Archive
M. BUTTERFLY – Howard Shore
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
M. Butterfly is an epic romantic drama film directed by David Cronenberg, based on the Tony Award-winning play of the same name by David Henry Hwang, which was itself inspired by the classic opera Madam Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini. The movie tells the story of Rene Gallimard, a French diplomat stationed in China in the 1960s and 1970s, who becomes romantically involved with Song Liling, a Chinese opera singer. As the years go by, Gallimard’s career flourishes, and he becomes entangled in espionage, sharing sensitive information with Song Liling, whom he believes to be a woman. However, Gallimard remains oblivious (or, perhaps, intentionally overlooks) to the fact that Song Liling is actually a male spy working for the Chinese government; eventually, the revelation of Song’s true identity, and his espionage activities, lead to dramatic and tragic consequences for Gallimard. The film is a fascinating exploration of issues related to gender, sexuality, and East-West cultural clashes, as well as the power dynamics within their unconventional relationship. The film stars Jeremy Irons as Gallimard, and John Lone as Song, with support from Barbara Sukowa and Ian Richardson. Read more…
THE JOY LUCK CLUB – Rachel Portman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Anyone who has read this website for any length of time will know that one of my favorite sub-genres of film music is the ‘east/west crossover,’ meaning scores which blend a western symphonic orchestra with specialist solo instruments from China, Japan, Korea, and other East Asian cultures; instruments like the shakuhachi, shamisen, taiko drums, erhu, dizi, pipa, and so many more. There is something wholly evocative about this style to me, the way the two types of instruments complement each other, one enhancing the beauty of the other. My love of this style goes back thirty years, and was originally influenced by this score – The Joy Luck Club by Rachel Portman – which was the first east/west crossover score I consciously heard. Read more…
NEEDFUL THINGS – Patrick Doyle
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Needful Things is a cautionary drama film with a horror-supernatural twist, directed by Fraser Heston (son of legendary actor Charlton), and based on a 1991 novel by Stephen King. The story revolves around a mysterious shop owner named Leland Gaunt (Max von Sydow), who opens a store called ‘Needful Things’ in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine. Gaunt sells various items to the townspeople, each one seemingly fulfilling their deepest desires and fantasies. However, these apparently innocent transactions come with a sinister price – they require the recipients to perform increasingly malevolent and destructive acts against their fellow townspeople. As the town becomes divided and chaos ensues, local sheriff Alan Pangborn (Ed Harris) starts to investigate the bizarre occurrences and tries to uncover the truth behind Gaunt and his shop. The film co-stars Bonnie Bedelia, J. T. Walsh, and Amanda Plummer, and was a reasonable success at the box office in the late summer of 1993, although it was less popular with critics – Roger Ebert famously compared watching it to enduring ‘Satanic water torture’. Read more…
THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE – James Horner
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Man Without a Face is a drama film about the unlikely friendship between a teacher and a student, and is based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Isabelle Holland. It was the directorial debut of Mel Gibson, who also stars in the eponymous role as Justin McLeod, a former teacher who was disfigured in a car accident, leaving him with severe facial burns, and who now lives a reclusive life on an island off the coast of Maine, estranged from society due to his appearance and his emotional scars. Things change for McLeod when a teenage boy named Chuck Norstadt, who is struggling with his studies and is on the verge of flunking out of the military school he desperately wants to attend, approaches him for help with his education. Despite initial hesitation from Chuck’s mother, they form an unlikely friendship, and McLeod agrees to tutor the boy in various subjects. As the summer progresses, McLeod’s mentorship helps Chuck not only academically but also emotionally, while Chuck’s faith in McLeod starts to help him shed some of his bitterness and anger. However, rumors and misunderstandings about the ‘true nature’ of their relationship begin to circulate in the small town, leading to suspicion and hostility. The film co-stars Nick Stahl as Chuck, as well as Margaret Whitton, Fay Masterson, Gaby Hoffmann, Geoffrey Lewis, and Richard Masur. It received mostly positive reviews from critics at the time, although it is somewhat forgotten today. Read more…
SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER – James Horner
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Searching for Bobby Fischer is a chess-themed drama film directed by Steven Zaillian, which marked the directorial debut of the screenwriter of Schindler’s List. The film is based on the true story of Joshua Waitzkin, a 7-year-old boy with an exceptional talent for playing chess. After his skills are discovered, he starts receiving formal training from chess tutor Bruce Pandolfini. However, Josh’s natural ability for the game, as well as his fascination with the legendary chess player Bobby Fischer, creates a conflict within him. On one hand, he strives to excel in the game and becomes deeply involved in competitive chess tournaments. On the other hand, he battles with the pressure to balance his love for chess with a normal childhood. This dichotomy is further exacerbated by Josh’s parents, who have differing views on how to nurture their son’s talent: his father encourages his competitive side, while his mother wants him to enjoy a more well-rounded life. It’s a film about the pursuit of excellence, the complexities of talent and ambition, and the balance between nurturing a gift and maintaining a sense of innocence. It stars Ben Kingsley, Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, Laurence Fishburne, and young Max Pomeranc as Josh, and I really enjoy it – it’s a slow burn, low-key movie that features some crackerjack dramatic performances and ends on an emotional high. Read more…
THE FUGITIVE – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Fugitive is one of the best action thriller movies of the 1990s. It’s a big screen remake of the massively popular 1963 TV series, and sees Harrison Ford taking over from David Janssen in the title role as Dr Richard Kimble, an acclaimed Chicago vascular surgeon. One night, after coming home from a fundraiser, Kimble finds his beloved wife Helen (Sela Ward) fatally wounded, having been attacked by a one-armed man, who escapes after a fight. However, a mountain of misinterpreted circumstantial evidence leads to Kimble being wrongfully arrested and convicted of the murder. While on his way to death row, his prison transport bus crashes, and Kimble is able to escape. Enter US Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), a dogged and gruff but dedicated investigator, who is charged with re-capturing Kimble. So begins a terrific game of cat-and-mouse as Kimble tries to discover the identity of the real killer before Gerard catches up with him. The film was directed by Andrew Davis, and co-stars Joe Pantoliano, Andreas Katsulas, and Jeroen Krabbé, as well as Julianne Moore and Jane Lynch in early supporting roles. Read more…
HOCUS POCUS – John Debney
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the most enduringly popular films from 1993 is Hocus Pocus, a children’s fantasy comedy with a spooky edge. Directed by Kenny Ortega from a screenplay by Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert and a story by David Kirschner, the film stars Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy as Winifred, Sarah, and Mary, the Sanderson sisters of Salem, Massachusetts, who were executed 300 years previously for practicing dark magic and witchcraft. In modern day Salem Max, a teenager new to town, inadvertently brings the sisters back to life on Halloween Night when he lights a black-flame candle in the witches’ former house while out trick-or-treating. Now, with the help of his younger sister, his girlfriend, and a talking cat named Binx, Max must stop the witches from stealing the life force of the town’s children, and achieving immortality. The film co-starred Omri Katz, Thora Birch, and Vinessa Shaw and, despite it not being especially successful at the time, has since become a popular kid’s Halloween cult classic. Read more…
FREE WILLY – Basil Poledouris
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
When the movie Free Willy played in cinemas in the UK in the summer of 1993 the title elicited a great deal of snickering from the more childishly-minded among us, but in the end it turned out to be a very heartwarming film about the relationship between a troubled young boy and an orca killer whale. The film is directed by Simon Wincer and stars Jason James Richter as Jesse, a troubled orphan, who is assigned to do community service at a marine theme park after committing a minor crime. At the park he forms a deep connection with Willy, an intelligent and sensitive orca who has just been captured in the wild by unscrupulous whalers, and is now being held in captivity. As Jesse spends more time with Willy, he observes the orca’s miserable living conditions and the park’s exploitative practices, and with the help of his friends and a sympathetic park trainer named Rae (Lori Petty), devises a plan to release Willy back into the ocean. The film ended up being a popular success at the box office, and eventually spawned two sequels in 1995 and 1997. Read more…
ONCE UPON A FOREST – James Horner, Will Jennings
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Once Upon a Forest is an animated adventure film with an environmental message, set in the tranquil world of Dapplewood, a lush and harmonious forest community. The story revolves around a group of small animal friends who must embark on a perilous journey to save Michelle, a young badger, who is exposed to toxic gas after a careless human truck driver spills it in the forest, and falls into a deep sleep. The group of friends – Abigail the wood mouse, Edgar the mole, and Russell the hedgehog, supported by their wise old mentor Cornelius – sets off on a quest beyond the borders of their familiar forest to find a rare medicinal herb, and along the way they face various challenges – including evading predators, navigating treacherous terrain, and surviving encounters with humans – while also learning about the delicate balance of nature and the interconnectedness of all living beings. Read more…
CLIFFHANGER – Trevor Jones
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the silliest, but most enjoyable, action adventure movies of the early 1990s was the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Cliffhanger – aka the film that put many people off mountain climbing for life. Sly plays Gabe Walker, a park ranger and expert mountaineer working in the Colorado Rockies. Walker is left traumatized after the wife of his best friend Hal (Michael Rooker) falls to her death during an ill fated rescue; he plans to retire and tries to convince his girlfriend, fellow ranger Jessie (Janine Turner) to come with him. However, his plans for a quiet life are put on hold when they receive a distress call from the mountain, and Gabe and Hal set off to help – only for them to discover that the distress call was a fake placed by Eric Qualen (John Lithgow), a psychopathic British former military intelligence officer, now the leader of the gang of thieves trying to rob $100 million from the U.S. Treasury. Their plane has crashed on the mountain, and the money is scattered all over the area, and Qualen wants Gabe to retrieve it for them. The film was directed by Renny Harlin and was a major box office hit in the summer of 1993. Read more…
DAVE – James Newton Howard
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There’s an old adage, which I’m paraphrasing, which says something like: “those who seek out power are the ones to whom it should not be given”. This philosophy is the heart of Dave, one of the best and most interesting comedy-dramas of the 1990s. The film stars Kevin Kline as Dave Kovic, the pleasant and genial owner of a temp agency in Washington, D.C., who, as a side job, capitalizes on his remarkable resemblance to US President Bill Mitchell by comically impersonating him at events. Dave is even occasionally hired by the Secret Service to impersonate the real Mitchell to allow him to carry out an extramarital affair – and it is while at one of these ‘clandestine’ events that Mitchell suffers a massive stroke and is left incapacitated. To cover it up, and to further his own political aspirations, Mitchell’s chief of staff Bob Alexander (Frank Langella) cooks up a scheme where Dave will continue to act as President, implicate the Vice President (Ben Kingsley) in a scandal, appoint Alexander in his place, and then ‘die’ for real, leaving Alexander in the oval office. However, Dave proves to be unexpectedly excellent at the top job, even reconciling with President Mitchell’s estranged wife Ellen (Sigourney Weaver), to the point where Dave wonders whether he shouldn’t have the job for real. The film co-stars Kevin Dunn, Ving Rhames, and Charles Grodin, and was directed by Ivan Reitman. Read more…
DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY – Randy Edelman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Certain film stars, especially those who die young, often attain a mythical status in popular culture after their death. James Dean is one of these figures. Marilyn Monroe is another. More recently, people like Chadwick Boseman are likely to maintain a significant profile for many years to come. For Asian Americans, their iconic star who died too soon is Bruce Lee, the San Francisco-born actor whose passion for martial arts – and his combining of those two things on film – made him a star. Lee died from a cerebral edema in July 1973 at the age of 32 with just a handful of released films – including The Big Boss and Fist of Fury – to his name; Enter the Dragon, his most famous film, and Game of Death, would be released posthumously. Despite his brief period of stardom, Lee’s movies revolutionized martial arts cinema, with their blend of realistic fight scenes and philosophical overtones. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a biopic based on his life; it stars Jason Scott Lee (no relation) in the title role, co-stars Lauren Holly as his wife Linda, and features Nancy Kwan, Robert Wagner, and Michael Learned in supporting roles. The film is directed by Rob Cohen, and has an original score by Randy Edelman. Read more…
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING – Patrick Doyle
THROWBACK THIRTY
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I will always maintain that, with the possible exception of Sir Laurence Olivier, the only director who can successfully translate Shakespeare to the big screen is Kenneth Branagh. His 1989 cinematic debut Henry V was a lightning bolt, doing away with stuffy line readings and instead embracing rich and complex emotions, thereby making the Bard’s prose modern and invigorating. He brought scenes to life with lavish settings and action sequences, and surrounded it all with rich, bold music. His second Shakespeare adaptation after Henry V was this one: Much Ado About Nothing, a romantic comedy first published in 1599. Read more…
INDECENT PROPOSAL – John Barry
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
What would you do for a million dollars? That was the question on everyone’s lips following the release of Indecent Proposal, one of the most talked-about films of 1993. The film is directed by Adrian Lyne – the man behind such equally controversial fare as 9½ Weeks and Fatal Attraction – and stars Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson as Diana and David, a young couple who are deeply in love but in severe financial straits. In a final act of desperation they travel to Las Vegas and invest everything they have in a high-stakes game of poker – but they end up losing it all. Enter John Gage (Robert Redford), a handsome billionaire, who comes to David with the indecent proposal in question: one million dollars, in exchange for one night with Diana. What happens in the aftermath of this will test Diana and David’s relationship to its limits, and the film asks interesting questions about love, temptation, and the consequences of making choices based solely on money. Read more…
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCK FINN – Bill Conti
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Adventures of Huck Finn is a period adventure film directed by Stephen Sommers, based on the classic novel by Mark Twain. It’s one of dozens of adaptations of Twain’s timeless story, which combines elements of carefree adventure with more serious explorations of themes relating to friendship, morality, and the injustices of slavery, which were still fresh in the minds of Americans in 1885, when the book came out, considering that Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation freeing the slaves had been issued in 1862, just 23 years previously. The film follows the adventures of a young boy named Huck Finn (Elijah Wood), who runs away from his abusive father and teams up with an escaped slave named Jim (Courtney B. Vance) as they journey down the Mississippi River on a raft; as they travel down the river, Huck and Jim encounter a variety of colorful characters, including two con men (Robbie Coltrane and Jason Robards) who pretend to be the long-lost brothers of a wealthy man, and a group of feuding families who threaten to tear each other apart. Read more…
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