HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL – Don Davis
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the annals of horror movie history, House on Haunted Hill will surely go down as one of the worst efforts the 1990s had to offer. The genre having been revitalized by the Scream phenomenon, House on Haunted Hill is the epitome of everything the savvy protagonists of Wes Craven’s movie decried. It is a film populated by stupid people who say and do stupid things at the wrong time. It has a director who mistakes gratuitous gore and “shock” sound effects for fright, and a screenwriter with no sense of reality or common sense. Ultimately, the film is a disaster from start to finish, with only the special effects crew – and Don Davis – emerging with anything resembling an intact reputation. Read more…
PAN TADEUSZ – Wojciech Kilar
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The vast majority of Wojciech Kilar’s work remains undiscovered by the film music public at large. Despite having written music for well over 100 films during a career which started in 1959, only four of these have been in the English language: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Death and the Maiden, The Portrait of a Lady and The Ninth Gate. As a result, a huge amount of music written by Kilar for European (and especially Polish) cinema has passed by without the slightest hint of recognition. A couple of domestic albums and compilations of his work exist, albeit on rather obscure labels which make obtaining them somewhat difficult, but those whose opinion of Kilar and his work are based solely on his American projects would do well do seek them out. There are many, many gems to be found. Read more…
CRAZY IN ALABAMA – Mark Snow
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Another actor cashing in on a currently in-vogue trend by turning his hand at direction is heartthrob Spanish thespian Antonio Banderas, who has cast his wife Melanie Griffith in the lead role of his unlikely debut, Crazy In Alabama. The film is a comedy-drama based on the novel by Mark Childress, and tells the story of a backwoods Alabama boy named Peejoe (Lucas Black), whose life is altered dramatically when he gets an education in life from his glamorous, eccentric Aunt Lucille (Griffith), who herself has escaped from her abusive husband to pursue her dream of Hollywood TV stardom. The film also features supporting performances from an unlikely group of actors, including David Morse, Cathy Moriarty, Rod Steiger, 70s heartthrob Robert Wagner, novelist Fannie Flagg, rock legend Meatloaf and film directors Paul Mazursky and Randal Kleiser. Read more…
THE STRAIGHT STORY – Angelo Badalamenti
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Having regard to a track record that includes such brilliantly off-the-wall films as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild At Heart and the Twin Peaks TV series, one would have never expected director David Lynch to craft such a beautiful, poignant, heart-warming movie as The Straight Story. Although the title is something of a pun, and although Lynch has never made one before, this is a completely straightforward story about a man named Straight, who leaves his slightly backward daughter at home in Iowa and travels across the American Midwest to Wisconsin on a converted lawn mower to see his estranged brother before one of them dies. Read more…
ARISTOCRATS – Mark Thomas
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The BBC have always been good at costume dramas. Whether it be Jane Austen or Emily Brontë or Charles Dickens or William Shakespeare, the Brits lead the way in showing the world how to lace up a corset, adopt a regal tone and keep a respectful distance from your potential suitors. The BBC are also good at television music. In recent years, established composers such as Carl Davis, Geoffrey Burgon and Jim Parker have rubbed shoulders with talented new names such Richard G. Mitchell, Murray Gold and Julian Nott in composing some of the finest television music around. In my opinion, Aristocrats marks the absolute pinnacle in BBC television music, and is by far the best score to emerge from Auntie’s vaults in years. Read more…
RANDOM HEARTS – Dave Grusin
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Despite having written some truly lovely orchestral scores in his career, notably Havana and On Golden Pond, Dave Grusin’s first love is and always will be jazz. In the liner notes for this release of his score for Random Hearts, Grusin muses that “no-one loves romantic music more than Sidney Pollack”, but it was felt that on this project he was “looking for something a little more lean and stark” than on their other nine collaborations. A consummate craftsman, Grusin responded with an intriguing, engaging jazz score. Random Hearts stars Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott-Thomas, two secure professional people in fulfilling relationships whose lives are torn apart when their respective partners are killed in the same plane crash. It soon transpires that, unbeknown to Ford and Thomas, his wife and her husband were having an affair with each other, a fact which, when combined with the sense of grief and betrayal felt by the surviving spouses, gradually draws them together. Part tragedy, part melodrama, part romance, Random Hearts sounds great on paper but, unfortunately, failed to set the box office alight, instead ending up as Harrison Ford’s first major flop in over a decade. Read more…
PLUNKETT & MACLEANE – Craig Armstrong
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The phenomenal success of the film William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet was not only responsible for making bonafide movie stars out of its leading players, Leonardo Di Caprio and Clare Danes – it also thrust the name of Scottish composer Craig Armstrong into the soundtrack limelight. Armstrong, who won a BAFTA Award for his work with Nellee Hooper and Marius De Vreis on that film, is an interesting and somewhat unconventional writer. He doggedly refuses to be labeled either as an orchestral or electronic specialist, and has proven that he is adept at creating both modern soundscapes, as in Romeo + Juliet and his other recent work, Best Laid Plans, as well as “proper” music, as heard in Peter Mullan’s acclaimed drama Orphans. With Plunkett & Macleane, Armstrong has shifted again and combined both these markedly different styles into one engaging whole. Read more…
AMERICAN BEAUTY – Thomas Newman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s difficult to imagine another film this year achieving the level of perfection American Beauty achieves. Perfect direction from Sam Mendes. A perfect screenplay by Alan Ball. Perfect performances from Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch and Chris Cooper. It’s just a shame that, in the synopsis, the movie sounds so dull because, in reality nothing could be further from the truth. We have seen scathing examinations of suburban American before. We have witnessed breakdowns of family units in the cinema, and exposed the sordid underbelly of the lives of people whose outward “normality” masks a level of cynicism, hate and deprivation. American Beauty does all those things, but somehow puts a fresh new spin on them that turns the familiar clichés on their head with wit, energy, humor and genuine emotion. Read more…
FOR LOVE OF THE GAME – Basil Poledouris
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s been a long time coming, but Basil Poledouris has finally returned to top form with For Love of the Game, Sam Raimi’s unexpectedly beautiful homage to the American pastime. Based on Michael Shaara’s novel, the film stars Kevin Costner as an ageing, washed-up pitcher given one last chance at the big time by his Detroit team mates. It’s one of those traditional, “go out and win one for the Gipper” sporting wish-fulfillment fantasies, where victory in the ultimate competition hinges on the last chance of the day, and where the once-great player returns from obscurity to triumph against all the odds. It’s been done a million times before, and will be done a million times again, but Costner and his co-stars, Kelly Preston and John C. Reilly, make it wholly believable. Read more…
THE MINUS MAN – Marco Beltrami
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the UK, Hampton Fancher’s movie The Minus Man was bought by the satellite TV network Sky and shown as a “cable premiere”, completely bypassing cinema screens and video store shelves. As a result, I got to see this curious little thriller back in July, well before it opened in the States, and well before Marco Beltrami’s equally curious score surfaced on CD. The film stars Owen Wilson as Vann, an oddly mannered but seemingly pleasant enough chap who travels around middle-America in his battered pickup, getting menial jobs when he can, living in rented accommodation, and murdering people on the side. Fancher’s seemingly emotionless depiction of Vann makes the film just a little disconcerting – everything is told from his own cool and distorted point of view, blurring the line between what is real and what is purely imagined inside his own little mind. With support from Janeane Garofalo, Brian Cox, Mercedes Ruehl and singer-turned-actress Sheryl Crow as Vann’s first victim, The Minus Man is an oddball movie which will surely find a cult audience in years to come. Read more…
THE ASTRONAUT’S WIFE – George S. Clinton
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Ever since the Austin Powers phenomenon took hold, the work of composer George S. Clinton has become increasingly in demand. Until the world became aware of the amorous adventures of the British super-spy, Clinton was merely the guy who wrote all that sleazy saxophone music to accompany Zalman King’s soft-core Red Shoe Diary movies, and who created all that stupid technobabble for Mortal Kombat. But there is a whole other side to his talents waiting to be discovered – like the music for The Astronaut’s Wife, a peculiar sci-fi thriller which attempts to bring together plot threads from movies as diverse as Rosemary’s Baby and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Read more…
IN TOO DEEP – Christopher Young
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I suppose everyone can have an off day once in a while, and even though Chris Young’s off days are often better than other composer’s best, In Too Deep still remains one of his least-inspired scores for many a year. It’s interesting that Young should score movies like this because – and I don’t want this to sound in any way racist – he is one of the few white composers who can write music for black movies. Normally, the director of a film like In Too Deep would employ someone like Terence Blanchard or Stanley Clarke to provide a culturally appropriate underscore. But Young, having written for movies like Tales From The Hood and Set It Off, seems able to convincingly convey the same musical identity. Read more…
THE 13th WARRIOR – Jerry Goldsmith
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In my opinion, the last two sword and sorcery movies to have truly great scores were Basil Poledouris’s Conan the Barbarian in 1981 and James Horner’s Krull in 1983 – the enduring legacy of a genre which, in recent years, has virtually died out in Hollywood. Although there is not very much sorcery in The 13th Warrior, there are plenty of flashing blades, and Jerry Goldsmith has conjured up a rousing, magnificent musical work to accompany them, the first “medieval epic” score for quite a few years that can be compared on equal terms to those earlier classics. Read more…
TEACHING MRS. TINGLE – John Frizzell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Of the young new composers to emerge during the latter half of the nineties, John Frizzell is the only one to have not yet developed a truly original voice of his own. Contemporaries such as John Ottman and Marco Beltrami have already established an earmarking “sound”, stylistic trademarks and compositional techniques, and while Frizzell has shown an adeptness in a number of genres (horror in Alien Resurrection, comedy in Beavis and Butt-head, action in Dante’s Peak) he is still musically anonymous – his new score for Teaching Mrs. Tingle being a prime example. Read more…
MICKEY BLUE EYES – Basil Poledouris, Wolfgang Hammerschmid
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
After almost a year’s respite from the pressures of the film scoring circuit, Basil Poledouris returns to the fray with Mickey Blue Eyes, the second of 1999’s two Mafia comedy films. Since Nino Rota’s legendary mobster music for The Godfather way back in 1972, the mobster movie has developed its own musical standard, typified by genre ballads by crooners Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. Whether it was an intentional homage to his contemporaries, or whether it was just a lack inspiration that led Poledouris down the well-trodden path is open to debate, but whatever the case may be it is certain that Mickey Blue Eyes is one of his weakest scores in many a year. Read more…
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