Typical woke nonsense – a biopic of Robert E. Lee starring Kate Winslet as the Civil War general – it’s no wonder it didn’t perform too well in the southern states. No, I’m only joking, it’s actually about Lee Miller, the pioneering WWII photojournalist, and was a real labour of love for Winslet. It’s the first feature directed by the cinematographer Ellen Kuras, and while it took years to make due to funding issues, and sat on the shelf for a long time after its festival debut in 2023 (which are not often good signs), it was met with praise when it finally saw the light of day and has received some awards attention, particularly for Winslet’s performance.
You can imagine the pitch meeting for this: “Oh that’s a great idea – an origin story for Mufasa. Let me just check one thing: you do mean doing it like the 2019 “photorealistic” version that everyone hates, don’t you? And not like the 1994 one that’s universally-beloved? You do, that’s great, thanks.” One of the universally-beloved things about the original is its music: Disney took a real chance, in the middle of their Alan Menken-led revival, by asking Elton John to do the songs and Hans Zimmer the score. But it’s a chance that more than paid off – the result a glorious, joyous musical tribute to the pridelands.
After Santa bumps his head and comes to believing he is the superhero SuperKlaus, the Christmas caped crusader takes on a nasty businessman and it’s up to his elves to save the day in this Spanish animation. Providing the score is the ever-reliable Diego Navarro. Most years there seems to be a new lovely festive film score to join the collection, and it’s rarely from the big studios’ and streaming services’ offerings these days – last year it was Mark McKenzie’s Prancer: A Christmas Tale and this year it’s this. Navarro combines traditional (by which I mean Superman-like) comic book heroics with classic Christmas tunes in a delightful way to craft a magical seasonal offering.

Based on the final part of Homer’s Odyssey, Uberto Pasolini’s The Return covers Odysseus’s return to Ithica after decades away fighting in the Trojan war. Starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, the film has garnered positive notices, especially for the actors. Interesting fact: Pasolini is no relation to the other director of that name – […]

Penned by Richard Curtis and helmed by Simon Otto, That Christmas is an animated family story about stockings, snow and Santa and is the first Christmas movie scored by John Powell. It is far from the first animated movie scored by John Powell however, and if you like them then you’ll be pleased to know […]

Say what you want about director Jaume Collet-Serra, you certainly can’t accuse him of lacking balls: reviving the once-popular Carry On series in these woke times is a bold move indeed. I have to say I didn’t find it as funny as the better films in the series – Taron Egerton is no Sid James, […]

In the middle of all the creatively bankrupt “live action” remakes of classic animations and increasingly desperate Marvel movies, Disney did release a couple of genuinely great animated features in the last decade in Moana and Encanto. Both of these featured wonderful sets of songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, suggesting they may have finally found their […]

I found Steve McQueen’s revisionist tale of life for one family during the German bombardment of London to be slick and well-made but surprisingly unmoving; the concentration on terrors domestic rather than foreign is of course the whole point but takes a little getting used to. Musically, there are two elements here – first, period […]

The first Gladiator film changed film music, completely. It was the first time a real “prestige” film had been scored that way – you could write a book about its influence, all the reasons why nothing was the same again afterwards – but that’s for another time. Over two decades later, the sequel – the […]

After sitting on the shelf for a couple of years, Marc Forster’s White Bird has finally been released in the US, to pretty disastrous financial returns. A sequel to 2017’s surprise hit Wonder, it picks up the story of a seriously disfigured young man, now attempting to make his way in a new school, as […]

Before turning to the topic at hand, I wanted to pay a little tribute to the MovieScore Media label. I remember reviewing their very first release, 18 years ago – when I was worried that they were a digital-only label, which I didn’t approve of at the time. (Now I’d be very happy if I […]

I don’t know if you can remember this, but apparently a couple of years ago a film was released which did not star Glen Powell. I know it’s hard to believe but Google it if you must – I swear it’s true. Of all the recent Hollywood nostalgic trips back to films of the 1980s […]