Teaser Trailer: Disney’s New Live Action Beauty and the Beast
Posted on May 23, 2016 at 11:14 am
Emma Watson and Dan Stevens (“Downton Abbey”) star in Disney’s live action “Beauty and the Beast,” coming in 2017. Here’s a peek.
Posted on May 23, 2016 at 11:14 am
Emma Watson and Dan Stevens (“Downton Abbey”) star in Disney’s live action “Beauty and the Beast,” coming in 2017. Here’s a peek.
Posted on January 26, 2015 at 12:18 pm
Disney is working on a new live-action “Beauty and the Beast,” a follow to the upcoming “Cinderella,” and they have announced that “Harry Potter’s” Emma Watson will star as Belle. It will be directed by Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls,” “Kinsey”). Watson made the announcement on her Facebook page:
“I’m finally able to tell you… that I will be playing Belle in Disney’s new live-action Beauty and the Beast! It was such a big part of my growing up, it almost feels surreal that I’ll get to dance to ‘Be Our Guest’ and sing ‘Something There.’ My six year old self is on the ceiling – heart bursting. Time to start some singing lessons. I can’t wait for you to see it.”
Posted on March 27, 2014 at 8:00 pm
B+Lowest Recommended Age: | Middle School |
MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and brief suggestive content |
Profanity: | None |
Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking and drunkenness |
Violence/ Scariness: | Disturbing images, peril, chaos, characters injured and killed, dead bodies, violence, attacks, sexual assaults, girls sold into slavery |
Diversity Issues: | None |
Date Released to Theaters: | March 28, 2014 |
Date Released to DVD: | July 28, 2014 |
Amazon.com ASIN: | B00JBGWP3Y |
“Noah” is a serious, thoughtful, reverent movie that, like its title character, wrestles with the big issues of morality, survivor guilt, and strengthening a connection to the divine. It is also a big, grand adventure with drama and special effects. It should satisfy believers, seekers, and those who just want an exciting story, well told.
Writer/director Darren Aronofsky (“Black Swan”) shows us a Noah (Russell Crowe) who struggles to be a good man and do as God wants. Only ten generations from Adam and Eve, he is haunted by the stories of the Fall and Cain’s murder of his brother. When he was a boy, he witnessed the murder of his own father at the hand of the brutal leader of the descendants of Cain (Ray Winstone as Tubal-Cain). Now, he tries to protect his wife, Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), and three sons from the marauders.
Noah lives lightly on the earth, gently chiding his son for picking a flower because that interfere with its work of spreading seeds. He and his family do not eat animals; they respect the innocence of all creatures, unlike Tubal-Cain who defines himself as someone who takes without regard for anything but his own urges and lust for power.
Noah is filled with an ominous sense that he is receiving omens and seeks the advice of his mystic of a grandfather, Methuselah (Sir Anthony Hopkins). He begins to understand that he is commanded by The Creator to build an ark and collect the animals of the earth and to preserve them in the coming storm that will wipe out all of life on Earth. He will be helped in this by The Watchers, fallen angels who were once pure light but are now punished for their mistakes by being imprisoned in enormous bodies of mud and rock.
As Auden reminds us, the grand, sweeping events of the world do not happen purely. They occur in the midst of human lives that are messy and imperfect. While Noah struggles to follow the will of The Creator, he has to deal with problems at home. Ila (Emma Watson), a girl Noah and his family rescued after her entire community was slaughtered by Tubal-Cain, is loved by Noah’s son, Shem (“Romeo & Juliet’s” Douglas Booth), who loves her, too. But due to her injuries, she cannot have children, and she does not want to keep him from being a father and creating a new generation. Ham (Logan Lerman of “Percy Jackson”) is furious that there is no prospect of a wife and family for him.
And then there is Tubal-Cain, used to taking whatever he wants. He will do anything to stay alive through the flood and become king of whatever the world will be afterward. And he senses that Ham may be susceptible to joining him.
We rarely see Bible stories told with such artistry and power. The acting is superb and the special effects are well done. The big moments, the flood, the omens, the Watchers, the thousands of animals moving inexorably toward the ark, are all handled with meaning and import. When Noah tells his family one of the few stories that they have in this still-new human world, the story of creation, we feel the nothingness that was before. Story-telling itself becomes a way to shape the world and form an understanding of patterns, purpose, and meaning.
Men wind a snakeskin around their arms in the earliest of rituals and prayers and we see the flicker of what would become a daily observance for Orthodox Jews over the millennia through the present, the phylactery leather strips that men use in their morning prayers. We are reminded that this is a time before Jesus and before Abraham, when there was no organized religion and no established set of beliefs and practices. There is not even the word “God.” It is just “Creator.”
The innocence and the impulse to reach out toward the heavens are very moving. So is the way that Noah grapples with what today we might call survivor guilt or PTSD. And he struggles to find his better angels. Tubal-Cain is not just a man who wants to fight him; he is that part of Noah himself that is all lower urges toward flesh and power, the impulse to trap and smash and to break laws even in a world where laws have not been established.
While some viewers and some who have not even seen the film have objected to this portrayal (or, in the case of strictly Muslim groups, any portrayal of a religious figure), most should see this film as an eternal story well told in a manner that is itself a form of worship in prompting us to think more profoundly about our own choices and connections.
Parents should know that this film includes epic/Biblical violence including murder, battles, flood, some disturbing images, parent killed in front of child, character trampled to death, discussion of infanticide, some disturbing images, non-explicit sexual situation, and childbirth.
Family discussion: Why did the two groups of humans develop so differently? What should Noah have done about Na’el? Why did he separate from the family after the flood?
If you like this, try: “The Fountain” and “Pi” by the same director and Biblical-era classics like “Ben-Hur” and “The Ten Commandments”
Posted on July 14, 2011 at 8:00 am
Before I tell you about this film and about how much I liked it, I want to say thank you to J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers for the care and devotion they gave to this extraordinary story. On the page and on the screen, this tale of The Boy Who Lived, from sleeping in a closet under the stairs and his first days at Hogwarts to the final confrontation with He Who Must Not Be Named (or perhaps He Who Must Be Named to be Confronted), it has been genuinely thrilling, deeply moving, and thoroughly satisfying.
There has never been and may never be again a story so electrifying over so many pages that has been so devotedly and expertly translated to the screen, with, remarkably, the same cast throughout (with the exception of the original Dumbledore, the late Richard Harris) to preserve our sense of seamless immersion in its world. Those of us lucky enough to start at the beginning and follow from the publication of the first book in 1998 (1997 in the UK) can measure our own passage of time against the characters’ as Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the rest grew up with never a false step or disappointment to speak of. The world of Harry Potter puts its surprises in a world that is completely believable because it is so thoroughly imagined. Perhaps the movies’ greatest achievement is in matching the visual detail to not just the descriptions in the books but to the narrative richness of a fully-realized world. Even the 3D glasses are Harry-fied.
And now, eight movies later, it takes us back to where it all began. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is The Boy Who Lived. He was just a baby when his parents were killed protecting him from the Dark Lord known as Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) to those brave enough to whisper his name. Most just call him He Who Must Not Be Named or try not to mention him at all. For seven movies, Voldemort has been getting stronger as Harry has been getting older. Now it is time for them to face each other.
The parallels between them are strong. They both have the rare gift of parseltongue, the ability to understand the language of snakes. The wand that chose Harry was the twin of the one used by Voldemort. In this last chapter, Harry finds out that they share more than he knew and that defeating Voldemort will require him to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.
As we learned in the last chapter, in a sense Voldemort has to be killed seven times. To make himself immortal, he has taken pieces of his soul and placed them in seven different objects, each well hidden and well protected. As this film begins, Harry, Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) have made some progress but the most difficult are still ahead. The separation of the soul itself is, for want of a better word, de-humanizing, and as a result of this dis-intigration Voldemort is disfigured inside and out, adding to his ruthlessness and power.
Part of the wonder of the books is the way small details that seemed merely deliciously atmospheric in earlier chapters turn out to be essential foundation for what comes now. We learned early in book one that the most impenetrable place on earth was the Gringott’s bank, run by goblins (those of a certain age might remember Jack Benny’s bank which was similarly, if more humorously, secure). Well, now our heroes have to break into the bank’s vaults and how will they do it?
The use of polyjuice potion is another reference to the first book, then an impetuous adventure, now deadly serious. Helena Bonham-Carter’s palpable pleasure in playing the deranged and evil Bellatrix Lestrange (Rowling has a Dickensian way with names) in the previous films benefits from too many years confined (literally) to corseted tea party roles. It is Bellatrix’s vault they must enter, and so here, Bonham-Carter has to turn herself inside out, playing Hermione disguised as Bellatrix. The balance of tension and comedy is exquisitely nerve-wracking.
Again and again, Rowling brings the story back to its origins and so after a movie away from school we return to Hogwarts, where the great battle begins. The more we remember of what we have seen so far, the deeper our understanding, whether it is the satisfaction of seeing something come together we have waited for or the surprise of seeing someone exceed our expectations by being more than we or even they thought possible. Everyone grows up, and we grow along with them.
Director David Yates moves the story smoothly into 3D, though you won’t miss much if you stick with the 2D version. The battle scenes are well staged and the pacing is excellent. If the final chapter got an unexpected and distracting laugh from the audience, it is a small problem in light of the grand sweep of a thoroughly enthralling epic, seamlessly organic, exciting, romantic, funny, and smart, one of the great cinematic achievements of the studio system. Well done, Harry, and a thousand points to Gryffindor.
Posted on April 11, 2011 at 8:00 am
B+Lowest Recommended Age: | Middle School |
MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for some sequences of intense action violence, frightening images and brief sexuality |
Profanity: | Some British swear words |
Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
Violence/ Scariness: | Constant intense fantasy peril and violence, some graphic injuries, major characters injured and killed |
Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
Date Released to Theaters: | November 18, 2010 |
Date Released to DVD: | April 12, 2011 |
Amazon.com ASIN: | B001UV4XHY |
Harry, Hermione, and Ron have to grow up quite literally in the gripping second-to-last installment of the “Harry Potter” movie series, based on the first half of the seventh and final book. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) take a swig of polyjuice potion to impersonate three nondescript middle-aged people so they can infiltrate the Ministry. Afterward, they shed the older personas like giant overcoats. But they know they must stay in the adult world in this powerful story that sets up the final confrontation between the boy who did not die and he who must not be named.
No more Hogwarts school for young wizards and witches. No more Quidditch, no more short-term Defense Against the Dark Arts professors or visits to Hagrid’s creatures or OWL exams or excursions to Hogsmeade for a cozy chat over butterbear at The Three Broomsticks. Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) is dead. Hermione has had to erase her parents memories so that not even a photograph remains as evidence that they once had a child. The dreadful Dursleys have fled 4 Privet Drive. Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) is stronger. The Ministry is under the control of his Death Eaters, who despise muggles (humans) and want to eradicate any witches or wizards with muggle blood.
Everything is on the line. Within the first 15 minutes of the film, an important character is seriously wounded and another is killed. Deeper, direr losses are ahead. Harry, Hermione, and Ron are out in the cold as they race from one remote, chilly location to another and try to figure out how to locate the seven places where Voldemort has hidden pieces of his soul.
Director David Yates and writer Steve Kloves return, again showing a deep appreciation for the material, especially in the way the vast, bleak settings reflect the overwhelming task facing the three friends. The book is not an easy one to adapt and like its source material the movie sometimes seems to lack direction as its heroic trio often has no idea what to do next. But its young stars have grown into able performers who hold up well next to what sometimes seems like a battalion of classically trained British actors. The scene of Hermione erasing her parents memory is very brief, but Watson makes it sharply poignant. Radcliffe’s quiet dignity shows us how Harry has matured. And Grint, too often relegated to comic relief, gets a chance to show us his pain as a piece of Voldemort’s soul begins to infect him with jealousy and mistrust. A tender moment between Harry and Hermione lends a sweet gravity that does as much to add urgency to our anticipation for the next chapter as the prospect of the final battle. (more…)