Composer Hans Zimmer is seated at the mixing board at the Sony scoring stage, head bobbing to the music being performed by 107 musicians just a few yards away. He’s wearing a vintage “Lion King World Tour” T-shirt, frayed at the collar.
On the giant screen behind the orchestra, two lions are bounding across the African veldt. As the ensemble finishes playing cue 5M31, Hans tells conductor Nick Glennie-Smith, “I like the feel — one more time, from the beginning,” while Jon Favreau, director of this new, all-computer-imagery “Lion King,” says simply, “That was pretty cool, Hans.”
Twenty-four years ago, Zimmer won an Oscar for his score for the original animated version of “The Lion King.” Since then, he has written such influential scores as “Gladiator,” “The Dark Knight” and “Inception” — yet when Favreau asked him to re-create his music for Disney’s elaborate new version, and to supervise production of...
On the giant screen behind the orchestra, two lions are bounding across the African veldt. As the ensemble finishes playing cue 5M31, Hans tells conductor Nick Glennie-Smith, “I like the feel — one more time, from the beginning,” while Jon Favreau, director of this new, all-computer-imagery “Lion King,” says simply, “That was pretty cool, Hans.”
Twenty-four years ago, Zimmer won an Oscar for his score for the original animated version of “The Lion King.” Since then, he has written such influential scores as “Gladiator,” “The Dark Knight” and “Inception” — yet when Favreau asked him to re-create his music for Disney’s elaborate new version, and to supervise production of...
- 7/18/2019
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
La-La Land has confirmed to Legions of Gotham that the only place to get this amazing CD set will be on their website beginning at 12 noon (Pst) Tuesday!
________________________
The Danny Elfman Batman Collection: Batman / Batman Returns: Limited Edition (4-cd Set) Lllc 1327...
Limited Edition of 3000 Units
Retail Price: $49.98
In honor of Batman’s 75th Anniversary, La-La Land Records, Warner Bros. and Wea proudly present The Danny Elfman Batman Collection: Batman / Batman Returns: Limited Edition (4-cd Set). Batman swoops back into La-La Land with this thrilling re-issue of our previously out-of-print deluxe editions of Danny Elfman’s classic, original scores to the Tim Burton-directed Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), presented together for the first time! While the programs presented on these discs are the same as found on our acclaimed initial releases, Batman (1989) has been overseen by producer Neil S. Bulk and newly remastered by James Nelson from recently unearthed score elements,...
________________________
The Danny Elfman Batman Collection: Batman / Batman Returns: Limited Edition (4-cd Set) Lllc 1327...
Limited Edition of 3000 Units
Retail Price: $49.98
In honor of Batman’s 75th Anniversary, La-La Land Records, Warner Bros. and Wea proudly present The Danny Elfman Batman Collection: Batman / Batman Returns: Limited Edition (4-cd Set). Batman swoops back into La-La Land with this thrilling re-issue of our previously out-of-print deluxe editions of Danny Elfman’s classic, original scores to the Tim Burton-directed Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), presented together for the first time! While the programs presented on these discs are the same as found on our acclaimed initial releases, Batman (1989) has been overseen by producer Neil S. Bulk and newly remastered by James Nelson from recently unearthed score elements,...
- 12/1/2014
- by Matt MacNabb
- Legions of Gotham
A new compilation of music centered around Academy Award®-winning composer Hans Zimmer’s theme for this year’s Oscar® telecast is now available on the iTunes Store. Titled “The 84th Academy Awards . Celebrate the Music,” the collection includes the show’s musical theme plus six unique, inventive interpretations of the theme by other artists, and the “In Memoriam” choral rendition of “What a Wonderful World.”
In addition to both of the 84th Academy Awards music directors . Zimmer and musician/producer/composer Pharrell Williams (of The Neptunes) . the extraordinary group of international artists who contributed their talents includes: percussionist/drummer/composer Sheila E.; Grammy®-winning double bass player/singer Esperanza Spalding; guitarist/composer Stephane Wrembel (“Midnight in Paris”); three-time Oscar-winning composer Giorgio Moroder; two-time Oscar winning composer/musician A.R. Rahman; violin/cello virtuosi Ann Marie Calhoun and Martin Tillman; Dutch hit remixer/composer/electronic musician Junkie Xl; and multiple Grammy-winning British musician/producer Peter Asher.
In addition to both of the 84th Academy Awards music directors . Zimmer and musician/producer/composer Pharrell Williams (of The Neptunes) . the extraordinary group of international artists who contributed their talents includes: percussionist/drummer/composer Sheila E.; Grammy®-winning double bass player/singer Esperanza Spalding; guitarist/composer Stephane Wrembel (“Midnight in Paris”); three-time Oscar-winning composer Giorgio Moroder; two-time Oscar winning composer/musician A.R. Rahman; violin/cello virtuosi Ann Marie Calhoun and Martin Tillman; Dutch hit remixer/composer/electronic musician Junkie Xl; and multiple Grammy-winning British musician/producer Peter Asher.
- 2/29/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Director: Peter Atencio.
Writers: Scott Martin, Marilee A. Benson, Lori Chavez, and C.W. Fallin.
Wow, what an absolutely dismal film. Anchor Bay Entertainment continues to distribute some of these lackluster horror titles e.g. Sharktopus, Altitude for no apparent reason. There latest disaster is more of a horror soap opera, than anything else. The Rig has an interesting premise, with elements such as: a hurricane styled storm coming in, an isolated oil rig, and creatures released from deep below. Yet, the film delivers a mish-mash of bad acting, terrible musical compositions and plot holes so big that a huge drill could not fill them in. Unfortunately, those sent to The Rig will soon be looking for their first boat back to Florida.
Several oil workers set up a new drill site, only to unleash a sea borne terror. They look much like a cheap knock off of the creatures from the Alien franchise.
Writers: Scott Martin, Marilee A. Benson, Lori Chavez, and C.W. Fallin.
Wow, what an absolutely dismal film. Anchor Bay Entertainment continues to distribute some of these lackluster horror titles e.g. Sharktopus, Altitude for no apparent reason. There latest disaster is more of a horror soap opera, than anything else. The Rig has an interesting premise, with elements such as: a hurricane styled storm coming in, an isolated oil rig, and creatures released from deep below. Yet, the film delivers a mish-mash of bad acting, terrible musical compositions and plot holes so big that a huge drill could not fill them in. Unfortunately, those sent to The Rig will soon be looking for their first boat back to Florida.
Several oil workers set up a new drill site, only to unleash a sea borne terror. They look much like a cheap knock off of the creatures from the Alien franchise.
- 6/23/2011
- by noreply@blogger.com (Michael Allen)
- 28 Days Later Analysis
Peter Atencio is the director behind The Rig starring William Forsythe (Halloween), Seah D' Laine, Art Lafleur, Marcus T. Paulk, Stacey Hinnen and Dan Benson. The Rig finds the crew of an oil rig being picked off one by one by a sea monster. With The Rig, Peter Atencio has delivered a sleek, polished looking film on a tiny budget that has been picked up for release in the Us by Anchor Bay Entertainment. We wanted to know some about Peter Atencio's thought process while making The Rig, his first feature length film as director solo. Here is what he had to say.
So who is Peter Atencio and what are you all about?
I'm a director in Los Angeles, and I get excited about making entertaining stuff, in whatever form it finds itself.
How did The Rig come about? What was it about this project that attracted you to it?...
So who is Peter Atencio and what are you all about?
I'm a director in Los Angeles, and I get excited about making entertaining stuff, in whatever form it finds itself.
How did The Rig come about? What was it about this project that attracted you to it?...
- 10/9/2010
- by Big Daddy aka Brandon Sites
- Big Daddy Horror Reviews - Interviews
The Public Enemies soundtrack. …Before you ask, hip-hop legends Public Enemy do not feature.
So the soundtrack is half blues/jazz, half Elliot Goldenthal’s score, and opens with contemporary bluesman Otis Taylor’s fantastic cover of “Ten Million Slaves” (as heard in the trailer). Also of note are the new version of classic jazz track “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” sung by Diana Krall and a good bit of Baptist music at track 12.
Elliot Goldenthal scored Heat for Michael Mann, the only other time they’ve worked together. It’s fitting as this is another great crime saga. Here Goldenthal uses a large scale orchestral approach to capture the high style of 30s Chicago and the sense of gloom that came out of the Great Depression. To be honest, his work is a bit too downbeat for me but overall the Public Enemies soundtrack feels fresh by nature of the era...
So the soundtrack is half blues/jazz, half Elliot Goldenthal’s score, and opens with contemporary bluesman Otis Taylor’s fantastic cover of “Ten Million Slaves” (as heard in the trailer). Also of note are the new version of classic jazz track “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” sung by Diana Krall and a good bit of Baptist music at track 12.
Elliot Goldenthal scored Heat for Michael Mann, the only other time they’ve worked together. It’s fitting as this is another great crime saga. Here Goldenthal uses a large scale orchestral approach to capture the high style of 30s Chicago and the sense of gloom that came out of the Great Depression. To be honest, his work is a bit too downbeat for me but overall the Public Enemies soundtrack feels fresh by nature of the era...
- 7/2/2009
- by Sheridan Passell
- Movie-moron.com
Brazilian-born composer Marcelo Zarvos slowly but surely makes his steps in the world of film music by gathering better and bigger credits. Having parallele careers in jazz and film music, Zarvos' first commercially released score was written for the Kim Basinger / Jeff Bridges drama The Door in the Floor. Since then, he worked on the nostalgic Hollywoodland and started collaborating with Robert De Niro on The Good Shepherd and the satiric What Just Happened. Zarvos He recently completed Taking Chance (released by Varese Sarabande) and by the time you read this, Lakeshore Records has already released his score to Sin Nombre.
What was the situation of film and film music in Brazil when you grew up?
Brazil's film industry has had many ups and downs and when I was growing up there wasn't much going on. The renaissance of Brazilian film really only happened in the 1990's when I...
What was the situation of film and film music in Brazil when you grew up?
Brazil's film industry has had many ups and downs and when I was growing up there wasn't much going on. The renaissance of Brazilian film really only happened in the 1990's when I...
- 5/6/2009
- Daily Film Music Blog
This review was written for the festival screening of "The Good Shepherd".
Who knew Robert De Niro has such a keen fascination for foreign policy and espionage? "The Good Shepherd", his first directorial effort since his debut feature, "A Bronx Tale" (1993), is a thoroughly knowledgeable, carefully researched account of the founding and development of the CIA from World War II through the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. While a bit unwieldy at nearly three hours and at times slow going, the film is absolutely fascinating for anyone who shares De Niro's passions.
To attract moviegoers beyond the foreign-policy crowd, he has recruited stars and top actors led by Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie and borrowed the trappings of spy thrillers, though the film certainly leans more toward John Le Carre than Ian Fleming. The problem with marketing the film centers on the problem of the film itself. De Niro and writer Eric Roth are never clear on their intentions: Is this a thriller with a historical background or history with dollops of intrigue and adventurism?
In this film as well as last year's "Munich", Roth seems to be operating between the genre cracks with political films in the mode of early Costa Gavras that deploy Hitchcockian techniques without romantic characters or situations.
The movie follows the spy career of Edward Wilson (Damon), a privileged male of the white patrician class. The character is modeled, right down to his interest in poetry, on James Angleton, who co-founded the CIA. It's accurate in most things but has the patina of fiction, which allows the filmmakers to imagine and speculate about things that perhaps will always remain secret.
At Yale in 1939, Wilson joins the clandestine Skull and Bones society, a brotherhood meant to incubate future American leadership. (The 2004 Republican and Democratic presidential candidates belong.) Roth makes Crystal Clear that the penchant for utter secrecy and sense of entitlement fostered by the Skull and Bones carry over into its members' work in government.
At the behest of an Army general (De Niro), Wilson joins the Office of Strategic Services during WWII. This sends him to London, where his mentor, Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon), teaches him the fine art of counterintelligence. Yet his last piece of advice to Wilson before Fredericks is murdered -- "Get out while you still have a soul" -- goes unheeded.
The movie unfolds in flashbacks from the Bay of Pigs incident, which severely compromises the CIA and Wilson's career. While diligently trying to ferret out the turncoat who relayed invasion plans to the Cubans, Wilson reflects back on his life. What is clear to the viewer, but not to Wilson himself, is how paranoia rules his actions and how self-righteousness blinds him to opinions and desires of others, including his family.
He weds Margaret "Clover" Russell (Jolie), the sister and daughter of a fellow Skull and Bonesmen, in a polite shotgun marriage. The union proves loveless right from the start since Wilson has thrown over his true soulmate (Tammy Blanchard). He doesn't meet his son Edward Jr. until age 6 when he returns home from Europe. The son consequently will wish to win his father's love by emulating him -- with disastrous consequences.
The OSS gets transformed into the CIA with the onset of the Cold War. At work, Wilson's obsessions with double agents and a mole within Langley dominate his relationships with people there, including CIA director Philip Allen (William Hurt); Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin), the rough-and-tumble agent who first recruited him; his blue-collar assistant Ray Brocco (John Turturro); and British spy Arch Cummings (Billy Crudup), whose Cambridge-upper-class heritage mirrors the backgrounds of the good old boys of the CIA.
Wilson's secret weapon is silence. He watches and listens but reveals little. Yet he has one outburst in the movie in an interview with a Mafia don (Joe Pesci), when Wilson says the USA belongs to the WASPs, and everyone else -- Italians, Jews, Irish and blacks -- are mere visitors. While Wilson probably would never say such a thing aloud, it captures the mind-set perfectly.
The sum of the parts might not add up to a great movie, but "Good Shepherd" is a pretty good one. Some scenes hit you with the impact of a bullet. And it probably took an actor of De Niro's caliber to get his stars to tone down their onscreen personas to play genuine roles.
Damon here is not Jason Bourne. No one bothers to age his character, which becomes a distraction when he looks like a drinking buddy to his own son, but this character is a ruthless, insufferable bastard who buried his emotions when his father committed suicide.
Jolie here is not Lara Croft or Mrs. Smith but the once-sassy, now long-suffering wife of a spook. And so it goes through the cast, with only Gambon playing what you might call a fictional movie character, but it fits the role to a T.
Designer Jeannine Oppewall and costume designer Ann Roth bring to life the shadowy world of espionage both in Europe and the East Coast. Cinematographer Robert Richardson gives the film a moodiness and edginess that the score by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler --with overtones of Philip Glass -- highlight.
Who knew Robert De Niro has such a keen fascination for foreign policy and espionage? "The Good Shepherd", his first directorial effort since his debut feature, "A Bronx Tale" (1993), is a thoroughly knowledgeable, carefully researched account of the founding and development of the CIA from World War II through the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. While a bit unwieldy at nearly three hours and at times slow going, the film is absolutely fascinating for anyone who shares De Niro's passions.
To attract moviegoers beyond the foreign-policy crowd, he has recruited stars and top actors led by Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie and borrowed the trappings of spy thrillers, though the film certainly leans more toward John Le Carre than Ian Fleming. The problem with marketing the film centers on the problem of the film itself. De Niro and writer Eric Roth are never clear on their intentions: Is this a thriller with a historical background or history with dollops of intrigue and adventurism?
In this film as well as last year's "Munich", Roth seems to be operating between the genre cracks with political films in the mode of early Costa Gavras that deploy Hitchcockian techniques without romantic characters or situations.
The movie follows the spy career of Edward Wilson (Damon), a privileged male of the white patrician class. The character is modeled, right down to his interest in poetry, on James Angleton, who co-founded the CIA. It's accurate in most things but has the patina of fiction, which allows the filmmakers to imagine and speculate about things that perhaps will always remain secret.
At Yale in 1939, Wilson joins the clandestine Skull and Bones society, a brotherhood meant to incubate future American leadership. (The 2004 Republican and Democratic presidential candidates belong.) Roth makes Crystal Clear that the penchant for utter secrecy and sense of entitlement fostered by the Skull and Bones carry over into its members' work in government.
At the behest of an Army general (De Niro), Wilson joins the Office of Strategic Services during WWII. This sends him to London, where his mentor, Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon), teaches him the fine art of counterintelligence. Yet his last piece of advice to Wilson before Fredericks is murdered -- "Get out while you still have a soul" -- goes unheeded.
The movie unfolds in flashbacks from the Bay of Pigs incident, which severely compromises the CIA and Wilson's career. While diligently trying to ferret out the turncoat who relayed invasion plans to the Cubans, Wilson reflects back on his life. What is clear to the viewer, but not to Wilson himself, is how paranoia rules his actions and how self-righteousness blinds him to opinions and desires of others, including his family.
He weds Margaret "Clover" Russell (Jolie), the sister and daughter of a fellow Skull and Bonesmen, in a polite shotgun marriage. The union proves loveless right from the start since Wilson has thrown over his true soulmate (Tammy Blanchard). He doesn't meet his son Edward Jr. until age 6 when he returns home from Europe. The son consequently will wish to win his father's love by emulating him -- with disastrous consequences.
The OSS gets transformed into the CIA with the onset of the Cold War. At work, Wilson's obsessions with double agents and a mole within Langley dominate his relationships with people there, including CIA director Philip Allen (William Hurt); Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin), the rough-and-tumble agent who first recruited him; his blue-collar assistant Ray Brocco (John Turturro); and British spy Arch Cummings (Billy Crudup), whose Cambridge-upper-class heritage mirrors the backgrounds of the good old boys of the CIA.
Wilson's secret weapon is silence. He watches and listens but reveals little. Yet he has one outburst in the movie in an interview with a Mafia don (Joe Pesci), when Wilson says the USA belongs to the WASPs, and everyone else -- Italians, Jews, Irish and blacks -- are mere visitors. While Wilson probably would never say such a thing aloud, it captures the mind-set perfectly.
The sum of the parts might not add up to a great movie, but "Good Shepherd" is a pretty good one. Some scenes hit you with the impact of a bullet. And it probably took an actor of De Niro's caliber to get his stars to tone down their onscreen personas to play genuine roles.
Damon here is not Jason Bourne. No one bothers to age his character, which becomes a distraction when he looks like a drinking buddy to his own son, but this character is a ruthless, insufferable bastard who buried his emotions when his father committed suicide.
Jolie here is not Lara Croft or Mrs. Smith but the once-sassy, now long-suffering wife of a spook. And so it goes through the cast, with only Gambon playing what you might call a fictional movie character, but it fits the role to a T.
Designer Jeannine Oppewall and costume designer Ann Roth bring to life the shadowy world of espionage both in Europe and the East Coast. Cinematographer Robert Richardson gives the film a moodiness and edginess that the score by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler --with overtones of Philip Glass -- highlight.
- 12/11/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Who knew Robert De Niro has such a keen fascination for foreign policy and espionage? The Good Shepherd, his first directorial effort since his debut feature, A Bronx Tale (1993), is a thoroughly knowledgeable, carefully researched account of the founding and development of the CIA from World War II through the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. While a bit unwieldy at nearly three hours and at times slow going, the film is absolutely fascinating for anyone who shares De Niro's passions.
To attract moviegoers beyond the foreign-policy crowd, he has recruited stars and top actors led by Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie and borrowed the trappings of spy thrillers, though the film certainly leans more toward John le Carre than Ian Fleming. The problem with marketing the film centers on the problem of the film itself. De Niro and writer Eric Roth are never clear on their intentions: Is this a thriller with a historical background or history with dollops of intrigue and adventurism?
In this film as well as last year's Munich, Roth seems to be operating between the genre cracks with political films in the mode of early Costa Gavras that deploy Hitchcockian techniques without romantic characters or situations.
The movie follows the spy career of Edward Wilson (Damon), a privileged male of the white patrician class. The character is modeled, right down to his interest in poetry, on James Angleton, who co-founded the CIA. It's accurate in most things but has the patina of fiction, which allows the filmmakers to imagine and speculate about things that perhaps will always remain secret.
At Yale in 1939, Wilson joins the clandestine Skull and Bones society, a brotherhood meant to incubate future American leadership. (The 2004 Republican and Democratic presidential candidates belong.) Roth makes Crystal Clear that the penchant for utter secrecy and sense of entitlement fostered by the Skull and Bones carry over into its members' work in government.
At the behest of an Army general (De Niro), Wilson joins the Office of Strategic Services during WWII. This sends him to London, where his mentor, Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon), teaches him the fine art of counterintelligence. Yet his last piece of advice to Wilson before Fredericks is murdered -- "Get out while you still have a soul" -- goes unheeded.
The movie unfolds in flashbacks from the Bay of Pigs incident, which severely compromises the CIA and Wilson's career. While diligently trying to ferret out the turncoat who relayed invasion plans to the Cubans, Wilson reflects back on his life. What is clear to the viewer, but not to Wilson himself, is how paranoia rules his actions and how self-righteousness blinds him to opinions and desires of others, including his family.
He weds Margaret Clover Russell (Jolie), the sister and daughter of a fellow Skull and Bonesmen, in a polite shotgun marriage. The union proves loveless right from the start since Wilson has thrown over his true soulmate (Tammy Blanchard). He doesn't meet his son Edward Jr. until age 6 when he returns home from Europe. The son consequently will wish to win his father's love by emulating him -- with disastrous consequences.
The OSS gets transformed into the CIA with the onset of the Cold War. At work, Wilson's obsessions with double agents and a mole within Langley dominate his relationships with people there, including CIA director Philip Allen (William Hurt); Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin), the rough-and-tumble agent who first recruited him; his blue-collar assistant Ray Brocco (John Turturro); and British spy Arch Cummings (Billy Crudup), whose Cambridge-upper-class heritage mirrors the backgrounds of the good old boys of the CIA.
Wilson's secret weapon is silence. He watches and listens but reveals little. Yet he has one outburst in the movie in an interview with a Mafia don (Joe Pesci), when Wilson says the USA belongs to the WASPs, and everyone else -- Italians, Jews, Irish and blacks -- are mere visitors. While Wilson probably would never say such a thing aloud, it captures the mind-set perfectly.
The sum of the parts might not add up to a great movie, but Good Shepherd is a pretty good one. Some scenes hit you with the impact of a bullet. And it probably took an actor of De Niro's caliber to get his stars to tone down their onscreen personas to play genuine roles.
Damon here is not Jason Bourne. No one bothers to age his character, which becomes a distraction when he looks like a drinking buddy to his own son, but this character is a ruthless, insufferable bastard who buried his emotions when his father committed suicide.
Jolie here is not Lara Croft or Mrs. Smith but the once-sassy, now long-suffering wife of a spook. And so it goes through the cast, with only Gambon playing what you might call a fictional movie character, but it fits the role to a T.
Designer Jeannine Oppewall and costume designer Ann Roth bring to life the shadowy world of espionage both in Europe and the East Coast. Cinematographer Robert Richardson gives the film a moodiness and edginess that the score by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler --with overtones of Philip Glass -- highlight.
To attract moviegoers beyond the foreign-policy crowd, he has recruited stars and top actors led by Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie and borrowed the trappings of spy thrillers, though the film certainly leans more toward John le Carre than Ian Fleming. The problem with marketing the film centers on the problem of the film itself. De Niro and writer Eric Roth are never clear on their intentions: Is this a thriller with a historical background or history with dollops of intrigue and adventurism?
In this film as well as last year's Munich, Roth seems to be operating between the genre cracks with political films in the mode of early Costa Gavras that deploy Hitchcockian techniques without romantic characters or situations.
The movie follows the spy career of Edward Wilson (Damon), a privileged male of the white patrician class. The character is modeled, right down to his interest in poetry, on James Angleton, who co-founded the CIA. It's accurate in most things but has the patina of fiction, which allows the filmmakers to imagine and speculate about things that perhaps will always remain secret.
At Yale in 1939, Wilson joins the clandestine Skull and Bones society, a brotherhood meant to incubate future American leadership. (The 2004 Republican and Democratic presidential candidates belong.) Roth makes Crystal Clear that the penchant for utter secrecy and sense of entitlement fostered by the Skull and Bones carry over into its members' work in government.
At the behest of an Army general (De Niro), Wilson joins the Office of Strategic Services during WWII. This sends him to London, where his mentor, Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon), teaches him the fine art of counterintelligence. Yet his last piece of advice to Wilson before Fredericks is murdered -- "Get out while you still have a soul" -- goes unheeded.
The movie unfolds in flashbacks from the Bay of Pigs incident, which severely compromises the CIA and Wilson's career. While diligently trying to ferret out the turncoat who relayed invasion plans to the Cubans, Wilson reflects back on his life. What is clear to the viewer, but not to Wilson himself, is how paranoia rules his actions and how self-righteousness blinds him to opinions and desires of others, including his family.
He weds Margaret Clover Russell (Jolie), the sister and daughter of a fellow Skull and Bonesmen, in a polite shotgun marriage. The union proves loveless right from the start since Wilson has thrown over his true soulmate (Tammy Blanchard). He doesn't meet his son Edward Jr. until age 6 when he returns home from Europe. The son consequently will wish to win his father's love by emulating him -- with disastrous consequences.
The OSS gets transformed into the CIA with the onset of the Cold War. At work, Wilson's obsessions with double agents and a mole within Langley dominate his relationships with people there, including CIA director Philip Allen (William Hurt); Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin), the rough-and-tumble agent who first recruited him; his blue-collar assistant Ray Brocco (John Turturro); and British spy Arch Cummings (Billy Crudup), whose Cambridge-upper-class heritage mirrors the backgrounds of the good old boys of the CIA.
Wilson's secret weapon is silence. He watches and listens but reveals little. Yet he has one outburst in the movie in an interview with a Mafia don (Joe Pesci), when Wilson says the USA belongs to the WASPs, and everyone else -- Italians, Jews, Irish and blacks -- are mere visitors. While Wilson probably would never say such a thing aloud, it captures the mind-set perfectly.
The sum of the parts might not add up to a great movie, but Good Shepherd is a pretty good one. Some scenes hit you with the impact of a bullet. And it probably took an actor of De Niro's caliber to get his stars to tone down their onscreen personas to play genuine roles.
Damon here is not Jason Bourne. No one bothers to age his character, which becomes a distraction when he looks like a drinking buddy to his own son, but this character is a ruthless, insufferable bastard who buried his emotions when his father committed suicide.
Jolie here is not Lara Croft or Mrs. Smith but the once-sassy, now long-suffering wife of a spook. And so it goes through the cast, with only Gambon playing what you might call a fictional movie character, but it fits the role to a T.
Designer Jeannine Oppewall and costume designer Ann Roth bring to life the shadowy world of espionage both in Europe and the East Coast. Cinematographer Robert Richardson gives the film a moodiness and edginess that the score by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler --with overtones of Philip Glass -- highlight.
- 12/11/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.