By Ray Bennett
Robin Williams once told me that there are movie stars, “and then there’s Jack”, as in Nicholson. The Krakow Film Music Festival Sunday night showed that there are film composers, and then there’s Elliot, as in Goldenthal.
The Oscar-winning composer created for the festival a stupendous 20-minute piece titled “Grand Gothic Suite” with cues from “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin” to be performed during the ASCAP 100th Anniversary closing gala. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
The Krakow Film Music Festival celebrated ASCAP’s 100th anniversary Sunday night with an enthralling concert of movie scores by composers including Patrick Doyle, Elliot Goldenthal, Dario Marianelli and Hans Zimmer, who were all on hand for the party. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
Composer Hans Zimmer was on hand last night for a screening of “Gladiator” accompanied by full orchestra and chorus at the 7th annual Krakow Film Music Festival. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
Hans Zimmer will relax tonight at the Krakow Film Music Festival where a live orchestra will play his and Lisa Gerrard’s score at a screening of “Gladiator” but I recall a winter’s day in London almost 15 years ago when the celebrated film composer was not so relaxed.
He was worried about a kiss. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
Spanish conductor Diego Navarro brought his “The Best of James Bond” concert programme to the Krakow Film Music Festival Friday night as he led the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra and a roster of mostly Polish singers through songs and cues from the 007 movies. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
Music and songs from all 23 official James Bond films will be performed at a concert in the Krakow Arena tonight as part of the Krakow Film Music Festival to mark its 007th annual edition. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
Screenwriter Petter Skavlan, who wrote the script of Norwegian adventure film “Kon-Tiki”, screened Thursday as part of the Krakow Film Music Festival, says the filmmakers drew on many films for their inspiration. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
The 7th edition of the Krakow Film Music Festival, which began in the Polish city on Thursday, has tripled the number of tickets sold to 30,000 this year, organisers said. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
TORONTO – Bill Murray is just the way you want him in Theodore Melfi’s engaging comedy “St. Vincent” as an ageing ragamuffin and dedicated grouch whose gruff exterior is breached by a determined kid who won’t take any of his shit.
Murray employs his expert line readings and splendid timing as a wastrel who is genuinely unpleasant on the surface while young Jaden Lieberher is a marvel as the intelligent and articulate boy named Oliver so that while the film is sentimental it does not get bogged down.
They meet when Oliver and his mother Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) move in next door to Vincent and the moving guys accidentally break off a tree branch that lands on the old coot’s ramshackle convertible. Vincent has just drunkenly destroyed his own garden fence as he reversed his car into his drive but he immediately demands restitution for all the damage.
When Maggie is forced to leave Oliver alone in order to report to work, Vincent agrees to watch the boy … for a fee … and he becomes his regular babysitter. Writer-director Melfi contrives some entertaining scenes as the two clash and we learn that Maggie is in the middle of a custody battle and must work long hours at a local hospital to pay for Oliver’s school fees.
The lad attends a Catholic school where the class has a wide ethnic and religious mix with a teacher who is a warm and supportive priest played by Chris O’Dowd. The school is not without its bullies, however, and when Oliver takes a beating, Vincent’s temperament comes in handy.
Meanwhile, a Russian striptease dancer and part-time “lady of the night” of Vincent’s acquaintance named Daka (Naomi Watts) has become pregnant and Vincent is bothered by the enforcer (Terrence Howard) for a local bookie who needs his money.
Oliver is around for these encounters and he also senses cracks in Vincent’s crusty exterior when he accompanies him to a local clinic where Vincent dons a doctor’s white coat and visits a lovely but frail woman named Sandy (Donna Mitchell), whose identity becomes significant.
When the priest teaches about saints and suggests that many people may be saints even if they are unheralded, he asks each member of the class to research and nominate an individual for sainthood. Oliver decides upon Vincent and the story follows as he speaks to people who really know him and learns his secrets.
It could become unspeakably cloying but not in Melfi’s hands and with Murray in top form as an almost irredeemable malcontent and the remarkably self-contained Lieberher impressive as the boy. McCarthy, for once, plays a normal and sensible human being while Watts brings grit, sly wit and a convincing accent to her Russian hooker.
Composer Theodore Shapiro, whose credits include “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Tropic Thunder”, has a polished way with scores for comedies and he makes sure the ending does not become syrupy.
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Opens: US Oct. 24, The Weinstein Company / UK: Dec. 5, Entertainment. Cast: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Chris O’Dowd, Terrence Howard, Jaeden Lieberher, Dario Barosso, Donna Mitchell; Director: Theodore Melfi; Writer: Theodore Melfi; Director of photography: John Lindley; Production designer: Inbal Weinberg; Music: Theodore Shapiro; Costume designer: Kasia Walicka Maimone; Editors: Peter Teschner, Sarah Flack; Producers: Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Theodore Melfi, Fred Roos; Production: Chernin Entertainment; Not rated, running time 102 minutes.
By Ray Bennett
TORONTO – Handsome and creditable, Alan Rickman’s period drama “A Little Chaos”, about the only woman to design an attraction at Louis XIV’s Versailles gardens, is more dogged than inspired.
Kate Winslett plays Madame Sabine De Barra, a widow whose flair for adventurous floral designs catches the the eye of the king’s master landscaper Andre Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts) despite his penchant for strict order.
The Sun King (Rickman) shares Le Notre’s preference for manicured landscapes and ahead of his court’s move to Versailles in 1682 he demands “gardens of exquisite and matchless beauty”.
De Barra wins the chance to create an outdoor ballroom surrounded by fountains to be called the Rockwork Garden and the film charts the challenges, obstacles and victories of her endeavour. The title refers to her taste for untamed nature and her disruption of the all-male clique of designers.
James Merifield’s production design and Ellen Kuras’s cinematography make clear the extent of De Barra’s creative ambition as she deals with sneering male rivals, poor workmanship and outright sabotage, and fights to overcome budget constraints and severe flooding in order to fulfil her vision.
Romantic inclinations between the female designer and her boss lead to recriminations from Le Notre’s unfaithful but demanding wife (played by Helen McCrory), who is a leading figure at court.
The king (Rickman) shares concerns that a woman could manage such an impressive creation although an encounter with her when she at first does not know his identity serves to increase his sympathy.
Rickman, who wrote the screenplay with Allison Deegan and Jeremy Brock, directs with assurance and gives the King requisite measures of arch disdain and displeasure with a little vulnerability due to the recent death of the Queen.
Winslet plays De Barra as a woman of considerable force while Schoenaerts (“Rust and Bone”) renders the master landscaper as a man of sympathy but no little gloom. The chords between the two do not really chime but neither do they between De Barra and his wife, played both haughty and flighty by McCrory.
Little is made of the sense of dread that underscores life at Court after a fleeting early reference that suggests failure on Le Notre’s part to please the king could result in his execution. When De Barra meets the monarch dressed down for the garden and speaks to him casually, she is not really horrified to discover who he is. Later, when she is presented in Court, her bold address to the king appears contrived rather than credible.
There is a marvellous scene in which the designer meets the cloistered ladies of Court who share their tales of husbands departed and children deceased. Jennifer Ehle, as the king’s current mistress, and Phyllida Law (who starred with her daughter Emma Thompson in Rickman’s only previous feature, “The Winter Guest”, in 1997) both shine in the scene.
“A Little Chaos” plays out satisfactorily, helped by composer Peter Gregson’s evocative score, but the low-keyed love affair and absence of genuine menace mean the drama never really catches fire.
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival. Screens at London Film Festival Oct. 17. Opens: UK: Feb. 6, Lionsgate. Cast: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alan Rickman, Stanley Tucci, Helen McCrory, Steven Waddington, Jennifer Ehle, Rupert Penry-Jones, Paula Paul, Danny Webb, Phyillida Law; Director: Alan Rickman; Writers: Allison Deegan, Alan Rickman, Jeremy Brock; Director of photography: Ellen Kuras; Production designer: James Merifield; Music: Peter Gregson; Costume designer: Joan Bergin; Editor: Nicolas Gaster; Producers: Gail Egan, Andrea Calderwood, Bertrand Faivre; Production companies: Potboiler Productions, The Bureau, Lionsgate U.K., BBC Films, in association with Lipsync Productions. Not rated, running time 116 minutes.
