IFMCA Award Nominations 2023
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
JOHN WILLIAMS AND CHRISTOPHER YOUNG LEAD LIST OF NOMINATED COMPOSERS WITH FOUR NOMINATIONS EACH;MULTIPLE COMPOSERS FROM JAPAN AND POLAND AMONG MAJOR NOMINEES
FEBRUARY 8, 2024. The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of nominees for excellence in musical scoring in 2023, for the 20th annual IFMCA Awards. Composers John Williams and Christopher Young lead the list of composer nominees with four nominations each, closely followed by Lorne Balfe, Stephen Barton, Ludwig Göransson, and Bear McCreary, who each have three.
Legendary American composer Williams’s nominations are all for his work on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth film in the beloved action-adventure series starring Harrison Ford as the eponymous globetrotting archaeologist. Dial of Destiny received nominations for Score of the Year, Best Action/Adventure score, and Composition of the Year for the score’s main theme, “Helena’s Theme,” while Williams himself was nominated for Composer of the Year.
IFMCA member James Southall praised Dial of Destiny as “a nostalgic throwback to those great times of the past – a set of meticulously-composed new music by one of the greatest film composers we’ve ever had – an exhibition in skill and technique with the orchestra which is guaranteed to go beyond almost any other film music we hear this year.” Similarly, IFMCA member Christian Clemmensen said that the score was “an especially gratifying treat and an immense pleasure to hear in the 2020’s. It extends the quality of the prior two [Indiana Jones] works and continues to espouse the uniquely superior aspects of Williams’s writing from decades past”. Read more…
THE MARK OF ZORRO – Alfred Newman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Darryl F. Zanuck, vice-president of production at 20th Century Fox, decided to remake the popular 1920 silent film “The Mark of Zorro”, which starred Douglas Fairbanks. The story was first published in 1919 as a five-part magazine serialized novel called “The Curse of Capistrano” by Johnston McCulley, which after the film’s success was republished as a novel titled The Mark of Zorro. Zanuck would oversee production with a $1 million budget, Rouben Mamoulian was tasked with directing, and John Tainto Foote would write the screenplay. The studio’s star Tyrone Power would head the cast as Don Diego Vega AKA Zorro, joined by Linda Darnell as Lolita Quintero, Basil Rathbone as Captain Esteban Pasquale, Montagu Love as Don Alejandro Vega, J. Edward Bromberg as Don Luis Quintero, and Gale Sondergaard as Inez Quintero. Read more…
Movie Music UK Awards 2023
This year was a fascinating year for me in terms of film music, mainly because for the majority of it there wasn’t one runaway winner for Score of the Year. In recent years there has been a Rings of Power or some other clear front runner, but that wasn’t the case this year – instead there were a very large group of four and four-and-a-half star scores, any of which could have taken top honors depending on the slightest vagaries of personal taste, composer affection, or film quality. I heard more than 700 scores in 2023 – either as a soundtrack album, in movie context, or both – and I ended up rating 84 of them **** or better.
There were an especially large number of excellent scores from outside the mainstream Hollywood system – especially China, France, Japan, and Poland – which again indicates that the world of film music remains as rich and vibrant as it ever was, provided you are willing to put in some effort and explore beyond the confines of the mainstream Hollywood system. There were also a large number of exceptional TV scores, video game scores, and even scores for animated short films that left a significantly positive impression. As such, as was the case last year, I decided to continue to allow television and video game scores to compete on an equal footing with film scores for my coveted ‘Score of the Year’ award –
So, without further ado, here are my choices for the best scores of 2023! Read more…
BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM – Shirley Walker
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is an animated feature film released in 1993 and is part of the DC Animated Universe. Directed by Eric Radomski and Bruce Timm, the film serves as a spin-off of the critically acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series, and was released between seasons one and two of the show. The story revolves around Bruce Wayne, the billionaire playboy who doubles as the vigilante Batman. A mysterious figure known as the Phantasm begins targeting Gotham City’s crime bosses, leading to speculation that Batman is responsible. As Batman investigates, he discovers that the Phantasm has a personal connection to his past, which leads him to explore his early years and the choices that led him to become the Dark Knight. Mask of the Phantasm is notable for being the first full-length animated theatrical Batman film, and was celebrated at the time for its sophisticated narrative, atmospheric animation, nuanced portrayal of Batman, and exceptional voice acting from Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Dana Delany. It faced challenges at the box office at the time it was released, possibly due to its marketing and the misconception that it was solely a children’s movie, but in the intervening years it has gained a cult following and is now considered one of the standout Batman films. Read more…
AMERICAN FICTION – Laura Karpman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
American Fiction is a brilliant satire on literature, race, and family dynamics in contemporary society. Written and directed by Cord Jefferson, who is making his directorial debut here, and based on the 2001 novel ‘Erasure’ by Percival Everett, the film stars Jeffrey Wright as African-American author and English professor Thelonious “Monk” Ellison. Monk is having quite a few problems; his novels receive academic praise, but sell poorly, and publishers reject his most recent manuscript for not being “black enough”. His mother is developing Alzheimer’s disease, his extended family is highly dysfunctional, and he is increasingly annoyed by a fellow writer whose recent bestselling novel apparently panders to ‘ghetto’ black stereotypes but is feted by white literary critics. Frustrated, and needing to raise money for his mother’s medical bills, Monk swallows his pride, adopts the pseudonym ‘Stagg R. Leigh,’ and intentionally writes what he considers a ‘bad novel’ called My Pafology, which also panders to the same black/urban stereotypes of gang violence, drugs, and estranged families. To his increasing shock and exasperation, My Pafology becomes enormously popular and critically acclaimed, and Monk is forced to adopt the ‘gangbanger’ persona of Leigh to maintain the ruse, while also trying to juggle his personal and family issues. Read more…
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS – Victor Young
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Following the enormous success of the first animated film, Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1937, Paramount Studios decided to cash in with its own film. It decided to base the new film on Part One of Jonathan Swift’s classic 1726 novel “Gulliver’s Travels”. In a joint venture, Paramount and Fleisher Studios placed Max Fleisher in charge of production with a $700,000 budget, his brother Dave Fleisher would direct, and the team of Dan Gordon, Cal Howard, Ted Pierce, Edmond Seward and Isadore Sparber would write the screenplay. The voice cast would include Sam Parker as Gulliver, Pinto Colvig as Gabby and Snitch, Jack Mercer as Prince David, King Little, Twinkletoes, Snoop, Horses and the Royal Chef, and Ted Pierce as King Bombo and Sneak. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2023, Part 8
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world. This article, the eighth and last of 2023, is a biggie, a bumper crop, a last hurrah of outstanding music, and it covers ten scores from a wide array of genres and countries: a German documentary about an acclaimed artist, a World War I horror film, a British re-imagining of a horror classic, an Irish political thriller, a Norwegian horror movie about killer elves, a Spanish horror film about creepy children, another Spanish horror movie about creepy grandparents, a religious horror movie about cloning Jesus’s DNA, a British Christmas comedy, and Israeli drama about the power of hope!
IRON WILL – Joel McNeely
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Iron Will is a Disney-produced historical family adventure film, directed by Charles Haid from a screenplay co-written by John Michael Hayes, who wrote four of Alfred Hitchcock’s films in the 1950s (Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much). The film is set in 1917 and tells the true story of a teenage boy named Will Stoneman who is left to take care of his mother after his father dies, and who enters a grueling 500-mile dog-sled race from Manitoba to Minnesota in order to raise money for her. Mackenzie Astin stars as the intrepid musher Will, and there is excellent support from future A-listers and stalwart character actors like Kevin Spacey, David Ogden Stiers, August Schellenberg, and Brian Cox, but the film did not set the box office alight and is unfortunately mostly forgotten today. Read more…
THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES – James Newton Howard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A somewhat belated fifth film in the massively successful Hunger Games franchise, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel set decades before the events of the first four films, which explores the rise to power of Coriolanus Snow, the Donald Sutherland character who would eventually become the dictatorial president of Panem. Here Snow is played by Tom Blyth as an ambitious 18-year-old member of the Panem aristocracy, who is hired to be a mentor for the upcoming 10th Hunger Games, a compulsory televised battle royale in which children from each of Panem’s districts compete to the death. Snow’s mentee is Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from District 12, the same district that Katniss Everdeen would come from 60 years later; problems arise for Snow when he starts to fall in love with Lucy, and then when he discovers that his best friend Sejanus Plinth may be secretly involved with a revolutionary movement intended to topple the government. The film co-stars Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, and Viola Davis, and is again directed by Francis Lawrence, who directed the previous three Hunger Games films. Read more…
Academy Award Nominations 2023
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the nominations for the 96th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2023.
In the Best Original Score category, the nominees are:
- JOSCELIN DENT-POOLEY (JERSKIN FENDRIX) for Poor Things
- LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for Oppenheimer
- LAURA KARPMAN for American Fiction
- ROBBIE ROBERTSON for Killers of the Flower Moon
- JOHN WILLIAMS for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
These are the first Oscar nominations for Dent-Pooley, Karpman, and Robertson; Robertson’s nomination is posthumous, as he died in August 2023, just weeks before Killers of the Flower Moon was released. This is the third Oscar nomination – the second in this category – for Göransson, who previously won for Black Panther in 2018.
Incredibly, this is the 54th Oscar nomination for John Williams, which breaks his own record for being the most nominated living person, and maintains his position as the second most nominated person of all time after Walt Disney (who had 59). He previously won Academy Awards 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:
- JON BATISTE and DAN WILSON for “It Never Went Away” from American Symphony
- BILLIE EILISH and FINNEAS O’CONNELL for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie
- SCOTT GEORGE for “Wahzhazhe – A Song for My People” from Killers of the Flower Moon
- MARK RONSON and ANDREW WYATT for “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie
- DIANE WARREN for “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot
The winners of the 96th Academy Awards will be announced on March 10, 2024.
Laurie Johnson, 1927-2024
Composer Laurie Johnson died on January 16, 2024, at home in London after a short illness. He was 95.
Laurence Reginald Ward Johnson was born in London in February 1927. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music, where one of his tutors was Ralph Vaughan Williams. He undertook his national service, playing French horn with the Coldstream Guards, in the late 1940s, before moving to the entertainment industry in the 1950s.
He began his career as a composer and arranger in the West End theater, and he won an Ivor Novello Award in 1959 for his work on Lionel Bart’s Lock Up Your Daughters in 1959. He scored his first film, the British musical The Good Companions, in 1957, and went on to enjoy a long career in the British film music industry, writing for projects such as the swashbuckler The Moonraker (1958), the crime drama Tiger Bay (1959), Stanley Kubrick’s classic satire Dr. Strangelove (1964), the HG Wells science-fiction adaptation First Men in the Moon (1964), the cult Hammer horror Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1972), the nature drama The Belstone Fox (1973), and the literary drama Hedda (1975), as well as a series of 1980s TV movies based on the works of his long-time friend, novelist Dame Barbara Cartland. Read more…
THE RAINS CAME – Alfred Newman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Darryl F. Zanuck 20th Century Fox Studios vice-president of production came upon the 1937 novel The Rains Came by Louis Bromfield and decided its story of redemption set in India would translate well to the big screen. He purchased the film rights, assumed oversight of production with a budget of $2.5 million, tasked Clarence Brown with directing, and hired Philip Dunne and Julien Josephson to write the screenplay. For his cast, Myrna Loy would star as Lady Edwina Esketh, with Tyronne Power as Major Rama Safti, George Brent as Tom Ransome, Brenda Joyce as Fern Simon, Nigel Bruce as Lord Albert Esketh and Maria Ouspenskaya as Maharani. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2023, Part 7
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world. This article, the seventh of 2023, covers five scores from across genres and countries: a documentary about female conductors, an animated short film in the classic Disney style, a Spanish romantic comedy, a French political comedy, and a bloody horror film about sloths on the rampage!
BAFTA Nominations 2023
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominations for the 77th British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2023.
In the Best Original Music category, which is named in memory of the film director Anthony Asquith, the nominees are:
- JOSCELIN DENT-POOLEY (JERSKIN FENDRIX) for Poor Things
- LUDWIG GÖRANSSON for Oppenheimer
- DANIEL PEMBERTON for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- ROBBIE ROBERTSON for Killers of the Flower Moon
- ANTHONY WILLIS for Saltburn
This is the second BAFTA nomination for Pemberton, and the second nomination for Willis. All the other three nominees are first time nominees – although Göransson does have an Oscar, a Golden Globe, three Grammys and two Emmys – meaning that whoever wins will be a first time BAFTA winner. Robertson’s nomination is posthumous; he died in August 2023, just weeks before Killers of the Flower Moon was released.
The winners of the 77th BAFTA Awards will be announced on 18 February, 2024.
PHILADELPHIA – Howard Shore
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In terms of its subject matter and how it relates to the social issues of the time it was released, Philadelphia is one of the most important films ever made. It was released in the winter of 1993 and, at the time, it quickly became notable for being one of the first mainstream Hollywood films not only to explicitly address both the HIV/AIDS crisis and the then-prevalent societal homophobia, but also to portray gay people in any sort of positive light. The film stars Tom Hanks as attorney Andrew Beckett, a senior associate at the largest corporate law firm in Philadelphia. In order to maintain his career, Beckett conceals his homosexuality and his status as an AIDS patient from others in the office, but eventually his symptoms become too obvious to ignore. However, rather than treat him with sympathy, Beckett is summarily fired by his bigoted boss Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards). Refusing to accept this, Beckett seeks out personal injury attorney Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) to help him sue his former employers, which requires Miller to overcome his own latent prejudice and homophobia. Read more…
Shop at the Movie Music UK Store
Member of the
MOVIE MUSIC UK 