AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS – Victor Young
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Ever-ambitious producer Mike Todd sought to bring an epic adventure tale to the big screen. He hired screenwriter James Poe to adapt renowned author Jules Verne’s novel “Around The World In 80 Days”. He gave the director reigns to Michael Anderson who brought in an amazing cast which included; David Niven as the classic Victorian English gentleman Phileas Fogg, Mexican icon Cantinflas as the resourceful “Jack of all Trades” Passepartout, Shirley MacLaine as the captivating Princess Aouda, her debut acting role, and Robert Newton as the redoubtable Inspector Fix. The story takes place in England circa 1872 and centers on an epic adventure taken by Phileas Fogg and his man servant Passepartout. Fogg makes the audacious claim that he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days. He offers a £20,000 wager with four skeptical compatriots of the Reform Club, thus setting the stage for the adventure. Read more…
ALIEN: COVENANT – Jed Kurzel
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Alien Covenant is director Ridley Scott’s second prequel to the 1979 masterpiece Alien, following on from 2012’s Prometheus. In this film, which takes place fifteen years after the end of the previous one, we follow the space ship Covenant, which is ferrying several thousand human colonists to a remote Earth-like planet. However, an accident aboard the vessel kills the captain and forces other crew members to wake from stasis and carry out repairs; then, after they intercept what appears to be a distress call from a nearby planet, the new captain Oram (Billy Crudup) decides to investigate, despite the objections of both his second in command Daniels (Katherine Waterston), and the ship’s android Walter (Michael Fassbender). After arriving on the planet, Daniels quickly finds her misgivings to have been correct, and before long the crew is fighting for its life. Read more…
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 – Tyler Bates
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The latest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, in which writer/director James Gunn blends epic space action and special effects with broad comedy and a whole host of unresolved daddy issues. In the aftermath of the events of the first film, the Guardians – Star Lord Peter Quinn (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and the newly-sprouted Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) – are now working as heroes for hire, saving planets for a price. Unfortunately for the Guardians, the aftermath of their most recent job results in them running from the haughty and arrogant High Priestess of the Sovereigns (Elizabeth Debicki), space pirate Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker), and Gamora’s vengeful sister Nebula (Karen Gillan), all of whom have different reasons for wanting to find the Guardians. Unexpectedly, the Guardians receive help from an omnipotent and powerful creature named Ego (Kurt Russell), who claims to be Quinn’s father… Read more…
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM – Elmer Bernstein
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Actor John Garfield came across Nelson Algren’s novel The Man with the Golden Arm (1949) and was inspired to bring it to the big screen. He purchased the film rights and planned to take on the lead role of Frankie. He immediately ran into censoring problems as the Production Code Authority (PCA) and the Catholic National League of Decency (NLD) would not sanction the film because it featured drug trafficking and drug addiction. The film’s fate passed to renowned director Otto Preminger after he was bequeathed the film rights following Garfield’s death in 1952. Preminger related that he was attracted to the story because “I think there’s a great tragedy in any human being who gets hooked on something, whether it’s heroin or love or a woman or whatever.” Like Garfield, Preminger ran into a wall with the PCA and NLD, but he was determined to overcome all obstacles to fulfill his vision. He brought in Algren to adapt his novel, but personality clashes led to Algren’s replacement with screenwriter Walter Newman. Significant changes to the story were made, which led Algren to sue Preminger for the film rights, however the suit was later dropped as Algren could not afford the legal expenses. Read more…
EXTREME PREJUDICE – Jerry Goldsmith
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Extreme Prejudice is a western-flavored action thriller directed by Walter Hill, starring Nick Nolte as Jack Benteen, a grizzled Texas Ranger who teams up with a platoon of elite US Army commandos led by Major Hackett (Michael Ironside). Their mission is to take down a major trafficker running shipments of narcotics across the border from northern Mexico into El Paso; the only stumbling block, for Benteen at least, is the fact that the trafficker is Cash Bailey (Powers Boothe), Benteen’s childhood best friend. As the soldiers close in on Bailey’s compound, Benteen finds his loyalties tested, especially when a beautiful woman named Sarita (Maria Conchita Alonso) – both men’s ex-girlfriend – enters the fray. The film is a gritty, sweat-soaked, uncompromising thriller, and an homage to the great western The Wild Bunch, which received decent reviews when it opened in cinemas in May 1987. Read more…
VOICE FROM THE STONE – Michael Wandmacher
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Voice from the Stone is a supernatural thriller adapted from the novel La Voce Della Piera by Silvio Raffo, directed by Eric Howell. The film stars Emilia Clarke – Daenerys Targaryan from Game of Thrones – as Vera, a nurse in Tuscany in the 1950s who is hired by the recently widowed Klaus (Marton Csokas) to help his young son, Jakob (Edward George Dring), who has been mute and withdrawn since the death of his mother. However, as Vera comes to learn more about the boy and his father, and their relationship with the deceased wife/mother, she begins to discover ghostly goings on within the wall of Klaus’s imposing castle home, some of which begin to affect her on a deeply personal level. The film is a beautifully shot, handsomely mounted production that makes wonderful use of the evocative Italian locations, and features an impressively restrained and attractive score by composer Michael Wandmacher. Read more…
GODZILLA – Akira Ifukube
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Toho studio producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was greatly impressed by the film The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and resolved to create a Japanese version. He penned his own script and pitched it to Toho Studio executive Iwao Mori, who signed off on the project. Renowned special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya was hired and affirmed that it was financially and technologically feasible to create the monster, suggesting the use suitmation (an actor in a costume suit) over stop motion animation. Ishirō Honda was given the reigns to direct the film and he selected a fine cast which included Akira Takarada as Captain Hideto Ogata, Momoko Kochi as Emiko Yamane, Akihiko Hirata as Daisuke Serizawa and Takashi Shimura as Dr. Kyohei Yamane. The screenplay underwent several incarnations, evolving over time with contributions from many writers including Tsuburaya, science fiction writer Shigeru Kayama, Takeo Murata, and Honda. Read more…
THE PROMISE – Gabriel Yared
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Armenian genocide that took place between 1915 and 1917 was the systematic extermination of more than 1.5 million Armenians by the government of the Ottoman Empire in what is now Turkey. It’s one of the most overlooked examples of ethnic cleansing of the 20th century – and one which the current Turkish government still refuses to acknowledge – but it is now starting to become more widely recognized. Director Terry George’s film The Promise looks poised to be one of the first films to examine the historical importance of the period; it’s a sweeping epic set during the final years of the Ottoman Empire which focuses on the love triangle that develops between an Armenian medical student (Oscar Isaac), an acclaimed American journalist in Paris (Christian Bale), and an Armenian-born woman raised in France (Charlotte Le Bon), and which uses the backdrop of the genocide for social context. Read more…
PROJECT X – James Horner
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Project X was a genre-defying film – part action, part sci-fi, part-comedy, part drama – directed by Jonathan Kaplan from a screenplay by Lawrence Lasker and Stanley Weiser. Matthew Broderick starred as young US Air Force researcher Jimmy Garrett, who is assigned to a top secret project that involves teaching chimpanzees to fly planes. He bonds with one of the chimps, Virgil, after he discovers that it was taught sign language by its previous owner, graduate student Teri MacDonald (Helen Hunt). When Jimmy realizes that Virgil, along with all the other chimps, is supposed to die as part of the project’s research into the effects of radiation poisoning, he finds and contacts Teri; appalled by what the government is going to do to the animals, they agree to work together to rescue Virgil, and stop the project. The film co-stars William Sadler, Jonathan Stark, Stephen Lang, and Jean Smart, and was well received by critics at the time, who praised it as a ‘young person’s morality tale’ that tackles the important subject of animal welfare. Read more…
THEIR FINEST – Rachel Portman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the 1940s, at the height of World War II, the British Ministry of Information made numerous morale-boosting propaganda films intended to help raise the spirits of the public during the time of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, extolling the bravery and sacrifice of the lads fighting Nazis the overseas. Their Finest, which is directed by Lone Scherfig from a novel by Lissa Evans, is a comedy-drama which recounts the fictional creation of one of these films from the point of view of Catrin Cole, an aspiring young writer-director whose talents are being squandered by the Ministry because of her gender. The film stars Gemma Arterton as Catrin, Bill Nighy as the star of the film Ambrose Hillard, features Sam Claflin, Jack Huston, Helen McCrory, and Eddie Marsan in supporting roles, and has a score by that most English of film composers, Rachel Portman. Read more…
THE SEVEN SAMURAI – Fumio Hayasaka
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Groundbreaking Japanese director Akira Kurosawa was researching samurai lore for a planned film that would focus on a single day in a samurai’s life. He abandoned this idea when Toho Studio producer Sōjirō Motoki presented him with a tale, which intrigued him – aggrieved farmers hiring samurais to protect their village from bandits. He crafted a script with the assistance of Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, and secured Motoki’s blessings to proceed. This would mark Kurosawa’s first foray into a samurai film and he recruited a fine cast to realize his vision. He meticulously researched historical samurai to create identities for each of the seven. For his seven samurai he brought in Takashi Shimura as Kanbei Shimada, a war-weary ronin who leads the group; Yoshio Inaba as Gorōbei Katayama, a master archer and second in command; Daisuke Katō as Shichirōji, Shimada’s former lieutenant; Sejii Miyaguchi as Kyūzō, a skilled swordsman; Minoru Chiaki as the amiable Heihachi Hayashida; Isao Kimura as Katsushiro Okamoto, a young and untested warrior; and lastly Toshiro Mifune as the comic Kikuchiyo, a commoner pretending to be a samurai who eventually earns the right to be called one. Read more…
ON THE WATERFRONT – Leonard Bernstein
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Director Elia Kazan and novelist/playwright Arthur Miller sought to bring to the big screen a tough and gritty tale of New Jersey longshoremen who struggled to make a living in the late 1940s against mobsters and corrupt union officials. When they could not find any traction with the studios, Miller moved on, but Kazan never gave up on the idea. When he came upon a new screenplay by Budd Schulberg based upon a series of Pulitzer Prize winning articles “Crime on the Waterfront” by Malcolm Johnson, his hopes were rekindled. Well Kazan purchased the film rights and he and Schulberg pitched the screenplay to studio executive Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century Fox, but were rebuffed, with him saying, “Who’s going to care about a bunch of sweaty longshoremen?” Undeterred, Kazan sought out independent producer Sam Spiegel who managed to strike a deal with Columbia Pictures. For the film Kazan brought in a cast for the ages with Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy, Karl Malden as Father Barry, Lee Cobb as Johnny Friendly, Rod Steiger as Charlie Malloy, and Eve Marie Saint as Edie Doyle. Read more…
SHANE – Victor Young
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Director George Stevens of Paramount often relied on his son to screen material for future projects. One night George Jr. brought him the novel “Shane” by Jack Schaefer, which he thought was “a really good story”, and counseled him to read it. Well, the storytelling was indeed exceptional and Stevens resolved to bring it to the big screen. He hired A. B. Guthrie Jr. to write the screenplay based on his familiarity with Western lore, and then set out to recruit his cast. His initial choices for the lead roles of Montgomery Clift, William Holden and Katherine Hepburn did not pan out, and so Alan Ladd was cast in the titular role and joined with a fine supporting cast, which included Jean Arthur as Marian Starrett, Van Heflin as Joe Starrett, Brandon deWilde as Joey Starrett, Emile Meyer as Rufus Ryker, and Jack Palance as Jack Wilson. Read more…
THE BOSS BABY – Hans Zimmer, Steve Mazzaro
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Boss Baby is a raucous new animated comedy film from Dreamworks directed by Tom McGrath, based on the popular 2010 picture book by Marla Frazee, about the wildly imaginative adventures of a 7-year-old boy named Tim. One day a taxi arrives at Tim’s home, inside of which is a baby wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. Tim’s parents introduce the infant as a new brother, and there is an instant sibling rivalry between Tim and the pint-sized interloper. However, much to his surprise, Tim discovers that the baby can talk like an adult, and is actually a spy on a secret mission to thwart a dastardly plot that involves puppies taking over from babies as the cutest things in the world. The film, which features the voice talent of Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow, and Tobey Maguire, was a popular success at the box office over the spring of 2017, despite reviews criticizing it for its flimsy plotting and over-reliance on potty humor (although – it’s a film about a talking baby; potty humor is almost mandatory). Read more…
EVIL DEAD 2 – Joseph Lo Duca
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the wake of the unexpected success of the low-budget horror movie The Evil Dead in 1981, writer/director Sam Raimi was given $3.5 million by producer Dino Di Laurentiis to make a bigger-budget sequel, which both re-made the original film with better special effects and more professional production values, and continued the story. The result is 1987’s Evil Dead 2, in which the hapless hero Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) continues to do battle with the terrifying ‘deadites,’ re-animated corpses possessed by the evil power of an ancient book who prevent him from escaping the ‘cabin in the woods’ and returning to civilization with all his extremities intact. With it’s spectacularly gory blood-splattered special effects, overblown humor, and frenetic visual style, Evil Dead 2 quickly became a cult hit, almost doubling its budget at the box office, and initiating a franchise that continues to this day. The film co-starred Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley, and Richard Domeier, and had an original score by Michigan-born composer Joseph Lo Duca. Read more…
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