Archive
JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM – Michael Giacchino
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The second film in the re-imagined Jurassic Park franchise is Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, directed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona. It takes place several years after the events of the first Jurassic World film, in which the fully operational theme park was, as one would expect, fully overtaken and virtually destroyed by the genetically modified dinosaurs it housed. Claire Dearing, Jurassic World’s former operations manager, is now the head of a dinosaur rights organization; when a volcanic eruption on the Jurassic World island Isla Nublar threatens to wipe out the remaining animals, she is called to action by multibillionaire philanthropist Sir Benjamin Lockwood and his aide Eli Mills, who say they want her to help them move the dinosaurs off the island to a safe location. To this end Claire recruits Owen Grady, Jurassic World’s dinosaur expert and her former lover, to accompany her and a team of mercenaries on the mission. However, once Claire, Owen, and the team arrives back on the island, it quickly becomes clear that the priorities regarding the dinosaurs have shifted. The film stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, and James Cromwell, and has an original score by the composer of Jurassic World – Michael Giacchino. Read more…
THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE – Roque Baños
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In 1989 writer-director and former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam began to develop the screenplay for a film called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which he was co-writing with British scribe Tony Grisoni. While Don Quixote was being finalized Gilliam and Grisoni made Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas together, and then returned to Quixote to begin shooting in 2000, with Johnny Depp and French actor Jean Rochefort in the lead roles. What transpired would eventually become one of the worst examples of ‘development hell’ in the history of cinema, as Gilliam had to abandon production an astonishing three times between 2000 and 2016, due to various issues ranging from financial mis-management to legal wranglings to actor illnesses, and even a flood which destroyed much of the set. The story of Gilliam’s tribulations while making the film even became an acclaimed documentary, Lost in La Mancha, which was released in theaters in 2002. Eventually, against all odds, the film was finally shot and completed in 2017, with Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, Stellan Skarsgård, and Olga Kurylenko eventually being the ones in the lead roles. Read more…
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK – John Williams
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The stunning success of Star Wars caused George Lucas to rethink his original vision of a single stand-alone film. He now saw opportunity for a story arc, which would span additional films. To that end, he hired veteran science fiction writer Leigh Brackett to write the next screenplay, based on his story titled The Empire Strikes Back. Lucas did not like her first draft, and when she died shortly there after of cancer, he was left to rewrite the script himself. He shifted the story into a much darker narrative, which critics today acknowledge as the best film of the franchise. Lucas did not want to direct and so brought in trusted friend Irvin Kershner, his former professor. Most of the original cast would reprise their roles; Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia Organa, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Kenny Baker as R2-D2, Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca, and David Prowse as Lord Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones). Joining them would be Frank Oz as Yoda, Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, and Jeremy Bulloch as Boba Fett. Read more…
HEREDITARY – Colin Stetson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the days and weeks after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Hereditary quickly became one of the most anticipated and critically lauded horror films in years. It marks the feature debut of writer-director Ari Aster, and is a devastating familial drama dressed up as a psychological chiller. Toni Collette plays Annie Graham, wife to Steve (Gabriel Byrne) and mother to teenage children Charlie (Milly Shapiro) and Peter (Alex Wolff), and the story begins in the aftermath of her mother Ellen’s death. Ellen was a secretive and somewhat unpleasant woman, and her passing initially comes as something of a relief to the family; however, before long, strange things begin occurring in the Graham household, many of which appear to be centered around young Charlie, who has a withdrawn and moody personality of her own. As the events become more and more disturbing, dark secrets from the family’s past begin to emerge, culminating in a shocking ending, bathed in blood and fire. Read more…
RED HEAT – James Horner
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The action comedy buddy-cop movie reached new heights in the summer of 1988 with the release of Red Heat, which was a vehicle for the increasing box office power of action star Arnold Schwarzenegger. In this film directed by Walter Hill, Schwarzenegger plays Ivan Danko, a captain in the Moscow police, whose partner is killed by drug dealer and crime boss Rostavili (Ed O’Ross). Rostavili flees to the United States and disappears into the Chicago underworld; he is arrested by local cop Art Ridzik (Jim Belushi) in connection with several murders, and Danko arrives from Moscow to oversee his extradition back to the Soviet Union. However, when Rostavili escapes again, Danko and Ridzik are paired with each other as partners and tasked with catching him again and bringing him to justice. In addition to the usual fight scenes where Schwarzenegger was able to show off his impressive physique, Red Heat was interesting because of its Cold War overtones. In 1988 the Berlin Wall was still up, the Soviet Union was still a world superpower, and the idea of pairing a traditional wise-cracking donut-munching beat cop with a stoic, by-the-book Soviet detective allowed the filmmakers to use them as a microcosm to explore the political tensions of the era, as well as to inject some fish-out-of-water social commentary as Danko observes and criticizes American consumerism and decadence from a communist point of view. Read more…
MARY SHELLEY – Amelia Warner
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The British author Mary Shelley, who lived from 1797 to 1851, is best known today for her Gothic novel ‘Frankenstein,’ one of the most influential books of all time, and which has come to be regarded as the first true science fiction story. The romantic drama film Mary Shelley takes an extended look at Shelley’s early life, especially the exalted scholarly circles in which she moved; as the daughter of philosopher William Godwin she had an in-depth classical education, her circle of friends included the poet Lord Byron and the early horror novelist John Polidori, and she was married to poet Percy Shelley, all of whom were significant influences on the story she conceived one stormy night on the banks of Lake Geneva in 1818. The film stars Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, and Tom Sturridge, and is directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, the world’s first female Saudi Arabian film maker, whose previous work includes the critically acclaimed 2012 drama Wadjda. Read more…
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE – Jerry Goldsmith
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
The rebirth of the science fiction genre with Star Wars in 1977, and the continued success of the Star Trek series in syndication, convinced Paramount Studio to begin work on a feature film. In 1978, Paramount assembled the largest press conference held at the studio since the 1950s to announce that double Academy Award winning director Robert Wise would direct a $15 million film adaptation of the television series. The film in the finest tradition of Star Trek is a classic morality play, which speaks to a universal and transcendent yearning shared by all cultures, namely La Ricerca di Dio – the quest for God. The story line reveals the menace of a massive energy cloud of enormous power on a set course to Earth. Admiral James Kirk reassumes command of a newly refitted Enterprise and leads a desperate mission to save humanity. But all is not as it seems as we see Kirk discover that he faces a first contact encounter with an entity of insurmountable power programmed to a singular purpose – to find its creator. By maintaining fidelity to the fundamental Federation principles of seeking out new life forms in the spirit of peace and understanding, Kirk, using his usual guile and experience, is able to overcome technological, linguistic and conceptual challenges and establish a dialogue. With Spock’s assistance, he ultimately succeeds in potentiating within the mechanistic alien entity a spiritual epiphany, which catalyzes a breath-taking transformation, thereby saving the Earth. The film was slow paced, cerebral and ponderous, yet never the less became a huge commercial success. It earned Paramount three times its production costs, there-by setting the stage for a second film. Goldsmith was also honored with Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for best score. Regretfully, he failed to win. Read more…
BIG – Howard Shore
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Big was one of the most popular and successful comedies of 1988 – in fact, of the 1980s as a whole – and was, in many ways, the film which made Tom Hanks a bonafide box office star. Directed by Penny Marshall from a screenplay by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg, Big is the story of childhood wish fulfillment, in which a regular 12 year old boy from New Jersey named Josh Baskin makes a wish ‘to be big’ on an old fortune teller machine at a traveling carnival, and then wakes up the following morning transformed into a 30 year old man (Hanks). After having terrified his mother, who believes that adult Josh is actually a kidnapper holding her son for ransom, he calls on his best friend Billy (Jared Rushton) for help, and together they travel to Manhattan to track down the carnival – only to be told that it will take months for the paperwork to come through. In the meantime, through a fortuitous set of circumstances, Josh manages to get a job at a toy company, working for the gruff but kindly Mr. MacMillan (Robert Loggia). He impresses his new colleagues – including the beautiful Susan (Elizabeth Perkins), who soon falls for Josh’s ‘child-like’ charm – but as much as Josh begins to enjoy his new adult life, he continues to search for the fortune teller machine so he can return home. Read more…
THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY – Alexandra Harwood
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the things the British do very well is make old fashioned romantic dramas. There have been dozens of them over the years, often with oddball titles, starring young starlets in period dress, who are swept off their feet by a dashing chap who is invariably coming back from, or heading off to, a war. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is one of those films; it’s adapted from a popular novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, and is directed by Mike Newell, who is an old hand at this sort of thing. It stars Lily James as Juliet, a successful author in post-war London who takes up an offer to visit Guernsey – an island in the English Channel – after she receives a letter from the titular society, inviting her to speak. Upon arrival, Juliet soon becomes involved in a romance with a handsome and rugged farmer (Michael Huisman), despite being engaged to an American GI back in the London, while simultaneously getting drawn into a mystery involving the disappearance of a young girl named Elizabeth years previously. The reason this is especially noteworthy is because Guernsey was one of the only places in the UK occupied by Nazi forces during World War II, and Elizabeth disappeared at the height of the occupation. Read more…
SUPERMAN – John Williams
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1973 producers Ilya Salkind and Pierre Spengler believed it was time to bring a classic super hero to the big screen. After protracted negotiations with DC Comics, they secured film rights to produce two Superman movies, which they would shoot back to back. A number of screenwriters were hired and let go before until a team comprised of Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman and Robert Benton took up the project. Yet Salkind and Spengler were still not satisfied and so hired Tom Mankiewicz to do the final rewrite, which was completed in July 1976. Thematic for the film was taking the long and tortuous road to hire a director and cast. Richard Donner finally won out over nine other directors. As for the titular role, almost all of the leading men of the day were either turned down, or showed no interest. As such, Spengler decided to cast an unknown, and after over 200 auditions, newcomer Christopher Reeve won the part – bu it was felt he was too skinny. Rather than wear a muscle suit, Reeve went on a weight-lifting regimen, adding a massive 24 pounds of muscle. Joining the cast would be Marlon Brando as Jor-El, Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, Ned Beatty as Otis, Jackie Cooper as Perry White, Glenn Ford as Jonathan Kent, Phyllis Thaxter as Martha Kent, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, and Valerie Perrine as Eve Teschmacher. Read more…
RAMBO III – Jerry Goldsmith
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Sylvester Stallone’s position as one of the decade’s most bankable Hollywood stars continued in 1988 with Rambo III, the third film about the exploits of John Rambo, a bitter and damaged Vietnam-era Special Forces veteran who keeps getting dragged back into war zones no matter how much he tries to live a quiet life. Directed by Peter MacDonald and written by Stallone himself with Sheldon Lettitch, Rambo III begins with Rambo being visited by his old army colonel Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna), who tries to recruit him for a covert special ops mission to bring weapons to mujahedeen freedom fighters battling the Soviets in Afghanistan. Rambo refuses, but is eventually drawn into the conflict anyway weeks later when he learns that the mission was a disaster, and Trautman is now being held captive by a the sadistic Soviet colonel Alexei Zaysen (Marc de Jonge). Vowing to rescue his friend and bring him home, Rambo travels to the region alone, intending to wage a one-man war on the kidnappers. Read more…
SOLO – John Powell
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.
In the years since Disney bought the rights to Lucasfilm from Twentieth Century Fox, the Star Wars universe has grown exponentially. Not only have we had two films in the official sequel trilogy – The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi – but a number of side projects have also been greenlit, all expanding on the history and mythology of the franchise. The first of those ‘Star Wars stories’ was Rogue One in 2016, which looked at the events of how the Rebel Alliance came to possess the plans to the original Death Star, and eventually came to be seen as an immediate prequel to the first 1977 movie. Further movies are in development, including ones which would explore the origins of characters such as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Lando Calrissian, and Boba Fett. But, before all that, we have this movie: Solo, which looks at the early life of everyone’s favorite scoundrel and scruffy-looking nerf herder. The basic story of Han Solo’s life have long been known: he was an orphan and petty criminal on his home planet, Corellia, and eventually became an intergalactic smuggler, picking up a partner in the shape of the wookiee Chewbacca, and a ship in the shape of the Millennium Falcon, along the way – winning the latter in a card game from fellow smuggler and handsome playboy Lando Calrissian. What Solo does is look at the detail: his life on Corellia, the people he knew there at the time, how he first meets Chewbacca, how he acquires the Falcon, and what adventures he embarks up on during those first journeys among the stars. Read more…
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND – John Williams
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Since his youth, Steven Spielberg had aspired to create a feature length science fiction film. His 1970 short story Experiences was his initial conception, which explored teenagers witnessing a wondrous “meteor shower light show” in the night sky. He pitched his idea and secured backing from Columbia Studios to proceed with “Watch the Skies”. Rewrites caused delays, and it was decided that he proceed with another project first, “Jaws”. The enormous financial success of “Jaws” resulted in Columbia Studios granting him significant creative control, which allowed for the development of the science fiction film he had always dreamed of. The script was written by Spielberg, but had input and additional refinements by several screenwriters. The title was changed to its final form as a derivation of ufologist J. Allen Hynek’s classification methodology for “close encounters”. Spielberg assembled a fine cast anchored by “Jaws” star Richard Dreyfuss as Roy Neary, Francois Truffault as Claude Lacombe, Melinda Dillon as Jillian Guiler, Teri Garr as Veronica Neary, and Cary Guffey as Barry Guiler. Read more…
THE MIRACLE SEASON – Roque Baños
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The very curious American phenomenon of turning schoolchildren into sporting heroes has resulted in some fine films, but the whole concept is still somewhat alien to me. When I was growing up in the UK, there were (more or less) three team sports which dominated the national consciousness: football/soccer, cricket, and rugby. Of those, soccer is really the only equivalent sport which Brits follow with a level of passionate interest that is similar to the way Americans follow their big four sports here – American football, basketball, baseball, and ice hockey. Some of you may be interested to learn that I played ‘high school soccer,’ both at my school, Newfield, and for my boy scout team, St. Paul’s, and knowing that American readers may now be imagining that I played in front of crowds of hundreds, possibly thousands, in the same way that ‘high school football’ or ‘high school basketball’ players do in the States. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Despite the almost religious zeal with which people in the UK follow professional sports, their college and high school equivalents mean absolutely nothing – no one watches, and no one cares, because we are children, simply getting a bit of exercise and having some fun playing an organized sport, and are viewed as such. We don’t make the news. We don’t sign multi-million dollar contracts at age 14. We’re kids. The biggest crowd I played in front of was probably 30 people, most of whom were the parents of players. It is for this reason that films like The Miracle Season still feel slightly ridiculous to me. Read more…
WILLOW – James Horner
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Willow is a high fantasy film, which takes well-loved genre tropes from Lord of the Rings and elsewhere, and casts them in an adventure filled with magic, monsters, evil queens, beautiful princesses, soaring romance, daring sword fights, and much much more. Written by Bob Dolman from a story by George Lucas, and directed by Ron Howard, Willow is the story of a newborn baby prophesized to bring about the downfall of the evil witch Queen Bavmorda; to prevent the prophecy from coming to pass Bavmorda imprisons all expectant mothers, but after it is born, the baby is smuggled out of Bavmorda’s castle by a midwife, and eventually finds its way into the hands of Willow Ufgood, a Nelwyn (dwarf) farmer and aspiring magician. Determined to protect the baby, Willow journeys far from his home, and eventually finds himself in the company of a roguish swordfighter named Madmartigan, the good witch Fin Raziel, and a pair of mischievous woodland sprites. As the story progresses they all become involved in a large scale war between Bavmorda’s army and those who oppose her, while Bavmorda’s daughter Sorsha and the fearsome General Kael continue to hunt for the baby. The film stars Warwick Davis, Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, and Jean Marsh, and has a spectacular original score by James Horner. Read more…
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