Archive
CANDYMAN – Philip Glass
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Of the best and most interesting horror films of the 1990s was Candyman, directed by Bernard Rose, and based on the short story The Forbidden by Clive Barker. It’s a story that takes issues of racism, illicit love, poverty, societal decay, and the prevalence of urban legends, and grafts them on to a horrific framing story involving Helen Lyle, a philosophy student at the University of Chicago. Helen’s research leads her to Cabrini Green, a run down housing project in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, which is plagued by stories about the ‘candyman,’ a vengeful spirit who kills anyone who says his name five times in front of a mirror. As Helen becomes more and more obsessed with the Candyman legend, and she learns about the terrible true story that gave birth to the myth, the people around her begin to be killed in increasingly gruesome ways, and the police begin to believe that Helen is the culprit. The film starred Virginia Madsen, Xander Berkeley, Kasi Lemmons, and Tony Todd in a career-defining role as the bee-covered honey-smeared nightmare demon, and has since gone on to become a cult classic, with commentators calling it “haunting, intelligent and poetic,” “atmospheric and visually stimulating,” and “the finest Barker adaptation ever committed to film.” Read more…
NO RESERVATIONS – Philip Glass and Conrad Pope
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A gastronomical romantic comedy starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckhart, No Reservations follows the fortunes of top New York chef Kate (Jones), and the way her life changes when she unexpectedly becomes the guardian of her young niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine). Director Scott Hicks’s cute romance was a comparative box-office success, but had a somewhat checkered musical history.
Originally Philip Glass – yes, Philip Glass! – was hired to write the music for his first Hollywood romantic comedy, and recorded a full score; however, during the film’s post-production the executives at Castle Rock decided that a warmer and more traditional romantic score was required in certain places Read more…
NOTES ON A SCANDAL – Philip Glass
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
If you’d have told me five years ago that Philip Glass, by the end of 2006, would regularly be scoring fairly mainstream Hollywood studio pictures – pictures starring people like Nicole Kidman, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Edward Norton, Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench – I would have scarcely believed it. If you had told me that each of these scores would receive generally positive critical acclaim from the film music community, and that he would pick up a myriad of Oscar, Golden Globe and other nominations for them, I would also have been skeptical. But yet, here we are, and this is exactly what has happened. The darling of the classical set, one of the pioneers of minimalism, one of the most respected composers of the 20th century has, finally, fully and wholeheartedly embraced film music. Read more…
THE ILLUSIONIST – Philip Glass
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I make no secret of the fact that, for the most part, I’m not a huge fan of Philip Glass’s music. Over the years, scores such as Kundun, The Hours, and his ‘qatsi’ trilogy, which were all acclaimed by the mainstream music media, have generally left me cold and un-moved. His style of writing, the repeated rhythmic patterns, the micro-motifs, and the entrenched ‘minimalism’ just doesn’t appeal to my ear. As far as Philip Glass the composer is concerned, however, I gained a great deal of respect for him as a person when, several years ago, he began conducting a fascinating ‘experiment’ on himself by agreeing to score mainstream Hollywood studio movies – the Angelina Jolie thriller Taking Lives, the Stephen King adaptation Secret Window, and so on – simply to see whether he could do it or not. Whereas the contemporary classical music world tends to sneer at film music as being a lesser art form, Glass took the trouble to discover for himself just how difficult a job being a mainstream film composer can be, and in doing so endeared himself to many who have been arguing this very point for years – myself included. It perhaps comes as no surprise, therefore, to discover that his latest effort is a very high-profile, mainstream studio picture: the elegant magical romantic adventure, The Illusionist. Read more…
THE HOURS – Philip Glass
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In film music circles, Philip Glass is the victim of a certain degree of “reverse-snobbishness” that is rather unusual. As a classical composer, some of his film music work lacks the same depth of emotion as those by his contemporaries – not because he cannot write in this way but because, as he still maintains a high standing in the classical music world, he seems to embrace the “technique over emotion” standpoint favored by the classical glitterati. It is surprising, therefore, to discover that The Hours is by far his most emotional film score to date. Sadly, it sounds broadly like every other score he has written, and is repetitive to a point where you almost want to pull out your hair. Read more…
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