Benedict Cumberbatch Among Cast added to "Jungle Book: Origins"

Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett and Christian Bale Head the Ensemble of Warner Bros. Pictures’ 3D Adventure “Jungle Book: Origins”

Young actor Rohan Chand to star as Mowgli in the cast, also including Peter Mullan, Tom Hollander, Naomie Harris, Eddie Marsan, and Andy Serkis

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Warner Bros. Pictures has assembled an impressive roster of stars for “Jungle Book: Origins,” its new big-screen, 3D adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic The Jungle Book, marking the feature film directorial debut of Andy Serkis. The action adventure, which will blend motion capture and live action, will be released on October 21, 2016. The announcement was made today by Greg Silverman, President, Creative Development and Worldwide Production, and Sue Kroll, President, Worldwide Marketing and International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures.

The actors performing the roles of the story’s central animal characters are: Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”) as the fearsome tiger, Shere Khan; Oscar winner Cate Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine”) as the sinister snake, Kaa; Oscar winner Christian Bale (“The Fighter,” the “Dark Knight” Trilogy) as the cunning panther, Bagheera; Andy Serkis (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”) as the wise bear, Baloo; Peter Mullan (“Hercules”) as the leader of the wolf pack, Akela; Tom Hollander as the scavenging hyena, Tabaqui; Naomie Harris (“Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”) as Nisha, the female wolf, who adopts the baby Mowgli as one of her cubs; Eddie Marsan (“Ray Donovan”) as Nisha’s mate, Vihaan; and Jack Reynor (“Transformers: Age of Extinction”) as Mowgli’s Brother Wolf. On the human side, young actor Rohan Chand (“The Hundred-Foot Journey,” “Bad Words”) will play the boy raised by wolves, Mowgli.

The film is being produced by Steve Kloves, who wrote seven of the blockbuster “Harry Potter” films. Jonathan Cavendish (“Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” performance capture producer “Godzilla”) is also serving as a producer. The screenplay is by Kloves’ daughter, Callie Kloves, based on the stories by Kipling.

The story follows the upbringing of the human child Mowgli, raised by a wolf pack in the jungles of India. As he learns the often harsh rules of the jungle, under the tutelage of a bear named Baloo and a panther named Bagheera, Mowgli becomes accepted by the animals of the jungle as one of their own. All but one: the fearsome tiger Shere Khan. But there may be greater dangers lurking in the jungle, as Mowgli comes face to face with his human origins.

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"Beasts of the Southern Wild" Goes Wild at 2013 Black Reel Awards

At the 13th Annual Black Reel Awards, Beasts of the Southern Wild won the "Outstanding Film" award, one of its four wins, which included an "Outstanding Actress" award for its young star, Quvenzhane Wallis.  Meanwhile, Denzel Washington won his record fourth "Outstanding Actor" award for his performance in Flight.

The 13th Annual Black Reel Awards winners were announced on Blog Talk Radio, Thursday, February 7, 2013, in Washington, DC.

The Class of 2013 – The 2013 Black Reel Awards winners (for the year in film 2012):

Outstanding Film
Beasts of the Southern Wild

Outstanding Actor
Denzel Washington - Flight

Outstanding Actress
Quvenzhane Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Outstanding Supporting Actor
Samuel L. Jackson - Django Unchained

Outstanding Supporting Actress
Naomie Harris - Skyfall

Outstanding Director
Ava DuVernay - Middle of Nowhere

Outstanding Screenplay (Original or Adapted)
Ava DuVernay - Middle of Nowhere

Outstanding Documentary
The Central Park Five - Sarah Burns, Ken Burns & David McMahon

Outstanding Ensemble
Django Unchained - Victoria Thomas

Outstanding Foreign Film
The Intouchables (from France)

Outstanding Score
Dan Romer & Behn Zeitilin - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Outstanding Song
John Legend “Who Did That to You” from Django Unchained

Outstanding Breakthrough Performance
Quvenzhane Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Outstanding Voice Performance
Dennis Haysbert - Wreck-it Ralph (Walt Disney Animation Studios)

Outstanding Independent Film
LUV - Sheldon Candis

Outstanding Television Documentary
Brooklyn Boheme - Nelson George & Diane Paragas

Outstanding Independent Documentary
Soul Food Junkies - Byron Hurt

Outstanding Independent Short
The Bluest Note - Marques Green

Outstanding Television Movie
A Beautiful Soul - TVOne

Outstanding Television Actor
Sean Patrick Thomas - Murder on the 13th Floor

Outstanding Television Actress
Aunjanue Ellis - Abducted: The Carlina White Story

Outstanding Television Supporting Actor
Courtney B. Vance - Let It Shine

Outstanding Television Supporting Actress
Alfre Woodard - Steel Magnolias

Outstanding Television Director
Vondie Curtis-Hall - Abducted: The Carlina White Story

Outstanding Television Screenplay
Elizabeth Hunter - Abducted: The Carlina White Story

Review: "Skyfall" is Among the Best Daniel Craig James Bond Films... so far

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 84 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

Skyfall (2012)
Running time: 143 minutes (2 hours, 23 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense violent sequences throughout, some sexuality, language and smoking
DIRECTOR: Sam Mendes
WRITERS: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan
PRODUCERS: Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Roger Deakins
EDITORS: Stuart Baird with Kate Baird
COMPOSER: Thomas Newman
MAIN THEME: “Skyfall” performed by Adele and composed by Adele and Paul Epworth

ACTION/DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Ben Wishaw, Rory Kinnear, and Ola Rapace

Skyfall is a 2012 action movie and spy thriller. Directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty), Skyfall is the 23rd film in the James Bond series. Actor Daniel Craig returns for his third outing as James Bond, agent 007. Skyfall finds Bond’s loyalty tested as the British Secret Intelligence Service comes under attack.

As the film opens, MI6 agents James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) are in Turkey where they are tracking a killer named Patrice (Ola Rapace). This mercenary has in his possession a computer hard drive containing highly-sensitive information that belongs to the British, but the mission goes badly.

Later, Bond’s superior, M (Judi Dench), comes under political pressure to retire, even as MI6 comes under attack. With his credibility and ability to perform under question, Bond sets out to discover the identity of the attacker. What he finds is that M’s past has come back to haunt her in the form of a mysterious figure known as Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). As 007 tracks down the threat, he finds himself facing his own past, but he must destroy that threat no matter how personal the cost.

I don’t think that there is much to say. Skyfall is good, and it is the best James Bond movie in recent memory, and certainly one of the best Bond films ever. It is well-directed with bracing action set pieces and thrilling scenes that, quite frankly, enthralled me. The performances are good, especially Javier Bardem as Raoul Silva; surely, he should at least be considered for an Oscar nomination.

The film is well-written, but I wouldn’t say that it is much better written than any of the other Daniel Craig Bond films. Most of the first hour of Skyfall is testament to brilliant spy thriller screenwriting. Once the film moves to London (because the story is resolved in Great Britain), it loses some of its mojo. It is not that Skyfall turns bad. It simply slows from a genius pop confection and transitions into a highly-skillful, espionage, shoot-‘em-up, action flick.

That’s not much of a fall, but it is still a step down from the near-perfection that opened Skyfall. Anyway, no one who has every enjoyed a James Bond film should miss this. Plus, I saw Skyfall in digital, and the picture sure was pretty.

8 of 10
A

Sunday, November 11, 2012

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Review: "28 Days Later" is Just Short of Being Great

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 97 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

28 Days Later (2002)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: United Kingdom
(U.S. release: June 2003)
Running time: 113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence and gore, language and nudity
DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle
WRITER: Alex Garland
PRODUCER: Andrew Macdonald
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Anthony Dod Mantle
EDITOR: Chris Gill
COMPOSER: John Murphy

HORROR/SCI-FI/DRAMA

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomi Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, Noah Huntley, and Christopher Eccleston

What if the Danny Boyle, the director of the sublime Trainspotting and The Beach (hey, I really like that movie), decided to make a zombie movie? If you’re like me, you were excited the first time you heard about this project. Well, we got it…sort of. Released in the United Kingdom in 2002, 28 Days Later was a big hit, but we had to wait until the summer of 2003 before Americans saw it. It’s not quite the zombie gore fest that I expected, but it’s a very creepy post-apocalyptic drama.

A group of do-gooder animal rights activists (the road to Hell…) break into an animal research facility with a lab full of monkeys that are, a captured scientist tells them, “infected with rage.” An infected monkey attacks one of the activists and unleashes an epidemic that destroys the U.K. Whenever a human is exposed to even one drop of blood or saliva from the infected, he becomes locked into a permanent state of murderous rage. In 28 days, Great Britain is a dead civilization.

On the 28th day, bike courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes from a coma he suffered after a car hit him and finds himself in a completely empty hospital. Not long after that he runs into group of infected humans, now murderous “zombies.” These “rage” creatures aren’t like the traditional foot-shuffling zombies we’ve come to love, especially in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and its sequels. They’ll chase a healthy human down with the speed of a track star and the single-minded zeal of a crackhead. Jim meets a handful of survivors including tough girl Selena (Naomi Harris) and father-daughter team Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns). Jim and a few of the survivors eventually end up at a military compound where they discover that their most desperate struggle for survival might not be against the ghouls.

28 Days Later taps into two of post-9/11 biggest worries, the threat of terrorism and lethal contagion. Arriving in America on the heels of the SARS scare, the film has dreary and sort of dreadful sense of realism. I found the “rage” disease and the speedy, raspy, blood-vomited monsters a bit farfetched (but still scary), so the entire horror genre angle of the film was mildly retarded; it simply just didn’t have the blow-to-the-gut immediacy and terror of something like Day of the Dead. The scariest thing about this film is the idea of how much harm humanity can do itself. The most potent violence in this film is simple man vs. man bloodletting, be it from sudden bloodlust or from cold, calculated murder.

If the characters appear thin, it’s because of the weight of their troubles. The audience is more focused on the both the film’s setting and concept than the characters. Besides, in a horror movie, characters of depth are largely a waste since the sole reason of characters in horror movies is to be acted upon violently. Still, I like what I saw. Brendan Gleeson always brings a strong dramatic presence to any film in which he appears. He’s the solid, archetypical father figure struggling to save his charges from the chaos of a mad world. I like Cillian Murphy’s gangly Jim, but it’s a bit hard to buy him as a hero. However, he works as a believable everyman who shows up out of the blue; at least one of that kind survives every the apocalypse in a post-apocalypse film. I really dug Naomi Harris’s Selena; she’s a warrior and the best genre heroine since The Matrix’s Trinity.

It would have been simpler just to make a cool-looking MTV-style zombie movie, but Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland went and got all-artful on us. In the film, the threat of a sudden and bloody-vicious zombie attack is a quite palatable fear that you can feel in your soul, but genre considerations apparently had to give way to a bit of social commentary. The film speaks with a lot of hopelessness concerning the state of human affairs with just enough of hopeful resolution to make it a Hollywood ending. I have mixed feelings about this film, mostly because I didn’t get what I wanted.

Still, I can’t get the ominous and grainy images of 28 Days Later out of my head. Boyle shot the film on digital video reportedly for budgetary reasons; if this is true (others say the choice was artistic), it is a happy accident for sure. The “docu-realism” look of the film will make it a memorable movie about the end of the world, as we know it.

6 of 10
B

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Review: "Ninja Assassin" is Strictly for My N.I.N.J.A.S.

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 23 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

Ninja Assassin (2009)
Running time: 99 minutes (1 hour, 39 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong bloody stylized violence throughout, and language
DIRECTOR: James McTeigue
WRITERS: Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski; from a story by Matthew Sand
PRODUCERS: Grant Hill, Joel Silver, Andy Wachowski, and Larry Wachowski
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Karl Walter Lindenlaub
EDITORS: Gian Ganziano and Joseph Jett Sally

ACTION/MARTIAL ARTS

Starring: Rain, Naomie Harris, Ben Miles, Shô Kosugi, Rick Yune, Joon Lee, Anna Sawai, Yoon Sungwoong, Kylie Liya Goldstein, Sung Kang, and Randall Duk Kim

It’s not Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, nor is it a Bruce Lee movie. However, if you want to see a ninja movie in which the clichés and bodies pile up in a mass of gore and severed limbs and heads, then, Ninja Assassin is just for you (and me).

Ninja Assassin focuses on an outcast ninja named Raizo (Rain). An orphan, he was taken from the streets as a child and brought into a ninja clan. There, Lord Ozunu (Shô Kosugi) gave him the name “Raizo” and transformed him into a trained killer in the service of the Ozunu Clan, a secret society whose very existence is considered a myth. After a terrible incident, Raizo leaves the Clan and vanishes. Now, living in Berlin, he waits for his former brethren to come for him, and he prepares to exact his revenge.

Meanwhile, also in Berlin, Europol agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris) has stumbled upon a money trail linking several political murders to an ancient network of untraceable assassins from the Far East. In spite of the discouragement she initially receives from her superior, Ryan Maslow (Ben Miles), Mika digs into top secret agency files to learn the truth behind these murders, which leads her to the Ozunu Clan. Mika’s investigation, however, makes her a target of the clan, which sends a team of killers, led by Raizo’s rival, the lethal Takeshi (Rick Yune), to silence Mika. Although he saves Mika from the first attack, Raizo knows that the Ozunu will not rest until both Mika and he are eliminated. Now, Raizo and Mika begin a deadly game of cat and mouse in hopes of finally bringing down the elusive Lord Ozunu and his ninja assassins.

There are things that Ninja Assassin does well and a number of things it doesn’t do that well. The acting is average to mediocre, defined mostly by clunky dialogue, although Naomie Harris (best know for her roles in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies and also, 28 Days Later) is fair. The Asian cast is pretty good. Rain, a South Korean pop star, as Raizo is charismatic, and Shô Kosugi as Ozunu is dynamite.

The fight scenes are superb; they’ll be magic candy to the ninja-lovin’ kid in you. Too many of them are stage in darkened settings, however. Much of the drama is horridly written; the exceptions are the flashbacks about Raizo’s time training with the Ozunu Clan, which are actually quite good. That aside, what fans want are cool fight scenes, and Ninja Assassin gives us a fight scene just about every five minutes. The hacking and slashing; the severed heads, limbs, and torsos; and the blood sprays will make some viewers wince. I did, but I’ll take many brutal fight scenes in my ninja movie, especially when the alternative is poorly done character drama.

6 of 10
B

Saturday, April 17, 2010

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Review: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead's Man Chest" a Bloated Corpse

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 146 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
Running time: 2 hours, 31 minutes
MPAA – PG-13 for intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images
DIRECTOR: Gore Verbinski
WRITERS: Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio (based upon characters created by Stuart Beattie, Jay Wolpert, and Elliot & Rossio and Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean)
PRODUCER: Jerry Bruckheimer
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Dariusz Walski
EDITOR: Stephen E. Rivkin and Craig Wood
Academy Award winner

FANTASY/ADVENTURE/DRAMA/COMEDY

Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Cook, Kevin McNally, David Bailie, Stellan Skarsgård, Tom Hollander, Geoffrey Rush, Naomie Harris

When Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl debuted in early July 2003, it had already received mixed reviews from the nation’s major movie critics – many of them deriding the film for having been derived from the Walt Disney theme park ride, “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Disney certainly expected the film to be a hit, but surely they didn’t think it would gross just over $305 million in domestic box office take or go on to do just under $654 million in worldwide business. The Curse of the Black Pearl was the proverbial dumb and silly film that was very well made, a fantasy adventure that caught the imaginations of a broad audience, in particularly that all-important summer demographic – the family. Johnny Depp even earned an Oscar nomination for playing Pirates’ charming rogue of an anti-hero, Captain Jack Sparrow. All in all, this movie delightfully surprised me when I expected so little.

The first of two sequels just opened. Ironically, this new film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, actually turned out to be the un-fun dumb movie that I expected the first to one to be. It’s everything bad summer movies usually are – full of sound and fury signifying nothing, nothing, and nothing again.

Dead Man’s Chest opens to find the first film’s young lovers, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom, seems bored with this part) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley, ditto), imprisoned for aiding and abetting Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp impersonating a robot impersonating him from the first Pirates movie). The couple’s nemesis is Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), a British official with warrants for their arrests, as well as that of Sparrow, but Beckett’s really after something else. Will makes a deal with Beckett that would free him and Elizabeth, but Will has to find Sparrow and retrieve Sparrow’s apparently enchanted compass for Beckett. Elizabeth later escapes prison with the aid of her father, Governor Weatherby Swann (Jonathan Pryce), and makes her own deal with Beckett to find Sparrow.

Meanwhile, we learn that 13-years ago or so, Sparrow made a deal with cursed sea captain, Davy Jones (played by Bill Nighy with much assistance from CGI). For the cost of his soul, Sparrow got to be captain of a ship, the Black Pearl. Now, Jones, who has an octopus-like head, has returned from the gloomy ocean depths to claim his payment: Sparrow must hand himself over to Jones’ servitude and join the other sea phantoms aboard Jones’ ghostly ship, the Flying Dutchman. Sparrow’s only way out is to give Jones 100 souls in exchange for his one, but Sparrow doesn’t intend to honor even that deal. Sparrow intends to find the dead man’s chest. Buried in some secret location, it holds Davy Jones still-beating heart. The man or woman who possesses it can destroy Jones and/or rule the seas. Sparrow, however, isn’t the only one who wants the treasure of the dead man’s chest, and the fight to find it means that Jack Sparrow may not meet his deadline to appease Davy Jones.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest looks and sounds exactly like the first film, but whereas the first film was fun and filled with the spirit of adventure, Dead Man’s Chest is much darker. Magic and curses play a larger part, and the lead characters: Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth Swann are all in much more peril. That makes for a film rotten with the stench of gloom, doom, and peril, which wouldn’t be bad if that made Dead Man’s Chest a good movie. Like everything else in this flick (acting, directing, shamelessness, etc.), this dark mood lands with resounding thud.

Dead Man’s Chest is noisy and ponderous, a lazy flick that goes nowhere. It begins well enough with an island misadventure – Sparrow, his Black Pearl crew, and Will Turner engaging in a madcap escape from a tribe of cannibals, but that’s the only bit of slapstick from this flick that recalls the original. It has a lot of potential, with many of the scenes and sub-plots ripe to deliver a good time, but ultimately the moviemakers just fumble it away. It’s hard to believe, but after 2½ hours, this movie goes nowhere. Dead Man’s Chest is just a setup for the third film in this franchise, which is currently titled, Pirates of the Caribbean: The World’s End (the second and third films were shot back-to-back). Dead Man’s Chest seems like the chopped-off half of a longer story because it is. I only hope that this next film, scheduled for release Summer 2007, is the better half.

3 of 10
C-

Saturday, July 08, 2006

NOTES:
2007 Academy Awards: 1 win for “Best Achievement in Visual Effects” (John Knoll, Hal T. Hickel, Charles Gibson, and Allen Hall); 3 nominations for “Best Achievement in Art Direction” (Rick Heinrichs, art director and Cheryl Carasik, set decorator), “Best Achievement in Sound Editing” (Christopher Boyes, George Watters II), and “Best Achievement in Sound Mixing” (Paul Massey, Christopher Boyes, Lee Orloff)


2007 BAFTA Awards: 1 win for “Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects” (John Knoll, Hal T. Hickel, Charles Gibson, and Allen Hall); and four nominations for costume design, make up/hair, production design, and sound


2007 Golden Globes: 1 nomination for actor-motion picture comedy/musical (Johnny Depp)