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Best Scores of 2017 – United Kingdom, Part II
The third installment in my annual series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world returns to the United Kingdom, with a look at a half dozen or so more outstanding scores from films made in Britain. This set of scores from comprises comedies, dramas, and even a horror movie, and includes one by an Oscar-winner, one by a well-loved multiple Oscar nominee, and one by one of the most impressive newcomers to emerge in 2017. Read more…
Best Scores of 2017 – United Kingdom, Part I
The first installment in my annual series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world concentrates on music from films from my home country, the United Kingdom. There has been a wealth of riches from all four parts of the country – England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland – and this first set of reviews encompasses a rich and varied set of scores from Oscar winning favorites and talented newcomers, dramas, documentaries, comedies, and even a groundbreaking animation. There will be more to come from the UK later! Read more…
PRINCESS KAIULANI – Stephen Warbeck
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Princess Kaiulani is a film about the life of the extravagantly-named Victoria Kaiulani Kalaninuiahilapalapa Kawekiu i Lunalilo Cleghorn, who was the heir to the Kingdom of Hawaii until the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. Kaiulani – who was educated in England and New York and was in no way the ‘Barbarian Princess’ that the media of the time dubbed her – immediately took up the cause of her country, petitioning US presidents Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland to restore the monarchy, but her efforts were cut short by her untimely death in 1899 at the age of just 23. Nevertheless, Kaiulani was exceptionally popular in the islands, and is remembered today as a strong and tireless campaigner for Hawaiian rights and sovereignty. The film is directed by Marc Forby, stars The New World’s Q’Orianka Kilcher as Kaiulani alongside Barry Pepper, Will Patton and Julian Glover, and features a rich and expansive original score by Stephen Warbeck. Read more…
PROOF – Stephen Warbeck
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the best reviewed films of late summer 2005 has been Proof, the latest effort from John Madden, the Oscar-winning director of Shakespeare in Love and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Based on the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play by David Auburn, it stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Catherine, the daughter of the brilliant, recently-deceased, mathematician and scientist Robert (Anthony Hopkins), who in the latter years of his life was plagued by the onset of dementia. As Robert’s sole care-giver, Catherine – an equally brilliant scholar – spent day and night with her father tending to his needs, and is aggrieved when her sister Claire (Hope Davis) jets in from New York full of bluster and empty words of consolation, and a former dissertation student named Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal) starts poring through her father’s work looking for some spark of genius within the madness. Worst of all, Catherine begins to think that, as well as inheriting her father’s intellect, she may also have inherited his tendency for insanity… Read more…
CHARLOTTE GRAY – Stephen Warbeck
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the four years since he won the Oscar for his score for Shakespeare In Love, British composer Stephen Warbeck’s stock has risen considerably. At first, I was guilty of dismissing him as a flash in the pan: after all, prior to that film, his only work of note was for the popular UK crime series Prime Suspect and the critically acclaimed Mrs. Brown, at that time his only internationally released score. Since then, however, Warbeck has continually surprised and delighted me with score after score of exquisite music. First came Billy Elliott, then Quills, and then Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, easily one of my favorite scores of 2001. The new level of expectation on Warbeck is such that now I look forward to each new work by him, hoping that he can surpass his last effort each time – and it comes as something of a shock to learn that, with Charlotte Gray, he has not. Read more…
CAPTAIN CORELLI’S MANDOLIN – Stephen Warbeck
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Stephen Warbeck just gets better and better. I have to admit that, when he won the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love back in 1998, I dismissed his victory as nothing but sheer luck – a middling composer being fortuitously attached to the right movie at the right time. As time has passed, however, my opinion has changed. Fanny and Elvis and Mystery Men were OK. Billy Elliott was good. Quills was excellent. And now, with Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Warbeck has finally emerged as a bonafide competitor to John Barry, George Fenton and Rachel Portman as the British composer of choice for romantic dramas. Read more…
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