Archive
RUBY – John Scott
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
November 22, 1993, marked the thirtieth anniversary of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, and in the years leading up to that memorial several films and TV shows were made looking at the details surrounding the event. The JFK assassination had fascinated the American public for decades, and the stories and conspiracy theories surrounding it had become stock-in-trade for filmmakers and authors. The most high profile film made during that period was JFK, written and directed by Oliver Stone and released in late 1991, but the spring of 1992 saw another film about the event – Ruby, directed by John Mackenzie. It takes a look at the life of one of the other important figures of the event: Texas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who shot and killed JFK’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement garage of a Dallas city police station two days after JFK’s death. The film starred Danny Aiello as Ruby, and has a supporting cast that included Sherilyn Fenn, Arliss Howard, David Duchovny, and Tobin Bell. Read more…
WIND – Basil Poledouris
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the years immediately prior to his death in 2006, composer Basil Poledouris essentially retired from scoring and moved from the Los Angeles area to Vashon Island, off the coast of Seattle, Washington, where he indulged in his second greatest passion after music: sailing. Many composers are well known for their non-film music endeavors. Alan Silvestri owns a vineyard and makes his own wine, for example, and James Horner famously (and tragically) loved flying vintage planes. Once in a while the two passions are able to intersect, and for Poledouris that happened with the only score he wrote in 1992 – Wind. The film is a romantic adventure set in the world of America’s Cup yachting, which stars Matthew Modine and Jennifer Grey, and was directed by Carroll Ballard. The film is mostly forgotten today, but film music fans would be remiss if they forgot Poledouris’s score for it, because it allowed him to fully embrace the emotional rush that sailing provided for him, and inspired him to write one of his most personal scores. Read more…
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD – Rachel Portman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Where Angels Fear to Tread was one of several cinematic adaptations of novels by the British writer E. M. Forster in the 1980s and early 1990s, the others being A Passage to India, A Room With a View, and Howard’s End. Like all of Forster’s work it is a scathing examination of the British class system, its rigid mores and morals, and how those formal rules butt up against the passions bubbling underneath the proverbial stiff upper lips. This film adaptation is directed by Charles Sturridge and stars Helen Mirren as Lilia, a recent widow who travels from London to Tuscany in 1905 with her young companion Caroline (Helena Bonham-Carter). Shockingly, Lilia falls in love with a handsome and roguish Italian named Gino (Giovanni Guidelli), marries him, and falls pregnant, much to the dismay of her conservative and status-obsessed siblings (Rupert Graves and Judy Davis) back in England. As the two halves of the family fight over Lilia’s perceived unsuitable relationship, especially as it relates to the future of her unborn child, the disagreements quickly turn to tragedy for all involved. The title comes from the famous line in Alexander Pope’s 1711 poem ‘An Essay on Criticism’: for fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Read more…
DIÊN BIÊN PHÚ – Georges Delerue
THROWBACK THIRTY
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The city of Diên Biên Phú is located in the north-west of Vietnam, and was the site of the decisive battle of the First Indochina War in 1954. The conflict climaxed with 55 days of intense combat in which the French colonial army fought against local Vietnamese forces for the fate of the region. It was a terrible and bloody battle, with thousands killed as a result of anti-aircraft batteries, tank warfare, and ground assaults; the eventual result was a humiliating loss for the French, and victory for the Chinese and Russian-backed Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. In the immediate aftermath of the battle the Geneva Accords were signed, ending the war; France withdrew all its forces from its regional colonies in French Indochina, and the independent countries of North Vietnam and South Vietnam were created, although that would not be the end of the conflict, as less than a year later in 1955 the two sides then began battling each other for control of the entire country. The resulting Second Indochina War – known in the United States as the Vietnam War – would then rage on for twenty more years. Read more…
MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN – Shirley Walker
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A comedy thriller with a science fiction twist, Memoirs of an Invisible Man is interesting for a number of reasons. First, it is one of the few films directed by John Carpenter where he was essentially a ‘director for hire’ as opposed to being an integral part of its production; the film was originally supposed to be an Ivan Reitman project until he clashed with star Chevy Chase. The whole thing was a Chase vanity project intended to usher him into more serious leading man roles; he plays mild-mannered stockbroker Nick Halloway, who is rendered invisible following an accident at a hi tech laboratory, and spends the rest of the movie evading a corrupt CIA operative who wants to either recruit him to be a spy, or kill him to stop Nick from exposing his corruption. The film co-stars Daryl Hannah and Sam Neill, but unfortunately was something of a critical and commercial flop. Read more…
RADIO FLYER – Hans Zimmer
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Radio Flyer was a somewhat misguided nostalgic drama directed by Richard Donner from a screenplay by David Mickey Evans. The film stars Tom Hanks as Mike, a middle-aged man telling the story of his childhood in the 1960s to his two sons; 11-year-old Mike (Elijah Wood) and his younger brother Bobby (Joseph Mazzello) find their lives altered irrevocably when their divorced mother (Lorraine Bracco) marries a man they know as ‘the King’ and moves them all to California. The King is a drunk and is physically abusive, especially towards Bobby, and so as a way to escape their situation the boys fantasize about modifying their ‘Radio Flyer’ toy wagon into an aeroplane, and flying away. Despite clearly being a look at an abusive relationship through the eyes of a child, and an unreliable narrator at that, the film was heavily criticized for what some saw as trivializing a serious subject, with critic Roger Ebert being especially ‘appalled’ by the film’s ending. As such, the film is mostly forgotten today, a footnote in the otherwise successful careers of its creators and stars. Read more…
FINAL ANALYSIS – George Fenton
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Final Analysis was one of several ‘sexy thrillers’ that mainstream Hollywood produced in 1992 and 1993 – others included Basic Instinct and Body of Evidence – which sought to capitalize on the fact that there were several good looking leading men and women by putting them in various stages of undress and elements of danger. This film was directed by Phil Joanou from a screenplay by Wesley Strick, and was made as a clear homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Richard Gere plays San Francisco-based psychiatrist Isaac Barr, who is drawn into a torrid affair with Heather (Kim Basinger), the sister of his current patient Diana (Uma Thurman). When Heather reveals to Barr that she is married to gangster Jimmy Evans (Eric Roberts), and wants out of the relationship, Isaac commits to helping her – but there is more to Heather than meets the eye, and before long Barr is drawn into a web of deceit and murder. Read more…
MEDICINE MAN – Jerry Goldsmith
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Medicine Man is a drama with an ecological theme, written by Tom Schulman and Sally Robinson, and directed by John McTiernan, who at that time was one of Hollywood’s premier directors, hot on the heels of Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt for Red October. The film stars Sean Connery as Dr. Robert Campbell, a medical researcher working deep in the Amazonian rainforest, who has gone missing after his wife and research partner abandon him. The pharmaceutical company funding Campbell’s work sends Dr. Rae Crane (Lorraine Bracco) – a brash, tough talking New Yorker – to find him; eventually, she locates him working in a remote tribal village, but they clash immediately, with Campbell’s latent sexism and bad-temperedness preventing him from taking her seriously, and with Rae being desperately unsuited to life in the jungle. However, the two bury their differences when a new threat emerges: a Brazilian logging company is building a road nearby, which threatens to displace the local native population, and potentially destroy the plant that Campbell believes may provide a cure for cancer. Read more…
SHINING THROUGH – Michael Kamen
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Shining Through is an old-fashioned World War II spy thriller with a romantic undercurrent, written and directed by David Seltzer, based on the novel by Susan Isaacs. The film stars Melanie Griffith as Linda Voss, a clerk in a New York law office, who gets swept up into a world of espionage and intrigue when her employer, attorney Ed Leland (Michael Douglas), discovers she speaks German. Ed is secretly a colonel in the OSS, and he enlists Linda for an important assignment: she is to travel to Berlin and, while posing as a member of the household staff of a Nazi officer, steal top-secret plans for a missile weapon the Germans are developing. The film co-stars Liam Neeson, Joely Richardson, and John Gielgud, and has excellent technical pedigree, but unfortunately was a critical flop and a commercial disaster: critic Roger Ebert wrote that Shining Through was “such an insult to the intelligence that I wasn’t able to suspend my disbelief … scene after scene is so implausible that the movie kept pushing me outside and making me ask how the key scenes could possibly be taken seriously”. As such, the film is mostly forgotten today, a footnote in the careers of its three main stars. Read more…
THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE – Graeme Revell
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is a psychological thriller which builds on the ‘something-from-hell’ sub-genre trope, and made parents everywhere think twice about hiring a nanny. The film stars Matt McCoy and Annabella Sciorra as Michael and Claire Bartel, successful young parents with a pre-teen daughter and a baby on the way. After the baby is born Claire hires the seemingly perfect Peyton Flanders (Rebecca de Mornay) to be their new nanny, and for a while things go well – until unusual events start occurring in the Bartel household, and Claire begins to suspect that there is more to Peyton than meets the eye. The film was directed by Curtis Hanson, and was a popular box office hit in the early weeks of 1992; it also became notorious for a particular scene in a greenhouse, which remains a grisly thrill to this day. The title of the film is taken from the famous 1865 poem of the same name written by William Ross Wallace, which praises motherhood and celebrates mothers, and states that ‘the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world’. Read more…
THE LAST BOY SCOUT – Michael Kamen
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Last Boy Scout is an action thriller directed by Tony Scott, produced by movie mogul Joel Silver, written by Shane Black and Greg Hicks. It stars Bruce Willis, hot off the success of his action outings in two Die Hard movies, as Los Angeles private detective Joe Hallenbeck, who suffers a major setback in his current case when the female witness he is protecting is murdered. Needing to find out what happened, Hallenback teams up with the victim’s boyfriend – a disgraced former professional football star named Jimmy Dix, played by Damon Wayans – and begins to investigate. However, the more Joe digs, the more scandal he uncovers and danger he finds, involving a corrupt politician and the ruthless owner of a sports franchise. The film co-starred Chelsea Field, Noble Willingham, and a young Halle Berry, and was one of the most popular and financially successful action movies of 1991, but thirty years down the line it has somewhat fallen into obscurity. The same could be said of the film’s score, which was by the great Michael Kamen. Read more…
FRIED GREEN TOMATOES – Thomas Newman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Fried Green Tomatoes is a sentimental comedy-drama directed by Jon Avnet, based on the popular novel by Fannie Flagg. The story jumps between the past and the present and explores the relationship between Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates), a middle-aged and disillusioned housewife, and Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), an elderly woman who lives in a nursing home. Evelyn pays weekly visits to Ninny, who tells her stories about her youth in the small town of Whistle Stop, Alabama, where her sister-in-law, Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson), and her ‘friend’ Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker) ran a café. As Ninny’s seemingly whimsical story unfolds, more serious themes relating to lesbianism, racism, and even murder gradually begin to emerge, and the influence of the strong women from Ninny’s childhood inspire Evelyn to make positive changes in her life in the present. The film was a hit with both audiences and critics, and earned two Oscar nominations, including one for Tandy as Best Supporting Actress at the age of 82. Read more…
THE PRINCE OF TIDES – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Prince of Tides is a serious romantic drama, directed by Barbra Streisand, and adapted from the acclaimed novel by Pat Conroy. The film stars Nick Nolte as Tom Wingo, a football coach from South Carolina, who is asked to travel to New York to help his sister, Savannah, who has recently attempted suicide. In New York Tom meets with Savannah’s psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein (Streisand), and the two have an immediate attraction to each other, despite them both being married. As time goes on Tom and Susan grow closer, and Tom begins to reveal long-suppressed details about his past and his private life, some of which relates directly to the issues plaguing Savannah, However, their deepening romantic relationship also threatens to break up their respective marriages, which could have devastating consequences for both families. The film co-stars Blythe Danner, Jeroen Krabbé, and Melinda Dillon, and was both a critical and commercial success, grossing more than $135 million at the box office, and picking up seven Academy Award nominations. Read more…
FATHER OF THE BRIDE – Alan Silvestri
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Father of the Bride is charming remake of the classic 1950 Spencer Tracy-Elizabeth Taylor comedy, written by Nancy Meyers and directed by Charles Shyer. Steve Martin takes over the Tracy role as George Banks, a middle-aged father who finds himself suffering both a midlife crisis and a nervous breakdown when his only daughter Anne (Kimberly Williams) announces she is getting married. What follows is a comedy of errors as George – who is reluctant to see his daughter as a grown-up woman – suffers all manner of mishaps, mixed messages, and physical pratfalls as he supervises the organization of the wedding he does not want to happen. The film co-stars Diane Keaton and George Newbern, and features a hilarious cameo from Martin Short as Franck the wedding planner, and is one of those feelgood movies that is funny and heartwarming all at the same time. Read more…
BUGSY – Ennio Morricone
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Looking at the city of Las Vegas today, it’s difficult to see past its opulent hotels, gourmet restaurants, popular shows, beautiful weather, and frivolous excess, and remember that this world center of entertainment has its origins in organized crime. Director Barry Levinson’s film Bugsy explores these origins, specifically looking at the life and death of New York gangster Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, who travels to Los Angeles in the early 1940s, gets involved with tough-talking Hollywood actress Virginia Hill, and makes a lot of friends and a lot of enemies in California’s criminal underworld, before he has the world-changing idea of building a luxury casino – the Flamingo – in the sun-baked Nevada town of Las Vegas as a way to launder money. The film is a fascinating look at the birth of one of the world’s most popular vacation spots; it stars Warren Beatty as Bugsy, Annette Bening as Hill, and features a supporting cast including Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, and Elliott Gould. The film was also a critical success, picking up ten Academy Award nominations – including Best Picture – and eventually winning for Art Direction and Costume Design. Read more…
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