THE FOUNTAIN – Clint Mansell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Fountain is the latest film from director Darren Aronofsky, whose debut film Pi was a cult success in 1998, and whose 2000 follow up Requiem for a Dream earned massive critical acclaim, as well as an Oscar nomination for actress Ellen Burstyn. The Fountain, in terms of scope, is his most ambitious effort yet. It stars Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz and Ellen Burstyn (again) and is about nothing less than quest for immortality. Jackman stars as pharmaceutical drug developer Tommy Creo, who is desperately trying to save his wife Izzy (Weisz), who is afflicted with an inoperable brain tumour. Izzy is a writer, and has been researching a book about a medieval quest to find the fabled Fountain of Youth, with Queen Isabel (Weisz) sending a Conquistador (Jackman) to New Spain to find it. Intercut with these two stories is a third timeline which takes place in the 26th century, and focuses on a man named Tom (Jackman), who is taking a space trip in the company of a giant tree. Yes, you did read that last sentence correctly. Read more…
BOBBY – Mark Isham
Original Review by Clark Douglas
“Hey, good evening ladies and gents, it’s time for a great big exciting night of entertainment, with all your favorite stars! Along the way, you’ll have some laughs, shed a couple tears, maybe learn a couple of things, and most of all, see a lot of the beautiful faces you know and love! We now take you live to the Ambassador Hotel for a great evening of entertainment! Oh, and you’ll also see Robert Kennedy get killed.”
Is it just me, or does “Bobby” feel way too much like “Grand Hotel 1968”, or perhaps an Irwin Allen movie? I’m not criticizing the fact that a politically-charged film dealing with a serious event in American history has a huge, star-studded cast, but I am criticizing the way the movie uses them. Emilio Estevez’s “Bobby” is, at it’s best, a vivid snapshot of a particular time in America. At it’s worst, it’s a cheap love letter to all things Kennedy, paired with some silly soap operas as dramatic filler. Read more…
CASINO ROYALE – David Arnold
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
When you think about it in terms of numbers, the James Bond franchise is pretty damn impressive. 007’s screen history reaches back 40 years, comprises 21 movies, and has a combined box-office gross of over $1.3 billion (or $3.3 billion if you adjust it for inflation). No wonder the franchise is considered to be amongst the most successful and important in all of cinema. We’ve had ten directors, nine composers, and now we’re on to our sixth leading actor: Daniel Craig, stepping into the sharp tuxedo vacated by Pierce Brosnan at the end of Die Another Day, and ordering the vodka martini with a broader, brusquer accent than heard in many years. Read more…
HAPPY FEET – John Powell
Original Review by Clark Douglas
Australian film maker George Miller has never failed to impress me. His films are somewhat few and far between, but they’re all so brilliant. The “Mad Max” trilogy set the standard for post-apocalyptic thrillers. The “Babe” films are the best family movies of the past decade. “The Witches of Eastwick” is a wickedly funny comedy, “Lorenzo’s Oil” is a tremendously moving medical drama. His segment of the “Twilight Zone” movie blew away those made by Joe Dante, Steven Spielberg, and John Landis. He’s found amazing success in every genre he’s touched, so I was greatly anticipating “Happy Feet”, his first attempt at making an animated film. It is a success, but perhaps not quite the masterpiece I expected. Read more…
HARSH TIMES – Graeme Revell
Original Review by Clark Douglas
At one point in “Harsh Times”, one character tells another, “You look like a turd dressed up in a fancy suit”. If you can accept the metaphor of a performance by Christian Bale being the equivalent of a fancy suit, then the same statement can be applied to this movie. It’s second-rate, warmed-over, run-of-the-mill material. It sure is galvanizing, though.
Bale plays Jim Davis, a troubled ex-Army Ranger looking to settle down. He’s applied for a job with the LAPD, has a lover in Mexico waiting to be taken across the border, and despite a taste for the wild side of life, he’s genuinely interested in making a decent life for himself. So is his best friend Mike (Freddie Rodriguez), who has been mooching off his wife’s (Eva Longoria) money for years. So, they go off job-hunting together, but things don’t work out so well for Jim. He’s rejected for psychological reasons, which simply sends him into an even deeper mental meltdown. Read more…
A GOOD YEAR – Marc Streitenfeld
Original Review by Clark Douglas
If a lead character in a mainstream movie declares “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing!” at the beginning (and his name isn’t Vince Lombardi), is there any doubt that he will change his mind by the film’s end? No, and I don’t suppose that’s a huge problem. “A Good Year” is a predictable message film, and in this case, I’m okay with that. However, I’m not okay with the fact that the film doesn’t even buy into it’s own message.
The theoretical character from the beginning of my review is indeed the leading character of the film. His name is Max (Russell Crowe), and he is a stock market go-getter with a large staff and a mean streak. He is a perfect “in need of redemption” candidate for the film’s purposes… greedy, selfish, uncaring, with a surprisingly gentle piece of his past buried away under piles of money. When Max learns of the death of the man who raised him, his Uncle Henry (played by Albert Finney in flashbacks), his reaction is basically a shrug. Well, until he learns that he’s inherited Henry’s estate (which includes a wine vineyard), which could bring in a pretty penny. Read more…
THE RETURN – Dario Marianelli
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Following his Oscar nomination for Pride & Prejudice last year, and his subsequent arrival in the ‘Hollywood Studio System’ with V for Vendetta, it was sort of inevitable that, before long, Dario Marianelli would turn up scoring a studio horror flick. Every composer does at least one (although some spend their entire careers doing nothing else!) It’s almost a rite of passage, something you have to do to earn your spurs, and be accepted as a reputable and reliable figure in the cogs that make up the system, which establishes you as one of the great fraternity from whose ranks most Hollywood movie scores are written. Dario Marianelli’s flick, it turns out, is The Return. Read more…
Basil Poledouris, 1945-2006
Composer Basil Poledouris died at his home in Los Angeles on November 8, 2006, at the age of 61, following a battle with cancer.
One of the most distinctive American film composers of the 1980s and 1990s, Poledouris became renowned for muscular orchestral writing, powerful choral music and an unusually direct melodic style. His scores for Conan the Barbarian, RoboCop, The Hunt for Red October, Free Willy and Starship Troopers remain among the most admired works of their respective genres.
Vassilis Konstantinos Poledouris was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on August 21, 1945, into a Greek-American family. He began playing piano as a child and moved to Los Angeles in 1964 to study filmmaking and music at the University of Southern California. There he became friends with aspiring directors including George Lucas, John Milius and Randal Kleiser, relationships that would prove important throughout his career. He briefly considered filmmaking and even appeared as an extra in an episode of Star Trek, but increasingly concentrated on composition.
After graduation Poledouris spent several years writing for educational films and television before receiving his first significant feature assignment from Milius. Big Wednesday (1978), the director’s nostalgic surfing drama, began a particularly important collaboration and allowed Poledouris to combine broad orchestral writing with music reflecting the California surfing culture of the 1960s. Randal Kleiser’s The Blue Lagoon (1980) followed, providing a very different opportunity for lush romantic and tropical music. Read more…
BABEL – Gustavo Santaolalla
Original Review by Clark Douglas
So this is what it feels like on the other side. Last year, I wrote an very positive review of Paul Haggis’ “Crash”. In fact, I went so far as to call it the year’s best film. I spent a good portion of time arguing with others who said the film was cheap, overdramatic, and contrived. Now, here is “Babel”, which is receiving reviews eerily similar to those “Crash” received, and they’re just as divided… some critics call it a complex and thought-provoking masterpiece, others call it hokey rubbish. This time around, I absolutely agree with the dissenters, for some of their reasons, and for some of my own. “Babel” was directed by the talented Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also made the acclaimed “21 Grams” and “Amores Perros”. Both of those films were contrived, but convincing. Not so here. Read more…
THE PRESTIGE – David Julyan
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Honestly, you wait ages for a film about magicians in turn-of-the-century Europe, and then two come along at once! This happens in Hollywood with quite amazing regularity, and seems to be a trend that shows no sign of going away. So, following on the heels of The Illusionist is The Prestige, which has a better pedigree in terms of filmmakers, and a more bankable cast. The film stars Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as Alfred Borden and Robert Angier, two friends, aspiring stage magicians in London at the height of the Victorian era. However, when Alfred causes the death of Julia, Robert’s wife, their friendship becomes a deep animosity. Thereafter, the two magicians strive to outdo each other, both on stage and in life, trying to develop more and more elaborate and dangerous illusions, and carrying out acts of bitter vengeance. With a director in the shape of Christopher Nolan (hot from Batman Begins), a superb supporting cast that includes Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis and David Bowie, and a talented production crew recreating the opulence of the time period, The Prestige has been a critical and commercial success. Read more…
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS – Clint Eastwood
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s interesting to see how the public perception of Clint Eastwood has changed over the years. In the 1950s he was a TV cowboy, familiar from series such as Rawhide. In the 1960s, he moved to the big screen, and became an icon through his roles in classic spaghetti westerns like A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly. In the 1970s he became a bona fide Hollywood star, with leading roles in box office smashes like Dirty Harry, The Enforcer, Magnum Force and Every Which Way But Loose. By the 1980s he had moved sideways into directing, and enjoyed significant success with Sudden Impact, Firefox, and Heartbreak Ridge. The last 20 years or so, though, have seen him emerge as a true cinematic artist and a beloved member of the film-making fraternity, with the acclaimed Unforgiven, The Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. Read more…
THE QUEEN – Alexandre Desplat
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997, was something of a turning point in the modern history of the United Kingdom. Up until that time, the British royal family were generally looked upon with fondness. Sure, they had their moments of scandal, Prince Phillip continually said stupid things to people on foreign tours, and there was a section of society which called for them to be abolished and the country turned into a republic. But, beyond this, the House of Windsor was seen as a mighty figurehead, as people who represented the best interests of Britain at home and abroad, as a family to be looked up to and admired. However, the reaction of the Royal Family to the death of Diana caused unprecedented resentment and outcry. The Royal Family’s rigid adherence to protocol was interpreted by the public as a lack of compassion, and all of a sudden the tide turned against them. Now, the Royal Family was cold and insular, out of touch with the thoughts and feelings of the nation they ruled, and totally irrelevant to modern British life. Queen Elizabeth II in particular came in for special criticism, initially for her refusal to allow the Royal Standard on top of Buckingham Palace to fly at half mast, and later for her seemingly forced and insincere broadcast to the nation several days later. Read more…
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND – Alex Heffes
Original Review by Clark Douglas
There were several “based on true events” historical dramas in 2006 about different parts of Africa, and “The Last King of Scotland” is the best of them. It is a somewhat flawed film, but reaches remarkable heights during it’s best moments, and it lingers with you long after the credits have rolled. Nicolas Garrigan (James McAvoy) is a young Scottish man who’s just gotten his medical degree. Desperate not to become stuck in his father’s medical practice, he runs off to Uganda (of all places) and decides to work in a small medical clinic there, healing the needy and so on. The year is 1971, and Uganda is in the middle of being overthrown by an up-and-coming general named Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). Read more…
PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE – Miklós Rózsa
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Tom Kiefner
When Miklós Rózsa was given the assignment to score Plymouth Adventure in 1952 he was entering the historical drama part of his illustrious film composing career. Having completed Quo Vadis in 1951, he would go on to score such films as Ivanhoe, Knights of the Roundtable, Lust For Life, Ben Hur, and let us not forget King of Kings. When Miklós was given an assignment he would research the time period carefully looking for in this case a particular melody that the Pilgrims might have known for the trip to America. After a trip to the New York Public Library he settled on the use of the 136th Psalm, intrigued by the most irregular rhythm (5/2) it had to offer as well as the religious attributes the song had to offer. In addition, he also used the 100th Psalm for the finale of the picture. Read more…
Malcolm Arnold, 1921-2006
Composer and conductor Sir Malcolm Arnold died at his home in Norwich, England, on September 23, 2006, at the age of 84, following a short illness.
One of the most prolific and distinctive British composers of the twentieth century, Arnold wrote nine symphonies, numerous concertos and orchestral works, and more than 100 scores for films and documentaries. His music for David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1958.
Arnold was born in Northampton on October 21, 1921. Inspired by jazz and especially by hearing Louis Armstrong, he took up the trumpet and studied at the Royal College of Music with Ernest Hall while learning composition from Gordon Jacob. He joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1940 and eventually became its principal trumpet before abandoning orchestral playing in 1948 to concentrate entirely on composition.
Film music quickly became an important part of Arnold’s career. His ability to write rapidly, his instinctive command of the orchestra and his gift for direct, memorable melody made him exceptionally well suited to the demands of British cinema. During the 1950s he scored such films as The Captain’s Paradise (1953), The Belles of St Trinian’s (1954), The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954), The Night My Number Came Up (1955), 1984 (1956), Trapeze (1956) and A Hill in Korea (1956). Read more…
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