Blog Archives
The Bachelorette’s First Rose Ceremony
A real-life guest will be arriving next March.
Beauty and the Beast is one of the best Disney animations. The 1991 classic, stacked in the back of your closet in its endearingly boxy VHS case, helped to define a golden decade of Disney films. The magical nature of the story, characters and settings in the nearly 25 year-old animation has always begged a more realistic take be imagined and built.
Get ready for the ball, in three-dimensions.
In only one day, the teaser trailer for this live-action movie has received just shy of 8 million views with overwhelmingly positive reactions. Will the film succeed at the box office and with movie fans? Very likely. Take a look at the cast:
- Emma Watson (Belle)
- Dan Stevens (Beast)
- Luke Evans (Gaston)
- Ewan McGregor (Lumiere)
- Ian McKellen (Cogsworth)
- Josh Gad (Le Fou)
- Stanley Tucci (Forte)
- Emma Thompson (Mrs. Potts)
- Kevin Kline (Maurice)
Will the live-action surpass the original animation? Not likely. However, the teaser trailer and casting decisions (especially Emma Watson as Belle) seem to be influenced by a bit of vintage ’90s Disney magic. In the very little we’ve seen and know, fans of the 1991 favorite will probably feel wonderfully nostalgic in the best ways come next March.
Emma Watson will once again cast a mesmerizing spell on audiences from a mysteriously grand castle.
Except this time, she’ll cause jaws to drop in that famous yellow dress.
Happy Monday!
It’s not Midnight in Paris, but 2 a.m. at a Jazz club in LA.
Woody Allen has written another movie set in a magnificent locale during a wonderfully nostalgic era. This time, the famed writer/director takes us to Los Angeles circa the 1930s. There’s a young, curious and neurotic lead character played by Jesse Eisenberg (aka – the Woody Allen character) who is introduced to the Hollywood scene at the beginning of its golden age, tempted by everything and everyone around him.
Conversationally, Café Society is quintessential Woody Allen.
While difficult to decipher in the trailer, there seems to be at least some degree of hope for the film’s actors and actresses being able to laugh at themselves and not take the dialogue as seriously as one easily can get when reading a script by Mr. Allen. For such a golden time in film history, it would be a shame to make a movie with more of a humorless statement with only celebratory accents than a Gatsby-like party with a great twist (or two) at the end.
Ironically, the brief scene in the trailer when a person is tossed into a hole being filled with cement, followed by the line, “You ask politely, people listen” gives me hope for the latter.
Café Society arrives in theaters on July 15, 2016.
Have a Great Week (sans cement)!
See Something, Play Something
Steven Spielberg, even with all of his professional accolades and admiration from fans, may never fully know the irreplaceable impact he’s had on entire generations of moviegoers, dreamers and the culture in which we live everyday.
“I don’t dream at night, I dream at day, I dream all day; I’m dreaming for living.”
–Steven Spielberg
And we’re eternally thankful that he does.
As a matter of fact, there are a couple of childhood buddies who didn’t simply watch and enjoy Raiders of the Lost Ark when it hit theaters in 1981. They took their fandom to the next level. Ironically, by next level, that was technically intended to be the same level as Mr. Spielberg.
Confused?
This will help.
Watch the trailer once, twice, three times and remember the shared feelings you had with Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala (the cast) when you first saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. This homemade adventure of a lifetime by two young Spielbergians is one of the primary justifications for Throwback Thursday. Mr. Spielberg, by dreaming big with daring stunts, thereby encouraged and gave permission for all of us to dream big with daring stunts of our own. Raiders and his long list of pop culture-defining films forever changed the way we watch movies, as well as changing the trajectory for what we expect from movies.
If the above trailer/epic journey proves anything, it’s that Steven Spielberg’s cinematic revolution and trademark story arcs will never be lost.
Happy Monday!
Nelly was right: It’s getting hot in here.
Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are back in front and behind the camera with the latest European thrill ride for everyone’s favorite symbology professor. Robert Langdon, as portrayed for the third time by Mr. Hanks in the cinematic adaptation of Dan Brown’s Inferno, finds himself at the center of yet another plot by a brilliantly villainous mind that threatens the world and its global population. Inspired by Dante, the fiery problem (and answer) takes the viewer through an esoteric labyrinth.
Lucky for Mr. Langdon, a sharp blazer and a Harvard faculty ID appear to be assets in this global mission with no less than the fate of the human race at stake.
Looks like one hell of a good movie.
Have an Adventurous Week!
Jimmy's Daily Planet 