WASTELANDER PANDA: EXILE – Christopher Larkin

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Wastelander Panda: Exile (2014) is an unusual beast. The most recent creation of a larger Wastelander story arc, it’s an Australian 6-part series of 10 minute episodes that follows a family of anthropomorphic pandas across a post-apocalyptic world (think Mad Max) in search of a young girl. Isaac (together with his mother and brother) must find this girl to replace the one he killed at the beginning of the story. Children are a great commodity because of their child-bearing potential and, so that the exiled family can return to Legion (the self-contained human settlement from which they were exiled) Isaac must return with a replacement. So, Wastelander Panda: Exile is essentially a story of a violent panda’s quest to kidnap a human child. Director Victoria Cocks has created quite a dark and violent world where the presence of the pandas is played completely straight. The score is composed by Australian Christopher Larkin.

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PIXEL SOLDIER – Alex Ball & Scott Hazell

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Pixel Soldier is an excellent short animated film written, directed and produced by Chris Landy. The movie follows a group of video game characters as they are sent behind enemy lines to take and hold a building of strategic importance. Senseless killing on both sides ensues as the troops fight for survival. Landy shifts between a number of different perspectives to tell the story and skilfully moves between 2-D and 3-D animation as these viewpoints change. British composer Alex Ball was tasked with writing the score for Pixel Soldier, beginning to write music for the project when still at an early stage back in 2012 and being responsible for the overall approach to the music. Fellow composer Scott Hazell joined the team later and provided additional music for several scenes.

MILO – Music for a Small Orchestra – Guy van Nueten

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Milo (2012) is an Irish-Dutch co-production starring Lorcan Bonner as 10-year old Milo, a boy living a rigidly controlled life. Milo has a skin condition, the nature of which is revealed later in the movie as events unfold. Rebelling against the strict rules he lives under, he runs away and falls into the hands of a criminal couple. Milo enjoys the freedom the couple offers him but that enjoyment ends when he find out the truth about his “sensitive skin” condition. Part a study of a dysfunctional family, part road movie, the music for Milo is written by Belgian composer and producer Guy van Nueten.

ORPHANS & KINGDOMS – Giovanni Rotondo

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Orphans & Kingdoms is a New Zealand drama written and directed by Paolo Rotondo. Three troubled teenagers break into a holiday home to taste a life much removed from their usual experiences. When the businessman homeowner returns the kids attack him and making him a hostage in his own home. However, as a series of flashbacks slowly reveal, the man has demons to keep hidden and the presence of the teenagers act as a catalyst to bringing old wounds to the surface. The score is composed Italian-born composer and orchestrator Giovanni Rotondo, whose recent works include music for the documentary film, Ilaria Alpi: L’Ultimo Viaggio and the TV drama Il Giudice Meschino.

LOVE IN THE POST – Peter Coyte

Original Review by Alan Rogers

The 2014 film Love In The Post, directed by Joanna Callaghan, is inspired by the book The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond by French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The book (published in 1980) is divided into two halves, and first half contains a series of love letters by Derrida. In one of these letters he recounts the experience of seeing a card reproduction of a medieval depiction of Socrates taking dictation from Plato. The philosopher speculates on what Plato may be doing behind Socrates’ back, leading Derrida to wonder: “…imagine the day, when we will be able to send sperm by post card.” As with the book, which combines elements of fact and fiction, Callaghan’s film combines the stories of a professor of literature (an authority on Derrida and whose university department is about to be closed), a film director trying to complete a film about The Post Card and filmed extracts from interviews with real-life scholars of Derrida.. For the film’s protagonists, a series of letters act as a catalyst to events that will change everyone’s lives.

DOFUS. LIVRE 1: JULITH – Guillaume Houzé

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Sometimes you approach listening to a film score with no idea of what to expect and it’s not until you listen to the audio clips that you realise that you may be onto a winner. This is the case with Guillaume Houzé’s score for the 2016 French animated film, Dofus. Livre 1: Julith. The film is one of several spin-off projects from a popular 2005 massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Set in a world featured in two earlier animated TV series shown in France (Wakfu and Dofus: Aux Trésors de Kérubim), Dofus. Livre 1: Julith is a feature-length film, directed by Jean-Jacques Denis and Anthony Roux, and is based upon the 52-episode Dofus: Aux Trésors de Kérubim.

AND THE DEVIL MAKES THREE – NE†HERWORLD

Original Review by Alan Rogers

I know very little about a small independent film, And The Devil Makes Three, other than what the scant information I found on IMDB says about it. Written and directed by Samantha Friend and Doug Murman, the movie premiered at the recent North Hollywood CineFest and follows two friends “…tasked with packing up the belongings of a deceased grandmother…[they]…venture to a house nestled deep in the woods. Isolated from the outside world, strange noises, lights in the forest, and mysterious locals plague the pair as they begin to wonder if something else may be lurking in the woods at night.” From what little I have discovered, and from viewing the trailer, And The Devil Makes Three seems like your typical haunted house film where a couple of unsuspecting types are holed up in a house (or cabin) where “things happen.” The movie has an original score by NE†HERWORLD.