Archive
THE MARTIAN – Harry Gregson-Williams
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Ridley Scott has been in something of a career slump of late. The once-revered director of classics like Alien, Blade Runner, and, more recently, Gladiator, did not receive many good reviews for his last few films, which have included Prometheus, The Counselor, and Exodus: Gods and Kings. His new film, The Martian, may set things back in the right direction. Based on the acclaimed debut novel by Andy Weir, the film is a space adventure that plays as a cross between Castaway, Gravity, and Apollo 13; it stars Matt Damon as Mark Watney, an astronaut on the latest successful NASA mission to make a manned trip to Mars. Unfortunately disaster strikes and the other members of his team – including Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, and Michael Peña – are forced to blast off the planet, leaving Mark behind, presumed dead. NASA officials Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Kristin Wiig, and Chiwetel Ejiofor announce Mark’s death to a shocked world – but, back on Mars, Mark has somehow survived the accident, and is now faced with a terrible double dilemma: how to survive on Mars with dwindling food and water supplies, and how to contact Earth so that they can come and rescue him. The film is a superb combination of high action-adventure and intelligent application of real science, and will surely appeal to those with any interest in the realities of space exploration and the possibilities and problems it holds for those bold enough to do it. The film is anchored by Matt Damon’s excellent lead performance as Watney, which is at times surprisingly funny as he muses ironically at his situation and the bizarre things he has to do to survive, and is at other times spectacularly beautiful, taking every possible opportunity to present the barren Martian landscapes in all their austere glory. Read more…
SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION: BEYOND EARTH – RISING TIDE – Geoff Knorr, Griffin Cohen, Grant Kirkhope
GAME ZONE REVIEW
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide is an expansion pack which builds on the first Beyond Earth installment of Sid Meier’s extremely popular Civilization video game series, which was released to general acclaim last year. The expansion allows players to embark on new quests on new ‘biome’ planets – including a water planet and an ice planet – as they try to create and maintain civilizations in outer space. One of the most notable aspects of the game was its IFMCA Award-winning, BMI Award-nominated score by Geoff Knorr, Griffin Cohen, Michael Curran, and Grant Kirkhope, which was roundly praised as being one of the most impressive orchestral game scores in many years. For Rising Tide, three of the four composers are back (Curran left development company Firaxis for another company, Stardock Entertainment, earlier this year), and their music builds on the sound of the first game, but adds in new textures, and new ideas. The result is very, very impressive. Read more…
EVEREST – Dario Marianelli
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Although more than 4,000 people have scaled the summit of Mount Everest since Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay first conquered the mountain in 1953, hundreds have also perished on its treacherous slopes. Director Baltasar Kormákur’s film Everest tells the story of one of the mountain’s most deadly incidents, when eight people died trying to reach the summit in May 1996, including experienced guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, both of whom ran ‘adventure vacation’ companies that specialized in taking tourists to the top of the world. It’s an exciting, dramatic, harrowing, visually beautiful film, made all the more tragic through the knowledge that (by and large) it depicts true events. The film stars Australian actor Jason Clarke as Hall – getting to use his native accent for once! – and Jake Gyllenhaal as his American counterpart Fischer, and features Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Michael Kelly, and Sam Worthington in supporting roles. Read more…
BLACK MASS – Tom Holkenborg
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
James “Whitey” Bulger was a notorious and violent mobster who, basically, was the leading figure in organized crime on the south side of Boston, Massachusetts, throughout the 1970s and 80s, allegedly personally committing dozens of murders and being involved in everything from drug smuggling and racketeering to illegally exporting arms for the IRA. Throughout this time, however, Bulger was also an informant for the FBI, which turned a blind eye to Bulger’s own criminal activities, in exchange for the information he provided about other organized crime families in the area. This all changed in 1994, when a new district attorney decided to go after Bulger, who then fled the city. For the next 16 years Bulger remained in hiding, until he was finally captured in 2011 outside his apartment in Santa Monica, California, and was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. The movie Black Mass, directed by Scott Cooper, tells Bulger’s life story; it stars Johnny Depp in a return-to-form performance as Bulger, Joel Edgerton as his FBI contact John Connelly, Benedict Cumberbatch as Bulger’s brother William, the former president of the Massachusetts State Senate, and has a superb supporting cast including Kevin Bacon, Dakota Johnson, Corey Stoll, Peter Sarsgaard, and Jesse Plemons from Breaking Bad. Read more…
RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II – Jerry Goldsmith
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Following the massive success of the original First Blood movie in 1982, it was inevitable that a sequel would be forthcoming. Rambo: First Blood Part II once again saw Sylvester Stallone returning to one of his most iconic roles as former United States Special Forces commando John Rambo. Having spent a year in prison as punishment for his part in the events of the first film, Rambo is visited by his old commanding officer, Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna), and offered a deal – in exchange for being pardoned by the government, Rambo must return to Vietnam and investigate reports of American soldiers still being held captive by the Viet Cong. However, as Rambo arrives in Southeast Asia, all hell breaks loose, and the one-man army finds himself waging war not only against the Vietnamese, but against a group of corrupt Soviets who are funding them. The film was directed by George P. Cosmatos from a screenplay by James Cameron, co-stars Charles Napier, Steven Berkoff, and Julia Nickson as a local intelligence agent, and was an even greater commercial success than the original, becoming one of the most iconic action movies of the 1980s. Read more…
SICARIO – Jóhann Jóhannsson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The rise to power of the Mexican drug cartels has caused immeasurable damage to the cities of northern Mexico over the last couple of decades, as rival groups battle to control the distribution of illegal narcotics across the border and into the United States. Murder, extortion, kidnapping, and corruption are all becoming increasingly commonplace, leaving the good people of border cities like Tijuana, Mexicali, Nogales, and Nuevo Laredo fearful for their lives in the face of the deadly violence all around them. Most dangerous of all is the city of Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, which in the past decade has become the headquarters of the Sinaloa cartel, who notoriously leave the headless corpses of their dead enemies dangling from bridges in the city. The new movie Sicario, directed by Denis Villeneuve, is an uncensored journey into that world from the point of view of FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), who is asked to join a special team by mysterious government official Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), and his equally mysterious advisor Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), with a view to apprehending one of Juárez’s most powerful and notorious bosses. Read more…
FIRST BLOOD – Jerry Goldsmith
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
First Blood was adapted from the David Morrell in 1972 novel of the same name, although an alternative ending was shot that preserved the story’s protagonist for future tales. Sylvester Stallone plays John J. Rambo, a Vietnam War veteran who gained honor and distinction serving as a member of the elite United States Special Forces, for which he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Yet all is not well as he is haunted by the horrors of war and cannot find inner peace as he tries to adapt to civilian life. As Rambo hikes through Hope, Washington, to visit a friend he arouses the interests of the xenophobic local Sheriff, William Teasel (Brian Dennehy), who promptly escorts him out of town. Outraged as his treatment as he has not done anything wrong, Rambo returns to the town; Teasel takes his return as a personal affront and promptly arrests him on false charges. When Rambo is further disrespected and physically abused by Teasel’s minions he snaps and switches into his special forces combat mode with predictable and devastating consequences for his abusers. After pummeling his abusers, he escapes the jail and then flees on a motorcycle to the safety of the woods. Teasel, of course, organizes a hunting party to bring Rambo in “to face justice.” What follows is a rampage of killing and destruction as Rambo brings Teasel and his city to the brink of defeat. Thanks to the timely intervention of his commanding officer Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna), Rambo’s release and free passage is negotiated to save the town further carnage. The movie served as a potent commentary on the alienation and estrangement felt by many of our soldiers as they returned from a deeply unpopular war and attempted to re-assimilate into society. Read more…
AGNES OF GOD – Georges Delerue
THROWBACK THIRTY
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
After he won the Oscar for Best Original Score in 1979 for A Little Romance, it appeared that the great French composer Georges Delerue would make the leap from the prestigious European films for which he was known, and begin a career scoring prestigious Hollywood fare. After all, Delerue was the musical voice of the French New Wave, the composer of choice for directors like François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Alain Resnais, whose collaborations included such landmark works as Hiroshima Mon Amour in 1959, Shoot the Piano Player in 1960, Jules et Jim in 1962, Le Mépris in 1963, Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent in 1971, Une Belle Fille Comme Moi in 1972, and La Nuit Américaine in 1973. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened at all. Hollywood seemed to be completely at a loss with what to do to with Delerue, and instead of him being asked to score serious, worthy films, he ended up writing music for films that were, to put it mildly, deeply beneath him. Between 1980 and the summer of 1985 Delerue wrote music for such forgettable fare as Richard’s Things, Rich and Famous, and The Black Stallion Returns, and even had the ignominy of having his score for Something Wicked This Way Comes rejected by the studio. Thankfully, one person who appreciated his talent and knew what he could bring to the table was director Norman Jewison, who approached Delerue to score his serious religious drama, Agnes of God, in 1985. Read more…
NO ESCAPE – Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
No Escape is an action/thriller/drama directed by John Erik Dowdle, starring Owen Wilson as American businessman Jack Dwyer, who arrives in Southeast Asia to begin a new life with his wife Annie (Lake Bell) and their two young daughters. As his company plans to improve the region’s water quality, the family quickly learns that they’re right in the middle of a political uprising, a situation which reaches boiling point when armed rebels attack the hotel where they’re staying, ordered to kill any foreigners that they encounter. Desperate to survive amid the utter chaos, Jack must find a way to save himself and his loved ones from the violence erupting all around them. The film, which also stars Pierce Brosnan, has unfortunately opened to largely negative reviews, many of which call the film “xenophobic,” “borderline offensive,” and “unpleasant” – the latter of which could also apply to Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders’s difficult original score. Read more…
PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE – Danny Elfman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The story of how Tim Burton and Danny Elfman met has probably been turned into an urban myth, Chinese whispers-style, by now, but here’s my understanding of how it went down. In 1984, Burton was an aspiring filmmaker, a former animator for Disney who worked as an artist on films such as The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron, and Tron, and who had impressed many with his animated short film Frankenweenie. One fan of Frankenweenie was actor and comedian Paul Reubens, who actively sought Burton out to direct Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, the planned big-screen spinoff of his popular Pee-Wee Herman character, which has become a cult-success on stage. Burton was a fan of the theatrical rock band Oingo Boingo and its charismatic lead singer Danny Elfman and, when it came time to decide on a musical direction for Pee-Wee, he approached Elfman to offer him the gig. Unknown to Burton, Elfman had basically grown up as a ‘film music fanboy’, having a special affinity for the work of Bernard Herrmann, and jumped at the chance to work in the genre that had fascinated him all his life. The rest, as they say, is history. Read more…
MR. HOLMES – Carter Burwell
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Mr. Holmes is a quiet, thoughtful film directed by Bill Condon, based on the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin, which features the famous literary detective Sherlock Holmes as a 90-year-old man looking back on his life in the aftermath of World War II. Sir Ian McKellen plays Holmes, long retired from his career as a sleuth, and now living simply on the south coast of England with his housekeeper Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney), and her young son Roger (Milo Parker). As his mental health begins to deteriorate due to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, the increasingly frustrated and cantankerous Holmes struggles to recall the details of his last case, 30 years previously, the outcome of which led directly to his retirement; the only bright spot is his growing paternal relationship with the bright and inquisitive Roger, who he is teaching to tend to the bees in his apiary. Read more…
INSIDE OUT – Michael Giacchino
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The last couple of Pixar movies – Cars 2, Brave, Monsters University – have been comparative disappointments by their ludicrously high standards, and a turnaround in fortune was required. As such, directors Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen stepped up and produced Inside Out, a beautiful, moving portrait of what it means to grow up. The conceit of the story is built around the theory developed by renowned psychologist Paul Ekman that the human experience is built around six core emotions: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and joy. The film follows Riley, a happy 11-year-old Midwestern girl, whose carefree life is thrown into turmoil when her parents move to San Francisco. Inside Riley’s head, the five emotions – Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) – try to guide her through this difficult, life-changing event; throughout her life to date, Joy has been Riley’s dominant emotion, but ever since the move Sadness has been inexplicably compelled to move to the forefront. After one particularly traumatic event on the first day at her new school, Joy and Sadness are accidentally swept out of the Headquarters where Riley’s conscious thought is processed, and into the labyrinthine storage area where Riley’s long-term memories are kept; as such, the mis-matched pair must find a way to return to HQ, where Anger, Fear and Disgust have been left in control. Read more…
STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK – James Horner
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan achieved tremendous critical and commercial success, and so Paramount quickly authorized the making of a third film. However, director Nicholas Meyer refused to return in protest over changes made to the prior film’s ending without his consent. When Nimoy was asked to reprise the role of Spock, he said yes, with the caveat that he wanted to direct the film. The studio hesitated, but ultimately agreed, and Harve Bennett was again hired to produce and write the script. The original crew ensemble returned including; William Shatner as Captain Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, DeForest Kelly as Dr. McCoy, James Doohan as Scott, George Takei as Sulu, Walter Koenig as Chekov and Nichelle Nichols as Uhura. Joining the cast was Christopher Llyod as the villain Captain Kruge, Robin Curtis replacing Kirstie Alley as Lieutenant Saavik, Mark Lenard as Sarek, Merritt Buttrick as Dr. David Marcus, and the renowned Dame Judith Anderson as the Vulcan high priestess T’Lar. Nimoy wanted the film to be operatic with a transpersonal exploration of the themes of life, death and rebirth. Yet he also wanted to explore on a more personal level, the deeper meaning of friendship. Nimoy relates: “What should a person do to help a friend? How deeply should a friendship commitment go? And what sacrifices, what obstacles, will these people endure?” Read more…
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. – Daniel Pemberton
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is director Guy Ritchie’s remake of the classic 1960s TV show of the same name, which starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum as Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, crack agents for the CIA and KGB, respectively, who are recruited by the British to work for the cross-agency spy organization U.N.C.L.E. (“United Network Command for Law and Enforcement”) at the height of the Cold War, to take down whatever was threatening world peace that week. This reboot of the show features Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer as Solo and Kuryakin, who are teamed together to help an East German defector named Gabi Teller (Alicia Vikander) locate her missing scientist father, who may be helping wealthy shipping magnate Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki) build a nuclear weapon which could destabilize the world. The film is an absolute delight, featuring a trio of excellent central performances from Cavill, Hammer and Vikander, which spares no expense in playing up their fish-out-of-water mismatched buddy dynamics. The dialogue is witty and sharp, the action is exciting, the 1960s atmosphere is captured perfectly through the costume and set design, and there is a rich vein of clever humor punctuating the entire project. Read more…
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION – Joe Kraemer
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I have, in my head, a list of composers whose level of talent is directly inverse to the number and quality of films they are asked to score. Some of them are composers who used to get major assignments but have fallen off the radar of late: people like Bruce Broughton, Cliff Eidelman, Trevor Jones, and David Newman. Others are composers who, for whatever reason, have yet to make that major breakthrough despite having talent in abundance: people like Neal Acree, Scott Glasgow, Federico Jusid, Nuno Malo, and too many others to list here. For the longest time Joe Kraemer was on that list too, but with the release of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, I might finally be able to cross him off. The film is the latest action extravaganza starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and others, as agents with the top-secret IMF espionage and counter-terrorism force, seeking to take down ‘the Syndicate’, a network of highly skilled operatives who are dedicated to establishing a new world order via an escalating series of terrorist attacks and disasters. The movie globe-trots from Belarus to Cuba, to Vienna, to Morocco, and finally the UK, with the usual array of breathtaking stunts; it is directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Usual Suspects. Read more…
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