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2/28/04 - Sabrina: (John Williams) --Expanded Review--
"Many people criticized director Sydney Pollack for even trying to remake the
classic original film from Hollywood's Golden age. While Julia Ormond is
certainly no Audrey Hepburn, Harrison Ford looked even more out of place in
the picture. Part of the difficulty in remaking Sabrina was the forced
modernization of the story. There's far less romance inherent in the
surroundings of today's world compared to that of the original film. Master
composer John Williams was brought on board the project to help smooth over
that transition and provide a musical link to the Golden Age. Williams was
coming off of his longest break from film scoring in a long time, deciding
not to take a scoring assignment in 1994 and instead work on concerts and a
variety of other projects. Undoubtedly, 1993 had been his strongest year in a
long time, with Jurassic Park and Schindler's List both
destined for greatness, and Williams would have a difficult time living up to
heightened expectations in 1995, even by his own standards...." ** Read the entire
review.
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2/19/04 - Powder: (Jerry Goldsmith) --Expanded Review--
"As a very common representative of his 1990's work, Powder is a
project for composer Jerry Goldsmith that would further his pursuit of
assignments that involve highly personalized character adversity. The film
itself would face considerable adversity of its own, with word of
writer/director Victor Silva's past history of child molestation raised
during Powder's release. On top of the public outcry against the
studio for allowing Silva to make the film, Powder also suffered from
a sappy, sometimes unbearable plotline that drove the rest of the audiences
away. To say that the film was a failure would be kind, and Jerry Goldsmith's
average musical effort would be dragged along for the ride. Silva had always
been a Goldsmith fan, and was very impressed with the score for Powder
(calling it the work of "genius"). Likewise, Goldsmith fans were generally
pleased by the soft and sensitive score...." ***
Read the entire
review.
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2/15/04 - Wyatt Earp: (James Newton Howard) --All New
Review-- "In the early 1990's, the idea of the massively proportioned
Western film had been reintroduced with the success of Dances With
Wolves, and most of the major studios attempted their own Western
pictures with similar aspirations. After the continued critical and popular
success of Unforgiven and Tombstone, Warner Brothers' Wyatt
Earp came at a time, in 1994, when the genre had reached its saturated
point (and you started seeing spin-offs like Bad Girls begin to steal
the importance from the genre). The Lawrence Kasdan/Kevin Costner film made
the crucial mistake of taking itself too seriously, and tried the patience of
its audiences with its significantly elongated scenes of character
development and drama. Despite having all of the Western elements in place
--including a magnificent cast of well-known, secondary actors and
actresses-- the film's script was its own worst enemy. A financial disaster
for the studio, the one aspect of the film that could not be criticized was
the score by James Newton Howard...." **** Read the entire
review.
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2/13/04 - The Vanishing: (Jerry Goldsmith) --Expanded
Review-- "One of the lesser known efforts by Jerry Goldsmith in the
1990's, The Vanishing is a late entry in the string of highly personal
horror/thriller scores that Goldsmith composed early in the decade. The film
itself was one of those rare cases in which an American remake of a European
idea was directed by the same person who headed the original version of the
tale. Director George Sluizer's film of abduction and obsession was a more
unsettled and gloomy experience in its original Dutch format (by the same
title). The American version had a more dreamy ending, and featured a strong
cast which included an early cameo by Sandra Bullock as the abductee. The
disintigration of Kiefer Sutherland's character, the partner of the
long-missing woman, fuels the horror of the story, with the man's obsession
with the highway rest-stop abduction leading him finally to a grim
confrontation with the criminal mastermind (Jeff Bridges) behind the plot.
Goldsmith was very familiar at the time with scoring films about personal
destruction..." **** Read the entire
review.
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2/9/04 - Mona Lisa Smile: (Rachel Portman) --All New
Review-- "After spending a few years finally branching out into genres of
films not present in her typecast career up to 2000, Rachel Portman falls
very comfortably right back into the realm of fluffy chick flick scores. If
the story of Mona Lisa Smile seems like an all too familiar feminine
adaptation of the "outsider teacher breaking conservative school norms to
enlighten and progressively guide stifled, young, rich students" mold, then
you'd agree with many of the critics who generally brushed the film aside.
The project is, in many ways, a gender-reversed version of Dead Poets
Society and half a dozen other similar films about conservative boarding
schools, and director Mike Newell (who is set to tackle the upcoming Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire) worked to exceed audiences expectations by
inserting several Academy Award caliber actresses into the cast. As a result,
the film was finely crafted, but ultimately left audiences with the "why
bother" question and Mona Lisa Smile slipped through theatres without
much of a struggle...." *** Read the entire
review.
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2/7/04 - The Haunted Mansion: (Mark Mancina) --All New
Review-- "Never has Disneyland's New Orleans Square had such
overwhelmingly elegant treatment on the big screen as in 2003, when Walt
Disney Studios decided to take both of its famed Cajun amusement park rides
and translate them onto the big screen. The summer season was dominated by
Pirates of the Caribbean, an extremely successful film with a
best-selling score album despite a critical bashing of the Media Ventures
music for its mindless electronic approach. Disney got a chance to redeem
itself in the minds of that segment of the population that values both the
history of the Disney attractions and their music when they followed with
The Haunted Mansion. Ironically, the film and its lead, Eddie Murphy
(a curious choice from the outset), faded nearly immediately from popular
attention, although Mark Mancina's score for the project was deemed a far
more appropriate recording for the film than Pirates of the Caribbean
had been. The history of music for the original haunted house attractions had
always played a much bigger role..." *** Read the entire
review.
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2/4/04 - Dick Tracy: (Danny Elfman) --Expanded Review--
"In composer Danny Elfman's evolution of superhero themes, Dick Tracy
ended up being the odd man out, never quite fitting into the rest of Elfman's
developing career like his better known efforts. The Warren Beatty film was
an attempt by the Walt Disney camp to take advantage of Warner Brothers'
explosively powerful Batman success a year before, even teaming with
Warner to produce and market this picture. But due to a poor script
adaptation and endless cuts and re-shoots, Dick Tracy was laughed at
by both critics and audiences. Wacky make-up and a sultry performance by
Madonna couldn't even save the project; nor could rumours of off-screen
sexuality between Beatty and Madonna generate substantial interest. Elfman's
approach to Dick Tracy was different than that of Batman,
because it is evident from the start that Elfman realized his role in
injecting some life into the otherwise lifeless film. He did his best to whip
up a frenzy of swinging, jazzy themes, and he even tried to raise Gershwin
from the dead for his bloated, melodramatic themes of romance...." *** Read the entire
review.
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2/1/04 - RoboCop: (Basil Poledouris) --All New Review--
"Among the top action franchises of the 1980's was that of RoboCop,
the cheesy, violent, and entertaining sci-fi story of a Detroit city gone to
hell (nothing too fictional about that part) and the cyborg supercop that
battles its criminal masterminds. The first American film by director Paul
Verhoeven, the pop success of RoboCop would produce two sequels and a
television show, all of which featuring the robotic cop against either the
criminals who killed his previous, human self, or other criminals who are
just bad dudes, or even mega badass robot killing machines conjured to
replace or even destroy Robocop. Like other Verhoeven films such as Total
Recall, Basic Instinct, and Starship Troopers,
RoboCop was extremely violent. And yet, with little public
appreciation of the comparisons, RoboCop was a film full of
Verhoeven's supposedly heavy parallels between Murphy (the cop who becomes
the cyborg upon his gruesome death) and the crucifixion and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. Whether you believe these intentions or not..." *** Read the entire
review.
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