Couch Potato: The Jungle Book & Hail, Caesar!

Weekend Watching

It's three day weekend! If you are looking for some fun weekend watching, here are a couple of recommendations.

The Jungle Book

Kid the Younger has been wanting to see The Jungle Book as soon as the trailers came out, but we agreed to wait until we could rent it. (We really don't watch movies in theaters that often.) We watched it last night. The CGI is truly amazing. I knew the animals were animated but my eyes completely accepted them as real. They should get some awards for it.

The story was also great. It's a lot closer to Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, but at the same time it is an homage to the first Jungle Book animated film. The voice actors are a treat - Bill Murray as Baloo is wonderful and hearing Christopher Walken sing "I wanna be like you" is priceless.

Neel Seethi does a good job as Mowgli. He's natural and a real kid, and considering that he's the only live actor in the entire movie, I have to give him and the director, Jon Favreau, major kudos.

It's PG because there are some intense action scares, and Kid the Younger actually jumped back a bit at one scene. I love it as a cassic adventure that the whole family can watch. Kid the Younger agrees.

Hail, Caesar!

Hail, Caesar! is a Coen Brothers comedy, but it's  quite light-hearted. I enjoyed it as a love-letter to Hollywood of the 1950s. The humor is wry and dry and the overall effect is surprisingly conservative, in my opinion.  The story itself is low-key and rather silly, and just meant to frame the 1950's movie scenes within the movies. I felt a bit like a time-travelling tourist while watching it.

The costumes and the period sets are wonderful. If you love classic movies you will enjoy this tribute. I know I did. My watching buddy Kid the Younger's attention drifted a few times but she did laugh at some bits.