Archive
BYZANTIUM – Javier Navarrete
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Byzantium is director Neil Jordan’s second vampire movie, almost twenty years after he received critical acclaim for his adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire. Byzantium is based on another celebrated source, a stage play of the same name by Moira Buffini, but follows a very different kind of vampire. Set in modern times in the town of Hastings on the English south coast, it stars Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan as Clara and Eleanor, two female vampires eking out an existence of the edges of civilization. Eleanor is sweet, introverted, and kind, only feeding on the elderly after they have given their consent. Clara is more brazen, working as a cheap prostitute in funfairs and lap-dancing clubs to make ends meet. After a fortuitous encounter with a sad-sack named Noel (Daniel Mays) who just happens to own a run-down hotel on the sea front – the Byzantium of the title – Clara tries to turn her hand to business, converting the hotel into a discreet brothel where she can work, and feed, as she needs to. Eleanor, however, despite her introversion, longs for friends, and strikes up a tentative relationship with Frank (Caleb Landry-Jones), a shy waiter recovering from leukemia. However, danger is never far away for Clara and Eleanor, and before long ghosts from their distant past come calling, revealing who they are, how they came to be vampires, and why they are being hunted… Read more…
WORLD WAR Z – Marco Beltrami
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Despite initially looking like a potentially disastrous movie, with the whole final third of the movie having to be re-written and re-shot following disastrous initial test screenings, World War Z is actually of the most intelligent and interesting zombie movies of recent years. With the 28 Days Later franchise, the Walking Dead TV show, and countless other imitators, zombies are de rigeur these days, but where World War Z differs is in the fact that it plays more like a tense medical thriller than a traditional zombie-slaughtering action flick, concentrating on the efforts to stem the tide of the potential apocalypse and save the afflicted rather than simply massacring them. Brad Pitt stars as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations specialist who is called back into the fray from his quiet family life in suburban Philadelphia when a pandemic of global proportions erupts – people are turning into vicious, violent zombies at an alarming rate and if Gerry and his colleagues can’t find the source, or the cure, it could be the end of humanity as we know it. The film is adapted from the popular novel by Max Brooks and directed by Marc Forster, whose previous films include Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland and the flop James Bond film Quantum of Solace; it co-stars Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz and James Badge Dale. Read more…
THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK – Alfred Newman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Francis Goodrich and Albert Kackett successfully adapted the novel Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl for the Broadway stage. When it secured both a Tony award and a Pulitzer prize Warner Brothers bought the film rights and hired George Stevens to produce and direct a film adaptation. Unknown Millie Perkins was hired for the title role and was supported by Otto Schilkraut (her father Otto), Gusti Huber (her mother Edith), Richard Beymer (her boyfriend Peter Van Daan) and Shelly Winters (Petronella Van Daan). The story is set in Nazi occupied Holland where Otto Frank and his family have decided to go into hiding, because of the increasing persecutions against Jews. A sympathetic local businessman Kraler and his assistant Miep prepare a hiding place in the rooms above their place of business, and arrange for the Franks and another family, the Van Daans, to stay there. Later on, they are joined by the dentist Dussel. Together, living in isolation, they try to avoid detection while praying for Holland to be liberated by the Allies. This poignant story explores the life of persecuted people living in constant fear as seen through the eyes of Anne. The film was a stunning commercial success and won critical acclaim, securing eight Academy nominations including best score for Alfred Newman, who lost to Rozsa’s magnificent effort Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Read more…
MAN OF STEEL – Hans Zimmer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Before I begin this review of Man of Steel, let me make one or two things perfectly clear. I do not hate Hans Zimmer, or his music. I’ve met him on a couple of occasions, and he’s an extremely nice and friendly man. As a composer, I think he’s very talented. He was a genuinely groundbreaking artist when he first emerged on the scene in the late 1980s, and broke the film music mould when he wrote scores like Black Rain, Backdraft and Crimson Tide. I absolutely adore many of his works, ranging from A League of Their Own to The Prince of Egypt, The Last Samurai and Pearl Harbor. I think Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is a masterpiece, and close to being the best score of his entire career. I have a few issues with the way his Remote Control organization has come to dominate the mainstream Hollywood film scoring world, but I admire him as a shrewd businessman, and he did help launch the careers of John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams among others, which is praise-worthy in itself. Having said that, I think Man of Steel is a colossal failure of both musical ingenuity and conceptual approach. Read more…
EPIC – Danny Elfman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Epic is an environmentally-themed animated adventure film for children, directed by Chris Wedge and loosely based on the novel ‘The Leaf Men and The Brave Good Bugs’ by William Joyce . It follows the adventures of a young girl named Mary Katherine who, while on a visit with her eccentric scientist father, is magically shrunk down to tiny size by Tara, Queen of the Forest, who lives nearby. Entrusted with delivering an ancient prophecy regarding the queen’s heir, Mary Katherine soon becomes involved in an aeons-old war between the heroic Leaf Men, who protect the forest, and the Boggans, who want to destroy it. As all these animated films these days, the film boasts an impressive voice cast, including Amanda Seyfried, Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Christoph Waltz, Aziz Ansari, Chris O’Dowd, Jason Sudeikis, and music stars Beyoncé Knowles, Pitbull and Steven Tyler. Read more…
GAGARIN: FIRST IN SPACE – George Kallis
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Gagarin: First in Space is a Russian film directed by Pavel Parkhomenko, about the life of Yuri Gagarin who, in 1961 became first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth. The film – which, to Russians, has a similar sense of national pride and honor as films like The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 does to Americans – stars Yaroslav Zhalnin as Gagarin, and features a rousing, heroic score by Cypriot composer George Kallis. Read more…
PROVIDENCE – Miklós Rózsa
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Providence served as the first English-language film from renowned French director Alain Resnais. True to form Resnais provides us with a drama about an unsympathetic, spiteful, alcoholic novelist, which again features his trademark playful surrealist touches and recurring use of characters shackled by recurrent memories. The story reveals Clive Langham (Sir John Gielgud) spending a painful night in his bed suffering from age ending health problems, vainly trying to create a final story based on his family played by Ellen Burstyn (Sonia), Dirk Bogarde (Claude) and David Warner (Kevin). He is an incredibly bitter man, drunken and tormented, who reveals through a series of flashbacks an unsympathetic, spiteful, conniving family. Clive makes each of his family members interact in a variety of bizarre settings – courtrooms, mortuaries and werewolf-haunted forests. It is apparent that his perceptions are distorted by a terrible bitterness and guilt, the full extent of this is not made clear until the end, when his “real” family members come to his house to celebrate his 78th birthday. The film was both a commercial and a critical success, earning the 1978 César Award for Best Film. Read more…
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS – Michael Giacchino
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 second of director J.J. Abrams’ newly-revamped “alternate timeline” Star Trek movies is Star Trek Into Darkness, one of the most anticipated films of the early summer months of 2013. Set one year after the events of the last Star Trek film, Into Darkness finds Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and the crew of the Starship Enterprise – First Officer Spock (Zachary Quinto), Chief Medical Officer Bones McCoy (Karl Urban), Chief Engineer Scott (Simon Pegg), Navigation Officer Sulu (John Cho), Communications Officer Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Ensign Chekov (Anton Yelchin) – on a mission to observe a primitive humanoid race on a distant planet. When one of the crew members finds his life in jeopardy Kirk is forced to violate the Starfleet prime directive of non-interference in order to rescue him, and upon his return to Earth is demoted by his commanding officer, Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood). However, things suddenly change when a mysterious terrorist named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) attacks a Starfleet installation and murders several high ranking officers, before fleeing to Kronos, the home world of the brutal and warlike Klingon race. Given permission to go after Harrison by Starfleet Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller), and with a cache of prototype photon torpedos on board, Kirk and the crew sets off on a covert mission… but before long doubts about Harrison’s identity, and his motivations, begin to surface. Read more…
LA MULA/THE MULE – Óscar Navarro
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
La Mula is a drama based on the novel by Juan Eslava Galán, written and directed by Michael Radford, which tells the story of a soldier named Castro (Mario Casas) who finds a mule on the battlefields and travels through the country with it, observing the effects and aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. The film, which was disowned by its director during post-production, was actually completed in 2010, but sat on a shelf for almost four years, until all its legal and distribution issues were resolved. Thankfully, for score fans, the film was released in 2013, which gave us the chance to hear its wonderful music, written by young Spanish composer Óscar Navarro – this is his debut feature score, and it’s a gem. Read more…
OSZUKANE/DECEIVED – Bartlomiej Gliniak
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Oszukane – known in English as “Decieved” – is a Polish drama film directed by Marcin Solarz. It stars Sylwia Boroń and Carolina Chapko as Aneta and Natalia, two teenage girls who meet by chance, but then discover that they are actually twin sisters, separated at birth as a result of a mistake made by the hospital in which they were born. The score for the film is by a young, exceptionally talented Polish composer, Bartlomiej Gliniak, who impressed with his breakout score Teah in 2008, and is building quite a reputation for himself as one of the rising stars of Polish film music. Read more…
THE RIGHT TO LOVE: AN AMERICAN FAMILY – Edwin Wendler
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In The Right to Love: An American Family director Cassie Jaye, along with support from her sister and mother, sought to chronicle a family’s story of courage during the highly charged, divisive and controversial California Proposition 8 election in 2008. Bryan and Jay Leffew, a Californian married gay couple and their two adopted children Daniel and Selena chose to fight against the ballot initiative whose passage would end marriage equality. They decided to put a human face on this important issue by posting their home videos on their YouTube channel, “Gay Family Values”. It was hoped that these videos would break down stereotypical misconceptions and reveal that in the final analysis the sum of our similarities exceed the sum of our differences. Despite their heroic efforts the proposition passed and marked the first time in the history of the United States that a majority of citizens voted to strip fellow citizens of equal rights under Law. The film earned one Silver and three Bronze awards during the 33rd Annual Telly Awards. Read more…
KON-TIKI – Johan Söderqvist
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Norwegians have always been great explorers, from the days of Viking invasions almost a thousand years ago, all the way through to the Antarctic voyages of Roald Amundsen, who in 1911 led the first team to reach the South Pole. One of the less well-known but no less heroic figures was Thor Heyerdahl, who in 1947 was the captain of a team of adventurers who successfully sailed across the Pacific Ocean from Peru to the Tuamoto Islands on a balsa wood raft named the Kon-Tiki to prove a scientific point. Heyerdahl’s exploits were captured in a famous 1951 documentary which won an Academy Award, and this new film – also called Kon-Tiki – is a dramatic reconstruction of the story for modern audiences. The film, which was filmed simultaneously in both Norwegian and English for domestic and international audiences, was directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, stars Pål Sverre Hagen in the leading role, and went on to be nominated as Best Foreign Language film at the 2012 Oscars, as well as one of the biggest-grossing Norwegian films of all time. Read more…
STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT – Jerry Goldsmith
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
As is consistent of the ethos of the Star Trek universe, we are again treated to a classic morality play that speaks to obsession and the powerful, yet ultimately self-destructive drive for vengeance. The script purposely draws upon classical references of Herman Melville’s great novel “Moby Dick”, which lends a potent gravitas to this latest voyage. The story reveals a bold attack by the Borg to destroy humanity by conquering it not in the present, but instead by destroying its past. Through use of a temporal vortex, the Borg time travel backwards to 21st century Earth, which lays vulnerable having been decimated by a third World War. Their plan hinges on destroying the Phoenix, Earth’s first warp capable ship. History reveals that its inaugural flight elicited a first contact encounter with the Vulcans who happened to be exploring the Terran system. This first contact laid the seed from which arose the United Federation Of Planets. Captain Picard follows the Borg back through time and must overcome his personal demons having been once assimilated by the Borg, as well as his obsession for revenge to save humanity’s future. The film was a critical success earning many awards as well as the most profitable Star Trek film of the franchise. Read more…
42 – Mark Isham
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Growing up in England, you don’t really get to know much about the history of baseball. Obviously, we know that the sport exists (even though it is nothing more than fancy rounders!), and having lived in the United States for as long as I have now, I can now throw out some of the most famous names – Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson – and have a basic idea of who they were and what they did. Beyond that paltry smattering, however, the details of most of the rest of baseball lore is still unknown to me, and prior to watching 42 I knew as much about the life of Jackie Robinson as I would expect the average American to know about, say, Laurie Cunningham – and if you just had to Google him you just proved my point. Read more…
OBLIVION – Anthony Gonzalez, Joseph Trapanese
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the things I love most about being a film score reviewer is the opportunity to discover new composers at the beginning of their careers. It’s even more exciting when the said composers find themselves attached to a potential box office smash – which is exactly what has happened to Anthony Gonzalez and Joseph Trapanese with Oblivion. Both these composers worked on the soundtrack for Tron Legacy a couple of years ago, with Trapanese orchestrating and conducting Daft Punk’s score, and Gonzalez having some fun with various remixes via his band M83, and Tron’s director Joseph Kosinski has continued his mini-oeuvre of taking a popular electronica band and translating their music to film with a larger orchestral component. French-born Gonzalez’s band M83 is already pretty well-established, having had several successful albums over the past decade or so, but this is his first film project as a composer in his own right. Similarly, New Jersey-born Trapanese had only orchestrated for Daniel Licht on the TV show Dexter before working on Tron Legacy, which was his first major motion picture experience. Read more…
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