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ryanmeft · 4 years

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Movie Review: Dolittle

Dolittle, the latest resurrection of a rusting brand, has exciting stunts, gags that mostly land, a wonderfully designed Victorian-adventure world, and an angry pirate played by Antonio Banderas. One should never underestimate the value of an angry pirate. Robert Downey Jr. returns to playing a seat-of-his-pants adventurer after several years being absorbed in an increasingly-too-serious superhero role. It’s a splash of cinematic color and verve for the gray winter months.

The plot is fodder for an adventure. John Dolittle was famous and beloved for being able to talk to animals, and his wife Lily (Kasia Smutniak) was equally admired for her adventurous prowess (we are dealing, clearly, with an alternate Victorian period in which women would be cheered for riding on hippos). His wife left on an quest, died at sea, and he has now retreated to a sprawling estate granted them by the queen (Jessie Buckley). He sees no humans, and lives out his days in squalor and dissoluteness with his animal companions, whose languages he speaks. That’s until his most trusted friend, a parrot named Polynesia (Emma Thompson) leads a sensitive boy named Stubbins (Harry Collett) to Dolittle with a squirrel he accidentally shot. They are soon followed by Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado), a princess who seeks the doctor’s help for the sick queen. This leads him, Stubbins in tow as his self-appointed apprentice and his menagerie along for the ride, on an adventure to find a miraculous fruit which can cure Her Majesty. He’s got to contend along the way with a crooked and ambitious old schoolmate named Blair (Michael Sheen), who is working for a high-placed politician (Jim Broadbent) who would rather the queen did not recover.

The Dolittle series of books---written by Hugh Lofting from 1920 to 1947---concern an older protagonist, one who, in the illustrations, is a distinguished older gentleman with plain looks. This has of course been changed for the movie, primarily based on the second book, though few will be aware of it, as the series has rather fallen off of children’s required reading lists. Downey, who at 54 is very much at an age where he could play a refined country doctor, has his years de-emphasized by makeup and costuming to, I would guess, about his thirties. His version of the character is more than a little inspired by his steampunk take on Sherlock Holmes: he dresses in a shabby coat that is never buttoned, does almost everything with a decided flourish, and regains a little of the wink-and-nod facial and body language he had in his early turns as Iron Man before that became a Very Serious Character. Unlike Holmes and Tony Stark, he is not at all confident in success, being quite shaken by his loss. Dolittle is very pointedly a person children can admire, able to own mistakes and comfort others, the typical Downey persona made palatable for any age. Blair, his opponent, is well-matched. He’s an arrogant, pompous man who envies Dolittle’s success and offbeat charms, and wants to destroy him because he cannot be him. All this, of course, is done with a light touch that, to slide in at a PG rating, avoids the trickier potential aspects of the characters, but they do not feel cloying, so it passes that test. My favorite small role goes to Banderas, whose antagonistic pirate rules an Ottoman-like city of thieves, the adventures at which locale are the film’s highlight.

The movie’s big selling point, of course, and the thing that needs to work, are the animals. Frankly, some sort of award should be on offer for the person responsible for training them, as they do things I’ve never seen animals do in movies, such as talk and take therapy lessons. In addition to Emma Thompson as Dolittle’s right-hand bird, other important animals include a cowardly lion, er, ape (Rami Malek), the squirrel Dolittle saves (Craig Robinson) who believes Stubbins wants to finish the job, a duck (Octavia Spencer) who can’t tell a piece of celery from a pair of forceps, an ostrich (Kumail Nanjiani) who serves as Dolittle’s cranky steed, a polar bear (John Cena), a giraffe (Selena Gomez), a criminally-minded fox (Marion Cotillard) and a detective dog who wears glasses (Tom Holland). It’s fair to question whether the movie needed to balloon the budget with so many high-profile voice actors, but that’s a question for the accountants. What matters is that I found the antics of these animals thoroughly enjoyable, from a godfather impression done by ants to Cotillard the fox’s jail break. Like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a big part of the success in having so many animated characters on screen with actors who must interact with a green screen is that Downey, in particular, never once behaves as though they are anything but very real. Visually, they occupy the same space that the humans do, and if one of them must carry a human or crash into them or land on their arms, it is fully believable. The best animal “actor” by far is a neuroses-laden killer tiger voiced by Ralph Fiennes, who Dolittle must outwit.

Less impressive are the two teen characters, who are in the film so that small children may relate to it but who get little of great interest to do. Stubbins has no real plot arc, and with respect to the 16-year-old Collett, it is simply impossible to gauge by this where his talents as an actor will lie. Where the screenplay gives a lot of heart and purpose to Dolittle and the animals and some wonderful scene-chewing to Sheen, it seems completely unable to find anything to do with Rose or Stubbins. Notably, Laniado is somewhat more engaging, but the story leaves her behind to care for the ailing queen, and since Lily is only seen in the occasional flashback, this leaves the movie both without a heroine and without an engaging child character to balance Dolittle out. The screenplay was written by director Stephen Gaghan (Syriana), and initially Dan Gregor and Doug Man from a story by Thomas Shepherd before having the comedy elements tweaked by Chris MacKay during re-shoots. This sounds like a few too many onions in the soup, yet the only time I felt the weight of it was with these two characters. Yes, the plot is also rather throwaway, but I didn’t feel it hurt the film---if we’re going to start talking about plots in swashbuckling adventure movies, we may as well just quit while we’re ahead.

I should own something while I’m here: like westerns, I’m prone to giving fanciful adventure movies the benefit of the doubt. Whales pulling 19th century sailing ships and intimate surgeries that must be performed on fire-breathing dragons voiced by Frances De La Tour are just the kinds of things I long to see in an age where just letting go and letting imagination take over is anathema to increasingly risk-averse studios. A lesser plot keeps Dolittle from standing alongside Holes or the Paddington films in the pantheon of live-action family adventures, but there’s enough fun to be found here for those adults who fancy that animals speak to us.

Verdict: Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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All images are property of the people what own the movie.

#robert downey jr.#octavia spencer #tom holland #ralph fiennes #marion cotillard #selena gomez #dolittle #movies #stephen gaghan #john cena #rami malek #kumail nanjiani #emma thompson #jim broadbent #antonio banderas #michael sheen #animals

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songbay · 4 years

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The Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

New Ways Songbay is Supporting Lyricists in 2020

Lyrics turned into songs. Have your lyrics turned into original songs

Since launching Songbay ten tears ago, we’ve been helping songwriters and lyricists meet their goals and grow their careers. We’ve developed innovative ways to support them on this journey.

In this article, we will be discussing the new features just added to Songbay in 2020, such as our ‘Lyric-to-Music’ service and the ‘Lyric-Improvement’ service. We’ll be sharing the results of last year’s Songbay Lyric Writing competition, talking to our winners and revealing everything you need to know about the benefits of these features to Songbay lyricists and songwriters.

The Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

The competition opened in August 2019 with the closing date the 1st October 2019, giving participants six weeks to compose their lyrics. To enter, our lyricists were challenged to write (and upload to Songbay) a lyric based on this image:

Photograph by Ira R (IG: @eklektikum), sourced via Unsplash (IG: @unsplash)

The lyric could be written in any genre but had to use structures based on typical song formats, for example, verse, bridge, chorus, intros, outros, etc.

We were impressed by the standard of all the entries and will be sharing our favourites throughout this article (they can all be purchased on Songbay).

The winners of the competition were awarded the top prize of having their lyrics set to music by our professional songwriting team.

One of the biggest challenges facing aspiring lyricists is finding composers and musicians ready to turn their lyrics into completed songs. Most publishers do not accept ‘lyric-only’ submissions without a high-quality music demo. This makes it tough for lyricists to get into the industry.

Bob Love, Winner of the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

Lyricists Bob Love was our first winner with his lyric ‘The Dark Road Leads To Light’

Verse: Bed sheets loose and crumpled In my dreams I had stumbled To a dark forest, like a tunnel of trees A road ahead, sun bursts through the leaves

Confused for a time I felt fear Startled to find someone else near A silhouette of a man, tired and aged He somehow knew, I’d lost my way

Chorus: He said..The dark road leads to light It’s gonna be such a beautiful sight A whole new world is waiting for you if you push on through

View the full lyric here >>

We were looking for lyrics that conveyed emotion and imagination, that could also work as a song. Our team of judges quickly shortlisted Bob Love’s lyric as a winning contender. We all found his narrative and message of hope quite compelling. Bob Love is a US-based lyricist with an impressive portfolio of lyrics to his name. Bob told us, “I enjoyed the challenge of the lyric contest. The picture was hard to write about. I based it on some of my life experiences. The tunnel of trees that I came up with, I got that from my experience with cancer treatment a few years back. I had 38 radiation treatments. The hallway that led to the office where I got radiation was long and narrow like a tunnel. I called it the tunnel of tears because it was so hard to go down that hallway and face more treatments.”

“Like anyone who’s lived a while, I have faced trouble in my life. I went through alcoholism years ago. Someone told me that to get well, I had to go through it; I could not go around it. That stuck with me, and I put that into the song, ‘the ghostly old man smiled and nodded at me, pointed ahead through the tunnel of trees. It’s just like trouble you see, can’t go around it, it’s your fate, got to go through it, it’s the only way.’”

See all of Bob’s lyrics available for sale at Songbay here >>

Lyrics turned into songs-As the competition winner, we turned Bob’s winning lyric into a completed song, using our new Lyric-to-Music-Service.

The Songbay Lyric-to-Music Service

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We created two different versions, both based on the genre and stylistic elements suggested by the artist when uploading the lyric. For the first version, we used a rough sung chorus that had been provided.

How this worked

When uploading his original lyric at Songbay, Bob made use of our industry-leading audio narration feature. In addition to having lyrics beautifully displayed for sale at Songbay, lyricists can narrate their lyrics or use our supplied backing music to automatically play when a user reads their work.

Our songwriting team used Bob’s rough idea for the melody as the basis of the chorus for the newly created song.

Have a listen here (music by Chris Porter):

Before:

https://songbay.co/songbay/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Bob-Love-Chorus.mp3

After:

https://songbay.co/songbay/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Bob-Love-completed-Chorus.mp3

Full version of the completed song:

https://songbay.co/songbay/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/The-dark-Road-leads-To-Light.mp3

A completely different version using the same lyric:

https://songbay.co/songbay/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Songbay-Bob-Love-TDRLTL-FINAL-2.m4a

Get your lyrics turned into songs with music at Songbay

‘Are you looking to have your lyrics set to music? Our team of songwriters can turn your lyrics into professionally recorded songs. Anything from a pro-quality demo to a fully mixed, radio quality master. It is an opportunity to hear your words brought to life with music and vocals. You can then use the song in whichever way you choose.

As always with all our sales of original lyrics and songs at Songbay, you retain complete control of your lyric and can use the song however you wish, profiting from any royalties the new song may generate. It’s worth pointing out, that unless a lyric is set to music, it cannot generate any music royalties. So this is another reason for lyricists to use our new ‘Lyric-to-Music-Service’.

Bob was the first person to use this feature. He says, “The Songbay team were great working with me on the music for the song. Many thanks to Chris Porter and Gary Cubberley. We communicated by email and they matched it up just right. I was pleased. I would certainly recommend it. It’s exciting to see your song come to life.”

Have your lyrics turned into songs here >>

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

Dancin’ With Trees by Ric Holland >>

The team behind our new services are: Gary Cubberley, Chris Porter, Valery Proletarski, Simon Graham, Olga Wells, Andrew Adigun, Andrew Hockney, Nandish Sadrani and Justine Perry.

Collectively, they have huge experience in all aspects of the music industry, including composing, songwriting, lyric writing, music production, arranging, recording, mixing, mastering, session singing and vocal coaching. They have written and recorded in session with artists such as:

Kazabian, Keane, Ellie Goulding, Ed Sheeran, Nick Cave & The BadSeeds, Patti Labelle, Jamie Cullum, West One Music, Faye Tozer, Amy Pearson, and Dagny (to name a few.) Members of our team have also been involved with prominent London West End Musicals, including Les Miserables and Billy Elliot. In the Orchestral and Opera world, with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Trinity College of Music, Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Wessex Opera. Songbay’s current clients include The BBC, ITV, BBC Radio, Channel 5, BRMB, Endemol Shine, and Tiger Aspect. Corporate clients include McDonald’s, DFDs Seaways and Konica Cameras.

We chatted with one of the Songbay songwriters, Chris Porter, about the new service.

What do you find most interesting when writing music for the lyrics?

The best and most interesting thing about creating music for lyrics is the different ’shapes’ you are made to work in – because of another creative’s artistic vision. Because all lyricists have different influences, approaching other people’s lyrics will always be different from the way you approach this task with your own. This means you nearly always make music differently from the way you normally do. This, in turn, means that you often find yourself slightly outside of your comfort zone – which, as has been regularly observed, is where the magic happens! Ultimately, successful songwriting is all about synergy – the perfect coupling of music, lyrics, and atmosphere – and that’s what I always try my best to achieve. Further, under these circumstances, it is a collaborative process. And I have very often found that two heads are better than one!

What is most challenging? Combining collaboration with subjectivity. Because this process is a collaboration (and because anything creative is subjective) I’m concerned that what I make will meet the expectations of the lyricist. The more information that can be supplied in terms of style and production choice all help to head off these anxieties. As a rule of thumb, I always try to let the lyric dictate musical choices, and then try to create music that is sympathetic to the original lyric. As a writer, I might be tempted to want to edit, adjust or refine a lyric. Here, I don’t have that luxury – the lyric exists, and is to be treated as the finished article.

Any other thoughts?

Lyrics into songs is all about communication, I find that behaviour breeds behaviour. A successful song communicates – that’s its function. And as I’m a natural enthusiast, I will always want to create something that I can get enthusiastic about. And I hope, therefore, that this is communicated in the work – be it heart-breaking ballad or angsty protest rant!

Here’s a couple more recent examples of a Lyric-to-Music service in action:

‘Beautiful Life’ by Piper (Chorus)

What a beautiful life you led What beautiful things you left behind my friend And I know that someday We’ll meet again What a beautiful life you led

What a beautiful world

https://songbay.co/songbay/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Beautiful-life-lyric-demo-with-music-arrangement-with-sung-vocals.mp3

Music by Songbayteam member Simon GRAHAM

The ‘Gigolo’ by J-A-Y

Verse

Another Friday night another night of interaction, beauty’s only skin deep part of attraction, she’s wearing her high heels, a see through skirt, a call designer number with a DKNY shirt. So i smoozy on over with my hat and my cane, Oscar De La Renta’s meeting macho man, they ‘play that funky music’, the DJ boosts the gain, I give her thirty minutes till she’s screaming my name.”

Chorus

“I put my Guccis on, I’m gonna put Armanis on, Gonna put my CKs on, I’m gonna put Moschinos on, She’s gonna put Versace on, She’s gonna put Givenchy on, Vivienne Westwoods’ on, She’s super sexy Ralph Lauren,

https://songbay.co/songbay/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Friday-cropped-section.mp3

Music by Songbayteam member Gary Cubberley

Have your lyrics turned into songs here >>

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

All The Things That Matter by Meggy

The Lyric-Improvement-Service

youtube

“Receive professional analyses and evaluation of your lyrics. Receive detailed lyric improvement suggestions. Improve your lyric writing skills and boost your selling chances. We review and analyse your lyrics and show you how to make them stronger. We give you an independent perspective of your writing skills and the tools to become more creative!”

We have also launched another feature for lyricists- Lyric-Improvement

You can submit your lyrics for independent professional review. Receive detailed analysis and evaluation of your new lyrics before making them available for sale at Songbay. We’ll also suggest improvements to existing lyrics from your porfolio.

We can make your lyrics work better with music, before investing time and money in composing and recording. For this reason, the Lyric Improvement Service goes hand-in-hand with our Lyric to Music service and is offered without charge when ordering the latter.

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

‘Walking Into The Light’ by Linda Tarry

Runners Up

The term ‘Runner up’ is not completely accurate here, since several of our judges had the following lyrics marked as their winners!

Sheree Shaw

Our competition runners-up were Sheree Shaw and Emma Chute. They are both talented lyricists, who have been on Songbay for several years. Their writing skills are often in demand for collaboration projects with other artists. Sheree is based in Scotland, UK, and Emma in Perth, Western Australia.

As part of their prizes, they received exclusive free access to our new lyric-improvement-feature.

They shared their thoughts with us on the task of writing to a given image.

Sheree’s winning lyric was: ‘Out of the Woods, Into The Light‘. She said, “When I was given the task of writing the lyric based on the picture, I looked at the picture and wrote what I thought the picture represented. I felt it showed a feeling of being lost and someone who was trying to hide from the outside but could see that there was light. I would write a lyric based on a picture again as I found it helpful for bringing new ideas.”

Emma’s winning lyric was “Ol Piney Grove“. She told us, “I actually wasn’t going to enter as my writing usually just starts and then goes on, so to write on a subject took a lot of thought. I was driving and saw a place called Piney lakes. So initially the lyric was going to be a lot darker. But then I saw the house in my head and the man and the story just came but it was very challenging. I was very surprised and did a little dance around when I found I had come as a runner up.”

Here’s what they had to say on the Lyric Improvement Service:

Emma: “The lyric appraisal was very helpful. It showed me where I can miss giving the whole story or finish too quickly.”

Sheree: “When I received my appraisal I found it helpful and will be using the advice in my future work.”

If you would like analyses, evaluation, and feedback on your lyrics from our team, you can find the service in your user area at Songbay. Just choose ‘Lyric-Improvement’ after uploading. There are two options to choose from – Standard and Advanced. The latter also includes suggestions for re-wording the structure of the lyric as well as alternative word choices and phrases. It also gives you our complimentary guide ”Revamping Clichés” with expert advice on boosting the quality of your lyrics and many other useful writing tips and tricks.

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

The Walk of Defiance by Sheena Hope

Chris Porter is involved closely with the new lyric improvement service. These are his thoughts:

“I do my best to bring to bear my English education in tandem with my decades of listening! Whilst there are all manner of rules concerning grammar and form, the poetry of lyric-writing is a wholly more fluid affair, and I tend to apply a perspective of ‘feel’ over the rigour of simple English appreciation. I also consider flow. The simple sounds of the words all feed into a considered appraisal. Whilst I sometimes wish it were as simple as ‘I like this’ or ‘I don’t like that’, I recognise that kind of close-minded thinking as the opposite of what creativity should be about. Ultimately, however, ‘feel’ tends to win. Does it communicate? Does it make you feel things? Does it get your intended message across? These are the kinds of things that appraisals should address. I favour a holistic approach to appraisal, therefore. And certainly not just whether it rhymes or repeats enough – though that can be important, too!”

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

‘Find The Way Through’ by 3 Song Writers From Scotland

So how did we choose our competition winners?

With great difficulty!

As always when auditioning original lyrics for sale at Songbay, we were looking for strong writing techniques – use of metaphor, personification, alliteration, poeticism, and emotion. Additionally, we considered how closely the lyric followed the given brief and whether we could see it working when set to music.

We all had different opinions and favourite entries…

All the judges made shortlists of favourite entries. From this, we were able to create an ‘in common pool’ of the Top 20 entries. The winners and runners-up were finally selected after hours of deliberation.

Commended Entry

‘Break In The Trees’ by Zephyrhillmusic

List of All Prize Winners in 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

Here is a list of winners, runners up, and commended entries from the competition:

First Place Winners:

Bob Love ‘The Dark Road Leads to Light’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337184/

Maria Teresa Guzman ‘Life Under The Woods’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337263/

Runners Up:

Emma Chute ‘Ol Piney Grove’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337161

Sheree Shaw ‘Out of the Woods, Into the Light’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337223

Highly Commended:

(Not in any order of preference)

Ric Holland ‘Dancin’ With Trees’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337219

Meggy ‘All The Things That Matter’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2336844

Sheena Hope ‘The Walk of Defiance’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2336748

Zephyrhillmusic ‘Break in the Trees’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337224

3 Songwriters From Scotland ‘Find The Way Through’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337210

Linda Tarry ‘Walking Into The Light’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2336778

We’re delighted at the success of the competition and would once again like to thank everyone who took part. We’ve already started planning the Songbay Lyric Writing Competition 2020!

Do you want your lyrics turned into songs? do you want to use our lyric improvement feature? Do you want your existing song improved, re-arranged with professional musicians and instrumentalists, or re-recorded and mastered? if so, don’t hesitate to get in contact with us for more details at [email protected]

Fact: Songbay is the world’s largest original lyric library. It is a home for composers, songwriters, producers and song and lyric buyers. They are all looking to connect with each other! Songbay offers free copyright registration of all uploads and sellers keep 100% of sale fees.

**Unfortunately, we were unable to contact one of the recipients of the winner award. We’re hoping to update on this soon.

Features Covered in this article

Lyrics -to-Music-Service

Lyric-Improvement-Service

The Songbay Lyric Writing Competition was originally published on Songbay Music and Lyric Sales

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