Archive
THE CONSPIRATOR – Mark Isham
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
For many years I had assumed – entirely incorrectly, as it turns out – that the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth was a one-man show committed by a single opportunist. In actual fact, the events of April 14, 1865, were much more far reaching, in so much as three other co-conspirators attempted to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward on the same evening, but only Booth was successful in dispatching his quarry. Booth was killed by soldiers a few days later, but two of the other conspirators – Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt – were captured and tried. The fourth conspirator, John Surratt, was not caught and so John’s mother, Mary Surratt, was tried in his place, accused of allowing her guesthouse to be used as the base for the assassination plot to be conceived. Robert Redford’s latest film, The Conspirator, looks at these events with fresh eyes, concentrating specifically on the relationship between Mary Surratt (Robin Wright) and Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy), the young attorney assigned to defend her. The film also stars Kevin Kline, Tom Wilkinson, Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood and Danny Huston, and features an excellent dramatic score by Mark Isham. Read more…
ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS – Nathan Van Cleave
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Robinson Crusoe on Mars was conceived by Ib Melchoir (Angry Red Planet), who envisioned it as the first in a series of literary classics that he would update to the 20th century and adapt to an outer space setting. The film was directed by Byron Haskin (Conquest of Space) and featured stunning cinematography of Martian vistas that were designed by the brilliant team of art directors. It starred Paul Mantee (Kit) as a marooned astronaut who is forced to eject from his spacecraft due to a malfunction. Stranded on an unforgiving surface, he struggles to find food, water, oxygen and combat a terrible loneliness born of his isolation. He is eventually joined by an escaped slave (Victor Lundin), who becomes his man “Friday.” Together they must evade cruel aliens that seek to regain their lost property. Adam West of Batman fame also appeared in the film as Mantee’s co-pilot along with the monkey Mona who steals the show! Regretfully Melchoir would not realize his grand vision of an outer space series as the film just did not resonate with audiences. Read more…
YOUR HIGHNESS – Steve Jablonsky
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
While not quite a spoof in the same way that Robin Hood: Men in Tights was a spoof, Your Highness nevertheless is a lighthearted variation on those medieval costume dramas, in which damsels in distress and knights in armor do battle with dangerous enemies and fall in love in the forest. Directed by David Gordon Green, the film stars Danny McBride and James Franco as Thadeous and Fabious, a pair of royal knights – one a lazy oaf, the other a noble warrior – who team up with a warrior princess named Isabel (Natalie Portman) to rescue Fabious’s virginal bride-to-be Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) from the clutches of Leezar (Justin Theroux), an evil sorcerer. The film also stars Toby Jones, Charles Dance and Damien Lewis, and has an original score by Steve Jablonsky. Read more…
THE HOMECOMING: A CHRISTMAS STORY/RASCALS AND ROBBERS: THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER AND HUCK FINN – Jerry Goldsmith/James Horner
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The Homecoming: A Christmas Story is an iconic television movie that was adapted from an Earl Hamner Jr. story starred Patricia Neal and Richard Thomas in a traditional heart-warming story of a poor rural family’s Christmas. The story takes place on Christmas Eve in 1933 during the Great Depression with the children awaiting, with great anticipation, the miracle in the barn when at the stroke of midnight all off the animals speak. The family is also awaiting the homecoming of their beloved father who had to seek employment in the city and is returning home. A snowstorm places Mr. Walton’s return in peril and the family struggles to remain optimistic as the night wears on. But this is a happy tale and when he returns with a bag of gifts all is made right as the family celebrates the joy and warmth of Christmas. The film was made on a very modest budget, but it was an immediate hit, spawned The Waltons – a highly successful television series and remains an enduring classic holiday favorite. Read more…
EL GRAN MILAGRO/THE GREAT MIRACLE – Mark McKenzie
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I regularly have conversations with fellow film music aficionados about which composers don’t get the public acclaim, respect and – most importantly – regular assignments we feel they should. Time and again, Mark McKenzie’s name is repeated as one of those men whose music is so amazing, but no-one can adequately give a reason why he isn’t scoring the most important and acclaimed films Hollywood produces. He writes some of the most beautiful, lyrical and emotionally resonant music ever written for film – and I do mean ever written for film – but yet seems quite content to stay out of the limelight, orchestrating diligently for other composers, and writing one score of his own every couple of years. From a purely selfish point of view, this frustrates me immensely, because he quite obviously has the talent to be one of the all-time greats. As it stands, he has scored fewer than 20 films in his entire career, which spans back to 1991. Read more…
THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES – Ron Goodwin
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
It is 1910 and Lord Rawnsley, an English press magnate of the Daily Post, conceives a great contest designed to affirm to the world, English supremacy of the air. He offers an enormous £10,000 to the winner of an air race from London to Paris. This rich offer serves to bring flyers of all makes from across the world to enlist. What follows is a truly wild, zany and comedic adventure tale with many twists and sub-plots as the various flyers jockey not only for position but also for the affections of countless women. The film was conceived by writer director Ken Annakin who said “I wanted lots of gags, but also wanted to pay tribute to the inventiveness of the early aviators.” The film was a commercial and critical success securing BAFTA, Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. Ron Goodwin, the stalwart of British film scoring, was hired and took up the challenge with his usual determination. Embracing the film at face value, Goodwin deliberately wrote unabashedly to the various cultural and actor stereotypes, and so you will hear national anthems, marches, waltzes and folk songs that are woven into a wonderful and outrageous comedic tapestry. And so my friends, buckle up, and let’s fly off on our zany adventure! Read more…
RED RIDING HOOD – Brian Reitzell, Alex Heffes
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Poor old Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm must be rolling in their graves, seeing how their old fairy tale has been modernized. Catherine Hardwicke, the director of the first Twilight film, has now “Twilightified” the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood in an attempt to capture the same teenage girl demographic by adding a whole load of sex appeal, rippling abdominal muscles, and brooding teenage angst to the story of wolves and grandmothers and little girls in red walking through the woods. Amanda Seyfried stars as Valerie, a young girl from a village in a remote forest who finds herself caught between Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), the man she loves, and Henry (Max Irons), the man she was promised to by her parents – not to mention the looming threat of a werewolf, who has a nasty habit of picking off villagers who wander too far off the beaten path. The film also stars Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Virginia Madsen and Julie Christie. Read more…
GWIAZDA KOPERNIKA/COPERNICUS’ STAR – Abel Korzeniowski
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
When Polish composer Abel Korzeniowski was nominated for a Golden Globe in 2009 for A Single Man, I – like many other film music fans no doubt – went to his website to see who this hitherto unknown composer was and where he came from. There was a section on his site housing MP3s from his previous scores, one of which was the intriguingly titled Copernicus’ Star. Again, no doubt like many others, I was absolutely enthralled and captivated by the staggeringly good music from this unknown, mysterious film. One of the others who had a similar reaction was soundtrack producer Dan Goldwasser, who has since worked with the good people at La La Land Records to get a full soundtrack release – the result of which is this excellent album. Read more…
JANE EYRE – Dario Marianelli
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë’s timeless tale of love, madness and female empowerment, has been brought to life several times on the big screen, and inspired some excellent scores, most notably by Bernard Herrmann and John Williams. This new film, directed by Cary Fukunaga, stars Mia Wasikowska as the eponymous heroine, who was mistreated and downtrodden as a young girl in 17th century England, but eventually grows up to be the governess of a young girl at the rambling, imposing Thornfield Hall. Jane falls in love with the dashing master of the house, Rochester (Michael Fassbender), but as her relationship with the raffish gentleman develops, increasingly strange things begin to happen during the night in the dark and dusty corridors of Thornfield, testing Jane’s nerve, and her sanity. The film also stars Jamie Bell, Sally Hawkins and Judi Dench, and features a sumptuous, utterly beautiful score by Dario Marianelli. Read more…
L’INCORRIGIBLE/VA VOIR MAMAN, PAPA TRAVAILLE – Georges Delerue
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In L’Incorrigible, lead character Victor played by (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is the quintessential con man, totally beyond redemption, who resumes his nefarious craft following his release from prison. He rents apartments he doesn’t own, sells nonexistent fighter planes to African countries, and assumes many different guises from a gardener, lawyer, private detective, government official, and yes, even a transvestite in order to reap profit from his unsuspecting victims. Remarkably, he manages to fool his charming but very naive parole officer Marie-Charlotte (Genevieve Bujold). When Victor finds out that Marie-Charlotte’s father curates a museum that displays an extremely valuable painting, well, you need little imagination to realize what lies next! The film enjoyed modest commercial success in France. Read more…
AO, LE DERNIER NÉANDERTAL/AO, THE LAST HUNTER – Armand Amar
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Films about prehistoric man tend to fall into one of three camps: they are either straight-out action adventures in which the lead characters all happen to be cavemen (think 10,000BC), or they are hybrids in which modern humans and our Neolithic forebears interact (think Iceman or The Land That Time Forgot), or they are deadly serious character studies which try to genuinely recapture what life might have been like for our ancestors (think Clan of the Cave Bear or Quest for Fire). The French film Ao, Le Dernier Néandertal – The Last Neanderthal – is one of the latter. Directed by Jacques Malaterre and starring Simon Paul Sutton, Craig Morris and Aruna Shields, it tells the story of Ao, a Neanderthal man who, after the death of his entire clan – including his wife and child – decides to make the long trek to the area in which he was born, to try to reconnect with his long-lost brother. While making the perilous journey, Ao must cope with all manner of hardships, terrible weather, and animal attacks, and fears the worst – until he meets a woman called Aki, who is a member of a new and unusual clan which we know as homo sapiens… Read more…
GNOMEO & JULIET – Chris Bacon, James Newton Howard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There’s not a lot you can say about gnomes, really. They’re ugly little buggers, with their pot bellies and their pointy hats and beards and pipes and fishing rods. They look benign, like little miniature Santa Clauses, but they have evil in their hearts, every one of them. Beloved the world over by seriously deluded expatriate Germans and middle-aged gardeners who have run out of things to do with their flowerbeds, they have become figures of ridicule, in British culture at least – but this hasn’t stopped Touchstone from making a feature length animated film featuring the loathsome little bastards. Incredibly, Gnomeo & Juliet takes the classic Shakespeare story of tragic romance and re-imagines it with gnomes and Elton John songs. Directed by Kelly Asbury, the film has attracted an astonishingly distinguished voice cast – James McAvoy as Gnomeo, Emily Blunt as Juliet, and supporting turns from Michael Caine, Jason Statham, Maggie Smith, Patrick Stewart, Julie Walters and Ozzy Osbourne – as well as a contribution from world famous rock artist Elton John. Read more…
THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU – Thomas Newman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Looking back over Thomas Newman’s career to date, it’s interesting to note how much his musical style has altered over the years. During the late 1980s and 1990s he was very much his father’s son; scores such as The Shawshank Redemption, Little Women, Oscar and Lucinda, Meet Joe Black and The Horse Whisperer showcased his lush, theme-driven, string-heavy music, and made him a popular favorite within the film music world. Then, in 1999, he wrote American Beauty, and from then on began his gradual transformation into a composer whose music relies on sound design, instrumental texture and unusual instrumental combinations than the straightforward orchestral through-composing that made many – including me – such an admirer. Since the turn of the millennium, for every Cinderella Man or Angels in America, there have been a half-dozen other “quirky” scores dominating his filmography: Erin Brockovich, White Oleander, In the Bedroom, Jarhead, Little Children, Revolutionary Road. These scores show flashes of the orchestral brilliance of which he is capable, but more often than not eschew the lyricism in favor of rhythm and texture, with very little thematic content to grab hold of. Unfortunately, The Adjustment Bureau is more of the same. Read more…
LA PRINCESSE DE MONTPENSIER/THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER – Philippe Sarde
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
La Princesse de Montpensier – The Princess of Montpensier – is a French period drama based on a classic novel by Madame de Lafayette and directed by Bertrand Tavernier. Set during a period of religious turmoil in 16th century France, the film stars Mélanie Thierry as Marie, a young noblewoman who falls in love with the dashing Henri de Guise (Gaspard Ulliel). However, in order to further her father’s political ambitions, she is forced to marry instead the well-connected Philippe de Montpensier (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), a career soldier who quickly leaves for war. Left alone in the care of an aging nobleman, Marie soon finds her life becoming more complicated as she begins to encounter the different political – and sexual – manipulations of her new world. Read more…
AMÁLIA – Nuno Malo
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Amália da Piedade Rodrigues was a Portuguese singer and actress whose life and work helped popularize fado – a specific genre of Portuguese folk music – on a worldwide scale. From the 1940s until her death in 1999 Amália was known as Rainha do Fado (the Queen of Fado) and was immensely popular in her native country, selling hundreds of thousands of records. Carlos Coelho da Silva’s film Amália, which stars Sandra Barata Belo in the lead role, is the story of her life. Although the film played in theaters in Portugal in 2008, it is only just now beginning to surface in other countries; to coincide with this wider exposure, Moviescore Media has released the film’s score, by US-based Portuguese composer Nuno Malo. It’s absolutely wonderful. Read more…
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