Archive
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER, SEASON TWO – Bear McCreary
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE SHOW, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER WAITING UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE DONE SO TO READ IT.
Despite being one of the most lavish, ambitious, and expensive television shows in the history of the medium, the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was not quite the overwhelming success that Amazon Prime Video hoped and expected it to be. Although it quickly became the most-watched Prime Video original series in history, and although it received generally positive reviews from critics – particularly for its visuals and designs – many Tolkien purists took great exception to the fact that showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay took some creative liberties with the source material. Not only that, the show was also the victim of racist online ‘review bombing’ stemming from complaints about the casting of non-white actors in key roles, as if that matters in a fantasy setting. Such is the way of toxic fandom today. Despite this, I thought it was absolutely outstanding, one of the most impressive television productions I have ever seen. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2024, Part 4
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the fourth of 2024, covers another six scores from a wide array of genres and countries: a French period courtroom comedy, a new adaptation of a classic of French literature, two Japanese TV scores, a Chinese animated fantasy film, and a Swedish TV series remake of a beloved children’s adventure!
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2024, Part 3
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the third of 2024, covers seven scores from a wide array of genres and countries: a Chinese thriller about an autistic math genius, a French historical TV mini-series, a Spanish romantic thriller, a Japanese romantic survival horror movie based on a TV show, a French action comedy, a Japanese TV series about surrogate parenting, and a French swashbuckling TV series, all of which feature superb and memorable thematic writing!
My Brilliant Friend: The Subtle Art of Max Richter
by Mark Walker
There’s a moment in the second episode of the HBO-RAI TV series My Brilliant Friend that encapsulates for me everything about the subtle art of Max Richter’s film scoring. In a pivotal sequence the two young girls, Lila and Elena, decide to venture outside of their Neapolitan ghetto for the very first time. It is, naturally, Lila’s idea. She’s the daring, wilful, feisty one; contrast with middle-of-the-road Elena, always afraid to challenge the status quo, yet irresistibly fascinated by the allure of her brilliant friend. The scene is richly symbolic and tells us much about the relationship between the pair that will develop – in the course of Elena Ferrante’s wonderful novels and in this astonishingly faithful and utterly riveting TV adaptation – throughout their lives into adulthood and old age. As the girls pass under the ominous railway bridge – a literal and metaphorical gateway to the outside world – they hold hands, they shout joyfully making echoes in the tunnel, they are excited about the journey ahead.
Richter scores all this initially with just a piano – simple arpeggios, a very simple melody, his wistful motif for Elena and Lila in fact. As the girls walk along the dusty highway, the string ensemble joins in, solemn legato chords enhance the feeling of melancholy. This seems odd at first, since the trip has begun with such apparent optimism. Then, as thunderclouds build overhead and we see Lila start to drag her feet, there’s a touch of magic – a solo violin takes over the poignant melody, soaring above the ensemble. The music has been telling us all along that this is not going to be the jolly adventure we and the characters had imagined. Read more…
BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER – Frederik Wiedmann
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Despite being a long-time fan of the character as a whole – at least since Michael Keaton donned the mask and cowl in 1989 – for some reason I never really embraced the world of Animated Batman. I never sat down and watched any episodes of Batman: The Animated Series when it premiered in 1992, I have only seen the Mask of the Phantasm movie once, and I have not seen any of the numerous subsequent films or TV shows that have been released in the thirty years since then. I don’t know why; by all accounts they are all well-made, well-written, dramatically interesting stories with a clear internal logic, stylish design, and a whole host of excellent voice actors, notably Mark Hamill and the late Kevin Conroy. Musically, too, composers as talented as Danny Elfman, the late Shirley Walker, and the Dynamic Music Partners trio comprising Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion, and Lolita Ritmanis, have all written excellent scores across a myriad of episodes and entries. Read more…
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW – Federico Jusid
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A Gentleman in Moscow is an 8-part British TV mini-series directed by Sam Miller and Sara O’Gorman, based on the on the 2016 novel by Amor Towles. Ewan McGregor stars as the fictional aristocrat Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov who, after recently returning to Russia from Paris, is arrested by Bolsheviks following the October Revolution of 1917, tried, and convicted for being a traitor to the Community Party. However, instead of receiving a death sentence, he is sentenced to a lifetime of house arrest inside a luxury hotel – the Hotel Metropol Moscow – where he subsequently spends several decades, banished to a small attic room. However Rostov – who is a brilliant conversationalist, with expertise in everything from evolution and philosophy, to art, literature, poetry, and food – finds himself becoming an integral part of the hotel, interacting with guests, while observing the development of post-revolution Russia and the birth of the Soviet Union. Read more…
MASTERS OF THE AIR – Blake Neely
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Masters of the Air is the latest TV mini-series from executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks looking at the American military experience in World War II. It serves as a companion piece its predecessors Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010), as well as the 2020 movie Greyhound, and is based on the 2007 book of the same name by Donald L. Miller, which follows the actions of the 100th Bomb Group, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber unit in the Eighth Air Force in eastern England during World War II. Led by Gale ‘Buck’ Cleven and John ‘Bucky’ Egan, the group embarks on a series of dangerous missions to bomb targets inside German-occupied Europe. The series stars Austin Butler and Callum Turner as Buck and Bucky, with support from Anthony Boyle, Nikolai Kinski, and Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan. Read more…
AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER – Takeshi Furukawa
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I want to start this review by saying that, for the most part, I am coming to it from a place of complete ignorance. I am aware that there is a very well-loved and popular animated TV show called Avatar: The Last Airbender, which aired on Nickelodeon for three seasons between 2005 and 2008. This show was very loosely adapted into a live-action movie, The Last Airbender, by M. Night Shyamalan in 2010, which was a critical and commercial flop. There was also a sequel TV series, The Legend of Korra, which also aired on Nickelodeon for four seasons from 2012 to 2014. While I did see the Last Airbender movie, I have never seen any episodes of the original animated show, and while I very much liked James Newton Howard’s score for the movie, I have absolutely no experience with the scores for the animated shows, which are by Jeremy Zuckerman and Benjamin Wynn. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2023, Part 6
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world. This article, the sixth of 2023, covers five scores from five very different projects from Japanese film and television, plus a delightful Christmas score from Norway.
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER – The Newton Brothers
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The latest TV mini-series horror effort from director Mike Flanagan is The Fall of the House of Usher, which is ostensibly a modern-day adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s 1839 work of the same name, but which also draws inspiration from and makes reference to numerous other Poe works, including The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Gold-Bug, and The Pit and the Pendulum, among many others. The show stars Bruce Greenwood as Roderick Usher, the corrupt elderly billionaire CEO of a pharmaceutical company, whose six children – heir Frederick, entrepreneur Tamerlane, surgeon Victorine, gaming mogul Leo, PR head Camille, and socialite Perry – have all died in a span of two weeks. Fearing that his own death is imminent, Usher invites Assistant US Attorney Auguste Dupin – who has been trying to prosecute him for decades – to his crumbling childhood home to finally confess his crimes, reveal how his children died, and so much more. The show is an excellent exploration of power, corruption, and greed, filtered through the deliciously macabre lens of Poe’s horror stories, and was one of the most popular successes of Netflix’s 2023 fall lineup. Read more…
LIFE ON OUR PLANET – Lorne Balfe
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I don’t know whether it’s my imagination or not, but there seem to be more nature documentary series right now than ever before. When I was a kid, the only nature documentaries I saw were made by the BBC Natural History Unit, they were narrated by Sir David Attenborough, and they came out once every couple of years to great fanfare and acclaim. The first one I remember watching as it aired was The Living Planet in 1984, followed by The Trials of Life six years later in 1990. Now, everyone is getting in on the act; Attenborough and the BBC are still making them, of course, and they are doing them magnificently, but in recent years Netflix and National Geographic and Disney Nature and seemingly dozens of other companies are getting in on the act too, to the point where I wonder whether we might be getting a little over-saturated. What else is there really left to say about polar bears or blue whales? The latest such documentary to be released is Life On Our Planet, which will begin airing on Netflix at the end October 2023. It’s executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, is narrated by Morgan Freeman, and ambitiously attempts to look at the multi-billion year history of the world, from the time of the dinosaurs to the present day. It looks to feature some absolutely astonishing cinematography, and will include a hybrid of both computer-generated imagery and live-action film. Read more…
WILD ISLES – George Fenton
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
For almost 70 years the BBC Natural History Unit has been, in my opinion, the world leader in making nature documentaries. Although it had been making smaller-scale programmes for quite some time, it was the groundbreaking 1979 series Life on Earth that truly cemented its reputation; further entries such as The Living Planet in 1984, The Trials of Life in 1990, and Life in the Freezer in 1993 built on this success, and then more recent things like Blue Planet, Planet Earth, Africa, Life, and their various sequels, have showcased the NHU’s spectacular wildlife footage to millions worldwide. However, despite how majestic and awe-inspiring these massive shows are – and they are tremendous – I have always enjoyed their smaller scale examinations of British nature and found them to be equally rewarding; Wild Isles is one of those. Read more…
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE – Daniel Hart
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Anne Rice’s 1976 novel Interview With the Vampire, while not originally a success, has since become regarded as a modern classic of Gothic horror literature, which revitalized the vampire genre after decades where the public perception of them was either a grotesque monster (á la Nosferatu), or a debonair blood-sucking aristocrat (á la Christopher Lee’s Dracula). Rice re-imagined vampires with more depth and emotional complexity, and created a global society for them to inhabit, running parallel to that of the humans on which they prey. The film spawned multiple sequel novels in the ‘Vampire Chronicles’ series, as well as an excellent movie adaptation in 1994 starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, which remains one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Now, the story is being re-told again as a TV series on the AMC network created by Rolin Jones, starring Jacob Anderson as Louis, Sam Reid as Lestat, Eric Bogosian as the interviewer Daniel Molloy, Bailey Bass as the child vampire Claudia, and Assad Zaman as the ancient leader of the Parisian coven, Armand. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2022, Part 8
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
Life has returned to world cinema in 2022 following the easing of the COVID-19 global pandemic, and at the end of the fourth quarter of the year I’m absolutely delighted to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world. This article covers five scores for projects from Spanish-speaking countries, and includes a sci-fi drama series, a Mexican existential comedy-drama, two murder-mystery thriller movies, and a TV series about the life of explorer Ferdinand Magellan.
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2022, Part 7
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
Life has returned to world cinema in 2022 following the easing of the COVID-19 global pandemic, and at the end of the fourth quarter of the year I’m absolutely delighted to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world. This article covers six scores for projects from disparate parts of Europe, and includes a Dutch-Belgian Christmas family film, a powerful Croatian drama, a Belgian nature documentary, a Spanish supernatural horror film, and two different scores by the same French composer – one a period drama film, and one a historical TV series looking at the life of Queen Marie-Antoinette.
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