CROSSING OVER – Mark Isham
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Written and directed by Wayne Kramer, Crossing Over is a story about immigration in the United States, and about how immigrants of different nationalities struggle to achieve legal status in Los Angeles. It follows the lives of several individuals – Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Max Brogan (Harrison Ford), his Iranian-American partner Hamid (Cliff Curtis), a sympathetic defense lawyer (Ashley Judd), and a green card approval supervisor (Ray Liotta) – all of whom experience different aspects of America’s immigration laws during the course of their working lives. Read more…
STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI – Stephen Endelman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Fifteen years after Jean-Claude Van Damme effectively killed off a potential franchise of films in the original Street Fighter movie, the classic video game returns to the big screen in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, a rebooting of the story which now focuses on the mysterious female character of Chun-Li rather than the muscle bound General Guile. Directed by Polish action director Andrzej Bartkowiak, it stars Smallville star Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li, a concert pianist and martial arts expert searching for her father, who has been captured by the evil underworld figure, Bison. Read more…
THE INTERNATIONAL – Tom Tykwer, Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The International is a contemporary – and somewhat prescient – action movie/political thriller starring Clive Owen as Louis Salinger, an Interpol agent who teams up with a Manhattan district attorney to expose a high-profile financial institution’s role in an international arms dealing ring. The film, which also stars Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Ulrich Thomsen, was directed by German leading light Tom Tykwer; as he did on his previous movies (notably Run Lola Run and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer), Tykwer teamed up with regular collaborators Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek to provide the film’s score. Read more…
RICKY – Philippe Rombi
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A fantastical French drama from director François Ozon, Ricky stars Alexandra Lamie and Sergi Lopez as Katie and Paco, a single mother and a factory worker in modern, working class Paris, who begin a relationship and have a son together: the eponymous Ricky of the title. However, when baby Ricky begins to behave erratically, and begins to develop lesions on his skin, it increases the stresses on Katie and Paco’s relationship, with Kate accusing Paco of abuse; however, there is more to little Ricky than meets the eye…
The music for Ricky is by the exceptionally talented young French composer Philippe Rombi, director Ozon’s composer of choice; this is their sixth film together, following such spectacular efforts as Swimming Pool and Angel. Read more…
CORALINE – Bruno Coulais
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Coraline is the latest film from Henry Selick, the man who actually directed Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Like its illustrious predecessor, Coraline is a stop-motion animation, several years in the making, and is based on a story by acclaimed fantasy author Neil Gaiman. The film follows the adventures of a young girl – the eponymous Coraline – who, after discovering a secret passage in the wall of her parents’ new apartment, finds a magical, mysterious – and occasionally quite frightening – alternate universe where cats can talk, everyone has buttons for eyes, and she has a whole set of ‘other’ parents, who want to Coraline to stay in ‘Other World’ forever. The film features the voice talents of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Keith David, and has an original score by French composer Bruno Coulais. Read more…
THE SECRET OF MOONACRE – Christian Henson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A British children’s fantasy based on the popular novel “The Little White Horse” by Elizabeth Goudge, The Secret of Moonacre stars Dakota Blue Richards as Maria Merryweather who, following the death of her father, is sent to live at her uncle’s country estate. By reading her only inheritance – an ancient book – Maria learns of an ancient feud between her family and the neighboring DeNoir family over a set of magical pearls upon them by a beautiful and mysterious woman known as the Moon Princess. Slowly, Maria learns that she has been entrusted with finding the pearls and ending the dispute between the clans; but time is running out. Read more…
SHADOWS – Ryan Shore
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Shadows is a Macedonian film directed by the acclaimed filmmaker Milco Mancevski, starring Borce Nacev as Lazar Perkov, a doctor in modern day Skopje who, following his involvement in a deadly car accident, finds his life, his marriage and his career falling apart. However, after an old woman delivers a message to him in an ancient Macedonian dialect, Lazar encounters the seductive, erotic Menka (Vesna Stanojevska), who guides him on a journey to his ancestral home, and helps him learn things about his family’s dark past.
The music for Shadows is, somewhat unexpectedly, by American composer Ryan Shore, whose continued efforts to seek out interesting films outside the Hollywood mainstream is commendable. Read more…
TAKEN – Nathaniel Mechaly
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A xenophobic and downright nasty action thriller which somehow became a box office success, Taken is directed by Pierre Morel and stars Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills, a former spy with ‘special skills’, who is forced out of retirement when his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped by a sex trafficking gang in Paris. Once in Europe, Mills runs around a lot and fights his way through the French underworld trying to save his daughter, encountering Albanian crime syndicates and evil Arab billionaires and delivering plenty of high octane energy and pithy-one liners, but it all leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, especially with its blatant “all foreigners are evil” undertone. Read more…
THE UNINVITED – Christopher Young
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There is something in the work of certain composers which makes them predisposed to be great at horror movie music. There’s something in the way they write, in their personality, in their musical language, which somehow manages to capture both the subtle nuance and sheer outright terror that horror movies require from their scores. Christopher Young is one of those composers. Although he has enjoyed successes in a wide variety of genres over his long and successful career, Young keeps coming back to horror: from his early day on films like The Dorm That Dripped Blood and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, through his classic Hellraiser scores, to more recent and popular box office hits like The Grudge and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, horror has always been a fertile feeding ground for Young’s talents. To start 2009, Young has again dipped his toes into the chilling pool, and emerged with The Uninvited: one of the best, and downright scariest horror scores in quite some time. Read more…
INKHEART – Javier Navarrete
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A vivid fantasy adventure with a literary imagination, Inkheart stars Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Andy Serkis and newcomer Eliza Bennett, in a story about a man whose reading aloud brings characters from stories to life. The film is directed by Iain Softley from the popular novel by Cornelia Funke, and features a rousing original score by Spanish composer Javier Navarrete, his first foray back into the fantasy genre since his critically acclaimed work on Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006.
A colorful full-orchestral affair, Inkheart revels in its fantastical storybook heritage, presenting cue after cue of lush, warm, grandiose music that moves easily from romantically sweeping themes to vivid action cues to rich exotica. Read more…
OUTLANDER – Geoff Zanelli
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A science fiction Viking epic, Outlander is a genre-bending action movie starring Jim Caviezel as Kainen, a soldier from a faraway planet who crashes his spaceship on Earth in Norway in the year 709, and is captured by the local Norsemen; however, when a deadly alien creature called the Moorwen – which had stowed away on Kainen’s ship – begins a vicious killing rampage through the Viking village, Kainen and the Vikings team up to stop the intruder.
The film is directed by Howard McCann, features an eclectic supporting cast that includes Sophia Myles, Ron Perlman and John Hurt, and has an original score by Geoff Zanelli. The score sounds pretty much like you would expect it to sound, and is built around a rousing brass main theme in the finest Zimmer power anthem tradition Read more…
UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS – Paul Haslinger
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The third film in the Underworld series, Rise of the Lycans features a new actress in the lead role (Rhona Mitra instead of Kate Beckinsale), and is effectively a prequel to the original two films, charting the events leading up to the vampire-werewolf war which dominates the first two installments. Essentially a Romeo and Juliet variation, the film tells the story of enslaved werewolf Lucian (Michael Sheen), who has been the property of vampire elder Viktor (Bill Nighy) since birth, and who falls in love with Viktor’s daughter Sonja (Rhona Mitra). Their love, Viktor’s betrayal by his daughter, Lucien’s escape from captivity, and the subsequent execution of Sonja by the vampire lords, sets in motion the centuries-long battle for supremacy between vampire and Lycans. Read more…
Academy Award Nominations 2008
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2008.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- ALEXANDRE DESPLAT for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- DANNY ELFMAN for Milk
- JAMES NEWTON HOWARD for Defiance
- THOMAS NEWMAN for Wall*E
- A. R. RAHMAN for Slumdog Millionaire
This is the first Oscar nomination for Rahman. It is the 2nd nomination for Desplat, the 4th nomination for Elfman, the 6th nomination for Howard, and the 10th nomination for Newman. None of the nominees have ever won an Academy Award before
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- THOMAS NEWMAN and PETER GABRIEL for “Down to Earth” from Wall*E
- A. R. RAHMAN and SAMPOORAN SINGH KALRA (GULZAR) for “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire
- A. R. RAHMAN and MATHANGI ARULPRAGASAM (M.I.A.) for “O Saya” from Slumdog Millionaire
The winners of the 81st Academy Awards will be announced on February 22, 2009.
UN HOMME ET SON CHIEN/A MAN AND HIS DOG – Philippe Rombi
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s quite easy for a film music reviewer like myself to become jaded. I hear, on average, between 125 and 175 scores each calendar year, both new works and re-releases, and sometimes barely half of them warrant a second listen. Each year there are maybe 20 or 30 good scores, maybe 5 great scores, and very rarely there is one which can be considered “excellent”. It’s not very often that I listen to a new score and am instantly captured by the music I hear, but when it happens it reminds me why I listen to film music, why I still love this genre, and why this kind of music can move, elate and thrill me like no other. Un Homme Et Son Chien by Philippe Rombi is one of those rare scores. Read more…
MY BLOODY VALENTINE – Michael Wandmacher
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A nostalgic throwback to the early 80s era of the slasher film, My Bloody Valentine was the first modern horror film to fully embrace the new 3D craze, shocking its audiences with realistically realized axes and body parts shooting from the screen, as well as with all manner of grisly and gruesome special effects to bring the bloody story to life. A remake of the 1981 classic horror film of the same name, the film is directed by Patrick Lussier and stars Jensen Ackles as Tom Hanninger, a young man who returns to his Pennsylvania mining hometown on the tenth anniversary of the Valentine’s night massacre that claimed the lives of 22 people. Despite the original murderer having been apparently killed a decade a go, the murders begin again, and before long Tom finds himself being accused of the crimes. Turning to his old girlfriend Sarah (Jaime King) – who survived the massacre a decade before – Tom sets out to solve the brutal mystery and prove his innocence. Read more…
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