The Jungle Book (2016, dir. Jon Favreau)

I saw Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book today.  As you may know, its based on classic books by Rudyard Kipling and comes to us from the folks at Disney.  I don’t remember ever seeing the original 1967 Disney animated film of the story but I know of some of that original’s songs which are needlessly used a couple times in this updated, live-action version. 

It is the story of Mowgli (Neel Sethi) a boy who has been raised from babyhood by the animal inhabitants of an unnamed jungle, mainly a pack of wolves and his mentor, a panther named Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley).  One day, as a result of an intense, dry season, the animals congregate at a much receded riverbed in an instance where all the animals declare a truce and promise not to devour each other.  It is at this time that Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba), a mean tiger arrives and declares his intention to see the end of young Mowgli, if its the last thing he does. This prompts the youngster to vacate his home and venture through the jungle to try to locate a human-inhabited village where he is told he belongs.  He has adventures along the way obviously, meets a giant bear named Baloo (voiced by Bill Murray), is constantly pursued by the murderous Shere Khan and... I won’t give away the end but you might be able to guess it.

Overall, the film is underwhelming.  A lot seems to go on without anything profound ever really happening.  The voice acting is good, the animated CGI is impressive, but that doesn’t add up to a worthwhile adventure.  Perhaps it’s the child actor Sethi who fails to deliver:  he’s an OK actor, but you don’t get invested in his character totally and he doesn’t provide the emotional depth required for the role.  Furthermore, as I mentioned, there are songs used in this film from the original cartoon that seem to stand out like a sore thumb, never really cohesively gelling into the film’s structure.

I was never swept away, at any moment, by this updated version of the Kipling classic.   It is never exciting enough, never seems to kick into high gear, and as a result, fails pack the adrenaline-powered, adventurous punch that it could have been.

Season 1 & 2 of "The Fall" starring Gillian Anderson (Available on Netflix)

Delving deep into the psychological depths of cat and mouse alike, this police-mystery-thriller, "The Fall" ultimately fails to live up to the path paved by its Netflix co-inhabitant, police procedural dramas.  It has many admirable qualities but the episodes seem to meander a bit too long past their welcome.

Taking place in Belfast, Ireland, the show follows new arrival to the force Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) who finds herself caught up in a serial murder mystery.  Before Gibson and her fellow officers discover the identity of the killer, the viewer is made aware from the get-go of his identity: Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan), a local psychologist who you are never quite convinced could be such a cold-blooded monster.

What sets "The Fall" apart from other cop-killer dramas is the degree of psychology involved.  You get a deep-seated psycho-analysis of the characters and their motivations, desires, and dark-sides.

The show, however, seems to go overboard in its detail of the murders and its constant cross-cutting between pursuer and pursued become tiresome.  The overall effect is a feeling of excess and weariness.

This is a good thriller but it is definitely not the best series that Netflix or television has to offer.

"Knock the Cover Off The Ball": Cinematic Baseball

The new baseball season is about a month young and with its advent comes my current reflection on the history (my personal one) of baseball in the movies.  I haven't seen every baseball film. 
The Lou Gehrig Story starring Gary Cooper is one I haven't seen, but I've seen quite a few.  Some are amazing, some better than others and some hit below average.

Barry Levinson's The Natural is one of my personal favorite movies taking baseball as its main subject.  Its mythic quality, the way it brilliantly divides the line between good and evil, using grand imagery and allegorical motifs to express the soul of the game in a transcendent way that few films, sports-themed or otherwise, have been able to parallel, makes it totally rewarding.   The story of Roy Hobbes' rise, fall, and then rise again, speaks to anyone, anywhere who has ever desired to be given a second chance or lifeline.  The music soundtrack, composed by Randy Newman, is one of the most moving, majestic, and appropriate scores to ever accompany a motion picture.   The motif of light vs. darkness is present throughout the entire film and provides a clear guidepost to its viewing.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, 1989's baseball comedy, Major League marked a formative experience in my early life when I saw it in a theater.   It is in the choreography of the baseball action, its on-field realism, that makes it extremely engaging.  Director David S. Ward did a masterful job of composing the action in the games in this film.  Another highlight is the screenplay: many memorable and hilarious lines and characters I can recall from this film.  When Willy Mays Hayes arrives to Spring training and promises that he "plans to put on a hitting display", you know you are in for something entertaining.

Another cinematic baseball gem that was released the same year is Phil Alden Robinson's Field of Dreams.  A farmer played by Kevin Costner starts to hear voices in his cornfield, compelling him to build a baseball field:  "If you build it, he will come."  Just who "he" is is a mystery: Shoeless Joe? God? His dad? The film and its makers had an obvious, mystical awe and love of the game of baseball and it shows in the meticulous rendering of the glory of the sport and the sport's legendary players from history.

Baseball and the movies have had a long relationship.  The rise in popularity of baseball in the early 20th century coincided with the dawn and development of the art of movies.  There is something about the sport of baseball that makes it particularly attuned to being portrayed on the silver screen:  its tempo, its grandiosity, its magic, and its history.  Great films have been made about baseball and you can bet that there will be more in the future.

8mm Celluloid

"Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day"

Paul Simon, "Kodachrome"


If you were born/raised sometime before the late 1980's, perhaps some of your childhood existence is preserved on 8mm or Super 8mm film.  My family owned a Kodak Super 8 Camera during my childhood and my father would record many of the important moments of my own and three younger brothers' lives:  Christmas mornings, birthdays, baby learning to walk, crawling, etc.  I am grateful for these preserved memories even if the medium on which is recorded has since been replaced my camcorders and digital video recording devices. 

There is something about the warmth and vivid colours of Super 8mm film that is irreplaceable by anything that has come afterwards.  The scratchy, highly-flammable brilliance of 8mm celluloid projected onto a screen has an allure that is impossible to reproduce and describe unless you have witnessed it.

All of my own 8mm memories are stored somewhere in my parents' basement.  I sometimes worry about them being preserved and think about transferring them to DVD somehow.  They are after all, evidence of a pristine, idyllic time in my life.

When I was a pre-teen, I made a primitive attempt at linear editing by stitching together a number of these old films in somewhat chronological order so that there would be a longer, continuous viewing of some of the films.  I would imagine that the Scotch tape I used to splice them together is not the ideal means of preservation but last time I viewed one of them, they seemed to hold up OK.

Along with my own childhood memories on celluloid, there is also a vast collection of 8mm films from my father's childhood that my grandfather recorded.  It is truly amazing to witness homemade movies from the 1950's and 60's of a person who I only have ever known as an adult.

The silence of these 8mm films add an element of mystery and wonder to their viewing.  I often wish I could hear how certain people sounded way back then, but I have to leave it to my imagination.

If you have memories preserved on 8mm film like I do, don't take them for granted.  They are a treasure-trove of picturesque, beautiful remembrances of things past and, in this age of digital, should not be forgotten.

Formative Film-Going Experiences

As a lover of cinema, I often think back to my first experiences of going to the theater to watch movies, remembering my initial awe, fear, and enjoyment.

I recall going to see Return of the Jedi in 1983 with my father.  I was four or five years old at the time.  Perhaps there had been movie-going experiences before this, but this one stands out.  I distinctly remember being frightened and clutching to my father during the first half hour that takes place in Jabba the Hut's Palace.  The creatures were so bizarre and creepily-alive.  I don't think there would have been the same reaction had we been in the age of CGI special effects that George Lucas resorted to in Episodes 1-3.  The aliveness of the beings were punctuated by their actual presence in the pro-filmic world.  I don't remember much more about that initial experience of Return of the Jedi, but the memories of being in a state of fear in that first half hour later relaxed into an overall enjoyment and wonder during the remainder.

Although several years older at the time, another formative experience for me was seeing Major League in the theater in 1988.  As a ten year old, my main passion at the time was baseball - playing, watching, collecting cards, and dreaming about the sport.  Major League did a masterful job of capturing the reality of the game as few baseball films have done before or since.  The excitement of the games, the idiosyncratic characters, and the choreography of the on-field action combined to create a life-long fondness for my first experience of this movie.  I remember walking out of the theater with a feeling of glee having witnessed Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) strut onto the field to the sound of "Wild Thing" and pumping in strikes that exceeded 100 mph.

These formative experiences with movies are just two examples of how I came to appreciate and love cinema - wanted to study it in all its aspects.  These films aren't even considered all that great critically but to a young, impressionable mind, they seemed like masterpieces.  We all have memories of going to the cinema and being changed, for better or worse, in our youth.  The memories I have provided are two in an ever-developing accumulation of films that shape and determine our destinies.

Midnight Special (2016, dir. Jeff Nichols)

Midnight Special often defies understanding and explanation.  It doesn't pander to you, constantly dictate its meaning, nor assume its audience can't labor over what they see.  This is what makes it so intriguing, engaging, and rewarding.

It is surprising and mysterious.  It is a sci-fi movie with a child named Alton (Jaeden Lieberher) as its central protagonist.  He is a child who possesses other-worldly powers and it isn't until the end that the extent and nature of these powers reveal themselves, though even then, not completely.  There is a cult-like church group built up around the child's abilities and at the film's beginning, the biological father (Michael Shannon) has kidnapped him.  What unfolds over the next hour and a half are often unexpected, always riveting.

Midnight Special is a film that demonstrates imagination and intelligence.  The special effects are nice to look at, as is the cinematography.  The acting is strong and the direction by Jeff Nichols is fine too.  Nichols last directorial effort was Mud starring Matthew McCaunaghey and that was a fantastic film.  This film is great too and shows that the director/writer has wide-ranging vision and an eye for intriguing stories and compelling characters.

Thoughts on "Happy Valley" (A Netflix Original Series)

After watching a variety of British police dramas in recent months, I was excited to start watching another.  "Happy Valley" turns out to be the cream of the crop.  It outshines "Broadchurch", "Luther" and "River", all of which are brilliant in their own ways.  What sets "Happy Valley" apart is the psychological depth and complex intelligence of its characters and the way it blurs the line between good and evil.

Sarah Lancashire's performance as the lead character, Sgt. Catherine Cawood is absolutely riveting.  She brings the character to life in a way that makes her sympathetic.  At the same time, you may find discomfort in liking her sometimes:  she does things that are morally questionable and that add extra dimensions to her performance and character.   She has been through so much hell.  The fact that she maintains dignity and strength adds tension and suspense to her character's trajectory.

The line between good and evil is tenuous in this series.  One of the criminals in the show, Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) is reprehensible and cruel in many of his actions.  However, the show does clever things to make the viewer identify and sympathize with him.  All the characters in the first two seasons seem to be connected in some way.  The connections and convoluted relationships add interest and surprise.  Some are related by blood, others by action but all combine to draw the viewer in and keep him or her in a constant state of agitation and anxiety.

The film takes place in Yorkshire, England and the title of the series is ironic.  As Jake Bugg's theme song "Trouble Town" iterates this is a broken, dismal place to live at times.  The cinematography efficiently captures the run-down, gritty feel of many of the city's locations.

This is the best British Police Drama on television.  It is riveting and real, bold and beautiful.  The first two seasons are available on Netflix.

Dark Victory (1939, dir. Edmund Goulding)

Watching a film like "Dark Victory" from the eyes of a 1939 viewer is difficult for someone born much later.  A lot has changed and developed in film aesthetics, narration and style since its release.  From the perspective of a viewer in the 21st century it seems quite unspectacular.  Bette Davis's performance is amiable and draws you in.

The film tells the story of a female equestrian champion who's headaches and lapses in perception frequently disable her.  This leads to the diagnosis of a life-threatening disease.  The film deals with the final months of her life.  She develops a relationship with her doctor and how she deals with her time-limited predicament is explored.

The film was nominated for Best Picture, Actress and Original Score but didn't win.  Though considered a classic of Hollywood cinema, young viewers of today who want to explore old films will probably not be won-over or thoroughly entertained.