchestra, moves back to his hometown and takes a job as a “Nokanshi”, an undertaker’s assistant who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life.
The score for Departures is by the wonderful Joe Hisaishi, whose reputation in the west continues to grow, mainly as a result of his regular collaborations with legendary Anime director Hayao Miyazaki. Departures, however, is a very different score from the likes of Ponyo or Princess Mononoke. Read more…
DRAG ME TO HELL – Christopher Young
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Drag Me To Hell is the best pure horror score I have heard in probably a decade – at least since Brian Tyler’s Darkness Falls in 2003, and probably since a great deal before then. It’s also one of the best scores of Christopher Young’s entire career – and that’s saying something for the man who wrote such stellar scores as Hellbound: Hellraiser II and Murder in the First. So, now that I have made these two potentially outrageous statements, let me clarify why I think this is the case.
Drag Me To Hell is Sam Raimi’s return to his roots. A clever, gory, and occasionally very funny horror story in the Evil Dead tradition, Drag Me To Hell stars Alison Lohman as Christine Brown, a New York loan officer with a decent job and a warm, loving boyfriend (Justin Long). Read more…
UP – Michael Giacchino
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
When we look back on his career, 2009 could well be seen as a watershed year for Michael Giacchino in terms of public awareness and his place in the film music hierarchy. Film music fans have known about Giacchino for a long time, of course, initially through his work on the Medal of Honor video game series and the TV shows Lost and Alias. This year alone he has already scored the rebooted Star Trek movie and a new big screen version of Land of the Lost. However, it is his new status as one of Pixar’s go-to guys (alongside Randy and Thomas Newman) that may cement his reputation. The Incredibles was a critical and commercial success, Ratatouille earned Giacchino his first Academy Award nomination, and now he has Up, which many writers have acclaimed as the best Pixar movie to date. Read more…
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN – Alan Silvestri
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A big-budget sequel to the immensely popular and successful family comedy Night at the Museum, Battle of the Smithsonian again stars Ben Stiller as Larry Daley, the security guard at a museum where the exhibits come to life at night. However, when two of his exhibits (and friends) – roman centurion Octavius and cowboy Jedidiah Smith – are accidentally shipped to the Smithsonian, he must break in and rescue them. To Larry’s shock, however, he finds that the exhibits in the Smithsonian come to life too. The film is again directed by Shawn Levy and has a star-studded supporting cast that includes Robin Williams, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais and Hank Azaria, as well as a score by Alan Silvestri, who also scored the original. Read more…
TERMINATOR: SALVATION – Danny Elfman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The fourth installment in the long-running Terminator film franchise, Terminator Salvation picks up the story following a nuclear holocaust, caused by the Skynet automated defense system that played an important part in the original trilogy. John Connor (Christian Bale) has survived the blast, and is now struggling to bring together a rag-tag band of human survivors to battle against the immense, unstoppable machines that now control the world. The film was directed by Charlie’s Angels helmer McG, and co-stars Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin and Bryce Dallas Howard. Read more…
ANGELS & DEMONS – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The second film based on author Dan Brown’s enormously popular series of novels about the adventures of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, Angels & Demons is actually a prequel to the popular and controversial The Da Vinci Code. Tom Hanks returns as Langdon, who becomes embroiled in another labyrinthine plot of mysteries and clues following the death of the Pope. Before the conclave to choose a his successor can begin, the four senior bishops in line for the position are kidnapped by a group claiming to be the ancient cult of the Illuminati, who want revenge against the Vatican for centuries of persecution at the hands of the catholic church. Read more…
STAR TREK – Michael Giacchino
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The last composer not named Jerry Goldsmith to score a Star Trek movie was Dennis McCarthy, who scored Star Trek Generations in 1994. We’ve had a full 15 years of Star Trek on the big screen with one sound from one legendary composer – talk about big shoes for Michael Giacchino to fill. But then again, Giacchino has made a career filling big shoes, from his early days following John Williams on the Jurassic Park video games, to picking up Lalo Schifrin’s mantle on Mission: Impossible III in 2006. Read more…
THE RED CANVAS – James Peterson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
When you hear as many film scores as I do, it’s remarkably easy to become jaded. The same old composers write the same old music for the same old films in the same old style; there is so little innovation or originality these days in the mainstream film music world that listening to the most banal new releases becomes more of a chore than a pleasure, something to be endured rather than embraced. It is for this reason that scores like The Red Canvas must be embraced and celebrated, and why young, massively talented composers like James Peterson need to be lauded; debuts as good as this don’t come along very often. Read more…
GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST – Rolfe Kent
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A fun rom-com reworking of the classic Scrooge tale, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past stars Matthew McConaughey as Connor Mead, a love ‘em and leave ‘em serial monogamist who, while attempting to stop his younger brother’s wedding, is visited by the ghost of his dead uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas). In life, Wayne was a player like Connor, but in death has seen the error of his ways; now, in attempt to save his younger nephew’s nuptials, Wayne tells Connor that he will be visited by the “ghosts” of girlfriends past, present, and future, who will show him that true love, rather than casual sex, is the way to go. Read more…
X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE – Harry Gregson-Williams
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The first of several movies intended to reveal the origins of different X-Men characters – and which are, in effect, prequels to the enormously popular X-Men franchise – Wolverine is an action/adventure which follows the fortunes of James Logan (Hugh Jackman), born in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s with mutant powers of regeneration; along with his half-brother Victor (Liev Schreiber), Logan fights in the American Civil War, WWI, WWII and Vietnam, using his powers to stay alive, until he is approached by US Army Major William Stryker, who has recognized Logan and Victor’s abilities, and wants them to join his elite mutant commando group. However, Logan quickly realizes that his powers are being exploited, and deserts his Unit, hiding in a remote part of Canada with his girlfriend Kayla; unfortunately for Logan, he soon learns that his past won’t leave him alone. Read more…
THE INFORMERS – Christopher Young
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The second film to be based on one of Bret Easton Ellis’s novels after American Psycho, The Informers is an examination of the hedonistic 80s lifestyles of a group of twentysomethings in Los Angeles who treat life, sex and drugs as disposable commodities. The film, which was directed by Gregor Jordan, has an eclectic cast that includes such luminaries as Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke, Chris Isaak, and the late Brad Renfro. For the music, Jordan hired composer Christopher Young, who rarely gets the chance to take on dark personal dramas such as this, but is often very successful when he does. Read more…
OBSESSED – Jim Dooley
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A film from the ‘psycho bitch from hell’ sub-genre of movies that began with the likes of Fatal Attraction and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Obsessed stars Idris Elba as Derek Charles, a successful executive at a financial accounting company, happily married to the gorgeous Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles), . However, things begin to go wrong for Derek when some innocent inter-office flirting with insecure temp Lisa Sheridan (Ali Larter) leads to stalking, obsession, and more.
The film is directed by Steve Shill and has an original score by Jim Dooley, who continues to make a positive impression in the film music world by throwing off the shackles of the Hans Zimmer sound and generating his own musical style. Read more…
17 AGAIN – Rolfe Kent
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A funny vehicle for High School Musical star Zac Efron, 17 Again is a new spin on the old ‘body swap’ comedies of the 1980s like Big, combined with the back-to-school nostalgia of Back to the Future. Matthew Perry stars as Mike O’Donnell stars as a sad-sack thirty-something with a dead end job and a bitter ex-wife (Lesley Mann). After a fateful meeting with mysterious a high school janitor (Brian Doyle-Murray), Mike wishes he could be seventeen again, and do over all the things in his life he screwed up the first time around. Magically, the following morning, he wakes up looking like Zac Efron, and with the help of his perpetually nerdy pal Ned (Thomas Lennon), sets about getting his life back.
It’s a feel-good, genuinely funny teen comedy, directed confidently by Burr Steers, and which features an original score by Rolfe Kent. Read more…
ADORATION – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I’m listening to Adoration for about the sixth or seventh time, and I still don’t know whether I like it or not, which puts me in a quandary. Sometimes, in film music, you listen to a score and you know that, on an intellectual level, the score is wonderful. You know that the textures the composer creates with his instruments are perfectly intricate. You understand that the mood he brings to the film through his music is exactly what was needed to convey the emotions on screen. You know that the level of precision and technique the performers have is superb. But yet, despite all that, you find yourself completely unable to warm to the score. While listening to it, you find your mind wandering – not out of boredom, but because you are not engaged by what you hear. You’re not enjoying listening to the score, and are connecting with it on a purely academic plain. I’ve had this happen to me many times before, with the majority of Philip Glass and Michael Nyman’s output, and on more recent scores like Osvaldo Golijov’s Youth Without Youth or Jonny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood; and it’s happening here with Mychael Danna’s score for Adoration. Read more…
THE POKER CLUB – Evan Evans
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A suburban thriller directed by Tim McCann and starring Johnny Messner, Johnathon Schaech and Loren Dean, The Poker Club is the story of four regular guys who get together every week who get together to smoke cigars, drink beer and play cards. One night, however, their weekly get together is interrupted by a home invader, and things go from bad, to worse, to even worse, when they accidentally kill the burglar, and then realize he might not have been alone.
The score for The Poker Club is by young composer Evan Evans, who has actually been scoring low-budget and independent films since the late 1990s, but has never before had any of his music released on a commercial record label. Read more…
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