Here’s to show that not every recent remake has been a total waste of time. I actually prefer the new live-action version of “The Jungle Book,” with a heavy assist from CGI animals, to the original animated film from 1967. This one amps up the action, tamps down the musical numbers to an acceptable level, and delivers a fun and rousing family-friendly action adventure.
Neel Sethi is Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves in the jungle, especially adoptive mother Raksha (voice of Lupita Nyong’o) and Bagheera, a helpful black panther voiced by Ben Kingsley. But Shere Khan (Idris Elba), a hateful Bengal tiger, reviles all humans and wants Mowgli between his jaws. After tragedy, the boy is on the lam.
He meets up with Baloo, a lazy bear (Bill Murray) who wants to use Mowgli for his own purposes – mostly involving procuring honey – but starts to develop a tender spot for the kid. They face off with King Louie (Christopher Walken), a giant orangutan with his own monkey army who demands Mowgli give him the human secret of the “Red Flower” – the ability to create fire.
It’s interesting how this is a twist on the usual dynamic in human/animal stories. Here most of the animals, even benevolent ones like Baloo, are looking to exploit Mowgli for his physical attributes, instead of the other way around.
The digitally animated creatures are completely believable – their eyes, fur, movements and anthropomorphic emotions all seem quite authentic. When Shere Khan is bearing down, we can practically feel his breath on our necks.
The action scenes can be pretty intense, so the smallest children may need a little reassurance (or a pass until they’re older).
With its fancy computerized critters and throwback charm, “The Jungle Book” is a pleasing mix of old and new.
Bonus features are good, though you’ll have to upgrade to the Blu-ray combo pack to get most of them. The DVD comes only with a featurette on creating King Louie layer by digital layer. With the Blu-ray you add a making-of documentary with director Jon Favreau and his visual effects team, a feature on the casting call for Mowgli and an audio commentary track with Favreau.
Just a few thoughts, as our newest talent, Aly Caviness, is handling the main review over at The Film Yap. Make sure to head there to read in its entirety.
"Money Monster" is a well-executed cinematic effort with tightly bookended ambitions. Unlike "The Big Short," it's not trying -- or, if it is, not trying very hard -- to be an all-encompassing indictment of Wall Street and the corruption of modern digitized market trading. It aims for small observations and dramatic tension.
It gives lip service to The System and how bad it is, but then leans on a narrative that makes clear it's a rotten apple or two who are actually mucking things up.
George Clooney plays Lee Gates, the host of the titular television show in which the smart, smarmy personality gives stock tips and ass-kisses the financial masters of the universe, in between embarrassing hip-hop dance moves and weirdo costumes. It's a slight exaggeration of Jim Cramer and his ilk, but only slight.
It's a hostage story in which some dumb mook off the street took Lee's stock advice and lost his entire inheritance from his mother, and now wants revenge, an explanation or an apology.
Directed by Jodie Foster from a screenplay by Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore and Jim Kouf, "Monster" provides a couple of terrific moments that I appreciated.
The first is when Lee, after first having got over the shock of having his show interrupted by a gunman who straps him into a bomb vest, finally gets around to engaging the guy, a truck driver named Kyle (Jack O'Connell). He's a talker, so he figures he'll talk to the young man. That's when he learns how much Kyle lost: $60,000.
Sixty grand? Lee asks, shocked. You're gonna kill me, maybe die yourself, over chump change like that?
Lee is a man who brags about sharing dinner at an expensive restaurant with at least one other person every night since the 1990s. He's got his millions, three ex-wives, thousand-dollar suits, etc. He's lived at the top so long, he can't even conceive of a working schmoe having to slave away at $14/hour, taking a year to save up the money he'll spend on a weekend getaway.
The second moment is when, trying to verify something allegedly said on his show a few weeks ago, Lee is forced to watch tape of himself played back on the screen. All this is happening, I should mention, on live TV, with Julia Roberts as Patty Fenn, the director in the control booth trying to keep things calm.
Lee watches the playback of himself in some ridiculous outfit, doing a dance a man of his years should not be attempting, saying stuff because it makes for good TV and not because it adds up to an ounce of fiscal sense. Clooney, who shines playing flawed men, gives a little dip of the head, his gaze faltering downward, and we bathe in his confrontation with his own meager worth.
He's a clown who revels at playing the clown, until he's forced to breathe dip the smell of the face paint, and is sickened.
Alas, the rest of the movie falls into predictable patterns. The cops come to take out Kyle, a negotiator is brought in, the action eventually leaves the studio, a weird sort of alliance forms between Lee and his captor, etc. Patty is the level-headed island of calm trying to keep all these vying forces in balance. Roberts is solid, but it's the kind of role any number of actresses could do just as well.
There is a good surprise or two. My favorite is when someone close to Kyle is located and brought in to talk him down, something we've seen many times before, and events do not transpire in any way we expected. For a brief moment, the movie pushes us out on a limb. We're delighted by the feeling of an abyss yawning; but then our steps are nudged back to the safe and dull path.
Dominic West plays the CEO of IBIS, the big corporation whose stock tanked despite Lee's reassurances to his viewers; Caitriona Balfe is the PR chief who goes rogue for reasons unexplored; Giancarlo Esposito is the head of the police force, uttering urgent things we can safely ignore; Lenny Venito is the podunk cameraman who keeps on shooting despite the danger to himself; and Christopher Denham is Lee's flunky producer tasked with anything the boss wants, including trying out an erectile claim before it goes on the market.
"Money Monster" plays out in live time, and Foster is adroit at balancing the tension and danger, stirring the pot when needed and backing off the heat when the audience needs to absorb information or take a breath. The movie also has a pleasing streak of dark humor to it, much of it deriving from Lee's feckless charm.
All the stuff about trading algorithms and international hackers being brought in to help is distracting or strains credulity. But this is the sort of movie where you have to just go along with the ride. It's a day trade of a film, serving its purpose but soon left behind.
Disney certainly has an appetite for "Jungle Book" iterations. Or at least they think we do. Lucky for them, they're right ... at least when it comes to good ones.
Beyond the cheesy 1967 animated feature, there was its (wisely) forgotten sequel, "The Jungle Book 2" in 2003; "TaleSpin," a short-lived 1990 TV spinoff; a live-action version in 1994 starring a nearly 30-year-old Jason Scott Lee as the boy Mowgli; another live-action version in 1998 that went straight to video; an animated cheapie in 2010; and another TV series that's still running.
The newest version directed by Jon Favreau ("Iron Man") is a pleasing mix of old and new elements. It uses high-end CGI to render all the animals, and the results are pretty stunning. Neel Sethi plays Mowgli, a "man-cub" abandoned in the jungle and raised by wolves, particularly fierce mother Raksha (voice by Lupita Nyong'o), with a little help from wise black panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley).
The animals still talk, as they did in the books, and recite Rudyard Kipling's verse containing wisdom from the mouths of creatures. The action is fairly intense -- it was a bit scary for our 2-year-old -- and quite well-choreographed.
This is the sort of movie designed expressly for kids but entertaining enough to keep their parents engaged.
And yes, they do bust out a few iconic songs from the '67 movie, including "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wan'na Be Like You," sung by Bill Murray as the bear Baloo and Christopher Walken as the massive ape King Louie, respectively. Both end up serving as comic relief in the middle of some tense sequences.
Murray's version is actually quite charming, and in general his voice work is so emotive and spot-on that I hereby forgive him for the "Garfield" movies. Walken does a talk-singing thing that almost ends up in yodeling territory.
Scarlett Johansson also has a brief role as Kaa the mesmerizing serpent, but her best contribution is a gorgeous rendition of "Trust in Me" that plays over the end credits. Kaa actually helped Mowgli in the books, but here he's a she, and she's all bad.
The story mainly revolves around Mowgli's conflict with Shere Khan (Idris Elba), a massive Bengal tiger who deeply resents a boy living among the jungle denizens. A human wielding "the red flower" (fire) left him scarred and blind in one eye, and now the power-hungry feline wants to exact his revenge on all their kind.
Bagheera and the alpha wolf, Akela (Giancarlo Esposito), decide to return Mowgli to the human village in the name of maintaining comity between the jungle species, but their plans go awry.
Mowgli ends up under the protection of Baloo, a large and lazy bear who wants him to use his human ingenuity to get at all the wonderful honeycomb sticking to a cliff. He says it's for his hibernation, but as others point out jungle bears don't hibernate.
"It's not total hibernation, but I do take naps," he sniffs.
Favreau and screenwriter Justin Marks wisely keep the preachy life-lessons stuff to a bare minimum. The only real moral of the story is that humans shouldn't try to be animals, and vice versa -- but that doesn't mean they can't get along.
Sethi is winsome and agreeable as Mowgli, but as you might guess his character is just a vantage point from which the audience can view all the amazing creatures and action.
I was never a big fan of the old Disney animated film, and most of the other cinematic and TV versions have passed me by. This new "The Jungle Book" manages to seem fresh and full of energy, and that says something all on its own.
Television is in a really good place right now, with many people thinking the “small screen” offers more serious, ambitious content than do movie theaters. That’s true only if everything on TV were as good as “Breaking Bad.”
The reality is you don’t see a whole lot of truly awful movies these days, the harsh studio system weeding out anything not guaranteed to carry at least some audience appeal. Whereas television is best seen as an island of coal with a few diamonds peeking out here and there.
(Consider: for many years, “Two and a Half Men” was the top-rated comedy.)
The brainchild of Vince Gilligan is the ultimate gone-bad story. Over the course of five seasons (with the last actually split into two eight-episode runs), average milquetoast high chemistry teacher Walter White turns into the biggest methamphetamine dealer in the U.S.
Splendidly acted by Bryan Cranston -- who will eventually need a wheelbarrow for all his Emmy Awards -- the show was a prime example of a convoluted but intricately plotted story that could only be done in the “long form” of a TV series.
As one of the many people who caught up with the show by streaming it on Netflix, I will commit an act of heresy by saying that “Breaking Bad” probably is better experienced in languid regular stops than a massive binge. When you undertake the latter, certain defects in the plotting become apparent, such as an overreliance on happenstance and character behavior that varies with the needs of the storyline.
(Such as: Walter’s D.E.A. officer brother-in-law, Hank, failing to notice any of the 250-plus clues of erratic behavior by his wife’s sister’s husband.)
Still, a few weaknesses aside this was a truly audacious show, wildly ambitious and nearly always worthy of the high praise heaped upon it. With its heavy doses of symbolism, trademark innovative camera work and host of plot twists, “Breaking Bad” was television doing what TV does best.
Now you can own the entire 62-episode journey for yourself. “Breaking Bad: The Complete Series” features the entire show in a 16-disc set that includes nearly 50 hours of commercial-free episodes, plus 55 hours of bonus material. Or, if you prefer, just “Breaking Bad: The Final Season.”
Among the many video goodies is “No Half Measures,” a two-hour documentary on the making of the final eight episodes. There are also personal reflections by the cast and crew, profiles of fan favorites like slimy attorney Saul Goodman, storyboard comparisons, season retrospectives and much more.
An aggressively dumb drama/thriller, "Alex Cross" clumsily retraces the steps of other movies about lawmen hunting down depraved serial killers who taunt them along the way. With its simplistic characterizations and clunky dialogue, it makes you think of "Se7en" or "In the Line of Fire" as remade by a bunch of 15-year-olds ... and not particularly talented 15-year-olds.
Morgan Freeman played the role of Alex Cross, a brilliant African-American psychologist/detective, in a pair of middling 1990s adaptations of the novels by James Patterson.
Tyler Perry has a less intellectual, more visceral take on the character. That's a great idea in theory, but his ham-fisted performance results in a guy who seems all over the map -- hot and cold, a paragon of righteousness one minute, a rule-busting vigilante the next. He doesn't seem so much a person as a conflation of emotional highs and lows.
Perry, known for putting on a dress as the wild-and-crazy grandma Madea in a string of comedies he wrote and directed, just isn't convincing in a grim lead role. The audience in the preview screening I attended tittered several times at moments that were intended to be serious.
They also were amused by his, ah, ample physique struggling through a number of fight scenes. Director Rob Cohen doesn't help, resorting to the usual hackery of quick edits, tight framing and a shaky camera. The final showdown between Cross and the villain should be enshrined in film schools everywhere as how not to shoot an action scene.
Speaking of that villain -- Matthew Fox is the film's one redeeming quality as Picasso, a mysterious killer who's a hired assassin but clearly relishes his gruesome trade more than a cool professional would. Looking like every ounce of fat has been boiled off his lean frame, Fox flashes a death's-head rictus grin that is truly unsettling. He seems like he wants to shiver his way out of his own skin.
The character's backstory is never really explored -- we see a newspaper clipping that says something about a rapist, and Picasso (he's never otherwise named) repeatedly blames Cross for turning him into what he is. But the screenplay by Marc Moss and Kerry Williamson doesn't follow through.
Their transcendently awful dialogue is truly something to behold. It's as if every time the characters are faced with a situation somebody asked, "Now what's the most obvious thing he/she would say here?"
For instance, when Picasso applies his sordid trade to Cross' family and he starts gearing up for revenge, his mother (Cicely Tyson) lectures him: "Look at you! Self-appointed judge, jury and executioner!"
Secondary characters are strictly by-the-numbers, like Edward Burns as Cross' laconic partner/best friend, the scrappy supportive wife (Carmen Ejogo) and the smarmy corporate types who sneer at the cops even as the lawmen protect them from being carved up by Picasso.
"Rabbit Hole" is a film that's steeped in sorrow, but watching it is a joyful experience -- at least for those who appreciate finely-drawn characters from fabulous actors who invest them with heft and heart.
Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart play Becca and Howie Corbett, a couple in their late 30s who lost their 4-year-old son, Danny, after being hit by a car eight months earlier. Though the film is adapted from a play by David Lindsay-Abaire (who also wrote the screenplay), there's no theatricality to their performances -- Howie and Becca feel like real, flawed people who could be living next door.
On the surface, Becca is the "problem" half of the couple. A homemaker who gave up her job at Sotheby's, she keeps the house and gardens ordered and neat like a good upstate New Yorker in the Martha Stewart mold. She's brittle and defensive, and at a group therapy meeting she mouths off at another grieving mother.
"It's just too much God-talk for me," she complains, resolving to skip any future sessions.
A highly organized person, Becca has organized her grief in a way that's least painful for her.
Though Howie remains superficially gregarious and productive, there's a dark rage boiling inside him. On some level he blames Becca for not watching Danny better, or blames himself for leaving the gate open that allowed him to run into the street, or blames the family dog for leading him out that gate.
While better hidden, Howie's sorrow is highly volatile, ready to erupt.
Becca is the sort who, when in pain, tends to lash out at those closest to her. Much of the brunt is borne by her mother, Nat (a superb Diane Wiest), a blue-collar church-going person who's somewhat mystified by the elegant, affluent woman her daughter has turned into.
Nat, who lost her own adult son to drug addiction, gives a moving speech about grief: At some point the weight of it becomes tolerable, she says, like a brick that you carry around in your purse. You occasionally forget about it, but it's always there, because that's what you have left instead of your child.
Exacerbating Becca's anguish is the fact that her never-do-well sister Izzy (Tammy Blanchard) has just become pregnant by her musician boyfriend (Giancarlo Esposito). Izzy's carefree, we'll-worry-tomorrow attitude flies in the face of Becca's carefully planned existence.
Ostensibly, she's worried that Izzy may not be ready to be a parent, but we suspect her real fear is that she'll prove a better mother than Becca herself.
A few other characters slide into the frame. There's Gaby (Sandra Oh), the organizer of the group therapy meetings, who forms a bond with Howie -- they take to smoking pot in her car to loosen up before sessions (he has continued to go even after Becca quit). Unlike Becca, Gaby is upfront about the loss of her child, which appeals to Howie's craving for empathy.
The most curious addition is Jason (Miles Teller), a 17-year-old who happened to be driving the car that killed Danny. It wasn't really his fault, but like the others Jason has come to internalize the tragedy. It's illustrated in a comic book he's writing about parallel universes that he shares with Becca, which gives the movie its name.
"Rabbit Hole" is directed by John Cameron Mitchell, whose two previous features -- about a transvestite rock 'n' roller ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch") and an ensemble drama featuring graphic, unsimulated sexuality ("Shortbus") -- might not seem an obvious choice for this unassuming character study.
But Mitchell has a sensitive touch with his actors that helps them deeply etch their characters into an audience's mind and soul. The performances are spectacular, but you won't catch anyone acting.
