Archive
THE ARTIST – Ludovic Bource
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Each year, around this time, an unexpected art house film emerges as a critical darling with Academy Awards potential. It happened to Life is Beautiful in 1998, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in 2000, Brokeback Mountain in 2005, Juno in 2007, Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, Precious in 2009… the list goes on and on. In 2011, that film could be The Artist, director Michel Hazanavicius’s story about a silent movie matinee idol in 1920s Hollywood whose career is threatened by the advent of sound in motion pictures. The difference here, unlike those other films, is that The Artist is a silent film itself, shot in black and white and in such a way that the style and tone of the piece mirrors the very films in which Hazanavicius’s protagonist appears. The movie stars Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle and Penelope Ann Miller, and has already opened to great critical acclaim in the United States. Read more…
55 DAYS AT PEKING – Dimitri Tiomkin
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
55 Days at Peking is an epic film which joined politics and a love story as it explored European imperialism at the dawn of the 20th century. Set in Peking (now Beijing) we see the capital city occupied and under the financial domination of eleven European countries and Japan. They exploit the populace, are immune from Chinese laws and compete for economic control. A populist peasant rebellion called the Boxers rises up with fury and covert support from the Dowager Empress to expel the foreigners and restore Chinese honor and sovereignty. Producer Samuel Bronston assembled a stellar cast that included Charlton Heston as U.S. Major Matt Lewis, Ava Gardner as Russian Baroness, Natalie Ivanoff with whom he falls in love and David Niven as Sir Arthur Robinson, head of the British delegation. Regretfully despite the grandeur of its sets, its splendor and pageantry, the film’s narrative was uninspired, its script weak, and it suffered massive production challenges; implacable hostility between Heston and Gardner (she quit the film and they were forced to kill off her character!), went through four directors and ended up being both a commercial and critical failure. Read more…
IMMORTALS – Trevor Morris
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Considering what a rich and vivid palette they have, and how much potential there is for great storytelling, there haven’t been many great films made about Greek gods. In the past couple of years Hollywood has tried to work its way into that world, with films like Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the remake of Clash of the Titans, but found limited success. Unfortunately, Immortals continues the trend by being a film with a great deal of promise, but which is severely lacking in dramatic content. The film is directed by Tarsem Singh, and stars Henry Cavill as Theseus, a simple mortal man who is chosen by Zeus (Luke Evans), the king of the Gods, to put an end to the reign of Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), a ruthless tyrant who is searching for the mythical Epirus Bow, a weapon of such enormous power that it has the capability to release the Titans – vicious warriors who were enslaved by the Gods centuries ago – and with which he intends to wage war on the Gods themselves. The film, which also stars Stephen Dorff, Frieda Pinto and John Hurt, looks fantastic, as is always the case with Tarsem’s films, but suffers from terrible pacing, especially in the film’s first half, confusing interchangeable characters which make empathy difficult, and a curious lack of connection with the audience, which left me unexpectedly uninvolved and – at times – rather bored. Style over substance, it seems. Read more…
THE RUM DIARY – Christopher Young
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Rum Diary doesn’t quite know what kind of film it wants to be. On the one hand it’s another wry look at life through the alcohol-soaked and frequently hilarious lens of the late Gonzo author Hunter S. Thompson, on whose novel this film is based, and on whom the lead character Paul Kemp is clearly modeled. On the other hand, it’s a comparatively serious examination of the American suppression of native culture of Puerto Rico in the 1950s, specifically the way in which rich industrialists manipulate the system and steal from the local landowners in order to line their pockets. Then again, it’s a romance, in which the Kemp character falls in lust with the beautiful young wife of a shady entrepreneur. But, most of all, it’s a love letter to Puerto Rico itself – the unspoiled beaches, the sunny climes, the generous people, and the seemingly unlimited supply of alcohol that keep the wheels of the island greased. Read more…
PUSS IN BOOTS – Henry Jackman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Given the worldwide success of the Shrek franchise, it was only a matter of time before we started seeing spinoffs, and so it comes as no surprise that the fall of 2011 sees the release of Puss in Boots. The feline lover-and-fighter quickly became an enormously popularly character following his initial appearance in Shrek 2, with his swashbuckling ways, his flirtatious voice (provided by Antonio Banderas), and his secret weapon – big, adorable eyes which turn grown men to jelly – and this new movie focuses solely on him. Directed by Chris Miller, the film again features Banderas as the leading voice, and is a prequel of sorts, telling the story of the events leading up to Puss’s introduction to Shrek and Donkey, from Puss’s point of view. The cast features the voices of Salma Hayek as Puss’s paramour Kitty Softpaws, Zach Galifianakis as Humpty Dumpty, Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris as Jack and Jill, and even Guillermo Del Toro as the mysterious Moustache Man. Read more…
THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN – John Williams
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I think you have to be Belgian, or at least a Francophone, to fully appreciate all the subtleties and nuances of Tintin. Created by the Belgian artist and author Georges Rémi under his pen name Hergé, the character first appeared in print in 1929 and went on to appear in 23 adventure novels spanning a 46-year period up until 1975, followed by the posthumous publication of a final story in 1986, three years after Hergé’s death. Not only that, the stories have been adapted for radio, theatre, and a popular 1960s animated television show with its famous voiceover proclaiming that you are watching “Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin!” Despite all that, and for reasons I have never fully understood I was never a fan of the franchise – unlike Hollywood giant Steven Spielberg, who is not a Francophone, but who is adapting the story for its first major big screen adventure using state of the art-motion capture technology. Read more…
LE GRAND PARDON/THE BIG PARDON – Serge Franklin
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Le Grand Pardon is, for all practical purposes, a Jewish version/variation of the famous 1972 film “The Godfather”. The story focuses on the Bettouns, a family of Sephardic Jews and the expanding criminal enterprise run by head of the family Raymond, their godfather. Growing tensions play out as we see Raymond’s inability to compartmentalize his criminal enterprise from the intimacy of his family life as a turf war develops and escalates with a rival Arabic gang. It suffices to say unlike director Alexandre Arcady’s first film, the successful “Le Coup de Sirocco”, that “Le Grand Pardon” was unsuccessful both critically and commercially. Read more…
THE THING – Marco Beltrami
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s The Thing is a prequel to the popular and influential 1982 film of the same name, which was directed by John Carpenter and starred Kurt Russell and Wilford Brimley. The first few moments of that film show a Norwegian man in a helicopter shooting at a dog barreling across the frozen wastes of the Antarctic; the next 20 minutes reveal that the Norwegian was part of a scientific team, all of whose members have been gruesomely killed, and their research station burned to the ground. This film looks at the circumstances leading up to that awful discovery – who the Norwegians were, what they found buried deep beneath the ice, and more importantly, what killed them. The film stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, and a whole host of Norwegian character actors in the smaller roles, and has an original score by Marco Beltrami, who spends part of his time channeling Ennio Morricone, and the rest of the time drawing upon his considerable horror movie music experience. Read more…
DESCENTE AUX ENFERS/DESCENT INTO HELL – Georges Delerue
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The 1986 film Descente Aux Enfers was adapted from the murder mystery novel by author David Goodis. It tells the story of Alan Kolber (Claude Brasseur), a middle-aged alcoholic French crime novelist and his wife Lola (a very young Sophie Marceau in one of her first film roles), a young woman half his age who are struggling in an unhappy marriage. They resolve to take a holiday to Haiti in an attempt to reset their marriage. Things go terribly awry when a drunken Alan kills a mugger and ends up being blackmailed for murder when he fails to report the incident. What unfolds is a tale of drama and hidden secrets as aspects of Lola’s past come to light as they struggle to find funds to pay the blackmailer. Read more…
MONEYBALL – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
You would think it would be quite difficult to make an interesting film about baseball statistics, but that’s what the makers of Moneyball have done. It tells the story of the wonderfully-named Billy Beane who, in 2002, having been recently made the general manager of the struggling Oakland Athletics MLB franchise, rocks the baseball world to its core by embracing a controversial new statistical method of choosing players to sign called sabermetrics in an attempt to turn around the fortunes of his team. Directed by Bennett Miller and based on a popular book by Michael Lewis, the film stars Brad Pitt as Beane, Jonah Hill as his assistant Peter Brand, and features Robin Wright, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt and Casey Bond in supporting roles. Read more…
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA – Paul J. Smith
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
This classic Jules Verne’s novel was adapted to the screen by Earl Felton. It tells the story of the adventure of Professor Aronnax (Paul Lukas), Ned Land (Kirk Douglas) and Conseil (Peter Lorre) whom Captain Nemo (James Mason) captures after he sinks their ship. Aboard his submarine the Nautilus, they explore the underwater wonders of the sea and battle amazing sea creatures. But all is not well as Nemo, despite his scientific genius, is quite mad and uses the power of the Nautilus to pursue a course of vengeance upon humanity. Ultimately Nemo is undone by his own demons and arrogance as he and the Nautilus perish into the ocean depths as our three heroes escape. The film was the first to use the new Cinemascope technology and was both a commercial and critical success, earning Oscars for Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects. Read more…
A SYMPHONY OF HOPE: THE HAITI PROJECT – Christopher Lennertz et al.
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
On January 12, 2010, the city of Port-au-Prince in Haiti was effectively flattened when it was struck by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake. Within a matter of seconds over 50,000 people had been killed, and over a million people left homeless. Diseases such as cholera blighted the survivors and thwarted relief efforts, and since then the humanitarian crisis in the country has reached staggering proportions, with over 250,000 residences destroyed and basic services and infrastructure left in ruins. Reacting to the global call for help, film composer Christopher Lennertz was inspired to act. Calling upon his fellow composers and other members of the Los Angeles film music community of musicians and engineers, Lennertz teamed up with the charity Hands Together to create A Symphony of Hope: The Haiti Project, a musical fundraising project intended to help the people of Haiti. Read more…
STRAW DOGS – Larry Groupé
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The original Straw Dogs, which was directed by Sam Peckinpah, hit unsuspecting cinema goers like a hammer in 1971, and was an incredibly controversial film in it’s time. The film tells the story of a mild mannered American academic David (originally played by Dustin Hoffman) and his pleasant English wife Amy (originally played by Susan George), who move to a rural part of England and immediately become the subject of increasingly intense harassment by the locals. Things come to a head after Amy is brutally raped by several local men who are ostensibly working on the house, and before long David finds himself having to defend his house, his family, and his life, from circumstances that are spiraling out of control. The original film’s controversy arose due to the fact that, during the rape sequence, it was left intentionally ambiguous as to whether the Amy character actually enjoyed being raped, and this possible misogynism left a nasty taste in the mouths of censors and cinema viewers at the time. This remake of the film is directed by Rod Lurie, stars James Marsden and Kate Bosworth in the lead roles, and relocates the action from rural England to the Deep South of Mississippi, a regular location for the cinematic depiction of shitty-shoed rednecks and their unsavory sexual proclivities. Read more…
THE GREAT SANTINI – Elmer Bernstein
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The Great Santini was adapted from Pat Conroy’s semi-autographical tribute to his father Bull Meechum, a tough, and hard-edged Marine fighter pilot. The film explores how he struggles in peacetime to adapt to his new life as well as to be a loving father and husband without relinquishing his tough guy warrior image. The film starred Robert Duvall as Col. “Bull” Meechum, Michael O’Keefe as his eldest son, Ben and Blythe Danner as his wife, Lillian. Although the film was a critical success and earned Oscar nominations for both Duvall and O’Keefe, it was a commercial failure, never able to resonate with the viewing public. Read more…
FRIGHT NIGHT – Ramin Djawadi
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The original Fright Night was one of my favorite scary movies of the 1980s, a wonderfully grotesque comedy horror about a teenage movie nerd named Charley Brewster who finds out that a real live (dead?) vampire is living next door; in order to stop the evil vampire from taking over the neighborhood – and, more importantly, turning his cute girlfriend into a bloodsucking fiend – Charley teams up with aging TV anthology host and one-time vampire-hunter Peter Vincent to take on the forces of darkness. The 2011 remake is directed by Craig Gillespie (the creator of United States of Tara), and stars Anton Yelchin as Charley, David Tennent as Vincent, and Colin Farrell, hamming it up as the suave, but deadly Jerry Dandridge. Read more…
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