Archive
MARY POPPINS – Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman, Irwin Kostal
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Walt Disney had long kept the book Mary Poppins in his office and was determined to one day bring it to the big screen for his daughters. The book series authored by P. L. Travers offered a series of fantastic tales, which unfortunately lacked a cohesive story. Disney tasked the Sherman brothers and screenplay writer Don DaGradi to create a cogent narrative. Robert Stevenson was tasked with directing the film and he secured a fine cast, which included Julie Andrews making her acting debut as Mary Poppins, Dick Van Dyke as Bert, David Tomlinson as George Banks, Glynis Johns as Winifred Banks, and Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber the Banks children Jane and Michael. The story tells the tale of a nanny who comes to the aid of a family in disarray. She uses her magical gifts to bring back joy into the lives of the children, but to also reconnect George with his family. The movie was both a critical and commercial success earning eight Academy Award nominations, winning five for Best Actress, Best Film Editing, Best Special Effects, Best Original Song and Best Film Score. Read more…
DEADPOOL – Tom Holkenborg
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
By far the biggest and most successful movie in the first quarter of 2016, Deadpool is an irreverent, massively entertaining super-hero film spinning off from the X-Men universe. Ryan Reynolds stars as Wade Wilson, a former special forces op and mercenary-for-hire who is tricked into undergoing a radical treatment as a last ditch attempt to cure his terminal cancer. However, Wade is betrayed by those who promised to help him, and is instead subjected to extended periods of torture on behalf of a shadowy organization attempting to create an army of invincible slaves; the ordeal awakens latent mutant genes which give him super-human powers of re-generation, and cures his cancer, but leaves him terribly scarred. Escaping from his captors, Wilson adopts a new persona as Deadpool and sets about bringing those who tortured him to justice. Meanwhile, Deadpool’s new mutations capture the attention of the X-Men, two of whom – Colossus and Negasonic – track him down and attempt to convince him to join their group. The film is directed by Tim Miller, co-stars Ed Skrien, Morena Baccarin, and Gina Carano, and has an original score by Tom Holkenborg. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2015, Part 6
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
The sixth and final installment in my series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world concentrates on music from films from Asia, although all of main ones this year are from the far eastern nation of Japan, with a couple of interlopers from Iran and the Lebanon. In this article, I’m taking a deeper look at several truly excellent works, which range in scope from anime movies and prestigious TV series to fantasy adventures, small-scale dramas, and religious epics.
TOM JONES – John Addison
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Producer and director Tony Richardson drew inspiration from an 18th century English novel “A History of Tom Jones, a Foundling”, by Henry Fielding. He hired John Osborne to adapt it to the big screen and cast the film audaciously, selecting rising star Albert Finney for the titular role. Rounding out the cast was Susannah York (Sophie Western), Edith Evans (Miss Western), Joan Greenwood (Lady Ballaston), Hugh Griffith (Squire Western) and making his film debut, David Warner as the villain Blifil. The story offers a classic period piece full of drama, treachery, seduction and intrigue. Squire Allworthy discovers an infant on his bed and chooses to raise little Tom Jones as if he were his own son. Tom’s grows up to become an attractive, dashing, and very popular young man with the ladies, It comes to pass that he falls madly in love with Sophie, who returns his affections. Yet there is an insurmountable impediment – Tom is stigmatized as a bastard, and Sophie’s father forbids her to wed a man below her station. Blifil who seeks Allworthy’s estate engineers Tom’s dishonor and dismissal by Squire Allworthy. An irrepressible Tom however is not to be denied, and he travels far and wide, all the time enjoying a multiplicity of women, fine food and drink along the way! As fate would have it he ultimately triumphs, overcoming all obstacles set against him, and earns Sophie’s hand in marriage when his true identity as Bridget’s Allworthy’s illegitimate son and Allworthy’s nephew is finally revealed. The film was both a commercial and critical success, earning an amazing ten Academy Award nominations, winning four, for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Score. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2015, Part 5
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
The fifth installment in my series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world takes a look at another great bunch of music from films and TV shows from Spain and Portugal. As I mentioned before, I have been very vocal in the past about my admiration for the music coming out of the Iberian peninsula, and this year just reinforces my view that some of the best film music in the world right now is being written there. This final crop features scores by Oscar nominees and promising newcomers, spanning documentaries and dramas and animated films, including three of the scores nominated for the 2015 Goyas, the Spanish Academy Awards.
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2015, Part 4
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
The fourth installment in my series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world concentrates on music from films and TV shows from the United Kingdom. The British Isles have always been a major center for excellent film music, and this year is no exception: as well as scores for projects like Peter and Wendy, Wolf Hall, Poldark, Suffragette, Spectre, Mr. Holmes, and Far From the Madding Crowd, which I have already reviewed, the rest of this year’s bumper crop includes the scores for a low-budget thriller, two wonderful TV documentaries, a witty comedy, and a swashbuckling TV adventure series!
THE RED SHOES – Brian Easdale
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Following their success with Black Narcissus in 1947 the directorial team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger decided to adapt the fairy tale “The Red Shoes” by Hans Christian Anderson for the big screen. The story tells of the girl who dons beautiful red shoes, which danced away with her, through the streets, into a dark nether land and eventually, to her death. They created the screenplay and brought in renowned choreographer Jack Cardiff to choreograph the ballet. Powell and Pressburger sought authentic artistry for their film and so decided early on that they would use professional dancers who could act, rather than actors who could dance. They also wanted to create a realistic feeling of a ballet troupe and so included a fifteen-minute ballet as the high point of the film. Worth noting was the brilliance of the film’s cinematography, particularly its use of color. Ballerina Moira Shearer was brought in for the lead role of Vicky Page, with Marius Goring (Julian Craster) playing her love interest and Anton Walbrook (Boris Lermontov) as her ruthless authoritarian impresario. Read more…
SANADA MARU – Takayuki Hattori
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The annual NHK Taiga drama is a year-long television series broadcast on Japan’s main television network, NHK, and has been a staple of Japanese television since the first one was broadcast in 1963. It is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious television events of the Japanese calendar, attracting the cream of Japan’s dramatic talent, actors, writers, directors and composers. The 2016 NHK Taiga drama is Sanada Maru, which tells the life story of Sanada Yukimura, one of the last great historical samurai warriors in the “Warring States” period, and who is famous for successfully withstanding a great military siege in Osaka in 1615. Directed by Takafumi Kumira, it stars Masato Sakai in the leading role, and has an original score by composer Takayuki Hattori, who despite being a prominent figure in Japanese film music for more than 20 years may still be best known in the West for his monster movie score Godzilla Millennium from 1999. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2015, Part 3
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
The third installment in my series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world concentrates on music from films from mainland Europe. I know this is a very ‘broad brush’ description, but there are a number of countries this year where there are just one or two standout works which couldn’t justify an entire article to themselves, so I decided to present you with this bumper crop from across the entire continent instead! The scope is quite wide-ranging, and includes everything from French documentaries to Polish serial killer thrillers, Russian adventure movies, and Greek romantic dramas, by written Oscar-winners and exciting newcomers alike.
THE HATEFUL EIGHT – Ennio Morricone
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Ennio Morricone has been providing music for Quentin Tarantino’s films for a long time, but it is only recently that he has done so intentionally. Tarantino’s first six films – Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof, and Inglourious Basterds – featured an eclectic, hand-picked selection of music comprising classic rock songs and score cuts from Tarantino’s favorite movies. Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds most notably made use of music from several classic Morricone scores, including tracks from films such as Navajo Joe, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Big Gundown, Revolver, and Allonsanfàn, among others. Tarantino has been both praised and criticized for this approach; some love his idiosyncratic re-purposing of this music in a new and vital setting, while others say that their familiarity with some of the pieces causes a disconnect, diminishing their impact in their new context. Years ago, when questioned about his musical ideology, Tarantino said that he didn’t trust any composer enough to understand, and then musically reinterpret, his cinematic visions – the “soul of his movie”. Tarantino’s stance on this matter began to soften somewhat prior to his seventh film, Django Unchained, and at one point the rumor was that Ennio Morricone had agreed to score it – if anyone could get Tarantino to change his mind about the impact and importance of an original score, it would be Morricone. However, circumstances led to this not happening, and the final soundtrack featured an original Morricone song, “Ancora Qui,” but no original score. Read more…
CAROL – Carter Burwell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A romantic drama based on the novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, and directed by Todd Haynes, Carol is a melodrama with a very modern slant. The film stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as Carol and Therèse, two women living in New York in the 1950s, both of whom are struggling in their relationships. Carol is estranged from her husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) after she had an affair with another woman, Abby (Sarah Paulson), and Harge is threatening to take away custody of their child. Meanwhile, Therèse is dissatisfied with her relationship with her boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacy), and dreams of something more fulfilling. Their lives intersect when Carol accidentally leaves her gloves at the department store where Therèse works while Christmas shopping; when Therèse returns them, Carol insists on buying her a drink to thank her, and the subsequent sexual tension between them is palpable, but the age gap between the two, as well as their gender, threatens to break the rigid social and moral taboos of the era. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2015, Part 2
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
The second installment in my series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world concentrates on music from films from Scandinavia. This year’s crop of outstanding scores from the far north of Europe features an animated film from Denmark, a wry comedy-drama from Iceland, a pair of historical dramas from Finland, and a wonderful children’s score from Norway written by one of that country’s most talented young composers!
OUT OF AFRICA – John Barry
THROWBACK THIRTY
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The winner of seven Academy Awards – including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography – Out of Africa is generally considered one of the greatest romantic dramas in cinema history. Directed by Sydney Pollack, it is based on the semi-autobiographical writings of aristocratic Danish author Karen Dinesen, specifically the period in the 1910s when she moved to live on a coffee plantation in colonial Kenya with her then-husband, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, and had an affair with a rugged and handsome big game hunter, Denys Finch Hatton. The film is a sumptuous, visually magnificent love letter to the unspoiled African savannah, reveling in the majestic vistas of the country, and using them as a backdrop to the affair Karen engages in, as her husband becomes increasingly distant and neglectful. Anchored by the three central performances of Meryl Streep as Karen, Robert Redford as Denys, and Klaus-Maria Brandauer as Bror, the film explores such challenging themes as marital fidelity, the expectations and conventions of aristocratic society, the role of women in the 1910s, and the differences between European and African tribal cultures, as well as the threat of World War I that loomed over everything. Read more…
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS – John Williams
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.
When John Williams first sat down to write the score for the original Star Wars over the winter of 1976, I doubt that even he could have imagined that he would still be writing music for those characters, and that universe, some 39 years later. There aren’t many film scores you can point to as being an actual turning point, a watershed moment in the history of the genre, but Star Wars was unquestionably one of those, and it went on to inspire a generation of filmmakers, composers, and fans. To say that The Force Awakens, the seventh film in the Star Wars franchise, is an eagerly awaited film would perhaps be one of the greatest understatements of all time – I don’t think I have ever seen a film with this much marketing, pre-release hype, and fevered anticipation – and, thankfully, it does not disappoint in any way. More than any installment in the prequels did, The Force Awakens feels like a proper Star Wars movie, a return to the fun and crowd-pleasing filmmaking of the original trio, and director J. J. Abrams should be congratulated for returning the franchise to its roots, and going some way to banishing the ghost of Jar Jar Binks forever. Read more…
PETER AND WENDY – Maurizio Malagnini
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
J. M. Barrie’s story of Peter Pan has inspired numerous adaptations and spin-offs since it was first performed as a stage play in London in 1904. The latest of those is Peter and Wendy, a British TV movie directed by industry veteran Diarmuid Lawrence. Framed within a more contemporary setting, it tells the story of a young girl named Lucy who is about to receive open heart surgery at the famed Great Ormond Street Hospital. To help assuage her fears about her upcoming procedure, Lucy’s mother reads her the classic Peter Pan novel, and the famous story of Neverland, Captain Hook, Tinkerbell, Lost Boys, and the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up unfolds inside her imagination, with herself as the heroine. The film, which airs in the UK on Christmas Day, stars Stanley Tucci as Captain Hook, Paloma Faith as Tinker Bell, Laura Fraser as Mrs. Darling, and newcomers Zac Sutcliffe and Hazel Doupe as Peter and Wendy respectively. Read more…
Shop at the Movie Music UK Store
Member of the
MOVIE MUSIC UK 