Archive
ANTWONE FISHER – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I’m almost certain I’ve written this sentence before, but Mychael Danna continues to surprise and delight me with each new score he pens. The 45-year-old Canadian composer first challenged my perceptions of him with his brilliant, breathtaking Western epic Ride With The Devil, and has continued to impress me with such wide and varied works as Girl Interrupted, Green Dragon, Monsoon Wedding and Hearts in Atlantis. His 37th feature score, Antwone Fisher re-asserts Danna’s standing as one of the most talented and consistently enjoyable composers working today. Read more…
ARARAT – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In many ways, Ararat is Canadian director Atom Egoyan’s Schindler’s List: an intensely personal film which tackles a little-known cultural tragedy with the same depth and sensitivity Steven Spielberg lent his account of the Holocaust. Egoyan, whose parents were born in Armenia, is best known as an art-house auteur who, occasionally, directs a crossover mainstream hit, such as Exotica or the Oscar-nominated The Sweet Hereafter. It is difficult to know whether this film will follow in their footsteps, especially given its difficult subject matter and unusual structuring, but one thing is for sure: the accompanying music CD is well worth a listen. Read more…
MONSOON WEDDING – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Bollywood. Even today, in this enlightened age, the term conjures up hackneyed images of bad acting, bad dubbing, cheesy dance routines, and actors and actresses bursting into song at inappropriate moments, accompanied by a cast of thousands in tracksuits. In reality, the Indian film industry is the strongest and most successful on the planet, with the city of Bombay releasing more motion pictures in a year than anything from a Hollywood studio. But as well as the singing and dancing, India has real pedigree in “proper” drama, with films like Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen and Santosh Sivan’s recent Asoka proof of the sub-continent’s increasing aptitude for epics on a grand scale. Director Mira Nair, while not exactly a household name, has nevertheless become India’s top female director, with Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala, The Perez Family and Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love to her name. Her current film, Monsoon Wedding, is possibly her crowning glory to date. Read more…
BOUNCE – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The more of Mychael Danna’s music I hear, the more I am of the opinion that he is one of the most talented – and versatile – practitioners of film music working today. Having become noted for composing minimalist, ethnically-inflected scores for films such as Exotica, Kama Sutra and The Ice Storm, Danna bucked his own trend by writing two of the most interesting and challenging scores of 1999: the vivid, confrontational 8MM, and the sweeping, epic Ride with the Devil. The musical development of Danna continues with his lovely score for Bounce, the Canadian’s first mainstream romance. Bounce is directed by Don Roos (previously responsible for The Opposite of Sex) and stars Ben Affleck as businessman Buddy Amaral, who finds himself delayed at an airport while waiting for an overbooked flight to Los Angeles. Striking up a conversation with fellow passenger Greg Janello (Tony Goldwyn), Buddy thinks he is doing a good turn when he offers Greg his seat so he can get back in time to see his young son. In a tragic twist of fate, the plane Buddy should have been on then crashes, killing all on board. Racked with guilt and remorse, descending into alcoholism and quitting his job, Buddy seeks out Greg’s widow Abby (Gwyneth Paltrow) looking for some kind of redemption and forgiveness… and certainly not expecting to end up falling in love. Read more…
GIRL, INTERRUPTED – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Stories about people in mental hospitals are a great cinematic breeding ground, especially when they are true. Girl Interrupted has been described as “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest with chicks”, which is actually a pretty neat summary. James Mangold’s film effectively re-captured the sense of friendship and camaraderie that exists between the patients, the trivialities of their lives, the nuances and eccentricities of each character, and how they all rally round to help each other in times of need. Winona Ryder stars as Susanna Kaysen, a troubled young girl in 1960s America who, following prompting by family and friends, voluntarily checks into Claymoore state mental hospital to combat her “borderline personality disorder”. While inside, Susanna meets her fellow patients: compulsive liar Georgina (Clea Duvall), self-mutilator Daisy (Brittany Murphy), arsonist Polly (Elisabeth Moss), and uncontrollable sociopath Lisa (Angelina Jolie), whose anti-social presence has the greatest effect on Susanna’s rehabilitation. Read more…
RIDE WITH THE DEVIL – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Under normal circumstances, Taiwanese director Ang Lee and Canadian composer Mychael Danna would not be the first names to spring to mind when thinking of the appropriate people to collaborate on an epic civil war western, But, with Ride With The Devil, both men have undoubtedly done the best work of their careers to date. Adapted from the acclaimed novel Woe To Live On by Daniel Woodrell, Ride With The Devil gives a seldom-seen perspective on the American conflict by following the lives of two Missouri boys, Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire) and Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich), who join up with a ragtag army of Confederate bushwhackers after their parents are killed by Yankee troops. Although loyal to the South, the bushwhackers are ungoverned by the “proper” army, and primarily patrol their own territories, killing Yankees when they can, sacking Northern-allied towns when they can’t. As time progresses and the bloodshed increases, it soon becomes apparent that Jake and Jack Bull are slowly becoming more and more disenchanted with the “cause” they once so passionately believed in, and are questioning their own morality – especially after crossing paths with Sue Lee Shelley (Jewel), a young war widow, and Daniel Holt (Jeffrey Wright), a former slave who still remains with his former owner George Clyde (Simon Baker) and fights for the South. Read more…
FELICIA’S JOURNEY – Mychael Danna
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The mainstream musical development of Mychael Danna continues with his excellent, unusual score for Atom Egoyan’s drama Felicia’s Journey, starring Bob Hoskins and Elaine Cassidy. Based on the novel by William Trevor, Cassidy plays a young Irish woman – the Felicia of the title – who travels to Birmingham, England in the 1960s and encounters friendly catering manager Bob Hoskins, who offers her a room in his home. However, Hoskins is not all he appears to be, and soon Felicia finds herself at the mercy of an innocuous-looking monster, with no obvious means of escape. Read more…
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