By Ray Bennett
LONDON – In Canada, Gordie Howe, who has died aged 88, has long been revered and will always be remembered as Mr. Hockey, the greatest ever ice hockey player. I will always remember the day he made out that we were pals. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
KRAKÓW – Cliff Martinez said it best. The genial but taciturn favourite movie composer of filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, said, “It is simply very exciting to be in a place that celebrates film music.”
Martinez was speaking at a media conference at the 9th annual Kraków Film Music Festival where his music for films by Nicolas Winding Refn were celebrated along with other creators of scores both traditional and alternative. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
KRAKÓW – Animated films tend to be filled with basic emotions that offer composers the opportunity to revel in them all from the terror of oppression to the tumult of revolt, the panic of flight to the anguish of loss, and the joy of mischief to the elixir of romance and the splendour of victory all in one picture. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
KRAKÓW – The annual Kraków Film Music Festival continues to extend and deepen our appreciation of movie music and the life of film scores after the credits roll. The latest example was an outstanding concert of electronic film music by Americans Cliff Martinez and Joseph Trapanese, Iceland’s Jóhann Jóhannsson and Poland’s Łukasz Targosz . Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
KRAKÓW – The annual Kraków Film Music Festival showed its adventurous side on May 26 with a fascinating programme of jazz interpretations of film music by treasured Polish composers Henryk Wars and Bronisław Kaper by the Audiofeeling Trio, with deejay Mr. Krime, titled “Wars & Kaper: Deconstruction”. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
KRAKÓW – The plaintive trumpet solo that Jerry Goldsmith wrote for Roman Polanski’s 1974 film “Chinatown” hovered like a blessing over a concert of music from the Polish director’s movies to kick off Kraków’s annual Film Music Festival on May 25. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – When Donovan, who turns 70 today, announced in Cannes that the internet is the new Sixties, my story about it made headlines around the world. When I ran into the folk-rocker later at a BMI gathering in London, he told me it had given him the greatest publicity he’d had in years. “I’m going to get you a knighthood,” he said. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – I went to London to see the Queen and met the Happy Hooker, who led me astray.
In June of 1973, Queen Elizabeth II, who turns 90 today, made a tour of Canada and The Windsor Star newspaper sent me to cover it at the nearest city in Southern Ontario where she would be seen – London. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – “It all goes by so quickly,” Gregory Peck told me. “It’s like a flash. Suddenly, one is in the home stretch and where did it all go? How did it flash by so fast?”
That was when the “To Kill a Mockingbird” Oscar-winner was aged 66. He was born 100 years ago today and he died on June 12, 2003. Among the hundreds of entertainment figures I have interviewed over the years, Peck (pictured above right with David Niven in “The Guns of Navarone”) is still the one who stands out, not least because we shared the same birthday nearly 30 years apart. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – There’s a perfect family treat available at 400 cinemas across the UK and Ireland on Easter Monday with the first screenings of a film of York Theatre Royal’s acclaimed stage presentation of “The Railway Children”. Continue reading
