A Child’s Christmas in Wales
Posted on December 22, 2014 at 8:00 am
The whole family will enjoy this beautiful version of Dylan Thomas’ classic memory about his family Christmases in Wales.
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Interview: Matthew Llewellyn, Composer for Wally Lamb’s “Wishin’ and Hopin'”
Posted on December 20, 2014 at 9:40 am
Wishin’ and Hopin’ is Lifetime movie airing December 21, 2014, based on the novel by Wally Lamb
How did you first come to this project and what were the guidelines for the score?
I first heard about the project back in June from producer Andrew Gernhard and director Colin Theys of Synthetic Cinema International. That’s when I learned that the film was to be based on the New York Times best-selling novel by Wally Lamb. It sounded like an amazing opportunity to write a period-sounding score that could be fun and light but also very dramatic and emotional. This would be a vastly different score from our last collaboration on the Chiller TV (NBCUniversal) horror film “Deep in the Darkness”. There weren’t any specific guidelines for the score other than it needed to be very thematic and really evoke the holiday spirit.
What did you to do evoke the retro/nostalgic vibe of the story?
The first step was to write memorable themes that could reappear throughout the film and help tell the story. Initially, we were only going to have a few themes just for the major characters (Felix, the Nuns, and Rosalie) but as I started getting further along in the composing process I ended up writing many more themes. (Madame Frechette and Zhenya) The most important thing I needed to do was to nail the tone of the film. We discussed a variety of styles for the score and eventually landed on a traditional orchestra sound. It just seemed like the right choice for this kind of movie and I couldn’t be happier with the result.
What are the special challenges of scoring a film set at Christmas? Do you make use of some of the season’s traditional music?
There was quite a bit of period music in the film that really helped ground it in the 1960’s. Before I started composing, Colin and I kicked around the idea of re-recording certain Christmas songs and possibly producing new arrangements but the schedule was too tight so they licensed all the songs heard in the film and I composed the film’s original score around them. I didn’t use any specific Christmas material in my score, however it was important that my score sounded “one” with the songs.
Molly Ringwald is the daughter of a musician and a singer. Did she have any comments or suggestions? Or did you begin work after all the shooting was done.
I started working on the film during the editing process so I’m not sure how involved she was in making those decisions.
Were there any scenes that were especially challenging to score?
The hardest scene to score was the climax of the film when the children have their Tableau Vivant performance. This was especially challenging because in the scene there are a group of kids singing on stage while all hell is breaking loose backstage. My job for this scene was to not only accentuate the madness backstage but also keep the energy up and hectic when the picture went back to the kids on stage.
What was the first score you ever worked on and what did you learn from that experience?
I actually didn’t start writing music until college so it’s hard for me to pinpoint what my first score actually was. I do however remember my first scoring project at Berklee, called “Salt Marsh”. It was a very short scene, only about ninety seconds, of birds in the wild. I thought about posting it recently as a “throwback-Thursday” on Facebook but it doesn’t represent my work today as a composer.
What music do you like to listen to at this time of year?
I have an extremely eclectic taste in music; I actually went to KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas a few days ago and saw some of my favorite bands like Alt-J, Weezer, and No Doubt. I am definitely a sucker for Christmas music though, being a big fan of the classics. I find myself listening to a lot of Frank Sinatra around the holidays; he will always be the king in my book.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Posted on December 16, 2014 at 5:47 pm
Visually stunning, capably presented, and utterly unnecessary, this final in the six-movie Tolkien cycle is just for the fans. I think even Tolkien himself would cry “no mas” at this point. Remember how the third LoTR movie had about five or six endings because Jackson just could not bear to let go? This whole movie is like that.
It’s not bad. There’s just too much of it.
The second of the Hobbit movies remains my favorite because it had the most excitingly staged action scenes and the best characters. And it left us with a heck of a cliffhanger as Smaug the dragon delivered on the promise of the title, leaving his lair to desolate the village of Lake-Town. But that all gets resolved pretty quickly (and excitingly) and then, as this title makes clear, most of the rest of the time is not about the original quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain or the sub-quest to obtain the powerful Arkenstone. It is about a battle of just about everyone, with shifting loyalties and heartbreaking losses. If you are not a hard-core Tolkienite at the Stephen Colbert level, here’s the one key guideline to keep in mind: the worse the teeth, the more evil the creature sporting them. The elves, dwarves, and men may have their grievances with each other and may even go into battle against each other, but as any crossword puzzle fan knows, Orcs are the bad guys, ugly cusses with terrible gnashy teeth, and nothing unites rivals and enemies quicker than the arrival of a much worse enemy coming after all of them.
Martin Freeman (television’s “Sherlock” and “Fargo”) returns as Bilbo Baggins, the heart and the moral center of the story. While my mind wandered at times to consider such questions as who does all that intricate hair-braiding that the characters sport? It must be like a middle school slumber party around those campfires, with everyone in a circle doing the hair of the person in front of them. Isn’t that total turnaround by Thorin Oakenshield a little unbelievable? And I can never figure out exactly the scope of the powers and jurisdiction of characters like Gandalf and Galadriel. Plus, the snively traitor guy gets much too much screen time.
But I never stopped admiring the gorgeously imagined visuals or the subtle complexity of Freeman’s performance. As we see on “Sherlock,” there is no one better at showing us a thoughtful and deeply honorable struggle over how to respond to terrifying and complex challenges. There may be epic battles, shifting loyalties, elaborate stunts, and a lot of gnashing of very scary-looking teeth, but it is the part of the title before the colon that is what matters.
Parents should know that this movie has extensive and graphic peril and war violence with many sad deaths and some disturbing images.
Family discussion: What was the most difficult decision made by Thranduil? By Bilbo?
If you like this try: The other Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films by Peter Jackson and the books by J.R.R. Tolkien
Exodus: Gods and Kings
Posted on December 11, 2014 at 9:51 pm
The story of Exodus is central to three of the world’s most significant religions and one of the Bible’s most cinematic stories, with a flawed but charismatic hero and a stirring story of slaves seeking freedom. It has already been filmed at least eight times, from Veggie Tales’ Moe & The Big Exit
The action and special effects work well, though. This is a two and a half hour movie that starts in the middle of the story and Scott keeps it moving. We first see Moses (Christian Bale) and Ramses (Joel Edgerton) as Seti (John Turturro), the Pharaoh, is giving them each a sword. At first, Ramses, Seti’s son, thinks he has been given the wrong one. But Seti has given them each other’s swords on purpose, to remind them that they must care for each other as they are about to go into battle. A seer has a prophesy: “In the battle, a leader will be saved and his savior will someday lead.” This inflames Ramses’ insecurity, especially when it comes true.
After Seti’s death, Ramses puts Moses in prison and tries to have him killed. Moses finds a home with a small community of shepherds and falls in love with Zipporah (María Valverde). Their life there is very sweet for nine years until he sees a burning bush and receives a message from God. Scott makes an imaginative choice here about portraying the Deity that I won’t give away, but I am still trying to decide how I feel about it. God tells him what he already knew in his heart. The Hebrews are his people and he cannot run away from his responsibility to help them find freedom. So he goes back to Memphis.
Bale holds the screen well as Moses, but Turturro, Kingsley, and Sigourney Weaver as Ramses’ mother do not have enough to do to. But there is a lot of time devoted to spectacle. Well past the two-hour mark, there are still 40 years of wandering in the desert and the Ten Commandments (twice) to get through, and they are sped through very quickly. The striking of the rock to get water, manna, the golden calf, and Moses not being permitted to enter the promised land are all skipped over. Two significant ideas that are included are Moses’ disagreements with God (and God’s approval of it) and the journey from the first scene, where Ramses believes in omens and faith and Moses believes in reason, to the end of the film, where they switch places.
Moses tells Ramses he must free the slaves and Ramses says the same thing that people have said throughout history when there is no possible moral justification for their position. He says that it is not economically feasible and will take a long time. Moses, trained as a general, gets the Hebrews to attack the Egyptians’ supply chain, but God gets impatient and steps in with the plagues, which are very vivid and rather disturbing. After the death of the Egyptian first-born children, including his own son, Ramses tells the Hebrews to go. But then he and his army ride after them, until the miracle at the Red Sea, very impressively staged. But, again, the focus is shifted from the story of the Exodus to much less interesting battle between two cousins raised as brothers.
The visual scope here is impressive. There just isn’t much soul.
Parents should know that this movie includes Biblical themes including slavery, plagues and other kinds of peril and abuse, extensive peril and violence, battles, many characters injured and killed including children, and disturbing scenes with dismemberment and dead bodies.
Family discussion: How did being raised as a prince affect the way Moses saw himself and his role? How was he affected by learning the story of his birth? Why does he object to the plagues?
If you like this, try: “The Ten Commandments” with Charlton Heston
Trailer: Hugh Jackman in “Pan”
Posted on December 6, 2014 at 8:00 am
Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up, has been enchanting children and their families for more than a century now. This week’s live broadcast of the Broadway musical version starred Alison Williams and Christopher Walken. And next year we’ll see Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard in “Pan,” which looks like a prequel that will tell us how Peter Pan and the Lost Boys made it to Neverland and how Hook (Garrett Hedlund) became Captain Hook.