THE SOONG SISTERS – Kitaro, Randy Miller
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Japanese composer and recording artist Kitaro’s second foray into the world of feature films, after the Golden Globe-winning Heaven & Earth, is The Soong Sisters, a Hong Kong-made drama following the lives of three siblings who live eventful lives while witnessing the modern social and economic evolution of the People’s Republic of China. Directed by Mabel Cheung, the film stars three actresses familiar to western audiences as the eponymous sisters: Maggie Cheung (Irma Vep), Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies) and Vivian Wu (The Pillow Book). Returning home after studying in America, the sisters arrive to find their country in constitutional upheaval. As the sisters each find husbands – one a wealthy industrialist, one a communist revolutionary, one a fiercely patriotic soldier – they find that their relationships are strained to breaking point as vastly differing political viewpoints and deeply-ingrained prejudices begin to surface. In many ways, the story of The Soong Sisters acts as a microcosm of the Chinese nation itself – torn between embracing the past and looking to the future, between the stifling confines of communism and the intimidating reality of democratic reform. Read more…
MEN IN BLACK II – Danny Elfman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s nice to see Danny Elfman being silly again. I don’t mean Pee-Wee Herman silly; God forbid, the music was great but if he ever scores another movie like that something very wrong will have happened to the world. It’s just that, for the last few years, Elfman seems to have become a very serious man, scoring dark and weighty films such as Proof of Life and Sleepy Hollow and Planet of the Apes. Returning to the sci-fi chaos of the Men in Black universe has allowed Elfman to metaphorically let his hair down and go a bit wacky. He’s probably at his best when he does. Read more…
Carlo Savina, 1919-2002
Composer, arranger and conductor Carlo Savina died in Rome on June 21, 2002, at the age of 82.
One of the most prolific and versatile figures in Italian film music, Savina worked on more than 200 films as composer, conductor or musical director. Although his own scores encompassed everything from comedy and drama to spaghetti westerns and horror, he was equally important as a trusted conductor for composers including Nino Rota, Miklós Rózsa, Philippe Sarde and Stephen Sondheim.
Savina was born in Turin on August 29, 1919, into a musical family. His father was principal clarinetist with the EIAR radio orchestra and introduced him to music at an early age. Savina studied violin, piano, composition and conducting at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Turin, and in 1944 received his diploma in composition. His early concert works included sonatas, chamber pieces and the opera Il vecchio geloso, which won a prize from the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in 1948.
After the Second World War Savina became increasingly active in radio and popular music. He formed his own orchestra, wrote songs and arrangements, and became a prominent conductor for RAI, participating in some of Italian television’s earliest experimental broadcasts. His polished orchestral style and ability to move easily between classical and popular idioms soon led him toward cinema. Read more…
MINORITY REPORT – John Williams
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Is it sacrilege to say that a new John Williams score is a slight disappointment? The 70-year old composer has been at the top of his game for over 25 years now, and the list of near-legendary scores he has written is almost incomprehensible. His collaboration with director Steven Spielberg is also the stuff of fable – how can two men come up with so much brilliance and genius between them? Minority Report, as a movie, is a marvelous amalgam of science fiction and morality gone wrong. But whereas Spielberg seems to still be at the height of creative talents, Williams seems to be flagging just a tad. A.I., his last Spielberg film, was enjoyable but failed to tread any new ground. Minority Report, which covers similar thematic ground by tackling deep intellectual issues in a science fiction setting, seems to have had the a similar effect on Williams – without wanting to sound unkind, its almost as though “thinking” films don’t provide him with the same seeds of musical inspirational as the popcorn adventure flicks that seem to be more and more his forte. Read more…
WINDTALKERS – James Horner
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s getting more and more difficult to review James Horner scores objectively these days – and everyone knows why. Listening to and writing about Horner’s music is a bit like having an itch you’re not supposed to scratch – you know it’ll do you no good in the long run but, by God, it irritates you so much, you just can’t help yourself – and the short term relief is worth it. I am almost at pains to say so, but on the whole Windtalkers bored me. Horner rarely does this; if nothing else, Horner’s music is usually interesting and worth taking the time to listen to. But, here, its as though he intentionally drew the majority the heart and color from his score, leaving instead a soulless musical shell that is technically sound but bereft of anything remotely resembling emotion. Read more…
THE BOURNE IDENTITY – John Powell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Film music is a funny thing. Sitting down to listen to The Bourne Identity, the latest score from British composer John Powell, I fully expected to hate it. Electronics, synthesizers, drum loops, very little in the way of an orchestral palette – all the things I generally dislike about certain types of score are in place here. But, much to my own surprise, I didn’t hate it at all – it actually entertained me for much of its running length, and left me marveling at the deftness of Powell’s MIDI programming and electronic inventiveness. Read more…
STAR WARS: ATTACK OF THE CLONES – John Williams
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Talk about pressure. Could any composer other than John Williams ever write a Star Wars score successfully? After the mixed critical reception of The Phantom Menace, it would be difficult for Attack of the Clones NOT to be a better movie; but Williams’ score was roundly praised, and to improve upon the incredible choral power of Duel of the Fates would be a task indeed. As the second installment in the trilogy, speculation was rife about how the middle Star Wars movie is always the best, dramatically and musically, adding further expectation upon Williams’s talents. Fortunately, all the doubts and worries are groundless. Attack of the Clones is a monster, surpassing The Phantom Menace on almost all counts. Read more…
UNFAITHFUL – Jan A. P. Kaczmarek
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, the least-known of the triumvirate of Polish film composers that includes Wojciech Kilar and Zbigniew Preisner, continues to make in-roads into Hollywood with his score for Unfaithful, the latest film by maverick director Adrian Lyne. Kaczmarek has had an interesting career to date, scoring mainly art house fare such as Total Eclipse and Bliss, but dabbling in the mainstream with things like Lost Souls and Washington Square without being widely recognized. I have a feeling that Unfaithful could change all that. Basically a three-way character study about the emotional effects of infidelity, Unfaithful stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane as Edward and Connie Sumner, a happily married couple living in the New York suburbs with their precocious young son Charlie (Erik Per Sullivan). One stormy autumn day, Connie makes a trip to the city, and literally bumps into handsome French book dealer Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez). Cleaning her grazed knee in his apartment, Connie obviously feels an attraction to Paul, but ignores her instincts, dismissing them as mere juvenile lust. However, Connie and Paul’s feelings for each other gradually grow too strong to ignore, and eventually they embark on a stormy, passionate affair. Meanwhile, the dependable Edward begins to notice subtle changes in his wife’s behavior, and hires a detective to find out about her illicit daytime liaisons. What transpires thereafter begins to tear at the fabric of the Sumner family, culminating in anger, betrayal and murder. Read more…
ENIGMA – John Barry
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A new John Barry score is a rare thing indeed in this day and age. As one of the all-time greats of film music, with a career that stretches back to the 1950s, the quality of Barry’s work and his influence on the genre as a whole cannot be understated. However, in recent years, Barry’s musical oeuvre has become so familiar and – dare I say it – predictable, that every score sounds like the last. Playing By Heart, his last score, broke the mould somewhat by embracing a distinctive type of moody jazz, but everything else has been much of the same. Enigma is no different. Read more…
Academy Award Winners 2001
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the winners of the 74th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2001.
In the Best Original Score category, Canadian composer Howard Shore won the Academy Award for his score for Peter Jackson’s epic fantasy film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, based on the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien. In his acceptance speech Shore said:
This is incredible. Thank you to the members of the Academy. I had the good fortune of having such fantastic collaborators on this project. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens who guided me on an amazing journey through Middle Earth. It was just a tremendously rewarding experience to translate the words of Tolkien into music and I just feel blessed to be a part of this production. I want to thank my wife Elizabeth and daughter Mae whose love and support are incredible to me and have just guided me on my journey. Thanks to Bob Shaye, Michael Lynne, Mark Ordesky, Paul Broucek, Barrie Osborne, everybody at, the crew in Tuxedo. I love you all. Thank you very much.
The other nominees for Best Original Score were John Williams for A.I. Artificial Intelligence, James Horner for A Beautiful Mind, John Williams for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and Randy Newman for Monsters, Inc.
In the Best Original Song category, composer and songwriter Randy Newman won the Academy Award for “If I Didn’t Have You” from Pixar’s Monsters, Inc.
The other nominees for Best Original Song were Enya, Nicky Ryan and Roma Ryan for “May It Be” from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring; Diane Warren for “There You’ll Be” from Pearl Harbor; Sting for “Until” from Kate & Leopold; and Paul McCartney for “Vanilla Sky” from Vanilla Sky.
Remembering Georges Delerue, 1925-1992
Composer Georges Delerue died ten years ago today, on March 20, 1992. He had a stroke, just hours after recording the last cue for the soundtrack to his last film, Rich in Love, and died two days later. He was 67.
Georges Henri Jean-Baptiste Delerue was born in Roubaix, France, in March 1925. A clarinet and piano player as a child, Delerue attended the Turgot Institute, the Roubaix conservatory, and the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied composition with Darius Milhaud and Henri Büsser. His friends there included Maurice Jarre and Pierre Boulez, and together the three of them would make often make money on the side performing jazz in piano bars near the Paris Opera House.
He began writing stage music during the late 1940s, for the Théâtre National Populaire, the Comédie-Française, and the Théâtre Babylone, before being hired to direct the orchestra of the Club d’Essai for French National Radio and Television. His work for FRNT led directly to him scoring his first major project, television drama, Princes du Sang, in 1952. Read more…
MONSOON WEDDING – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Bollywood. Even today, in this enlightened age, the term conjures up hackneyed images of bad acting, bad dubbing, cheesy dance routines, and actors and actresses bursting into song at inappropriate moments, accompanied by a cast of thousands in tracksuits. In reality, the Indian film industry is the strongest and most successful on the planet, with the city of Bombay releasing more motion pictures in a year than anything from a Hollywood studio. But as well as the singing and dancing, India has real pedigree in “proper” drama, with films like Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen and Santosh Sivan’s recent Asoka proof of the sub-continent’s increasing aptitude for epics on a grand scale. Director Mira Nair, while not exactly a household name, has nevertheless become India’s top female director, with Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala, The Perez Family and Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love to her name. Her current film, Monsoon Wedding, is possibly her crowning glory to date. Read more…
DRAGONFLY – John Debney
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I’m going let you into a personal anecdote about the score for Dragonfly. The first time I ever listened to this CD was in May 2002, while I was on holiday in Los Angeles. I was heading back from John Debney’s studio in Burbank to the hotel where I was staying in Culver City, having just been for lunch with him. John kindly gave me a copy of the score, and I eagerly played it as soon as I got back to the car. I took the scenic route home, driving over Mulholland Drive and down Laurel Canyon Boulevard to where it intersects with Sunset near the Bel Air gates. Half way down the hill on Laurel Canyon, the final track of the CD, ‘Emily’s Message Revealed’, kicked in. Seven minutes later, I almost had to stop the car because I couldn’t see for the tears. I had just heard one of the most beautiful and majestic cues in years. I realize that this story may not really mean very much to people, but for a cue to make me cry like that upon a first listen is rare indeed, and gives you an idea of the power inherent in this gorgeous score. Read more…
Academy Award Nominations 2001
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the nominations for the 74th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2001.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- JAMES HORNER for A Beautiful Mind
- RANDY NEWMAN for Monsters, Inc.
- HOWARD SHORE for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- JOHN WILLIAMS for A.I. Artificial Intelligence
- JOHN WILLIAMS for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
This is the first Oscar nomination for Shore, the 6th nomination for Horner, the 8th nomination for Newman, and the 35th and 36th nominations for Williams, Horner previously won for Titanic in 1997. Williams previously won for Fiddler on the Roof in 1971, Jaws in 1975, Star Wars in 1977, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial in 1982, and Schindler’s List in 1993.
In the Best Original Song category, the nominees are:
- ENYA BRENNAN, NICKY RYAN, and ROMA RYAN for “May It Be” from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- PAUL McCARTNEY for “Vanilla Sky” from Vanilla Sky
- RANDY NEWMAN for “If I Didn’t Have You” from Monsters, Inc.
- GORDON SUMNER (STING) for “Until” from Kate & Leopold
- DIANE WARREN for “There You’ll Be” from Pearl Harbor
The winners of the 74th Academy Awards will be announced on March 24, 2002.
BAFTA Nominations 2001
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominations for the 55th British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2001.
In the Best Original Music category, which is named in memory of the film director Anthony Asquith, the nominees are:
- CRAIG ARMSTRONG and MARIUS DE VRIES for Moulin Rouge!
- ANGELO BADALAMENTI for Mulholland Drive
- HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS and JOHN POWELL for Shrek
- HOWARD SHORE for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- YANN TIERSEN for Amélie
These are the first nominations for Badalamenti, Gregson-Williams, Powell, and Tiersen. It is the second nomination for Armstrong, the second nomination for De Vries, and the second nomination for Shore. Armstrong and De Vreis previously won for William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet in 1997.
The winners of the 55th BAFTA Awards will be announced on February 24, 2002.
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