Archive
THE MESSENGER: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC – Éric Serra
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Beyond The Three Musketeers and Les Misérables, Joan of Arc’s tale is one of the few genuinely French legends to become common knowledge outside its homeland. The story of Joan of Arc has been often told in the cinema, notably by Ingrid Bergman, but never with as much passion or gusto as in Luc Besson’s new adaptation. With young starlet Milla Jovovich in the lead role and able support from a bevy of international stars including Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway and John Malkovich, The Messenger is every bit an epic. Going down an unlikely route for his music, Besson again turned to his friend and long-time collaborator Éric Serra. This was his one bad move. Serra, whose musical roots are in the pop and rock fields, does not have the symphonic knowledge to be able to properly put together a score like this, and his lack of experience has sadly left him floundering out of his depth. Read more…
DOGMA – Howard Shore
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Kevin Smith’s Dogma stirred up a lot of ill feeling in the religious community upon its release. As the director of the irreverent Clerks and Chasing Amy, Smith is never one to shy away from courting controversy, but I doubt even he could have anticipated the severe backlash aimed at him by the Catholic church. Basically, they didn’t like the idea of their beliefs being mocked but the problem (as is often the case in these situations) was that they didn’t actually bother to sit down and watch the movie before condemning it. If anything, Dogma positively encourages the notion of having some sort of faith – in God, or Buddha, or Allah, or whatever – while taking pot shots at the many hypocrites who hold a bible in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other. Read more…
THE BONE COLLECTOR – Craig Armstrong
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Taking films such as Silence of the Lambs and Seven as its starting point, The Bone Collector is another entry into the “thriller noir” genre, in which saturated color, rain-soaked streets and grisly murders are the order of the day. Directed by Phillip Noyce, the film stars Denzel Washington as Detective Lincoln Rhyme, one of New York’s finest forensic cops, whose career is cut tragically short when he is paralyzed following a freak accident on the job. Now the recipient of round the clock care and confined to his state of the art apartment-cum-hospital, Rhyme’s skills are unexpectedly called upon once more after a beat cop named Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) discovers a murder victim within an elaborately staged crime scene. Uncovering her untapped potential for forensics, Rhyme urges Amelia to be his feet on the ground while he, with his intellect still very much intact, tries to piece together the clues and identify the murderer before he takes more victims. Read more…
LA LEGGENDA DEL PIANISTA SULL’OCEANO/THE LEGEND OF 1900 – Ennio Morricone
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
To date, the critical reception for Ennio Morricone’s score The Legend of the 1900 has been completely positive. To quote from James Southall’s superlative review at Movie Wave, “once in a while there comes a score blessed with the hand of genius; so good it makes you feel privileged to be listening to it, so good it makes you feel proud to just be alive at the same time as the composer.” At this moment I’d like to apologize to all the film score fans across the world who hold the score in that same high esteem because now, to continue with a seafaring analogy, I’m going to rock the boat. Read more…
PRINCESS MONONOKE – Joe Hisaishi
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Japanese Anime – or Manga, as it is often mistakenly referred to in this country – has been the subject of something of a boom in recent years. Until the release of respected films such as Roujin Z, Space Adventure Cobra, Legend of the Overfiend, Wings of Honneamise and Akira, Japanese animation was widely regarded as merely being the stuff of Saturday morning kids shows: badly dubbed adventure cartoons starring wide-eyed characters surrounded by garishly colorful backgrounds. Since the genre’s migration west, big-screen Anime has slowly built up a devoted cult following, and has become a highly respected art form in its own right. Princess Mononoke, which is hitting these shores two years after it broke all the domestic box-office records, is touted as being the genre’s pinnacle. Read more…
HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL – Don Davis
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the annals of horror movie history, House on Haunted Hill will surely go down as one of the worst efforts the 1990s had to offer. The genre having been revitalized by the Scream phenomenon, House on Haunted Hill is the epitome of everything the savvy protagonists of Wes Craven’s movie decried. It is a film populated by stupid people who say and do stupid things at the wrong time. It has a director who mistakes gratuitous gore and “shock” sound effects for fright, and a screenwriter with no sense of reality or common sense. Ultimately, the film is a disaster from start to finish, with only the special effects crew – and Don Davis – emerging with anything resembling an intact reputation. Read more…
PAN TADEUSZ – Wojciech Kilar
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The vast majority of Wojciech Kilar’s work remains undiscovered by the film music public at large. Despite having written music for well over 100 films during a career which started in 1959, only four of these have been in the English language: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Death and the Maiden, The Portrait of a Lady and The Ninth Gate. As a result, a huge amount of music written by Kilar for European (and especially Polish) cinema has passed by without the slightest hint of recognition. A couple of domestic albums and compilations of his work exist, albeit on rather obscure labels which make obtaining them somewhat difficult, but those whose opinion of Kilar and his work are based solely on his American projects would do well do seek them out. There are many, many gems to be found. Read more…
CRAZY IN ALABAMA – Mark Snow
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Another actor cashing in on a currently in-vogue trend by turning his hand at direction is heartthrob Spanish thespian Antonio Banderas, who has cast his wife Melanie Griffith in the lead role of his unlikely debut, Crazy In Alabama. The film is a comedy-drama based on the novel by Mark Childress, and tells the story of a backwoods Alabama boy named Peejoe (Lucas Black), whose life is altered dramatically when he gets an education in life from his glamorous, eccentric Aunt Lucille (Griffith), who herself has escaped from her abusive husband to pursue her dream of Hollywood TV stardom. The film also features supporting performances from an unlikely group of actors, including David Morse, Cathy Moriarty, Rod Steiger, 70s heartthrob Robert Wagner, novelist Fannie Flagg, rock legend Meatloaf and film directors Paul Mazursky and Randal Kleiser. Read more…
THE STRAIGHT STORY – Angelo Badalamenti
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Having regard to a track record that includes such brilliantly off-the-wall films as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild At Heart and the Twin Peaks TV series, one would have never expected director David Lynch to craft such a beautiful, poignant, heart-warming movie as The Straight Story. Although the title is something of a pun, and although Lynch has never made one before, this is a completely straightforward story about a man named Straight, who leaves his slightly backward daughter at home in Iowa and travels across the American Midwest to Wisconsin on a converted lawn mower to see his estranged brother before one of them dies. Read more…
ARISTOCRATS – Mark Thomas
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The BBC have always been good at costume dramas. Whether it be Jane Austen or Emily Brontë or Charles Dickens or William Shakespeare, the Brits lead the way in showing the world how to lace up a corset, adopt a regal tone and keep a respectful distance from your potential suitors. The BBC are also good at television music. In recent years, established composers such as Carl Davis, Geoffrey Burgon and Jim Parker have rubbed shoulders with talented new names such Richard G. Mitchell, Murray Gold and Julian Nott in composing some of the finest television music around. In my opinion, Aristocrats marks the absolute pinnacle in BBC television music, and is by far the best score to emerge from Auntie’s vaults in years. Read more…
RANDOM HEARTS – Dave Grusin
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Despite having written some truly lovely orchestral scores in his career, notably Havana and On Golden Pond, Dave Grusin’s first love is and always will be jazz. In the liner notes for this release of his score for Random Hearts, Grusin muses that “no-one loves romantic music more than Sidney Pollack”, but it was felt that on this project he was “looking for something a little more lean and stark” than on their other nine collaborations. A consummate craftsman, Grusin responded with an intriguing, engaging jazz score. Random Hearts stars Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott-Thomas, two secure professional people in fulfilling relationships whose lives are torn apart when their respective partners are killed in the same plane crash. It soon transpires that, unbeknown to Ford and Thomas, his wife and her husband were having an affair with each other, a fact which, when combined with the sense of grief and betrayal felt by the surviving spouses, gradually draws them together. Part tragedy, part melodrama, part romance, Random Hearts sounds great on paper but, unfortunately, failed to set the box office alight, instead ending up as Harrison Ford’s first major flop in over a decade. Read more…
PLUNKETT & MACLEANE – Craig Armstrong
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The phenomenal success of the film William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet was not only responsible for making bonafide movie stars out of its leading players, Leonardo Di Caprio and Clare Danes – it also thrust the name of Scottish composer Craig Armstrong into the soundtrack limelight. Armstrong, who won a BAFTA Award for his work with Nellee Hooper and Marius De Vreis on that film, is an interesting and somewhat unconventional writer. He doggedly refuses to be labeled either as an orchestral or electronic specialist, and has proven that he is adept at creating both modern soundscapes, as in Romeo + Juliet and his other recent work, Best Laid Plans, as well as “proper” music, as heard in Peter Mullan’s acclaimed drama Orphans. With Plunkett & Macleane, Armstrong has shifted again and combined both these markedly different styles into one engaging whole. Read more…
AMERICAN BEAUTY – Thomas Newman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s difficult to imagine another film this year achieving the level of perfection American Beauty achieves. Perfect direction from Sam Mendes. A perfect screenplay by Alan Ball. Perfect performances from Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch and Chris Cooper. It’s just a shame that, in the synopsis, the movie sounds so dull because, in reality nothing could be further from the truth. We have seen scathing examinations of suburban American before. We have witnessed breakdowns of family units in the cinema, and exposed the sordid underbelly of the lives of people whose outward “normality” masks a level of cynicism, hate and deprivation. American Beauty does all those things, but somehow puts a fresh new spin on them that turns the familiar clichés on their head with wit, energy, humor and genuine emotion. Read more…
FOR LOVE OF THE GAME – Basil Poledouris
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s been a long time coming, but Basil Poledouris has finally returned to top form with For Love of the Game, Sam Raimi’s unexpectedly beautiful homage to the American pastime. Based on Michael Shaara’s novel, the film stars Kevin Costner as an ageing, washed-up pitcher given one last chance at the big time by his Detroit team mates. It’s one of those traditional, “go out and win one for the Gipper” sporting wish-fulfillment fantasies, where victory in the ultimate competition hinges on the last chance of the day, and where the once-great player returns from obscurity to triumph against all the odds. It’s been done a million times before, and will be done a million times again, but Costner and his co-stars, Kelly Preston and John C. Reilly, make it wholly believable. Read more…
THE MINUS MAN – Marco Beltrami
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the UK, Hampton Fancher’s movie The Minus Man was bought by the satellite TV network Sky and shown as a “cable premiere”, completely bypassing cinema screens and video store shelves. As a result, I got to see this curious little thriller back in July, well before it opened in the States, and well before Marco Beltrami’s equally curious score surfaced on CD. The film stars Owen Wilson as Vann, an oddly mannered but seemingly pleasant enough chap who travels around middle-America in his battered pickup, getting menial jobs when he can, living in rented accommodation, and murdering people on the side. Fancher’s seemingly emotionless depiction of Vann makes the film just a little disconcerting – everything is told from his own cool and distorted point of view, blurring the line between what is real and what is purely imagined inside his own little mind. With support from Janeane Garofalo, Brian Cox, Mercedes Ruehl and singer-turned-actress Sheryl Crow as Vann’s first victim, The Minus Man is an oddball movie which will surely find a cult audience in years to come. Read more…
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