Archive
DOGMA – Howard Shore
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Kevin Smith’s Dogma stirred up a lot of ill feeling in the religious community upon its release. As the director of the irreverent Clerks and Chasing Amy, Smith is never one to shy away from courting controversy, but I doubt even he could have anticipated the severe backlash aimed at him by the Catholic church. Basically, they didn’t like the idea of their beliefs being mocked but the problem (as is often the case in these situations) was that they didn’t actually bother to sit down and watch the movie before condemning it. If anything, Dogma positively encourages the notion of having some sort of faith – in God, or Buddha, or Allah, or whatever – while taking pot shots at the many hypocrites who hold a bible in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other. Read more…
EXISTENZ – Howard Shore
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
David Cronenberg inspires Howard Shore to compose some of his best and most memorable movie music. Through such notable works as The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly and Crash, Cronenberg had always allowed Shore plenty of room to manoeuvre and stretch his musical muscles. eXistenZ is probably the most approachable and, from a soundtrack fan’s perspective, enjoyable work that has resulted from their collaboration to date. An original science fiction tale, eXistenZ is a film which again merges humanity and technology and blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. It stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as the designer of a virtual reality video game played through a genetically modified organism known as a “Game Pod”, which inserts an umbilical cord into a special socket inserted into the base of the player’s spinal column and taps into the player’s mind. When the game’s first demonstration goes wrong, Leigh and her bodyguard Jude Law are forced to run for their from various violent factions, all of whom want to stop eXistenZ from becoming a reality. Read more…

