Movie Review: ***^The Jungle Book (2016)

The animated version of the Jungle Book was not my favorite Disney movie.  However this presentation was new and very entertaining.  The story did not follow the book, nor the original Disney totally and the changes were well received.  The action can be very intense.  Shere Khan (Idris Elba) is very mean and ruthless.  Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is not totally helpless.  Although he is encouraged to stifle his human creativity, it is this that saves him in the end.  Balou (Bill Murray) adds a breath of fresh air to a movie that would have been too intense without his addition.  Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) provides the stability and wisdom of many years.  It was Bagheera who found Mowgli, and brought him to the wolves.  It is also Bagheera who advises Mowgli to defeat Shere Khan by fighting like a human.  King Louie (Christopher Walken) is probably the scariest character of all.  He is just so big.  However, when your house comes tumbling down it is not good.  Kaa (Scarlett Johansson) the scary snake has an hypnotic quality, as Johansen does in real life.
This movie was enjoyable.  Tony wanted to go so we took him.  I think he enjoyed himself.

TV Music Review: A Very Murray Christmas (2015) (Miley Cyrus, Silent Night)

This is a christmas special which was available through Netflix this year.  Bill Murray is due to host a Christmas Eve special.  However New York is snowed in, and as his special guests are not going to show, he is looking for anyone to perform.  I felt most of this show was a train wreck.  The performances are very poor, with the exception of Miley Cyrus singing "Silent Night."  However even that is convoluted because Miley Cyrus and George Clooney only show up in Bill Murray's dream after he passes out due to drinking too much alcohol.  Paul Shaffer is also a breath of fresh air in this mess.  He is very talented on the piano, as shown by his playing for Miley Cyrus.

Movie Review: ***^Monuments Men

Talk about you all star cast.  This movie has Matt Damon, George Clooney, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Cate Blanchett.  However, I did not connect in a real internal way with this movie.  The story is about a group of Allies, art experts, trying to rescue art that has been stolen by the Nazis, before it is destroyed, or falls into the hands of the Soviets.  There efforts a thwarted on all sides, by the Nazis, and by the Allies, who are not interested in not bombing certain places because of the value of the art, they are interested in saving men.  This becomes the major theme of the movie, is saving art worth the loss of human life?  This movie is loosely based on the book by Robert Edsel The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History.  It was produced, directed, and script written by George Clooney. 

Christmas Movie Review: *Scrooged (1988)

"Scrooged" 1988 is the worse version of "A Christmas Carol" I have seen.  Bill Murry plays Frank Cross a t.v. executive.  He is the Scrooge character.  This movie is a comedy, but misses with its lame jokes, comparing the story to "Ghost Busters."  This I give my lowest marks.  This movie was just too irreverent.  The only thing I found funny was Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim and her doing a tumbling run after being healed.

Movie Review: ***^The City of Ember

After reading the book by Jeanne Duprau, I watched the movie.  This is the story of Doon (Harry Treadaway) and Lina (Saoirse Ronan), finding their way out of an underground city which has become ole, and is deteriorating.  There are power outages, and things falling apart.  There are also shortages of food and medicine.  A couple of changes they made in the movie, I didn't really like.  They had added creatures, which were roaming the underground tunnels.  They had made it so, perhaps due to nuclear issues, insects were now very large.  In the book they pointed out how creatures were very rare, and there were just a few insects.  Doon had a love of drawing what creatures he found.  This version had a side story of Doon's and Lina's fathers having tried to find a way out.   This resulted in the death of Lina's father.  This version does not explain very well how Lina came across the box, and the message for how to exit.  (In the book it was the Message for egress.)  I enjoyed the book more than the movie.  If the movie had followed the book a little more, it would have been very good.  As it was it left somethings unanswered.  Bill Murray was the mayor, and portrayed his roll very well.  In the book he drowns, but in the movie one of the creatures gets him.