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THEATRICAL REVIEW: The Jungle Book 3D (2016)
Directed by: Jon Favreau
Produced by: Jon Favreau, Brigham Taylor
Screenplay by: Justin Marks
Edited by: Mark Livolsi
Cinematography by: Bill Pope
Music by: John Debney
Starring: Neel Sethi, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, Scarlett Johansson, Giancarlo Esposito, Christopher Walken, Garry Shandling
Based on the 1967 animated Disney feature and the book by Rudyard Kipling
Year: 2016
Okay, how does this work again? It’s been a while since I last wrote a review! Forgive me if I am rusty. Hooray for job searching…
I wasn’t particularly interested in the latest adaptation of The Jungle Book. Let alone that this one was based on what I consider to be one of Disney’s lesser classic films, it was also because it was another in a line of live action films that Disney seems bent on doing to more and more of its older animated movies, which had so far managed to miss with 2 out of the 3 most recent unnecessary cash-ins – Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent were absolutely painful. However, with the positive reviews coming in and the fact that I actually genuinely loved their most recent film, Cinderella (also based on what I believe to be a lesser classic), I did decide to spend an early Friday respite from the last fleeting bits of work I have left over the next few weeks by checking out the 3D matinee. Read more…
REVIEW: Free Willy
Directed by: Simon Wincer
Produced by: Lauren Shuler Donner, Jennie Lew Tugend, Richard Donner, Arnon Milchan
Written by: Keith A. Walker, Corey Blechman
Edited by: O. Nicholas Brown
Cinematography by: Robbie Greenberg
Music by: Basil Poledouris; Michael Jackson (theme)
Starring: Jason James Richter, Lori Petty, Jayne Atkinson, August Schellenberg, Michael Madsen, Michael Ironside, Mykelti Williamson, Michael Bacall, Keiko
Year: 1993
Man, I remember a time when I could watch this movie and not think of all the horrors that went on at SeaWorld, don’t you? Thank you, Blackfish, for making the message behind Free Willy so devastatingly real now that I’m a grown man. I hate you.
All kidding aside, however, this was probably one of the first pieces of media with an activist message kids from my era ever watched outside of a “very special episode” of one of their favorite TV shows. (And that was probably the episode of Fresh Prince where Carlton bought the gun after Will was mugged.) Free Willy was the movie that dared us to care about the remarkable relationship between a troubled young boy named Jesse who just desperately needs someone to love him and set a good example for him and his unexpected friendship with a tenacious whale who was taken away from his own family and put on display for a world that doesn’t fully understand him. Read more…