How to use this Page

Wes Anderson officially announces his return to feature animation!

The post Wes Anderson Is Returning To Feature Animation With ‘Isle of Dogs’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Bill Murray has signed on to do the voice of the bear Baloo in Disney’s upcoming remake of the The Jungle Book.

The adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic children’s book will include a mix of live action and animation. Actor Andy Serkis is directing the Warner Bros. film.

Rolling Stone has more details about the film: “Murray is taking up the post in an already-impressive cast that includes Christopher Walken as the orangutan King Louie, Scarlett Johansson as the snake Kaa, Ben Kingsley as the panther Bagheera, Lupita Nyong’o as the wolf Raksha and Idris Elba as the tiger Shere Khan.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Critics have liked and not liked "Hyde Park on Hudson."  Yesterday, at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute (where, just the day before, I'd seen "The Silver Linings Playbook") I leaned more toward the like—not caring if Bill Murray looked or talked precisely like FDR, not worrying about shifts in point of view, not needing (as much as many have needed) a definitive, end-of-tale summation of characters' real feelings.  There's this funny thing about feelings.  They change.  They're rarely definitive.

"Hyde Park on Hudson" is about a weekend during which the king and queen of England visited FDR at his mother's home while his mistresses, wife, and indomitable mother looked on.  It's about how hot dogs humanized a stuttering king.  It's about how humor saved two afflicted leaders.  It's about loving someone who cannot be owned. 

There are considered lines in this film, a few excellent scenes, some gorgeous landscapes.  I was glad I had chosen to take my husband on this late-afternoon movie date in the midst of Christmas madness.

Watch the trailer.  See what you think.

Primarily known for his tendency to get slimed, actor Bill Murray is also known to be a rather reclusive fellow. He keeps to himself, and doesn’t have an agent or manager to book work for him. Instead of having to look through job offers, he instead asks of anybody who wants to work with him (although preferably not Dan Akroyd) that they leave a voice message on his answerphone, which he checks whenever he gets tired of staring at himself, deadpan, in the mirror.

This made it rather difficult for when Robert Downey Jr wanted to bring in Murray for a role in the Iron Man movies, as the actor either didn’t pick up the message or was on Captain America’s side during Civil War. In an interview with Esquire magazine, questioneer Scott Raab mentions in passing to Murray that poor ol’ Downey Jr wanted him for a part in the movie, but had no way of getting hold of the actor. Raab mentions this as an example of Hollywood’s inability to grab hold of Murray when they are looking to Assemble, and doesn’t give us the details. Did Downey Jr leave a series of increasingly desperate/drunken messages? Did he sing at any point? We may never know. 

What part Downey Jr had in mind for the star of Garfield is anybody’s guess, although the obvious choices would likely be either Tony Stark’s father Howard, Pepper Potts, or the voice of Jarvis. Or perhaps something even more left-field? Fans have long contested that Murray would be the perfect choice to play Groot, if the Guardians of the Galaxy were ever to show up in the Marvel film universe.

We may never know.

The latest season of Lost premiered on February 2nd, aka Groundhog Day. It was a joke, a cheeky clue for the audience. Because they introduced a major plot device in the premiere. It’s come to be known as the “flash-sideways” narrative and it’s essentially a big “what-if.” What if the characters had a chance to do it all over again? What if the circumstances were different – no island, no smoke monster, no Geronimo Jackson spinning on the turntable? What would have happened to these poorly reared, trigger-happy pawns of science and faith? The answer seems to be that their pesky destinies would have eventually tracked them down anyway. In a week, the series will come to a close, and hopefully we’ll have a better idea about what exactly is at play.  But if Lost peddles anything, it peddles ambiguity. And the faithful aren’t shy about hitting the bulletin boards to shout their opinions and theories. The internet might bust a spring or two in the hours after the finale.

I can say with a certain amount of confidence that most people will not be discussing Groundhog Day. The wink-wink-nudge-nudge premier date will be just another piece of Lost trivia, no more significant than the Hurley Bird. The date was a reference to the movie, of course, and on the surface it doesn’t seem to be much more than that. We’ve all seen the movie. A cynical weatherman played by Bill Murray lives the same day over again and again, until he finally gets it right and becomes a man who can love and play the piano.

I remember when Groundhog Day came out. It was a hit, though it barely beat forgettable fare like Dave and Cool Runnings at the box office. Critics thought it was enjoyable and clever, though they hardly thought it was earth-shattering. A better than average comedy – not much more. Over 15 years later, Groundhog Day has become not just a favorite of the revisionist cineast, but a genuine classic. The Writer’s Guild considers it the 27th greatest screenplay ever written. The New York Times even put it in a list of the Ten Best American Movies. Of the 1990s? No. Of all time! Say what you will about the existential implications of the film, about searching for meaning in our post-9/11 world. It makes for a good term paper, but I don’t think that’s the reason the film has gained such a following of late. The reason is TBS.

If you turned to the cable station TBS in the late 90’s and early 00’s, it’s likely you would have seen Groundhog Day on more than a few occasions. TBS syndicated it and played the grooves off the thing. Over time, the film worked its way into the DNA of many a channel surfer. The more familiar you became with it, the more you enjoyed it, because it was offering you the experience of its main character. You were living the film over again and again. You began to anticipate plot points (Ned Ryerson punch in 3, 2…), and the exact words and inflections of the dialogue (“Too early for flapjacks?” ”