Archive
WATERWORLD – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
For many years in Hollywood Waterworld – the title of Kevin Costner’s 1995 action-adventure movie – was a byword for financial disaster in moviemaking. Originally conceived by screenwriter Peter Rader in the mid-1980s as a low budget ‘Mad Max on water’ the script was eventually rewritten by David Twohy, whose version leaned heavily into the post-apocalyptic sci-fi genre. Costner, then at the height of his fame following hits like Dances with Wolves and The Bodyguard, signed on to produce and star, and he recruited Kevin Reynolds, who directed him in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, to helm the film. However, what started as a modestly budgeted film ballooned into a then-record-breaking $175 million production, eventually earning it the industry nicknames “Fishtar” and “Kevin’s Gate,” after notorious flops Ishtar and Heaven’s Gate. The production was plagued by logistical challenges, including destroyed sets, weather delays, crew injuries, and creative clashes between Costner and Reynolds, who eventually left the project entirely during post-production, leaving Costner to oversee the final edit. Read more…
OUTBREAK – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Outbreak is a medical disaster thriller directed by Wolfgang Petersen, inspired by Richard Preston’s 1994 nonfiction book The Hot Zone. The story begins when a highly contagious and lethal virus, named Motaba, is discovered in Zaire in 1967. The U.S. military secretly destroys the infected village to prevent its spread but keeps the virus as a potential bioweapon. Years later, the virus resurfaces when an illegally smuggled monkey carrying Motaba is brought into the United States. The monkey ends up in a small California town, where the virus mutates into an airborne strain, making it even deadlier; the disease spreads rapidly, causing severe hemorrhagic fever and killing its victims within days. U.S. Army virologist Colonel Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) and his team, including his ex-wife Dr. Roberta Keough (Rene Russo), race against time to find a cure. However, their efforts are hindered by General Donald McClintock (Donald Sutherland), who wants to suppress the outbreak to protect the military’s bioweapons program. As the town is placed under martial law and the military considers firebombing it, Daniels and his team try to track down the host monkey and develop a cure just in time to prevent mass destruction. Read more…
JUST CAUSE – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Just Cause is a psychological thriller based on the 1992 novel of the same name by John Katzenbach, directed by Arne Glimcher, starring Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, Blair Underwood, and Ed Harris. The film follows Paul Armstrong (Connery), a Harvard professor and former lawyer, who is drawn back into the legal world when an elderly woman pleads with him to help her grandson, Bobby Earl Ferguson (Underwood), a black man convicted of the brutal murder of a young girl in a small Florida town. Initially reluctant, Armstrong is convinced of Bobby Earl’s innocence after the accused claims that he was coerced into confessing by a ruthless sheriff, Tanny Brown (Fishburne). As Armstrong investigates, he uncovers more inconsistencies in the case and follows leads that point to another suspect, serial killer Blair Sullivan (Harris), who is incarcerated for another crime. However, as the case unravels, Armstrong slowly realizes that not everything is as it seems. 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…
THE FUGITIVE – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Fugitive is one of the best action thriller movies of the 1990s. It’s a big screen remake of the massively popular 1963 TV series, and sees Harrison Ford taking over from David Janssen in the title role as Dr Richard Kimble, an acclaimed Chicago vascular surgeon. One night, after coming home from a fundraiser, Kimble finds his beloved wife Helen (Sela Ward) fatally wounded, having been attacked by a one-armed man, who escapes after a fight. However, a mountain of misinterpreted circumstantial evidence leads to Kimble being wrongfully arrested and convicted of the murder. While on his way to death row, his prison transport bus crashes, and Kimble is able to escape. Enter US Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), a dogged and gruff but dedicated investigator, who is charged with re-capturing Kimble. So begins a terrific game of cat-and-mouse as Kimble tries to discover the identity of the real killer before Gerard catches up with him. The film was directed by Andrew Davis, and co-stars Joe Pantoliano, Andreas Katsulas, and Jeroen Krabbé, as well as Julianne Moore and Jane Lynch in early supporting roles. Read more…
DAVE – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There’s an old adage, which I’m paraphrasing, which says something like: “those who seek out power are the ones to whom it should not be given”. This philosophy is the heart of Dave, one of the best and most interesting comedy-dramas of the 1990s. The film stars Kevin Kline as Dave Kovic, the pleasant and genial owner of a temp agency in Washington, D.C., who, as a side job, capitalizes on his remarkable resemblance to US President Bill Mitchell by comically impersonating him at events. Dave is even occasionally hired by the Secret Service to impersonate the real Mitchell to allow him to carry out an extramarital affair – and it is while at one of these ‘clandestine’ events that Mitchell suffers a massive stroke and is left incapacitated. To cover it up, and to further his own political aspirations, Mitchell’s chief of staff Bob Alexander (Frank Langella) cooks up a scheme where Dave will continue to act as President, implicate the Vice President (Ben Kingsley) in a scandal, appoint Alexander in his place, and then ‘die’ for real, leaving Alexander in the oval office. However, Dave proves to be unexpectedly excellent at the top job, even reconciling with President Mitchell’s estranged wife Ellen (Sigourney Weaver), to the point where Dave wonders whether he shouldn’t have the job for real. The film co-stars Kevin Dunn, Ving Rhames, and Charles Grodin, and was directed by Ivan Reitman. Read more…
ALIVE – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In October 1972 a plane carrying a rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, who were on their way to play a game in Santiago, Chile, crashed high in the Andes mountains. 15 of the 45 passengers and crew died on impact but the others – some of whom were badly injured – quickly had to figure out how to survive. During the following 72 days, the survivors suffered extreme hardships, including exposure, starvation, and an avalanche, which led to the deaths of thirteen more passengers; famously, but reluctantly, they were forced to resort to cannibalism to stave off death due to lack of food. Eventually two of the rugby players – Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa – decided to strike out for help. They climbed a 15,000 foot mountain without gear, and then hiked almost 50 miles. It took them almost in 10 days, but they finally stumbled into a remote village, where they could obtain help and call for the Chilean Army to rescue the other survivors. This incredible story was turned into a book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read, and then eventually into this film, which was directed by Frank Marshall and starred Ethan Hawke, Josh Hamilton, and Vincent Spano. Read more…
FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE – James Newton Howard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE FILM, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER WAITING UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE DONE SO TO READ IT.
The latest cinematic entry in J. K. Rowling’s Wizarding World, after eight Harry Potter films, and the first two entries in the Fantastic Beasts prequel series, comes this eleventh film, subtitled The Secrets of Dumbledore. Like the first two Fantastic Beasts films, it follows the adventures of the magizoologist Newt Scamander, who becomes increasingly embroiled in the power struggle being waged between the wizard Albus Dumbledore, and the dark sorcerer Gellert Grindelwald, who wants to assert wizarding dominance over the non-magical ‘muggle’ world. The Secrets of Dumbledore picks up immediately where The Crimes of Grindelwald left off, with Grindelwald amassing an army of followers – including the orphaned Credence Barebone, who is actually a descendant of the Dumbledore family – while Dumbledore and Scamander travel from Berlin to Bhutan and beyond to try to stop him being elected as the Supreme Head of the International Confederation of Wizards. Eddie Redmayne reprises his role as Newt, Jude Law again plays Dumbledore, and Mads Mikkelsen replaces the scandal-plagued Johnny Depp as Grindelwald; these are joined by regular supporting cast members Dan Fogler, Ezra Miller, and Alison Sudol, while Callum Turner as Newt’s brother Theseus and Jessica Williams as American witch Lally Hicks see their roles significantly increased. Read more…
THE PRINCE OF TIDES – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Prince of Tides is a serious romantic drama, directed by Barbra Streisand, and adapted from the acclaimed novel by Pat Conroy. The film stars Nick Nolte as Tom Wingo, a football coach from South Carolina, who is asked to travel to New York to help his sister, Savannah, who has recently attempted suicide. In New York Tom meets with Savannah’s psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein (Streisand), and the two have an immediate attraction to each other, despite them both being married. As time goes on Tom and Susan grow closer, and Tom begins to reveal long-suppressed details about his past and his private life, some of which relates directly to the issues plaguing Savannah, However, their deepening romantic relationship also threatens to break up their respective marriages, which could have devastating consequences for both families. The film co-stars Blythe Danner, Jeroen Krabbé, and Melinda Dillon, and was both a critical and commercial success, grossing more than $135 million at the box office, and picking up seven Academy Award nominations. Read more…
DYING YOUNG – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Dying Young is a romantic drama directed by Joel Schumacher, based on the novel by Marti Leimbach, starring Julia Roberts and Campbell Scott. Roberts stars as Hilary, a young woman who is hired to be a live-in nurse for Victor (Scott), a wealthy and well educated young man who is dying of leukemia. Of the course of a summer Hilary and Victor slowly fall in love – much to the disapproval of her mother (Ellen Burstyn) and his father (David Selby), neither of whom want to see their children get hurt – and decide to make the best out of life in whatever short period they may have together. The whole thing was designed to be a three-hanky weepie for incurable romantics who revel in tragic love stories, and it helped push Julia Roberts’s star even further into the stratosphere, considering that this was her fourth starring role in two years after Pretty Woman, Flatliners, and Sleeping With the Enemy, but it was not a hit with the critics – Roger Ebert said it was “a long, slow slog of a movie, up to its knees in drippy self-pity as it marches wearily toward its inevitable ending,” while Janet Maslin in Variety wrote simply said “Julia’s hot; Dying Young is lukewarm”. Read more…
THE MAN IN THE MOON – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Man in the Moon is an emotional coming-of-age drama, written by Jenny Wingfield, and directed by Robert Mulligan – the final film of the man behind such classics as To Kill a Mockingbird and Summer of ‘42. The film stars Reese Witherspoon in her big-screen debut as Dani Trant, a teenage girl growing up in rural Louisiana in the 1950s. The film plots her life over the course of a summer, as she deals with her relationship with her parents and her siblings, her emerging sexuality, family tragedies, and especially her feelings for an older boy named Court who moves into the farm next door. The film co-stars Sam Waterston, Tess Harper, Gail Strickland, and Jason London, and was one of the most acclaimed films of its type in 1991; Roger Ebert called it “a wonderful movie … a victory of tone and mood, like a poem,” and praised Witherspoon’s breakout performance. Read more…
JUNGLE CRUISE – James Newton Howard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The latest big-screen adventure based on a ride at Disneyland, following on the heels of Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and Tomorrowland, is Jungle Cruise. I always considered the ride to be somewhat corny – you take a boat down a slow moving river, see animatronics of hippos and ‘tribal warriors,’ and get to experience ‘the back side of water,’ while being regaled with dad jokes and puns by a khaki-clad guide. I didn’t know how they were going to turn this leisurely jaunt down the water into a family action-adventure film, but director Jaume Collet-Serra and screenwriters Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, and Michael Green have somehow done just that. The film is set in 1916 and stars Emily Blunt as Dr. Lily Houghton, a British botanist who travels to the South American jungles with her reluctant, foppish brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) in search of the famed ‘Tears of the Moon,’ a mythical plant whose petals have extraordinary healing powers. Upon her arrival in the Amazon she hires local riverboat skipper Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) to be her guide; however, she is not the only person searching for the Tears of the Moon, and before long Lily and Frank are embroiled in an adventure involving mysterious curses, conquistadors, tribes of cannibals, and a German aristocrat with a nefarious agenda of his own. Read more…
RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON – James Newton Howard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The first of Disney’s two animated films scheduled to be released in 2021, Raya and the Last Dragon is a fantasy adventure set in an alternate-reality version of Southeast Asia. In this universe, humans have been hunted by creatures called druuns for generations, but are now protected by a magical orb created by dragons – with the caveat being that the dragons all turned to stone once they created the orb. Raya is the daughter of Benja, the powerful tribal chief who guards the orb, but during a feast celebration Raya is tricked into revealing the location of the orb to the daughter of a different tribal leader, who is jealous of Benja’s power. The resulting fight leads to the orb being almost destroyed, and the threat of the druuns returning. Wanting to make amends and save her people, Raya sets off on a quest to locate Sisu, the mythical last dragon, and the only one which did not turn to stone, in the hope that it can help create a new orb. The film was directed by Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada, and features a voice cast of almost entirely East Asian and Southeast Asian actors, including Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong, and Sandra Oh. Read more…
NEWS OF THE WORLD – James Newton Howard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Back in the late 1800s news readers were, obviously, not the people we tune into on the TV every night. Instead, individuals would go from town to town – especially rural, isolated towns – armed with copies of all the big newspapers from the cities, and would charge folk a dime a head to read the news aloud from the journals. Director Paul Greengrass’s new film News of the World, adapted from the novel by Paulette Jiles, is about one such man. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd is a civil war veteran, now making his living as a news reader. Kidd’s life changes when he is entrusted with the care of a 10-year-old girl named Johanna, who had been abducted by local Kiowa natives years previously, and subsequently grew up within the tribe. Kidd agrees to transport Johanna to her only remaining family in Texas, but Johanna has been captive so long that she would prefer to stay with the Kiowa, and she views her return to those distant relatives as a kind of second kidnapping. Nevertheless, Kidd and Johanna begin their long journey across the wild west, encountering danger and treachery as they do so. The film stars Tom Hanks as Kidd and Helena Zengel as Johanna, and is tipped to be a major player at the upcoming Academy Awards. Read more…
FLATLINERS – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Flatliners was one of several films released in 1990 to deal with the topic of the afterlife and near-death experiences. Directed by Joel Schumacher from a screenplay by Peter Filardi, the film follows a group of young and ambitious medical students who, in an attempt to unlock some of the mysteries of life, start to experiment on each other with ‘near-death experiences.’ The students take turns with each other to stop each other’s hearts in a laboratory setting, trying to initiate visions of the ‘afterlife,’ and then hopefully bring each other back using defibrillators before death becomes permanent. One by one, the students volunteer to ‘flatline,’ but in the aftermath of their experiences they are each haunted by horrifying and disturbing visions of their respective pasts. The film starred Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, and Oliver Platt, as the five students; the film was a hit with audiences upon its release, grossing $61 million at the box office, and was nominated for an Oscar for its sound editing. Read more…
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