JUNGLE BOOK – Miklòs Ròzsa
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1938 producer-director Alexander Korda decided to cash in on the commercial success realized by films based on novels by the famous English writer Rudyard Kipling. He purchased the film rights to his 1894 classic Jungle Book, with production slated to commence in 1939. The onset of WWII and Nazi Blitz forced him due to safety concerns, to relocate his company to Hollywood, which pushed production back to 1941. His own company, Alexander Korda Films would produce he film and he secured financial backing from United Artist who provided a $300,000 budget, which included filming in technicolor. Alexander Korda would produce the film, his brother Zoltan was tasked with directing, while his other brother Vincent was production designer. Screenwriter Laurence Stallings was hired to create a script derived from the nine Mowgli stories and drew inspiration from five of them: “Mowgli’s Brothers”, “Tiger! Tiger!”, “How Fear Came”, “Letting in the Jungle”, and “The King’s Ankus”. A fine cast was hired, which included Sabu as Mowgli, Joseph Calleia as Buldeo, John Qualen as the barber, Frank Puglia as the pundit, and Rosemary DeCamp as Messua. Filming was challenging due to creative differences between Alexander who wanted a fantasy adventure, and Zoltan who wanted a more realistic story. In the end, Alexander’s vision prevailed. Read more…
THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS – Hans Zimmer, Steve Mazzaro
Original Review by Christopher Garner
Dreamworks’ The Boss Baby: Family Business takes place after Tim and Ted Templeton (the characters from the first Boss Baby) have grown up and grown apart. Older brother Tim has had two children of his own, Tabitha and Tina. Younger brother Ted has become a successful businessman, but work keeps him from having any personal connections with his brother’s family or anyone else. It turns out that baby Tina is a boss baby like her uncle Ted was, and has been tasked with bringing the brothers back together again and stopping evil Dr. Armstrong who runs Tabitha’s school, and who is bent on enslaving all parents so that children can be free. Tom McGrath returned to direct the sequel. Alec Baldwin reprises his role from the first film, and James Marsden, Amy Sedaris, Ariana Greenblatt, and Jeff Goldblum join the cast as grown-up Tim, Tim’s children, and the villainous Armstrong respectively. The film has had mixed reviews from critics. It’s not exactly intellectual cinema, and the whole idea of a sequel kind of undercuts the frame of the first film, but it has a lot of laughs for parents and kids, and Baldwin, Marsden, and Goldblum (at his Goldblummiest) are clearly having a great time. Read more…
POINT BREAK – Mark Isham
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the most iconic action films of the 1990s, Point Break was a groundbreaking film in that it was one of the first major Hollywood movies to be directed by a woman, Kathryn Bigelow. The film stars Keanu Reeves as FBI agent Johnny Utah, who is tasked with investigating a gang of bank robbers who wear rubber masks of former US presidents while committing their crimes. Utah’s investigations eventually lead him to Bohdi (Patrick Swayze), a charismatic surfer, and Utah goes undercover to infiltrate the surf gang and find evidence that they are the robbers. However, Utah quickly develops a complex friendship with Bohdi, and begins a romantic relationship with Tyler (Lori Petty), another member of Bohdi’s surfing community, all of which threatens to derail the investigation. The film co-stars Gary Busey and John C. McGinley, and in the years following its release has become a cult favorite. Read more…
FEAR STREET, PART TWO: 1978 – Marco Beltrami, Brandon Roberts
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The second part of Netflix’s Fear Street, a trilogy of horror-thriller films based on the popular young adult novels by R. L. Stine and directed by Leigh Janiak, is set in 1978. Following the events of the first film, the survivors are told the story of what happened 16 years earlier at Camp Nightwing, a summer camp on the outskirts of Shadyside. Ziggy Berman (Sadie Sink) and her sister Cindy (Emily Rudd) are attending the camp along with their friend Alice (Ryan Simpkins), Cindy’s boyfriend Tommy (McCabe Slye), and Nick (Ted Sutherland), a camp counselor who has a crush on Ziggy. The Shadyside/Sunnyvale/Sarah Fier curse looms large over the camp, and is exacerbated when the camp’s nurse Mary Lane (Jordana Spiro) – whose own daughter murdered people in a killing spree years previously – attacks Tommy unprovoked, and tells him he is going to die. Sure enough, before long, Tommy has seemingly been possessed by the spirit of Sarah Fier and is viciously murdering the campers with an axe – leaving Ziggy, Cindy, and their friends to try to stop him. Whereas the first Fear Street film was filled with 1990s horror tropes, this film goes back to films like Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp, and is a ton of gory fun. Read more…
THE GREEN KNIGHT – Daniel Hart
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the oldest and most respected pieces of medieval literature in the world. Written in olde English by an unknown scribe sometime in the 14th century, it looks back some 400 years to the time of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. One Christmas, as Arthur and his knights are celebrating, their festivities are interrupted by a monstrous Green Knight, who challenges the court to a game: he dares any knight to strike him with his own axe, but that knight must seek him out the following Christmas and receive the same strike. The young and impetuous Gawain, Arthur’s nephew, rashly agrees, and beheads the Green Knight – only for the Green Knight to stand up, pick up his head, and leave, reminding Gawain of his obligation. What follows is an examination of the nature of honor and chivalry, temptation and seduction, as an increasingly agitated Gawain leaves Camelot in order to complete his quest to find the Green Knight – a journey which will, most likely, conclude with his own death. The film is directed by David Lowry, and stars Dev Patel as Gawain, with support from Alicia Vikander, Sean Harris, and Joel Edgerton, among others. Read more…
A DOUBLE LIFE – Miklós Rózsa
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1946 producer Michael Kanin decided to collaborate with his brother Garson Kanin and his wife Ruth Gordon for his next project; a film noir with a Shakespearean twist. The husband-and-wife team crafted a fine screenplay and Michael Kanin used his own Kanin Productions company to fund the project, with Universal Studios agreeing to distribute the film. George Cukor was tasked with directing, and a fine cast was eventually assembled. Laurence Olivier was originally sought for the lead, but was unavailable, so a reluctant Ronald Colman was given the role of Anthony “Tony” John. He would be supported by a coach to refine his Shakespearean diction and delivery. Joining him would be Signe Hasso as Brita, Edmund O’Brien as Bill Friend, and Shelley Winters as Pat Kroll. Read more…
REGARDING HENRY – Hans Zimmer
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Regarding Henry is an emotional drama film written by the then-25-year-old J.J. Abrams, and directed by Mike Nichols. Harrison Ford stars as Henry Turner, a wildly successful but callous and unethical New York lawyer, whose work often means he neglects his wife, Sarah (Annette Bening), and their children. One night Henry is shot in the head when he accidentally interrupts a robbery in a convenience store; he survives, but is left with brain damage, amnesia, and physical handicaps, to the extent that he barely remembers his former life. Henry also undergoes a significant personality change, becoming almost child-like with friendliness, curiosity, and a new-found sense of ethics. The film goes on to explore how this sudden change, and slow recovery, affects Henry’s life, his career, and his relationship with his family. I have always liked the film a great deal, and consider it to be one of Harrison Ford’s career best straight dramatic performances. Read more…
FEAR STREET, PART ONE: 1994 – Marco Beltrami, Marcus Trumpp
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the unexpected hits of the summer of 2021 was Netflix’s Fear Street, a trilogy of horror-thriller films based on the popular young adult novels by R. L. Stine, directed by Leigh Janiak. The first part of the trilogy is set in 1994 in the town of Shadyside, which has been plagued by murders and atrocities for hundreds of years, while neighboring Sunnyvale is safe and prosperous. Following yet another murder, this time at the local mall, Shadyside teenagers Deena (Kiana Madeira), and Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), Deena’s brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.) and their friends Kate (Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Fred Hechinger) come to believe that the city is cursed, and that a legendary ancient witch named Sarah Fier is responsible. However, as the teens dig into the history of the curse, they find themselves plunged into a nightmare where their own lives are at stake. The film is a fun update of 1990s slasher movie horror tropes with plenty of pop culture references – director Janiak is married to Stranger Things co-creator Ross Duffer, natch – clever ideas, and blood-soaked gore. Read more…
DIE NIBELUNGEN, PART II: KRIEMHILD’S REVENGE – Gottfried Huppertz
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Austrian director and screenwriter Fritz Lang had long desired to bring a grand fantasy adventure film to the big screen. He eventually found inspiration in the epic 12th century Germanic poem Die Nibelungenlied. He collaborated with his wife Thea von Harbou in writing the screenplays for a two-part series that would be titled Die Nibelungen: Siegfried and Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge. The German production company Decla-Bioscop agreed to produce and fund the film, with UFA overseeing distribution. For Lang this was a passion project, and he assembled one of the finest casts ever assembled, which included; Paul Richter as King Siegfried of Xanten, Margarete Schon as Kriemhild of Burgund, Hanna Ralph as Queen Brunhild of Isenland, Bernhard Goetzke as Volker of Alzey, Theodor Loos as King Gunther of Burgund, Rudolf Klein-Rogge as King Etzel, Rudolf Rittner as Margave Rüdiger of Bechlam, Hans Adalbert Schelettow as Hagen of Tronje, Georg August Koch as Hildebtandt, Georg John as Mime the Goldsmith/Albert the Dwarf/Blaodel, Getrud Arnold as Queen Ute of Burgund, Hans Carl Müller as Gerenot of Burgund, Erwin Biswanger as Giselher of Burgund, Fritz Alberti as Dietrich of Bern, and Annie Röttegen as Dietlind of Bechlam. Read more…
TOM & JERRY – Christopher Lennertz
Original Review by Christopher Garner
A modern take on the classic cartoon duo, Tom & Jerry sees the titular cat and mouse duking it out in a swanky New York City hotel. Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz) has recently been hired at the hotel under false pretenses and is trying to prepare the venue for the upcoming wedding of socialite “it” couple, Preeta and Ben. Jerry the mouse moves into the hotel and is living the high life until he is discovered and it becomes Kayla’s job to get rid of him. She enlists Tom the cat, going over the head of her supervisor Terence (Michael Peña) to do so, and the ensuing battle between the cat and mouse threatens to destroy the hotel as well as Preeta and Ben’s wedding. The film is directed by Tim Story and also stars Colin Jost, Pallavi Sharda, and Ken Jeong. It is a live-action/animation hybrid film, where all the human characters are live-action and all the animals are animated in a traditional 2D style. Critics were not fond of the film, but it fared better than expected at the box office despite its release during the pandemic. Read more…
TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY – Brad Fiedel
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
James Cameron’s sci-fi masterpiece The Terminator became something of a cult classic following its release in 1984. It made a movie star out of its leading actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and left fans desperate to know more about this world of unstoppable time-travelling killer robots and their human interactions, to the extent that a sequel was inevitable. Terminator 2: Judgement Day picks up the story several years later, but things have not turned out well for the original film’s protagonist, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who is now incarcerated in an institution for the criminally insane, where doctors refuse to believe her apocalyptic predictions. Her teenage son John (Edward Furlong) is delinquent on the streets of Los Angeles, bouncing around between foster homes, while the tech company Cyberdyne is secretly continuing tests on the remains of the original Terminator from the first film. Things go from bad to worse for Sarah when a massively upgraded liquid metal terminator, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), is sent back in time from the future to finish the job the original robot could not, and kill John; the T-1000 is a technological marvel that can shape-shift, repair its own wounds, and convincingly blend in with humans. In response, the leaders of the human resistance send back a T-101 Terminator (Schwarzenegger), physically identical to the original film’s unstoppable killer, but this time re-programmed to protect John from harm. Read more…
BUCKLEY’S CHANCE – Christopher Gordon
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Buckley’s Chance is an Australian action-adventure film for children, written and directed by Tim Brown. The film stars young Milan Burch as Ridley, a teenage boy from New York who moves with his mother Gloria (Victoria Hill) to live with his estranged grandfather Spencer (Bill Nighy) in Western Australia after his father dies. Ridley hates his new life, mourns for his father, and resents his grandfather, but soon things get much worse when Ridley gets lost in the Outback. With only a dingo dog named Buckley for company, Ridley is forced to make an arduous journey across hostile territory trying to reach home – while, on the other end, Spencer and Gloria frantically search for the boy. The term ‘buckley’s chance’ is an idiom in Australian slang, meaning ‘something which has a very small chance of succeeding,’ and likely dates back to the 1800s and a man named William Buckley, an escaped convict who somehow survived the burning temperatures of the Outback and lived with a tribe of Aborigines for more than 30 years – a real life episode which partly mirrors the events in this story. Despite some lovely cinematography, the film was unfortunately not well received by reviewers, who especially criticized its juvenile tone and Bill Nighy’s accent. Read more…
DIE NIBELUNGEN, PART I: SIEGFRIED – Gottfried Huppertz
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Austrian director and screenwriter Fritz Lang had long desired to bring a grand fantasy adventure film to the big screen. He eventually found inspiration in the epic 12th century Germanic poem Die Nibelungenlied. He collaborated with his wife Thea von Harbou in writing the screenplays for a two-part series that would be titled Die Nibelungen: Siegfried and Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge. The German production company Decla-Bioscop agreed to produce and fund the film, with UFA overseeing distribution. For Lang this was a passion project, and he assembled one of the finest casts ever assembled, which included; Paul Richter as King Siegfried of Xanten, Margarete Schon as Kriemhild of Burgund, Hanna Ralph as Queen Brunhild of Isenland, Bernhard Goetzke as Volker of Alzey, Theodor Loos as King Gunther of Burgund, Rudolf Klein-Rogge as King Etzel, Rudolf Rittner as Margave Rüdiger of Bechlam, Hans Adalbert Schelettow as Hagen of Tronje, Georg August Koch as Hildebtandt, Georg John as Mime the Goldsmith/Albert the Dwarf/Blaodel, Getrud Arnold as Queen Ute of Burgund, Hans Carl Müller as Gerenot of Burgund, Erwin Biswanger as Giselher of Burgund, Fritz Alberti as Dietrich of Bern, and Annie Röttegen as Dietlind of Bechlam. Read more…
THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT – Joseph Bishara
Original Review by Christopher Garner
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is the third film in the main Conjuring series and the eighth in the greater Conjuring universe. This time around, Ed and Lorraine Warren (played again by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) witness an exorcism in which a demon jumps from one host to another. A couple weeks later that newly possessed man kills his landlord, and his possession becomes part of his legal defense during the murder trial. The film is directed by Michael Chaves, who previously directed The Curse of La Llorona, another film in the Conjuring franchise. James Wan, who created the franchise and directed the first two Conjuring films, took a producer and role this time around and helped write the story. Though this installment hasn’t been as favorably reviewed by critics as the first two, it has been a commercial success, earning more than four times its budget at the box office in its first month in theaters, despite having a simultaneous release on HBO Max. Read more…
THE NAKED GUN 2½: THE SMELL OF FEAR – Ira Newborn
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A sequel to the hilarious 1988 original, which was itself a spin-off of the brilliant but short-lived comedy TV show Police Squad, The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear sees Leslie Nielsen returning to one of his all-time great roles as the inept LAPD detective Frank Drebin. The plot – which involves a group of crooked energy executives kidnapping an eminent professor and replacing him with an evil lookalike who will recommend to President George HW Bush that he continue with a fossil fuel-based energy plan – is simply a flimsy framing device on which to hang all manner of goofy one-liners, ridiculous sight gags, and hilarious pratfalls, all centered around Nielsen’s unique brand of comedy. He is ably supported by Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, and O. J. Simpson returning from the first film, as well as Robert Goulet and Richard Griffiths in new roles. These movies, as well as previous Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker productions like Airplane, are some of my all-time favorite comedies. Read more…
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