Archive
JOKER – Hildur Guðnadóttir
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In this era where super hero movies are a dime a dozen, where in the past 30 years we’ve had at least three Supermen, five Batmen, three Spider-Men, and innumerable iterations of other DC and Marvel comic book characters, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to do something completely out-of-the-box different. While the majority of these films concentrate on the heroes, perhaps the most iconic villain in all of comic book history is the Joker, the long-standing nemesis of Batman. He has been portrayed on film multiple times himself; by Cesar Romero in 1966, by Jack Nicholson in 1989, by Heath Ledger in 2008, and by Jared Leto most recently in 2016, with Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance in The Dark Knight coming to be considered the gold standard. There have been multiple origin stories for the character, but he has never been the sole focus of a film before – until now. Read more…
HENRY V – Patrick Doyle
THROWBACK THIRTY
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In 1989 Kenneth Branagh was a brash, handsome, dazzlingly talented young actor and director, who emerged from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in the early 1980s and set the British theatrical world alight with his electrifying Shakespearean productions. He was part of a group of talented contemporaries which included people like Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and Rowan Atkinson, all of whom began to have a profound effect on British stage society through their respective careers in drama and comedy. Branagh then went on to create the Renaissance Theatre Company, which brought his troupe of players into the circle of beloved stage veterans like Judi Dench, Richard Briers, Derek Jacobi, and Sir John Gielgud. Together they made enormously successful stage productions of Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, the latter of which directly led to Branagh receiving funding to make a big-screen adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved works, Henry V. Read more…
THE DARK CRYSTAL: AGE OF RESISTANCE – Daniel Pemberton, Samuel Sim
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In 1982 the Jim Henson Company released what was, at the time, the most ambitious puppet-centric movie ever made: The Dark Crystal. Despite being a rich fantasy film of evil monsters and gallant heroes, visually stunning and wondrously creative, it was not an immediate success upon its release, with many people considering it much too scary for its young target audience. However, in the intervening 37 years it has become a beloved cult classic, a cultural touchstone for many 1980s children who were left enchanted and terrified in equal measure. Fans have been clamoring for a sequel for decades, but have been forced to be content with various comic books and novels to quench their thirst for additional tales from this universe – until now. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a 10-episode series produced by Netflix which acts as a prequel to the original movie, and with its increased budget actually surpasses the original in terms of its larger scope, richer detailing, brilliant storytelling, and visual majesty. Read more…
DAD – James Horner
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Dad was a sentimental family drama starring Jack Lemmon, Ted Danson, and Ethan Hawke as Jake, John, and Billy Tremont, three generations of fathers and sons who are brought together when Jake’s wife Bette, played by Olympia Dukakis, suffers a health emergency. Needing to fend for himself for the first time in decades, Jake finds a new lease of life through his forced independence, and bonds with his workaholic son and free-spirited grandson, as well as members of his extended family that he has been neglecting. However, when Bette returns home, she baulks at the formerly-passive Jake’s new assertiveness, which leads to conflict and – eventually – more medical drama. The film was written and directed by Gary David Goldberg (the creator of Family Ties), adapted from a novel by William Wharton, and was an unexpected critical success, with special praise reserved for Jack Lemmon’s performance, and for the Oscar-nominated old age makeup. Read more…
WE’RE NO ANGELS – George Fenton
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
We’re No Angels was a loose remake of a 1955 Humphrey Bogart film of the same name, which was itself adapted from a French play, La Cuisine des Anges, by Albert Husson. The film is set in the 1930s and stars Robert De Niro and Sean Penn as Ned and Jim, two amiable convicts who inadvertently escape from jail when they are caught up in a plot masterminded by Bobby, a vicious killer played by James Russo. The convicts eventually find themselves in a small upstate New York town near the Canada–US border, where Ned and Jim are mistaken for a pair of priests expected at the local monastery. Circumstances are such that crossing the town bridge into Canada is extremely difficult, so Ned and Jim decide to play the long game and embrace the misunderstanding until the time is right. However, as Ned and Jim spend more time in the town, they find themselves forming real bonds with the locals, especially a beautiful single mother played by Demi Moore, and soon they begin to wonder whether they have a shot at genuine redemption. The film was written by David Mamet and directed by Neil Jordan, but was unfortunately a massive box office flop, grossing just $10.5 million on a $20 million budget. Read more…
DOWNTON ABBEY – John Lunn
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
For those who have been living under a rock for a decade, Downton Abbey is a British drama series charting the lives and loves of the aristocratic Crawley family and their various staff and servants, all of whom reside in the titular estate in northern England in the 1910s. It’s a blend of domestic drama, historical and political intrigue, and scandalous romance, dressed up with upper-class British pageantry, and it was wildly popular and successful both domestically and in the United States, where fascination with the royal family and the landed gentry remains as popular as ever. In combination with Harry Potter it re-kindled the late-blooming career of Dame Maggie Smith, and made household names of character actors like Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Elizabeth McGovern, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, and Joanne Froggatt, all of whom were nominated for a ton of Emmys, BAFTAs, and Golden Globes between them. This new film, which is being released four years after the series ended, is set in 1927 and focuses on the activities in and around the Abbey as they prepare for a visit from King George V and his wife, Queen Mary of Teck. Read more…
OLD GRINGO – Lee Holdridge
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Old Gringo was intended to be a lavish Mexican epic film marking the English-language debut of Argentine filmmaker Luis Puenzo, whose film La Historia Oficial had won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1985. It was based on an acclaimed novel by Carlos Fuentes and starred Gregory Peck as Ambrose Bierce, an ageing acclaimed writer who moves to Mexico just prior to the outbreak of the Revolution in 1910. Bierce is dying of a terminal illness, but keeps it secret as he wants to end his days on his own terms. He befriends a revolutionary named Arroyo (Jimmy Smits), and also crosses paths with an American schoolteacher named Harriet (Jane Fonda), and as the violence escalates so does his friendship with Arroyo, something which is complicated by the romantic feelings they both have for Harriet. Old Gringo tries to tackle numerous weighty subjects simultaneously – the politics of the Mexican Revolution, the regrets of old age, the concept of legacy and fame, a love triangle – but the consensus was that it tried to take on a little bit too much; Roger Ebert, in his review, wrote that ‘there is a potentially wonderful story at the heart of Old Gringo, but the movie never finds it. The screenplay blasts away in every direction except the bulls-eye. It’s heavy on disconnected episodes, light on drama and storytelling.’ The whole thing was a critical and commercial failure, and Puenzo never made another film in English. Read more…
IT: CHAPTER TWO – Benjamin Wallfisch
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Director Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of the classic Stephen King horror novel It was an enormous, unexpected success when it hit cinemas in the late summer of 2017. For a generation prior Tim Curry’s 1990 portrayal of Pennywise, the murderous shape-shifting entity terrorizing the residents of a small New England town, was the gold standard, but Bill Skarsgård’s new take on the character looks destined to become just as iconic. Off the back of his performance It became the second-highest grossing R-rated horror movie of all time (after The Exorcist), and re-kindled interest in King’s stories by becoming the highest grossing adaptation of one of his novels, knocking 1999’s The Green Mile into second place. It also made stars of its cast of excellent teenage actors, including Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, and Sophia Lillis. Read more…
BLACK RAIN – Hans Zimmer
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I’ve written this sentence about other scores before, so I apologize for the repetitiveness, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the fact that there are very few scores in the world that you can point to as being a literal turning point in the history of film music. Black Rain is one of them. The film itself is not especially famous these days, despite actually being rather good. The film stars Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia as Nick Conklin and Charlie Vincent, two New York City cops who witness a murder in a bar and arrest the assailant. The killer is a man named Sato (Yusaku Matsuda), who is a member of the Japanese Yakuza crime syndicate. Sato is extradited to Japan, and Nick and Charlie agree to accompany the gangster back to Osaka for his murder trial. However, when they arrive at the airport, Sato’s fellow Yakuza free him from police custody by tricking Nick, which brings shame and tension to the already fraught relationship between Nick and his Japanese counterpart, Detective Masahiro (Ken Takakura). Determined to find Sato at any cost, Nick enters the dangerous underworld of Japanese organized crime. The film was directed by Ridley Scott, and was a box office success, combining a classic cop thriller revenge story with one of the first mainstream American depictions of Japanese Yakuza gangster culture. Read more…
READY OR NOT – Brian Tyler
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Ready or Not is a fun, exciting, uproariously gory action-horror movie underpinned by a vein of black comedy. It stars Aussie actress Samara Weaving as Grace, who is about to marry Alex, the man of her dreams, the heir to the Le Domas family fortune, whose wealth comes from a multi-generational board game dynasty. However, on their wedding night, Alex reveals that his family has a tradition whereby anyone newly marrying into the family has to play a game, the nature of which is written on a card drawn from a mysterious antique box, and is unknown to everyone until the moment it is drawn. When Grace draws ‘hide and seek’ it triggers a desperate struggle for survival as the other family members – compelled by the threat of an ancient curse – have to hunt and kill Grace before dawn breaks. The film is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and co-stars Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, Henry Czerny, and Andie MacDowell. Read more…
MURDERERS AMONG US: THE SIMON WIESENTHAL STORY – Bill Conti
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Simon Wiesenthal had quite an amazing life. Born into a Jewish family in Austria in 1908, he was captured and sent to a concentration camp after the outbreak of World War II; after surviving against terrible odds, Wiesenthal spent the rest of his life as one of the world’s most famous ‘Nazi hunters,’ tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazi war criminals so that they could be brought to trial. He was involved as a key witness in the Nuremberg Trials, and instrumental in the 1960 capture of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust who personally sent hundreds of thousands of people to die in Auschwitz. Wiesenthal was also a writer and philanthropist, and lent his name to a research and human rights center in Los Angeles. He died in 2005, but not before this acclaimed TV movie of his life was released on HBO in 1989. The film was directed by Brian Gibson and starred Ben Kingsley in the titular role, with support from Craig T. Nelson, Anton Lesser, Paul Freeman, and Renée Soutendijk as Simon’s wife Cyla. Read more…
SEA OF LOVE – Trevor Jones
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review byJonathan Broxton
Sea of Love was a slightly sordid murder-mystery thriller directed by Harold Becker. Al Pacino stars as Frank Keller, a burned-out alcoholic New York City police detective who finds himself involved in the case of a serial killer, who finds victims through the singles column in a newspaper. As the bodies rack up and the investigation continues, Keller meets Helen (Ellen Barkin), the sexy manager of an upscale shoe store, who he meets on the job during a sting operation to identify potential suspects. Against his better judgment Keller embarks on a relationship with Helen – until the evidence begins to support the idea that Helen is the killer. The film co-starred John Goodman and Michael Rooker and was a box office success; critically, it was favorably compared with similar movies like Body Heat and Jagged Edge, and now fits comfortably into the ‘femme fatale’ genre that also includes movies like Basic Instinct. By the way, the title of the film is a reference to the 1959 song of the same name by Phil Phillips with the Twilights; the killer has a calling card where a 45RPM LP of the song is left playing in the victim’s home after the crime. Read more…
DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD – John Debney, Germaine Franco
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Little Dora Márquez has been charming young children for almost 20 years as part of her immensely popular Nickelodeon TV series Dora the Explorer. Dora, an animated seven-year-old Latina girl, gets into numerous adventures over the course of the series, accompanied by her faithful monkey friend Boots, and in the process teaches kids geography, mathematics, problem solving, and basic Spanish language skills. Dora has been translated into dozens of languages and has been broadcast all over the world, but now she makes her big-screen debut in this new film, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, from director James Bobin. In it, Dora has been re-imagined as a precocious but socially awkward teenager who – after spending most of her life growing up in the jungle with her adventurous parents – is sent to attend an urban high school. However, when her parents go missing, Dora enlists several of her new high school pals to help her solve the mysteries of an ancient Incan civilization, and save her family. The film stars Isabela Moner in the title role, and features Eugenio Derbez, Michael Peña, and Eva Longoria in the supporting cast. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2019, Part 2
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
As I have done for the past several years, I am pleased to present the second installment in my ongoing series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world. Rather than grouping the scores on a geographical basis, this year I decided to again simply present the scores in a random order, and so this second batch includes reviews of five more disparate scores from the first six months of the year – including a German apocalyptic drama, an Australian horror movie, a Spanish animated film about a surrealist filmmaker, a French drama about religion and pig farming, and a sweeping romance set in the German film industry in the 1960s!
THE PACKAGE – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Package was an enjoyably tense political action-thriller directed by Andrew Davis from a screenplay by John Bishop. Gene Hackman stars as a US Special Forces army sergeant named Gallagher who is tasked with transporting a deserter named Boyette, played by Tommy Lee Jones, from West Berlin to the United States to stand trial. However, Boyette escapes en-route, and Gallagher quickly finds that he is being used as a pawn in a larger conspiracy: to assassinate the president of the Soviet Union and ultimately stop a disarmament treaty between the United States and the Soviets from being signed. The film co-starred Joanna Cassidy, John Heard, Dennis Franz, and Pam Grier, and was in many ways a dry-run for The Fugitive, which director Davis would make four years later with many of the same cast and crew. The Package has many of the same plot points as The Fugitive – a prisoner who escapes from custody, action sequences in Chicago, a dogged and righteous law enforcement operative tracking him down – which makes it an interesting comparison piece to Davis’s great, Oscar-winning classic. Read more…
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